Moon and Washington Monument

These shots were taken by my wife, Connie, on her yearly school field trip to Washington DC.


I guess this means she is an astrophotographer now. I win!

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XS

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Astrophotography | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SOHO Desktop Gadget for Win7 / Vista

Wobbleworks has a Win7/Vista desktop gadget that displays SOHO images. It’s cool, and I have five of them on my desktop showing different cameras/frequencies.

They also have a Moon Phase gadget, and and iPad app called Luminos.

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Astronomy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Connie’s Yearly Washington DC Field Trip

Today, my wife Connie, along with several other teachers and chaperones – and 2 bus-loads of students head off to Gettysburg and Washington DC for an annual 3 day whirlwind tour. I dropped Connie off at around 5:00 AM at Endeavour Middle School – we followed the buses in (what timing). Connie immediately switched into “teacher mode” and started directing folks where to drop their stuff off, talking with the drivers, etc. I brought her bags to the bus, kissed and hugged her goodbye, and zoom – off she went!

Connie, her co-worker Carrie, and their friend Debby (a former New Haven student) have planned this field trip for 6 years, and they’ve got it down to a science (sorry if that was a pun, or anything). It takes a boat-load of planning and work behind the scenes to pull this trip off, and this year they had a wrench thrown into the works – several of the businesses they had used in the past have gone out of business. I went on this trip a couple years ago, and the itinerary was amazingly organized and ran pretty much like clockwork. When I was there, I got to see the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum for the first time – a real treat for me!

I found out as I was writing this post that the Space Shuttle Discovery is now at the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center – there… in DC… I called Connie to whine – she said she’d get pictures…

UPDATE

Wed. May 2:

5:27PM, Gettysburg: Bus #1 kept overheating. Had to load all 72 people on bus #2 for final hour. A new bus was sent to them.  ADVENTURE!  Connie comments:”Never a dull moment when you travel with us :)
5:55PM, Gettysburg: Connie finds a sword. Texts me: “it’s cool, want it?”  Me… she asked ME this…
11:26PM, Gettysburg: Students “taped in,” everyone crashing.

Thur. May 3:

6:38AM, Gettysburg: Connie wakes to thunder.
8:12AM, Gettysburg: Battlefield tour was overcast and wet.
12:50PM, Gettysburg: Left for Harper’s Ferry.
5:50PM: Stopped at Burger King on the way; Connie’s tummy feels like YUCK (she did not specify before or after BK).
10:03PM, DC: Connie texts: “MLK Monument wow!”

Fri. May 4:

(May the 4th be with you)
7:43AM, DC: “Morning in the subway” Was all she texted.

9:35AM, DC: At the Nation’s Capital, on a tour.

12:00 PM, DC: Text:”Sitting here in a storm with the dead” – Connie’s at Arlington National Cemetery, in a storm.

1:50 PM, DC: At Arlington National Cemetery – “Saw a funeral procession. 6 white horses carrying the casket, proceeded by honor guard and band.”

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“Supermoon” Needs A Better Nickname

Lick Observatory Moonrise. Image Credit Rick Baldridge

The *ahem* “Supermoon” happens on May 5th – the moon becomes full at 11:35 PM EDT, and this also happens to occur when the moon is at perigee (its closest approach to Earth in its orbit), so the moon will appear a little larger, and a little brighter than usual.

Now, I have to admit, I’ve cringed every time I see the word “Supermoon” – it just seems goofy. So if we’re going for goofy anyway, I vote: “Moon of Unusual Size.”

Article at Space.Com

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Center of the Milky Way (“My god! It’s full of stars!”)

Center of the Milky Way. Image Credit: Robert Gendler

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Astronomy, Astrophotography | Tagged | Leave a comment

Types of Exoplanets – Poster

Learn about the weird kinds of alien planets that orbit other stars in this SPACE.com infographic.
Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Astronomy | Tagged | Leave a comment

Portals in World of Warcraft

Dear developers and game designers of Blizzard Entertainment‘s World of Warcraft:

When Cataclysm came out, you removed ALL of the teleport portals from the city of Dalaran. You caught shit from your users for doing this – and you should have. So you went and put ONE portal back in Dalaran – back to the capital city only. There is no portal TO Dalaran from those capital cities; this is a minor annoyance and, to put it lightly – completely ludicrous.

Any society that had working portal technology, be it medieval/Low-tech, or far-future/high-tech, would have them ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Here are some references:
Larry Niven: Flash Crowd
Peter F. Hamilton: Pandora’s Star

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Commentary, Computer Gaming | Leave a comment

International Astronomy Day: April 28, 2012

Image taken by Robert J. Trembley thru the Cranbrook Solar Telescope - Feb. 5, 2012

Saturday, April 28th, local astronomy clubs, observatories, planetariums, and museums will be hosting public viewings, workshops, presentations, and other activities to increase public awareness about astronomy, and the wonderful universe in which we live.

Several things are happening in south east Michigan:

Cranbrook Institute of Science 1:00-4:00 PM – Members of the Warren Astronomical Society will be able to answer your questions about astronomy, and will have several telescopes available for Solar observations – and there are a lot of sunspots now, so it’s pretty cool!

Kensington Metropark  9:00 AM – 4:00 PM – Great Lakes Astronomy Association, and several Astronomy clubs will be on-site.

A list of public events is available at the Astronomical League Website [Here]

Note: Another Astronomy Day occurs this year on October 20, 2012

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Astronomy, Outreach | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Endeavour Middle School April 24, 2012

The Sun, as it appeared a couple hours after my trip to Endeavour Middle School

I setup my 8 inch Dobsonian and Personal Solar Telescopes today at Endeavour Middle School, where my wife teaches Science. I got to show two of her classes the Sun thru both scopes. There were a LOT of sunspots visible today, and there was a beautiful spiky loop prominence on the rim of the Sun; a couple students saw filaments on the surface thru the PST (they get an “A” noticing).

For some students, it was the first time they’d ever used a telescope. I got a bunch of “Oh WOW!“‘s, and my first-ever “Holy CRAP!” :)

The third class got a different lesson in Michigan astronomy: complete cloud cover, seemingly out of nowhere – or as my fellow astronomers like to say: “The Michigan Nebula” rolled in…

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XS
Telescope: Coronado Personal Solar Telescope (PST)
Eyepiece: 9mm Plössl
Image: Unprocessed, except for cropping.

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Observations, Outreach | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Solar Observations Apr. 16, 2012


The Sun was very busy today. There was finally a break in the clouds, and I setup my PST looking out the kitchen window, and nearly had kittens! I bolted off the floor and took the setup outside and took shots in some very unfavorable conditions: 50%+ cloudy, HIGH winds.

Camera: Canon Digital Rebel XS
Telescope: Cornoado PST
Eyepiece: 9mm Plössl

WordPressRedditStumbleUponTumblrEmailShare
Posted in Observations | Tagged , | Leave a comment