I just watched an excellent program on PBS's NOVA tonight … Telescope: Hunting the Edge of Space. This was part one and entitled, "The Mystery of the Milky Way," but that really didn't matter. The film was a wonderful telling of the history of the astronomical telescope and the state of the science today. Part two comes next week. The program can be seen online or on your local PBS station. Check here for program details, local times, background, and much more: Telescope: Hunting the Edge of Space.
When I visited the PBS site I was surprised and delighted to see that, just in time for his birthday, the network will be broadcasting The Buddha, a film by David Grubin, premiering April 7 at 8 PM EST (check local listings). Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born about 450 BC and April 8 (Thursday, this week) is the day it is observed. Happy birthday! Yes, I'm thinkin' cake Buddhist style … cake with no attachments: you can't have it and eat it too!
This is good stuff! I guess I'm gonna have to renew my PBS membership!
Thank you PBS!
I've begun my transition from many years as a Palm PDA user to, now, the owner of a brand new, third generation, 32 GB Apple iPod Touch. Palm is out of the PDA business, having moved along to the SmartPhone sector. They're also holding on for dear life, despite the widely-admired qualities of their new phones and operating system. Very sad. My trusty Palm TX still does its job but without OS or application upgrades from Palm it's not up to today's standards. I like my TX but I'm beginning to love the Touch. I've already set up the Touch to synch wirelessly with my Google Calendar — I've gotta say that's very cool. Next I'll purchase the Touch version of my "eWallet" app to encrypt and store my many account numbers and passwords; when that happens I'll have replicated (and improved upon) all of the basic Palm functions I was using. The Palm was terrible with email but I've set up the Touch to work with GMail and it's sweet! The Palm's browser was not very good, either. The Safari browser is fast, presents most pages very well, but its Touch navigation takes some getting used to. I've also installed a nifty astronomy app purchased through the iTunes Store. So we're on our way. Music? I guess I could use it for that too.
When we arrived at Best Buy to make the iPod purchase the store was just about to open for the day. There was a longish line outside and for a moment I wondered why. Then I remembered: The Apple iPad release! It wasn't a huge crowd, maybe 25 people, and they were orderly as they eagerly filed into the store and waited in another line to pick up their shiny new devices. I didn't get to see the iPad but hope to visit again or go to one of the area's two Apple Stores to take a look. Talk about cool!
We stayed home this Easter Day venturing out only to pick up a few grocery items. She then retreated to her office to slave away at our tax returns. I took a nap, did some stuff online, and explored the innards of an old microwave oven seeking to restore it to operation: I think it needs a fuse and a switch. Tasha spent much of the day on a newly-favorited chair near the patio window looking and acting like the cat we have known so long. She lost some weight through her recent ordeal but actually looks better for it –Dr. B. says her current 9 lbs.+ weight is not worrisome and, indeed, we believe it's probably better for her than when she tipped the scales at 11 to 12 pounds. Lately she's been sociable, out in the open (not hiding), not scratching excessively, and sometimes getting the "cat-crazies" tearing around the house at full gallop for no particular reason. Yup, that's normal for a cat. Good to see it again.
Unexpected business led me to visit the observatory Tuesday night. Since I was there and the sky was nicely clear, I decided to open the dome and do a little observing.
Orion is low in the west these nights and the great nebula (M42) was actually only visible through the bare limbs of the neighbor's trees. The view was splendid, however, and at low magnification the cloudy expanse took on a fan shape. The stars of the Trapezium were clearly displayed, nestled in the gauze.
Using star Sirius to set R.A. and my notebook computer's The Sky software to find the coordinates, I was able to use the telescope's ancient dials to locate the "twin" star clusters M46 and M47 — not visible to the unaided eye this night. Declination settings are not visible on the old scope so I had to do some fishing. Still, it was gratifying to be able to get in the right neighborhood using the telescope's century-old devices. The clusters were more attractive through binoculars –a fuzzy path glowing path across the view– than through the telescope though, at low magnification, M46 filled the eyepiece with diamond-dust stars.
Turning the telescope further east as the Moon was rising, I located Saturn. The ring system is still close to edge-on and opposition took place only a few days earlier (March 22). Through the fist-sized, low-magnification eyepiece the planet was crisp and bright. Faintly visible in the field of view were tiny glowing dots — some of the Ring World's family of moons. It was a lovely sight. I had my camera with me so tried a few afocal (hand-held, lens-to-eyepiece) shots. I got a fairly good image (seen here, cropped to imitate an eyepiece view) that depicts the ring plane's angle and even hints at the rings' shadow on the planetary body. Of course, the moons don't show at all being much too dim compared with Saturn.
I closed up at about 10 PM with the Full Worm Moon rising and drowning out the light-songs of everything nearby. It was a good night of unexpected astronomy.
Yeah, we got s*** last night! You heard me… snow! There, I said it! Two inches of heavy, icy, crap all over everything. It's supposed to be sunny today and the temps are over freezing now. I'm expecting to not have to deal with the frozen stuff –much– when we take Tasha to the vet late this morning. It's a followup visit and an expected second antibiotic injection. (She continues to improve, by the way.) In the mean time, as I've said before, it's a good thing those "delicate" spring flowers are really quite tough; look what happened to one in our patio garden.
Here by popular demand is a photograph depicting Tasha's latest indignity: her "E-Collar." The tiny Elizabethan Collar was provided by our vet to prevent Tasha from worsening her skin condition through excessive biting and scratching; we hope it will help her heal. We remove the collar twice a day to allow a little freedom and normal grooming. The cat seems to be able to eat and drink without restrictions but it causes a little shuffle in her step as she walks. We know the collar is inverted from the way such things are usually employed but it remains effective against the cat's self-inflicted bites and scratches around her head and neck. I've tried to convince She Who Must Be Obeyed that the collar is also inside-out but She remains adamant. Tasha has pretty much resigned herself to wearing the thing though is none too happy about it. It's called a collar but doesn't it look more like a tiny cape?
At 10:00 tonight we heard a low rumbling sound. I thought it was ambient sound effects on a TV show but it sounded like it might be coming from outdoors. I muted the TV and listened… more rumbling. I stepped outdoors into the cold, damp air. The overcast sky glowed the ugly red-orange of modern light-polluted suburbs, the night was quiet with little wind. I looked up, watched, and listened. Sure enough… a white flash lit the clouds directly overhead followed by the familiar low rumble of thunder. We've been hearing regular thunder for about an hour now! It's 38 degrees, quiet, misting, and there's a thunderstorm in progress as I write this! I guess it's spring, alright.
Update: Last night's storm went on 'til around midnight in our area ending with a crescendo of rain and thunder; the frequent booms startling me several times as I tried to fall asleep. Sadly a fire, apparently caused by a lightning strike, destroyed Cleveland's beautiful Euclid Avenue Congregational Church, A Romanesque building of Ohio sandstone dedicated at 9606 Euclid Avenue, in September 1887. Any portions of heat-weakend walls still standing will be demolished.
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