Wow! What a night!

Posted by Photonstopper on January 13, 2008
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Thanks to a January 11 Page 1 story in the local daily newspaper about Mars with references to our January 12 Open Night, more than 184 visitors looked through the old scope at the observatory!!! We had lines out to the street! Of course the disappointing reality of Mars observation presented most folk with a pale featureless disk in the eyepiece –the night's sky was clear, but seeing was mostly not so good– still, there was a lot of excitement and interest. If you were good and lucky you could see a hint of shadow within the disk representing surface markings. If you were unlucky high cirrus clouds smeared even the disk. So many beautiful celestial objects to look at but the big draw is the Red Planet. That's the mystique of Mars for ya! I'd wanted to show off other objects but had to stay fixed on Mars until just before 10 PM (we were supposed to have closed at 9:00). Before the clouds began to close in I was able to give the last group a nice look at the Orion Nebula which was spectacular! I'm very sorry the majority of folks missed it. What a night!

Addendum: A friend, director of our club observatory located about 45 miles west of us, reported excellent seeing of Martian detail at about the same time we had only fair seeing. {Sigh!} That's the way it goes: different location and different instrument (he was using a 16-inch reflector — a fair bit larger than the old 9-inch refractor). Could've been the other way around.

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It ain’t a fit night out for man or beast

Posted by Photonstopper on January 2, 2008
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New Year's Eve came and went with only a sigh around here. So much wrong with the world. So much for me to work on personally. Went to bed just before Midnight hoping for better things in 2008.

Meanwhile, Ma Nature whistled up a storm… very high winds (30+ MPH) overnight with frozen precip arriving in the early morning hours today. Then snow. Not heavy snow. Just snow that fell lightly and steadily for many hours. No idea how much there is… the now-diminished winds moved the stuff all over the place. So, except for a brief foray to replenish the bird feeder, we stayed in all day.

She put away all of the Christmas decorations that made the house cozily beautiful through December. I worked on a publishing project. We kicked around the place this afternoon and occasionally zoned out in front of the TV. There was a Monk marathon on the USA cable channel and we watched a few episodes with breaks between.

The temp is currently hovering around 20 degrees (F) and it's still somewhat breezy. A good night for sleeping. Or,  as I heard W.C. Fields say, or try to say, in a Mack Sennett film The Fatal Glass of Beer, it ain't a fit night out for man or beast.

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Mom’s got a cell phone

Posted by Photonstopper on December 28, 2007
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Verizon Coupe
Verizon Coupe

It was her idea, to hear her tell it… get a cellular phone and stop all of the add-on charges the local telephone company puts on her monthly bill "because they can." She also wanted to be able to call her kids on a regular basis –we're all toll calls– both to keep in touch and to let us know she's alright. So, with the help of her kids, my 80-year-old mom now has a spiffy new Verizon Coupe cell phone as a Christmas gift. Voice quality was excellent when she called me as a test. She's supposed to carry the phone with her at all times so that she can summon help if needed whether she's using the snow thrower, mowing the lawn, or gardening — she may be older but she's not frail! We all hope it works out well during the 38-day trial period and, if it does, she'll have the landline disconnected and the phone number she has had for decades will belong to the Coupe.

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Inflatable dome brings one of our best nights

Posted by Photonstopper on December 23, 2007
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StarLab in Gerstacker
StarLab in Gerstacker

The weather forecast gave us great doubt for the open night at the observatory. There was, however, an opening in the all-day cloud cover coming our way. So I had to show up: if the public can see so much as a single star through the overcast, they will expect the observatory to be open as scheduled. The college had rented the StarLab portable planetarium and staged a Winter Solstice program earlier in the evening and that led nicely into the observatory's 7:00 PM opening. It even got She Who Must Be Obeyed to travel with me to the campus — we both thought it would be a short visit with cloudy skies keeping the observatory closed. The sky, however, cleared by 7:00 and, with temperatures of about 40 degrees (F), opening the dome was tolerable. There were people at the door by 6:45 and She served as greeter. Though transparency was only fair at best, the nearly-full Moon presented an interesting target and the big telescope did its usual job in knocking the socks off new visitors. The lunar image was, in fact, glorious. More than one adult turned away from the eyepiece wide-eyed and slack-jawed after seeing the nearly-full Moon "up close." Turning the telescope to Mars, however, really didn't reveal much. The not-so-good sky conditions prevented us from seeing any surface markings even though Mars was only four days past its closest approach in this opposition cycle (opposition to take place on Dec. 24). One or two of the younger viewers exclaimed "cool" upon seeing the little pink disk through the telescope but I knew what we were missing on account of the cruddy sky. So I'm hoping for better viewing conditions in January with Mars still fairly close. By 9:00 the sky had closed in, completely hiding Mars even from unaided eyes, and obscuring all detail from the lunar disk. Still in all we had about 48 visitors over the evening — one of our best-attended nights!

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Ineffable music

Posted by Photonstopper on December 20, 2007
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I just couldn't get it together in time this year. I couldn't put together my hand-made Christmas holiday cards in enough quantity in time for mailing. We sent out commercial cards to most people. But to five folks, those who I thought would most appreciate them, I was able to send cards I created. Most are astronomy folk. One is a wonderful Indian neighbor whose philosophy surely resonates with the thought expressed in the quotation I selected to serve as the greeting/message inside the card:

Dome with Pleiades
Dome with Pleiades

"The touch of an infinite mystery passes over the trivial and the familiar, making it break out into ineffable music… The trees, the stars, and the blue hills ache with a meaning which can never be uttered in words." — Rabindranath Tagore

So to the many who did not receive this card from me, my apologies. My best wishes do go out to you for peace, and joy, and an ear to hear the music of the cosmos. — JamesG

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A slippery mess

Posted by Photonstopper on December 13, 2007
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Ice coated car
Ice coated car

Not nearly so bad as other parts of the country west of us, but waking to a dark, rainy, ice-coated world is no fun. Fortunately the temperature was hovering around freezing so most ice was easily melted from walks and streets, chipped from car windshields. By the time we reached our places of work, straight cold rain was falling. Sometimes, after a session of freezing rain, the sun shines and the whole world appears to be made of crystal. Not this morning. Just dark clouds, light rain, and a slippery mess.

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Smiles: Not a bad legacy

Posted by Photonstopper on December 12, 2007
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Sweetie was feeling much better Monday. She went to work and even happily attended the astronomy club's holiday party. An excellent affair it was, too! A good meal was served in the nature center where tables had been set up. Where else can you look across the table at loved ones and friends, look a little to the side and see a live timber rattlesnake in a plastic enclosure, then look to your right and watch freshwater fish and amphibians in a large aquarium? Before retiring to the planetarium for a nice program, we were given the opportunity to choose among old and new Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines. Publications from as far back as the '60s were given to the club by Art Nenadal's heirs. He had carefully preserved many years' worth of magazines, mostly within their original mailing envelopes. Sharing memories of Art and taking home some of his cherished collection brought smiles to those who knew him. Funny how it is that, when some people leave us, they leave us with more smiles than tears. Smiles: Not a bad legacy.

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Get well quick

Posted by Photonstopper on December 10, 2007
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She got sick. Yeah, poor Sweetie came down with the chills and fever, puking up sort of flu last night at bed time. We suspected food poisoning at first. Then, after thought, we realized She and I had consumed the very same foods and drinks all day and she was sick, I wasn't. She also had a cough, chills, body aches, etc. Nope, not food poisoning. She got through the night without any troubles and woke feeling a bit better. Today was gray with light freezing rain. We made a quick trip out and back on an errand but otherwise stayed in and were happy about it. I made grilled cheese sandwiches for the both our lunches. Then I caught up on several home office matters –including getting a start on the bicycle events calendar– and She watched TV from under a fleece throw laying back in the recliner. No dinner for Sweetie: She had toddled off to bed and slept for several hours with no apparent appetite. Later she got up and, after being up for a couple of hours in the living room, went back to bed early reporting she was feeling better but was very tired. Now I'm hoping to stay well and that She will get well quick.

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A nice way to end the day

Posted by Photonstopper on December 8, 2007
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It was a decent week, for the most part. Two days of deep moodiness were followed by a revival. I completed installation of an email archiving system –for compliance with state and federal record-retention laws– which was a big deal. Yeah, not a bad week.

We spent little time at home today. Took Her car to the dealer to fix a rattle. The noise turned out to be, as expected, the catalytic converter heat shield coming loose. The thing fell clean off as they raised the car on the lift. We did our weekly grocery shopping and set some sort of record for the total spent! We still don't know why, though we did stock up on a few pricier items and seasonal things that are unusual for us.

Winter evening at the lake
Winter evening at the lake

We picked up the repaired car midday, headed home for a quick lunch, then out the door for some holiday shopping and, well, just to get out … the sky was mostly clear and sunshine beckoned. In the later part of the afternoon we paid a visit to Hinckley Lake, mostly to visit the boathouse outdoors shop there. As we arrived the shop managers were also arriving, back to make sure they had shut something off when they left earlier! They very kindly let us in. We examined some nice sweaters but bought nothing as She does not like items that are marked DRY CLEAN ONLY. Too bad. The storekeepers were very nice about it having been inconvenienced not at all; in fact, they were downright cheerful and friendly. Nice way to end the day out in the world.

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