The 18th Annual Thoughts for Food Benefit is tomorrow night. Many great local bands will be playing this year. I am particularly on seeing Mean Jake and Lydon Moon. I may bring my camera and blog about this show. Hope to see you all there this year!
Hello, my red breasted robins! How are you? Mr. OrbsCorbs’ blog picture of the growing greenery and Mr. Drew’s and others’ comments on robins have kindled an early case of spring fever in me. Oh my, there is still plenty of snow on the ground and lots of nip in the air. It’s going to be awhile yet before the thaw and muck of March and April start coming up roses, literally. And all Wisconsinites have weathered late winter and early spring storms. But when the sun does shine now, it shines a little brighter and a little warmer. The days are a little longer, too. And some plants even have the audacity to start budding. Can baseball and/or love be far behind?
Those crazy kids at Ole Miss. See, their sports teams go by the name Rebels. So when they go looking for mascots, they think about famous rebels. At one point, they might have thought of Confederate warriors. Not this generation. Nope. There is a movement afoot to replace their current mascot with one other than Admiral Ackbar of Star Wars fame.
I am sure that the person who choose the picture and wrote the story just weren't talking to each other! Ouch!
It's that time of year again...time for our annual campaign to measure the levels of light pollution in our night skies. This year's GLOBE at Night campaign runs from March 3rd to the 16th. It is very easy to participate and contribute to our world wide map of light pollution.All you have to do is go outside after it gets dark and find the constellation of Orion. Look closely at what you see in the sky and compare it to the magnitude charts. Here is what they look like.
You simply look at the sky and compare it to the charts. Pick the one that looks closest to what you see in the sky and you have your data point. You might notice that magnitude 7 has a lot of stars and magnitude 1 has very few. In astronomy, higher numbers mean dimmer stars (it's a long story).
You will also need to know your latitude and longitude. If you have a GPS system, great (many cell phone GPS systems will tell you your latitude and longitude). If not, no big deal...all you need is your address and you can find your latitude and longitude using sites such as iTouchmap. You can then use the form to report your measurements online. You can then use the mapviewer to see your data and data from around the world.
It's pretty easy. We are looking for lots of data. Last year, there were over 15,000 reports from around the world and we would love to top that this year. You can make more than one observation. You can make them from home, the grocery store, a park, the movie theater, pretty much anywhere you go at night and it just takes a couple of minutes. I try to go for several bike rides during GLOBE at Night. I have a Garmin Forerunner GPS on my wrist and record all my data using the voice recorder on my iPod. I go out several nights and bike a different direction each time, getting a dozen or so measurements each night. I live near the edge of Tucson, so I get very different results if I bike west (into Tucson) versus east (toward Saguaro National Park). That is exactly what we would like. Lots of data in different cities...from the densely populated and brightly lit downtown to the suburbs as they give way to the countryside.
So why should you care? Well, we are losing out night skies. Many people have never seen a truly dark sky or if they have, it is a childhood memory. Light pollution is wasted energy and hence money. Light pollution has many negative effects on wildlife as well.
Still not enough for you? How about your own health? Last summer, the American Medical Association passed resolution 516, "Advocating and Support for Light Pollution Control Efforts and Glare Reduction for Both Public Safety and Energy Savings" identifying light pollution as a human health concern. You can read the entire resolution here. In part it says
"Whereas, Light trespass has been implicated in disruption of the human and animal circadian rhythm, and strongly suspected as an etiology of suppressed melatonin production, depressed immune systems, and increase in cancer rates such as breast cancers 16,17,18,19,20,21,22; and
Whereas, Light trespass disrupts nocturnal animal activity and results in diminished various animal populations’ survival and health 23; therefore be it of energy efficient designs to reduce waste of energy and production of greenhouse gasses that result from this wasted energy use (New HOD Policy); and be it further
RESOLVED, That our AMA support light pollution reduction efforts and glare reduction efforts at both the national and state levels (New HOD Policy); and be it further
RESOLVED, That our AMA support efforts to ensure all future streetlights be of a fully shielded design or similar non-glare design to improve the safety of our roadways for all, but especially vision impaired and older drivers. (New HOD Policy)"
Now of course the solution is not to turn off all lights...that would be silly. Lights are needed at night for safety and security. The solution is well designed lighting the directs light where you need it, when you need it, and in the correct amount. Too much light can cause glare and make it more difficult to see which can be just as dangerous as not enough light.
So come on out and help us get our data and full up that map!
The Gold Medal for most blogs going to...
The Silver Medal goes to Orbscorbs!!
The Bronze Medal goes to our very own
I went to Disneyland last week and saw the Aladdin show at California Adventure. First, I will say that this is easily the best show I have seen in any theme park anywhere. It tells the story well and has very good production values with a talented cast. If you are there, it is a must see.
But the astronomy in the show is not so good. I snapped a pic during the show of the scene in Jasmine's quarters (no flash photography so I apologize if it is slightly blurry from camera shake).
There is one thing wrong with this picture and another that is, well, implausible at best. Look closely at the crescent Moon (ignore for the moment the fact that the Moon is WAY too big! You should be able to cover the Moon with your pinky held out at arm's length.) You can see stars inside the crescent! Although we see only a lit crescent, the rest of the Moon is still there (sometimes near sunset or sunrise you can dimly see the rest of the Moon due to Earthshine). The Moon should block out any stars that are behind it. The only way to see stars inside the crescent is if they are closer to Earth than the Moon. There are no stars closer to Earth than the Moon...and I am pretty confident none will be discovered there in the future!
The second issue is more subtle. The Moon depicted is a waning crescent (for viewers in the northern hemisphere and Agraba is in the northern hemisphere). A waning crescent Moon won't rise until well after midnight. Based on its phase, this Moon would probably come up at 3 or 4am. Now I know Aladdin isn't the brightest bulb in the circuit, but I doubt he would wait until four in the morning to go woo Jasmine...I mean, the Genie is giving him all kinds of advice and seems like a sensible guy who would say, "Hey, Al! Don't wait until four in the morning!"
But its worse than that. The waning crescent moon would rise with its "horns" pointing upward. Here they are distinctly pointing down. They point down when the waning crescent Moon sets. In this phase, the Moon sets sometime in the middle of the afternoon. Oops! The Sun should still be up.
Now this might seem like nitpicking, but they could have just as spent five minutes with me and gotten it correct. There is nothing in the plot (or even visually) that would be been diminished by a realistic depiction of the scene. Maybe I should offer my services to Disney as an astronomy consultant!
Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.
Talk about a crazy headline, for a minute there I thought I smoke'in the wrong stuff?
HOSPITAL CHART BLOOPERSUnfortunately, Madame Zoltar has some sort of bug this week and is feeling under the weather. She hopes to return next week.
Lucy the Slut that is, the lovable big busted puppet from Avenue Q. Avenue Q is playing there and they used a pic of Lucy on an ad on a bus shelter that was too much for this conservative town.
Citizen science is big in astronomy. Astronomers have lots of big data sets to analyze and computers can only do so much. Computers are good at crunching lots of numbers. Recognizing complex patterns can give computers some trouble but is something that a person with just a little training can get good at very quickly.Astronomers have been taking advantage of this for several years with the Galaxy Zoo project where people help classify galaxies and hunt for supernova. These collaborations have resulted in quite a few papers being published in peer reviewed literature. These projects have amassed over 250,000 users and 55 million galaxy classifications!
Now comes the newest member of the family, Solar Storm Watch. In Solar Storm Watch, you look for storms in data from the STEREO mission. STEREO consists of two spacecraft, one ahead of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun and one trailing the Earth, to give us 3-D views of the Sun. You get to look at data from the STEREO spacecraft to detect solar storms and measure their speeds. Solar storms can effect us on Earth with effects ranging from the pretty but harmless (northern lights) to disrupting communications and, in rare cases, causing blackouts by overloading power grids.
Before you can analyze real date and contribute to the database, you do have to complete a short web based training to learn to identify solar storms. It took me less than 15 minutes to do. Basically you are shown a series of pictures and have to identify which ones have the storms. One neat thing is that they also show you how to identify comets, particle strikes on the detector, and optical artifacts (these skills are useful for analyzing any photographs, especially those that supposedly show UFOs!)
This is a great project for teachers to get their class involved with as well. The web site keeps track of the storms you spot and other achievements.
Just be careful...it can be addictive!
Apparentally, the Wakefiled District Council in England thought the name was inappropriate for some reason and wanted to erect (pun intended) a marker proclaiming it Tittle Cott Bridge. They underestimated the power of the masses, of the generations of young men and women that courted under Tickle Cock bridge and wanted those precious memories preserved by not changing its name.Not many chances to see both the ISS and the Shuttle at the same time, but we get some chances coming up. The Shuttle undocks tonight at 7:54 EST. For the U.S., the next couple of days favor the early birds as the passes will take place in the morning. You can find times and where to look for your location at Heavens Above or with the Spaceweather Simple Satellite Tracker.
Racine is lucky to get two passes tomorrow morning: 4:21am and 5:52am. Sunday is at 4:43am. The passes on Saturday are fairly low in the northeast (first one) and northwest (second one). The Sunday pass is higher in the northeast.
It is fun to photograph these flybys. All you need is a camera capable of doing times exposures and a tripod. Use a lens with a nice wide field of view. I use a Canon Digital Rebel XTi with the 18-55mm zoom lens that was included with it. 15-30 second exposures produce nice trail lengths. I vary the ISO depending on lighting conditions. I use higher ISO when the sky is darker. If it is close to sunrise or sunset and the sky is light, use a low ISO so you don't overexpose the sky. I always get out before the scheduled pass so I can do a few test shots to find the right settings. Here is a shot of the ISS and Shuttle I took last November in Tucson.
The ISS is on the right and the Shuttle on the left. Look closely at the very end of the ISS streak on the right. Note to it is turning red and fading. The ISS is going into Earth's shadow. The astronauts on board are experiencing sunset! The light at sunset is reddened and you can see that in the reflected light of the ISS here as well.
I don't know if I will try to photograph them. They passes here in Tucson are very low in the sky the next couple of days and might be tough to get. Still, I have the lovely mountains in the background so I might be able to motivate myself to get up for that!
So go ahead and snoop around. Find the things you would like to cut...some of the biggest political hot potatoes in terms of spending are pretty hard to find amongst all those teeny tiny squares. If nothing else, it shows the answers to the deficit problem may not be quite as easy as some politicians would have you believe.
Hello, my cabin fevered friends! How are you? Hasn’t it been nice not to hear much of the ‘s’ word lately? I even saw the sun a few times in the past week. If you choose a pile of ‘s’ near the sidewalk, you can note how much it recedes with each day above freezing. Unless, of course, there is more ‘s.’ Sooner or later, the ‘s’ will fly again. The days are getting noticeably longer, too. That is so much nicer, the extra light. Thank you, Sol. 
I’m playing JT...Copying AP news!
For pet lovers out there, I got this in an e-mail today. I thought is was funny...
I went out tonight to try and see the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus that I mentioned yesterday. I went up to Wind Point on the Catalina Highway (about mile marker 14 at around 6500 feet elevation). Unfortunately, low clouds made it difficult and I didn't catch them.
However, I did get another green flash at sunset.
Click to embiggen as needed. Okay, the Sun was setting, but there is a mountain peak right there. Watch what happens in the next photo.
See how that peak divided the last green flash...now we have two green spots! This is not the first time I have seen this happen, but the first time I got a pic. Several years ago, I saw this and the mountain had very different slopes on each side of the peak. That meant one green flash occurred a few seconds before the other. These were pretty close to the same time.
So I didn't get the threesome, but I still got some interesting shots. I will leave you with one of my last shots...the city lights of Tucson coming on at night.
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