Madgravity » Astronomy

Tuesday 13

madgravity — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:57:13 +0000

Tuesday 13- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 44 and 67 degrees, NW winds 6 to 9 MPH, humidity around 24 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 74. Calm wind becoming southeast between 4 and 7 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 49. South wind at 10 mph becoming northwest.”
I did some work around the house and outside, too. I was saddened to see that the dove’s eggs outside my front door had fallen out of the nest and laid broken on the ground. I guess it happened last night when some very high winds blew through our area.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” Jupiter’s atmospheric weather and cloud make up; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” Telomeres and Telomerase: Replicating the ends of Chromosomes, yikes.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: How Stars Shine: Exploding Stars: Celestial Fireworks.
I watched “ Nova: Hunting the Edge of Space: The Ever Expanding Universe”. I thought it was a very impressive with lots of information and history; they also got it right! Also the instructor Alex Filippenko of the Astro 10 podcasts I listen to on my walks was featured on the program!
I continued to read “Cold Harbour”. The twin sister is now on her way over to France by the Fast Boat to retrieve German plans of the Atlantic Wall. She is almost raped twice: by an agent that impersonates a German flyer at Cold Harbour that our heroes pull off her, and by a real German Officer when she gets to France; she pulls a gun on him. So I guess I’ll start calling her our heroine! In the mean time the High German Command thinks that the meeting for the Atlantic Wall is really a ruse to plot a plan to kill Hitler, and send word to this SS Officer in charge there to “beef up security at the mansion”.
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. It would have been Stoney’s 90th birthday today.

Wednesday 07

madgravity — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:01:40 +0000

Wednesday 07- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 44 and 68 degrees, NNE winds 8 to 10 with gusts over 55 MPH, humidity around 13 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 77. Northwest wind between 6 and 9 mph becoming calm. Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around 48. Calm wind becoming southwest between 8 and 11 mph”
I wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in to them.
I drove down to feed Princess a carrot and when I arrived Ginger had her in a trailer to take her away to the other house nearby. I fed her a carrot and a lemon drop (she likes them) and said goodbye to her. She’ll be back sometime next month after the horse show Ginger is preparing her for.
I went online looking for a used telescope and I think I found an old Meade 8” with a German equatorial mount with an electric clock drive for a good price and I submitted my bid for it; if I win the bid, that’s cool, if I don’t, that’s cool also. It’s just like the one I used in college so I’ll be used to it. I had a lot of fun learning to work and use that telescope.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Extra-Solar Planets; Our Sun.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” about Mar’s atmosphere; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” started chapter 5 about Replication, Maintenance, and Rearrangements of Genomic DNA. I only understand about one percent of all this now!
I continued to read “Cold Harbour”. Our heroes found the twin sister of the agent who was killed in and air crash. But it turns out see wasn’t really killed in the crash but raped by Nazi soldiers when she dressed like a peasant to make the trip over to England. They only tell her twin after she declines to take the job of impersonating her in France at her aunt’s mansion to retrieve the German plans of the Atlantic Wall. After take her down to the basement where her twin is being held and she see the hideous state her sister is in she decides to go along with the deception and becomes an agent at Cold Harbour.
I forgot to mention yesterday that I watched “Nova: Hunting the Edge of Space: The Mystery of the Milky Way”. It was very interesting for me because it had a lot about telescopes old and new with a little bit of history thrown in. It is continued next Tuesday!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 06

madgravity — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:41:37 +0000

Tuesday 06- I only did my stretches; I wasn’t feeling well today.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 42 and 63 degrees, NW winds 10 to 16 with MPH, humidity around 27 percent, mostly clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 67. North northwest wind between 7 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 46. North wind between 8 and 11 mph becoming calm.”
Kevin sent me a link to an astronomy blog written by Ethan Siegel that was very interesting but I have a problem with his no singularity theory, and that of inflation
Wikipedia Big Bang:
“On the other hand, inflation and baryogenesis remain somewhat more speculative features of current Big Bang models: they explain important features of the early universe, but could be replaced by alternative ideas without affecting the rest of the theory.[notes 6] Discovering the correct explanations for such phenomena are some of the remaining unsolved problems in physics.”
Wikipedia Inflation:
“Since the standard FRW big-bang picture can be fixed to match observations by a certain amount of fine-tuning, Earman and Mosterin reckon that this type of fine tuning is no worse or no better as an explanation of experimental results than the tuning you need to match a scalar inflation model to the same data. This conclusion is not shared by mainstream cosmologists,[citation needed] who view the fine-tuning of many causally disconnected patches to almost, but not quite, the same temperature and curvature as something that requires a dynamical explanation. This reflects a difference in philosophy, limits on fine-tuning have long been used by practicing scientists as criteria for a good theory, but are not given a central role in standard philosophies of science.”
The inflation model has always seemed to me like Ptolemy’s model of a Earth centered universe, have a problem just add more epicycles! Ptolemy’s model was even more exact than Copernicus’s Heliocentric model at describing orbits until Kepler came along with the right model.
Ginger called asking me to feed Princess, so I went for my evening walk down to Ginger’s listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: Catastrophic Collisions.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” more about Mar’s surface; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about the human genome.
I started a new book by Jack Higgins called “Cold Harbour” about WWII and secret base in Ireland that ferries agents back and forth into Nazi controlled France. Our heroes captured and use a German torpedo boat and a plane for this purpose. It’s a few months before D-day and need this lady agent to infiltrate a Nazi meeting in France at her aunt’s mansion to get info on the Atlantic Wall’s fortification. But she is killed in a plane crash and now it’s up to our heroes to convince her twin sister, who is a nurse in London, to impersonate her sister and retrieve the plans. I’ve never read any of Higgins’s books so we’ll see how it goes.
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 28

madgravity — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:40:19 +0000

Sunday 28- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 72 degrees, N- NW winds 10 to 14 MPH, humidity around 12 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 76. West wind 5 to 7 mph becoming southeast. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. West wind between 11 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.”
I found something very interesting while surfing the web; “Star Set to Collide with Solar System.” It’s an orange dwarf star called Gliese 710 whose path through the galaxy will bring it into the outer part of our solar system called the Oort Cloud and possibly into the Kuiper Belt. This could most likely bring comets and other debris raining down on the inner planets causing catastrophic damage. Gliese is 63 Light Years away and will take some 1.5 million years to get here, so I guess we don’t have to worry for a while.
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Copernican Revolution.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” about Venus’s surface; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about Telomeres that form loops at the ends of chromosomes protecting them from degradation, and plays a crucial role in their replication.
I continued working on my drawing. It’s starting to look a little better.
I read a few chapters of “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly where our genius hero gets himself deeper into a muddle with the darker side of prostitution and the thugs that run it. He also lies to police about things he’s done and the methods he used to trace down leads into the whereabouts of the missing prostitute; he may now be a suspect in her murder.
I did my stretches and lifted weights, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 21

madgravity — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:13:32 +0000

Sunday 21- I did my stretches and lifted weights.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 73 degrees, calm breeze, humidity around 15 percent, very hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 75. West northwest wind between 4 and 7 mph becoming calm. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52. West wind between 10 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
I went over to Stoney’s to check on the place and take a shower. When I got back I went online to make an appointment with the DMV and the earliest on I could get was the middle of next month, dang! Then I downloaded some more astronomy lectures.
I messed around in the computer room cleaning it up some. That old HP laptop that Joan gave me that fell on the floor and stopped working a few months ago miraculously started working again when I plugged it in to give it one more try; strange! So I played around with it for a spell trying to see if there was anything loose by bumping it softly; it kept on running. I didn’t want to spend time on it if a little bump would make it die. Now I’ll just load on an operating system, maybe Win95 or even DOS (it’d make a fast DOS system). I like playing with the old operating systems!
I went for my evening walk listening to an astronomy lecture: Journey Through Space and Time. Most of the stuff covered I already knew.
I called Friends and Family and then messed around on my computers until late into the night.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 20

madgravity — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:21:33 +0000

Saturday 20- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 45 and 72 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 14 percent, hazy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 74. West wind at 8 mph becoming east. Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 49. South wind around 8 mph becoming west northwest.”
I called Family and Friends to yak at them for a spell.
I did some yard work cutting the dead fronds from the two palm trees. The palms are doing very well. I can believe that when I got them about six years ago I could hold them in the palm of my hands they were so small. Now they tower over me! My cacti have little buds all over them which will be blooming sometime next month. They have beautiful red flowers that attract many buzzy flying critters.
While I was doing the yard work I was also downloading some new astronomy lectures that I later put on my iPod. I went on my evening walk listening to the first one in the series by Professor Alex Filippenko called: A Grand Tour of the Cosmos. Only the last 17 minutes contained any lecture; the first part was spent discussing class policy.
Ron Dehart called and we yapped for over an hour mostly on the scientific method- if you can believe that.
I watched “Cloverfield” (2008). It’s about a monster that attacks New York City. This is the third time I seen it; it really is that good. The first time was at the theater with Ron. The way they filmed it, as if someone was filming a home movie with a small video cam, made it jerky and Ron got motion sickness. But watching it on a small screen is a lot better and Ron agrees. The film is one of the better Sci-Fi flicks I’ve seen. The special effects are fantastic and I always wonder how they did it to make it seem so real. On the DVD there is a link I could click on to find out, but that would spoil the illusion for me; some things are better left alone.
I did my stretches and went for a night run, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 17

madgravity — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:44:37 +0000

Saint Patrick’s Day- I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike. I’m feeling better today..
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 50 and 77 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 22 percent, sunny skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 76. North northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 51. Breezy, with a northwest wind 8 to 11 mph increasing to between 20 and 23 mph. Winds could gust as high as 34 mph.”
I wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it to them.
I went to work on the headlights on the Gross Polluter and spent about an hour or so trying to figure it all out. I gave up on it because I haven’t got something to compare it to and I have to have it adjustable when I take it down to have it certified. I’m thinking maybe of getting a fuel efficient small car and putting the Gross Polluter on non-op for a spell. All the hoops I have to jump through with the DMV to get the Gross Polluter registered will take a while and I’d like to go visit my parents soon.
I went for my evening walk listening to a lecture of Professor Bloom’s Berkeley Course – Astro 10P: The Big Bang part2. If you’d like to listen to the whole astronomy course they are to be found here: LearnOutLoud.com.
I practiced my guitar and then read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” more about the surface of the Moon; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about Introns and Exons that are in eukaryotic genes (except yeast and a few others) and a very few prokaryotic genes.
I did some webwork; I enrolled in a HTML CSS class. I read another chapter in “Alien”.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 08

madgravity — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:34:15 +0000

Monday 08- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 42 and 58 degrees, SW winds of 6 to 16 MPH , humidity around 37 percent, A few clouds.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 55. Windy, with a northwest wind between 23 and 32 mph, with gusts as high as 48 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 36. West northwest wind between 13 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph.”
Ron Dehart came by with his camera so I could take the pictures off, reduce them, and put them on his thumbdrive. We sat around yakking for a spell about how bad both of us did in high school. I did the worst and I showed him my high school permanent record that I had recently found to prove it. It’s funny that we both excelled in college after having such miserable grades. Now if I could only get that algebra down!
I went and did my Wikipedia thingy where I go from one subject to another until I find something of interest. This time I found that Earth has a second moon, well it’s a quasi-satellite and there are actually three of them: 3753 Cruithne, 2002 AA29, and 2003 YN107. They all are under the Earth’s gravitational influence. 3753 Cruithne is 5km in diameter and on closest approach to Earth is thirty time the distance of the Moon to Earth. Well this is surely something I didn’t know before!
I went for my evening walk re-listening to an Astronomy Cast lecture: Ep. 164: Inside the Atom.
I drove the headlight less Gross Polluter over to Stoney’s to pick up his car so I could drive it to the board meeting tonight. While I was there I stopped by Roger’s to put Avast anti-virus on his computer.
Once at the board meeting I sat down and took notes. There were 46 adults and 6 children who ate at our first Saturday breakfast, and 86 folks who picked up food at the USDA food distribution. Steve Tuttle told everyone that he and some neighbors are going to fill the potholes on the paved part of Winters Road; I’ll be there to take pictures and help if needed. Annelies Kuiper is still trying to write a Welcome to the Community letter for newcomers to our area and asked for any suggestions. She also said that the Spring Newsletter will be ready to send out to our 125 members at the end of March. Rob Reese is still looking for ways to get addresses of the new folks in our area. We also talked about having an Easter egg coloring contest for the kids at the next breakfast; they will let me know ahead of time so I can write it up in my column. Katherine Quinn is still waiting on info for her Local Resource List and once that is done will be put into a packets and left at the front desk so that folks can have access to them.
I got home and watched “Above the Law” (1988) starring Steven Seagal. IMDB Tagline: “He was a covert agent trained in Vietnam. He has a master 6th degree black belt in Aikido… and family in the Mafia. He’s a cop with an attitude.” The movie was kind of dated but had some fine fight scenes.
Then I started reading “Alien” by Alan Dean Foster. I had actually read this before the movie came out in 1979 and I thought it might be fun to read again.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 23

madgravity — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:48:09 +0000

Tuesday 23- I did my stretches and ran two miles; a lot warmer today than yesterday!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 39 and 58 degrees, WNW winds at 13 to 31 MPH, humidity around 31 percent, mostly clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 64. Light wind becoming south southwest between 14 and 17 mph. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 45. West wind between 10 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.”
I did some work around the house and then called Marcie up so I can take that picture file of Bob Seeley I spent four hours on yesterday over to download it onto her computer. She was home this time so I went right on over. She wanted me to print them out for Seeley’s memorial this Saturday but I spent the next hour trying to get her dang printer to work. First it was unplugged. Then it wouldn’t print because the yellow cartridge was out of ink. I tried to bypass it to just print in black but it wouldn’t do it, dang. She’ll have to go and buy a new one.
I checked on a friend’s home who is on vacation and watered his plants and gave him a call from his house phone (he has unlimited calling) to see what he’s up to. He said he expects to be home by next week.
I went on my evening walk listening to Astronomy Cast lecture Ep. 170: Coordinate Systems. Stuff I already know but it’s good to have a refresher! If you don’t know alt-azimuth, right ascension and declination, arc seconds and arc minutes, this would be a nice lecture to listen to. I stopped by along the way to feed Princess an apple and a carrot.
I got back home and read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” about Earth’s Magnetosphere, and Tides; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” about detection on Nucleic Acids and Proteins- if I even understood one percent of this book I’d feel accomplished! Then I practiced my guitar.
I watched “NOVA: Megabeasts’ Sudden Death” about how large animals in North America became extinct twelve thousand nine hundred years ago, and the present day theories that try to explain what happened. Most believe that a comet hit Earth wiping them out.
I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote my column for the newspaper and sent it in; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 04

madgravity — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:59:46 +0000

Monday 04- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 38 and 62 degrees, slight breeze, humidity around 36 percent, cloudy skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 62. North northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 39. Northwest wind between 5 and 8 mph.”
I was going to do some more cleaning of the house when Roger T. called and asked me if I had a computer I didn’t need. I had one that was missing a hard drive and a CD drive and he could have it for a few bucks. He said he’d be down to pick it up in a little while. So I had to clean it up and blow it out with canned air. I found the box that the motherboard came in with instructions and CDs with drivers and such, and had it all together for him when he arrived. I told him that if he couldn’t get it working that I’d give him his money back. He lent me a DVD movie called “District 9” that I’ll watch tonight.
I dropped by Stoney’s to see how he was and got a call from Marcie Hines saying if we wanted to pick up Stoney’s paint sprayer we could come on over; we did.
I went on my evening walk listening to a new Astronomy Cast lecture: Ep. 156: Famous Stars. I found most fascinating the most powerful star Eta Carinae that almost went supernova in 1843 and was the second brightest star for a spell. Eta Carinae lies in the southern sky and is almost one hundred times the mass of our Sun. Eta Carinae is a good candidate to go supernova sometime in the near (soon or in a million years or so) future. I was doing a search and found this recent article and picture.
I practiced my guitar and then read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” and “The Cell: a Molecular Approach”; I’ll spare you the details! I read an hour from each book.
I watched “District 9” Sci-Fi (2009) and found it very refreshing the way it was filmed, the actors that were used, and the country it had taken place. I liked it!
I did my stretches and lifted weights; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.
I still haven’t watched TV yet! Nova is on tomorrow night and I may watch that, but that’s okay because it’s on my list of educational shows I can watch.