I feel like talking about the North America Nebula. Like all nebulae, this one has its own quirks and quarks to it. It's really close to the star Deneb (part of the asterism, The Summer Triangle), and shines at magnitude 4. Magnitude 4 objects are just barely visible to the naked eye; for perspective, the bright orange star at the bottom-right is the star ΞΎ-Cyg, which shines at 3.75 magnitude, just a tad brighter, and clearly visible if you have a dark sky. But the light North America Nebula (an emission nebula) is terribly diffuse, and is spread out over a region that occupies more of the sky than the full moon! Like butter, scraped over too much bread, the light is simply too thin to see with the naked eye. Through my 8" reflector, I can just barely make out a slightly grey blur.
booooorrrring.
But, when I point the camera at it, even a 2-minute exposure can reveal a lot of gorgeous colour.
See?
This is because a camera can collect all the photons I tell it to, and pile them on top of each other until they reveal shapes that my eyeballs just can't. Our brains are designed to process visual stiumli real-time: collecting, processing and interpreting data at a constant rate. Cameras act like light buckets, and can reveal super-rad images that in reality, are surrounding us at all times.
1) I can treat it very credulously. I wouldn't hide it from this blog at any stage....if they were really wise, they would do that kind of research before taking me at my word. I would effectively be lying only to them. Which still makes me a liar, but I think a greater good will be served, and I'd get some great footage from it (and I definitely would record it). I could easily concoct a huge elaborate story full of the vagaries that we all know to the point of tedium. I'm a good enough actor that I don't think I'd break character. If professional wrestling and taking 7 power-bombs to the head didn't make me break my concentration and character, I doubt this would.
2) I can treat it with faux-credulousness. That is, I can approach it like I was sort of curious, but was scientifically literate. A sort of weak-agnostic. I could approach it like I truly WANT to believe (which isn't untrue), but I know enough about the brain, cameras, energy, and electromagnetic fields to be able to stop them in their tracks at every turn. I could end their "investigation" with an air of relief. "Ah! I was so worried! I thought that all this shit would be going on....turns out it was all in my head, and I have a bit of a dust problem! Thanks so much for helping me realize how little there was to all this spooky-hocus pocus!"
3) I could treat it like a skeptic, who brings in these people purely because a loved one showed grave (ha!) concern, and I was doing it for their sake, not mine. Oh, sorry, she couldn't be here (my hypothetical wife). She's working right now. Poor thing was up all night last night and I love her so dearly that I feel I should do just about anything if it will ease her state of mind, even if I don't believe in it, and why the hell are you waving the EMF detector around like that? It's not a PK meter for god's sake!
I don't like to be a liar, but I hate this kind of stuff quite a bit too. I've always carried with me a bit of strange suburban envy of the people who live in big cities, and have access to this stuff on the constant. Peterborough has a culture of believers, but I don't think it's any larger, or more active than any other small, university town in Ontario. It's awfully average. Here, something is basically dropping in my lap, and I'm hesitating. All because I don't want to be a liar. But I still would love to do this. Suggestions?
Serendipity smiled upon me this morning. The night was muggy, mostly cloudy, and had about as charm as a graveyard. There were enough punctuated holes in the clouds that I thought it would be okay to lug out the telescope and see if I can snag a few crescent moon pics. I did, but while more clouds rolled over the moon, Jupiter opened up.
I wasn't planning on it, but I got a picture of Io transiting Jupiter! I didn't even think my technology could snag tiny Io as is transited in front of bright-as-hell Jupiter, but, there it is. In order to confirm that it wasn't a dust grain or something on the mirror or lens, I took about 30 pics from various positions of the field of view, and I also plugged in the exact time I took the pictures into Stellarium, and yes. It's Io. See?
This has been an abysmal summer for astronomy in central Ontario (at least in terms of weather cooperation), but ever so often things work out better than you planned.
Truthfully, Visitor #20,000 probably rolled in around January, but this is a very rough guess because I have know way of knowing. I installed the web counter at the bottom of this post in mid-October, and that's when the numbers start.
I'm very, very sorry. I like being the 20,000th anything.
Well, I don't like being the 20,000th person in line. Or the 20,000th person to date a particular girl.
But I do like it when balloons and flashing lights celebrate my arrival. It wasn't my planning, but I always like a party when its for something I had no idea I was doing.
I don't know if I like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. I haven't read it.
But you're not the 20,000th visitor.
I'm so sorry. I regret lying to you. But I'm so glad you came.
Please keep coming back.
I'll serve you waffles.
If you keep coming back, then I can hit 50,000. At which time, I will look back at this post and be fucking embarrassed at the amateurish concept.
Holy crap. Glenn Beck is even crazier than I thought. I knew he was crazy in that "all vitriolic mega-right-wing pundits are crazy" kind of way. But check this shit out:
Wow. He's actually screaming like a baby. A little baby who doesn't want to leave McDonald's because he's having too much fun. I would pay money to see a video of him in the studio when that was recorded.
People like Beck are really, really driving the right-wing into even crazier, scarier depths. Like this one, of Catherine Crabill, republican candidate in VA, who is suggesting that Americans may have to very soon use their 2nd amendment rights no just to own a gun, but to overthrow the goddamn government.
Man. She must REALLY not want poor people to get medicine!
I find it really hard to joke about people like this lately. They are creating a culture of not just fear, but of actual panic. They've already killed George Tiller and now people running for office are seriously working people up for a fucking revolution. Over universal health-care? Holy shit!
Today is a pretty significant day in history for us astronomy-folk. It's the anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunch in 1969 and when Comet Shoemaker-Levy-9 ker-slammed into Jupiter in 1994, making the surface look as pimply as I was that very same year.
This is my best picture of Jupiter so far. I'm glad to see that both Jupiter and I have recovered from our adolescent acne....well, mostly.
Apollo 11 has been talked about to death in such beautiful and inspiring prose that I wouldn't dare sully it with my usual array of dong jokes and ker-prefixes. So instead, I'll just say that, as a person who grew up in the shuttle-era, I am envious at the generation who were inspired by NASA at such an achievement. The shuttle has us stuck in low-orbit, ker-wanking each other off...probably with dongs.
The darker area to the left-centre is the Sea of Tranquility, landing zone of Apollo 11. I recently moved all my moon pics around and this was the best one I could find without looking through thousands of almost identical shots. Forgive me?
For me, I remember the comet slamming into Jupiter, and teenage regret at not having a telescope to view the damage. I remember the oft-maligned (in those days) Hubble Telescope which had only recently been brought up to full running order, delighting the world with those amazing pictures of Jupiter taking a beating (appropriately, it's entirely probable that I took a beating the next day, but only at Contra). My journey to astronomy has been an interesting one (to put it charitably), but I have very clear memories of being particularly stirred by this event. Dare I say, it was even a little formative.
I've set up this blog in much the same reason that most bloggers do: to satiate my ego.
That being said, pseudo-science and conspiracy-theory thinking is permeating too many aspects of society (including academia) for me to keep my already-large mouth shut.
In Canada, chiropractic is gaining a semi-respectable foothold, astrology is everywhere, and the government is encouraging a de-science-ing of our schools.
I'm here to stop it. Or, at least bitch about it.
This is because a camera can collect all the photons I tell it to, and pile them on top of each other until they reveal shapes that my eyeballs just can't. Our brains are designed to process visual stiumli real-time: collecting, processing and interpreting data at a constant rate. Cameras act like light buckets, and can reveal super-rad images that in reality, are surrounding us at all times.
