40 Years of Wonder

I have never known a world where man has been bound to the surface of the Earth. When I was born, 3 years had passed since Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin and American Astronaut Alan Shepard became the venture into what Carl Sagan once called, "The Cosmic Shoals" just beyond the atmosphere. In less than 9 years, our species would do what man has always dreamed of, set foot upon another world.

Three men who's names will be remembered for as long as man explores the universe where just the tip of iceberg. Thousands of men and women worked to fulfill the dream and on July 20, 1969 they were joined by billions on the Earth in watching a 38 year old human being emerge from a small spider-like machine and step upon the surface of the moon.
We spent only a little over 2 hours on that first "small step". We returned 6 more times and another 10 men joined Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to become the only humans to have walked those small steps. Beautiful Desolation is how Buzz Aldrin described the lunar surface and now, 40 years later, our species is once again making more of those small steps.

Will we do it, will we return to the moon? I believe we will but it might not be as Americans or as Soviets or as Chinese. We will return to the moon and go beyond as one Humanity because the Cosmos are bigger than petty nationalism of one small planet.


So, the question isn't where were you 40 years ago? but where will you be 40 years from now when our species take another "Small Step"?

To our Service Personel, past and present....

THANK YOU!!!!!

If not for you and your sacrifices, people like me wouldn't be able to say the things we want to say, live where we want to live and think thoughts that are unencumbered by someone else's political ideologies.

So thank you again and not just today, but for every day that you and your fellows have given to our country.

Tables, Fumes and Galaxies GALORE!

WOW! Has it been a while since I posted last. Sorry about that but time and the work of being unemployed has kept me away from the computer. My Lady, Amber, and I have about 90% of our stuff moved from our Bay Area mobile home to our new digs in Redding CA. Hopefully, we even have a buyer lined up for the mobile and we'll be up here permanetly in another few weeks.

In the meantime, we've been working on trying to get the new house tweeked for our comfort level and that has included the building of 3 custom computer tables. I have to admit, it's been a while since I pulled out my power tools but out they came and I'm pretty proud of the results. I'll post pics of them in place once they are dry and moved into place.

Nights have been spent either passed out in bed or sitting out in the back yard hunting galaxies in the Virgo Cluster or searching for Globular Clusters. I've gotten some good views of the Sombrero Galaxy and the Bee Hive Cluster as well as several others. I'm really looking forward to the Summer sky and trying my hand at capturing the Ring Nebula in my astrocam.

Still Alive?! Yep...so far

We just finished moving the 2nd load of stuff from San Jose to Redding. The good news is this is the last load of telescope equipment to come up so I can now start to work on getting my "night eyes" working again.

Well, Today's The Day!

Well, today is the last day on the current job and the start of the major packing for the move from the Bay Area and up to beautiful Shasta Lake area of Northern California.

Playing Footsie

As you probably have figured out by the name of this blog as well as my profile picture, I have a parrot. A female Green Wing Macaw to be exact.

I also have two cats Mal and Inarra (yes, I'm a Firefly fan...go figure).

Mal

Inarra

Now Mal and Sunniva (the parrot) have gotten to be best friends. They will chase each other all over the house and play footsie with each other.

Needless to say, life is "interesting" in my house.

Bit's O Space and a Dark Dance of Death (With repects to the BA)

Photo Curtasy of the Cassini Imaging Team

Cassini Answers More Questions

Take a look at the photo above. That bright dot in highlighted by the box is a new moon and it answers one of the multitude of questions that the Cassini Space Probe has brought forth. Namely, what is the possible source of Saturn's G Ring?

Saturn's rings were first spotted by Galileo 400 years ago and have since fascinated folks ever since. The rings themselves are named in the order of discovery but not the order that they are extended out from the planet so you have this - D C B A F G E. The G ring is one of the very diffuse rings out at the edge of the ring system and in 2007 a possible source of material was spotted by Cassini. A bright arc of large icy objects was seen but, unlike other rings, there was no shepherd moon associated with the ring. Shepherd moons act as a combination street cleaner/traffic cop for the rings. They clean up and define the rings with their gravity and the gravitational interactions with other Saturnian moons. In this case, the moon Mimas disturbes this little moon's orbit in such a way that it maintains the G ring's bright arc and supplies the rest of the ring with material to renew itself over selveral orbit.

Both Universe Today and The Bad Astronomer have a lot more information.

Twin Black Holes Found Locked In A Stellar Dance.

The BBC is reporting that researches have found very compelling evidence of a binary system of black holes orbiting each other in the same galaxy. Here's the link for all the details regarding the discovery.

A black hole is probably one of the wierdest things in the universe. Supermassive ones appear to be the power source in most, if not all, galaxies. They are created at the end of a massive stars life when the eons long battle between gravity and engergetic expansion finally reaches its end and gravity wins. A star has converted all the matter that can be converted and it's own gravity starts to compress the remaining matter down to a single point. So the star gets smaller but it still has the mass of a star. Since gravity is a product of mass, you have an object that may only be the size of a small city but having the gravitational influence of the original star. Too say wierd things happen at this point is an understatement.

Check out the absolutely fantastic Astronomy Cast for a ton of info on black holes and stellar life cycles. And check out The Bad Astronomer's 10 Things You Don't Know About The Sun!