Remember the poster of the Periodic Table of the Elements in school? Those are all the different kinds of atoms that make up everything in the universe. There is a very small and finite number of them. To make something, you just put these atoms together in different patterns. Glass is made of silica, which is silicon dioxide, or one silicon atom and two oxygen atoms. […]
Just because God made you doesn’t mean you don’t share a common ancestor with other animals. PLEASE hear me out for a few seconds – I swear I’ll make this as short and concise as I can so you’ll read it all… Remember the poster of the periodic table of the elements in school? Those are all the different […]
I’ve noticed many people get bored fairly quickly while looking at astronomy pictures. They’ll take a quick glance at say, “Oooh, that’s cool…” then move on. I cannot fault them though. In order to truly appreciate these images, you must have a decent understanding of what it is you’re actually looking at. Many people are missing that understanding. But more […]
“Death is nature’s way of portioning out the energy, wringing the rag of energy dry, exploiting every ounce of vanished mass at the core of the sun.” (from: Chet Raymo’s “Natural Prayers”) It would be irresponsibly selfish of me – or anyone – to wish for immortality, to not want to die. My atoms are your atoms, my […]
66°F 9:45pm Yes, you read that right, it’s been almost 3 years since my last (written) entry. I wish I woulda kept more journal entries but I didn’t. There were SO many times I went out observing, just never documented it in this journal. Some of them I did put on my website but it […]
I love the contrast between the Universe’s beautiful, ‘natural’ creations, and the exposing of them by man-made scientific equipment and technology, ie. The Space Station framing the Earth below. APoD Explanation: “Many wonders are visible when flying over the Earth at night. A compilation of such visual spectacles was captured recently from the International Space Station (ISS) and set […]
I was ‘upset’ with you because it was past 10 o’clock and I knew you were tired but you kept getting out of your bed – it was one of those nights. I stood by your door because I knew you would get up again. When you saw me through the cracked door, you knew why I was there so you ran back to bed. I tucked you back in again and told you that it’s ‘night-night […]
57°F 8:30pm Went out tonight to see if there was any chance of imaging Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd. Light polluted skies combined with, well… just bad skies made for pretty bad imaging so I decided against it. Instead, I glanced around the skies with the binoculars checking out Jupiter and a few other things and […]
52°F 9:30pm – 10:00pm Perfect ‘Halloween’ night; light wind, crystal clear sky, beautiful multi-colored leaves… actually, this entire Fall has been picture-perfect – which is great for me since Fall is by far my favorite season. Anyways, just wanted to get outside tonight and try to image Uranus since it’s high in the sky in […]
55°F 10:00pm – 12:30am -As previously stated, I have had multiple, very rewarding, observing sessions since my last entry – even bought new equipment – but have been too lazy to create an actual written journal entry. I know I will regret it later… Notables from 9/15/11: -Gorgeous color-contrasts coupled with Wikipedia descriptions made the […]