A date for the diary – if the weather holds up. Must clean up telescope.
Archive for the ‘astronomy’ category
NASA – Lunar Eclipse
February 22nd, 2007A Pale Blue Dot
January 7th, 2007This is a pretty humbling picture. The accompanying text, written by the late Carl Sagan, puts a lot of things in perspective.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
Have a read here
Galaxy Crashing
January 22nd, 2006I was intending to write a roundup of what’s being going on recently, but got distracted by this little toy…GalCrash, a simulator of what happens when galaxys collide. Its a lovely piece of code that gets you into a trance for a good half hour.
It’s probably for the best. This weekend hasn’t been a good one in terms of Luke’s eating, in that he took a good few steps backwards – back to the most annoying phase. The whole ‘hold your last spoonful in your mouth until you get sick half an hour later’ thing is a big weapon in the food phobic toddlers arsenal, and Luke has been wielding it aplenty this weekend. We’ve tried talking calmly to him, but the calm is normally disturbed by Mark’s incessant crying. Most people don’t believe that a little baby so small and oh so cute could be so bloody noisy, but once they hear him in full, 120db flight the idea of giving advice to us goes out the window. Trying to have a chat with Luke about the importance of food to the human body while Mark is crying loudly in the background is like doing calculus while getting kicked in the head, I’m sad to say there were several swearwords used this weekend.
This Tuesday, I’ve got both boys all day long while Jude and some friends go to an exhibiton at the NEC. I’m sure it’ll be a fun day, but I’m already a bit depressed about it. I don’t know if I can get through a full 9:00am-5:00pm with the two lads. If either of them is poorly, I can see myself ending up crying on the floor when Jude comes back.
Universe Today – What’s Up 2006
January 7th, 2006The good folks at Universe Today have published a free PDF of their book What’s Up 2006, a day by day account of what you can expect to see in the night sky for the coming year. Really excellent stuff.
Universe Today – What’s Up 2006 – Download it Free
