one last hurrah

one last adventure before i leave chile... rachel, rodrigo and i leave bright and early tomorrow morning to drive to the northern deserts around the city of san pedro de atacama... to see the valley of the moon, flamingoes, salt lakes, volcanos and who knows what else!!


i cant believe i leave chile so soon!!

what i like to play

mostly classical music that i learned when i took lessons many many years ago. i've recently started to write some songs and learn how to sing while i play! i'm not strong at "jamming" so i stuck to singing in my former band... but i'll always give it a try as i really enjoy playing music with others!

i'll share a sampling of me playing what i consider to be "my song"... everyone has their favorite song to play!! i recorded this earlier this week at the house where i'm currently house- and cat-sitting. it's the house of an astronomer and his piano-playing wife. when she and i met we kept discovering more and more things we had in common... the most extraordinary being that we share the same "song"! unbelievable! other than she's british and married, i think we're pretty much sisters!

here's claire de lune, by claude debussy... a work in progress that one day i vow to complete!

carnaval del espacio

the 12th installment of the carnival of space is up at music of the spheres. the buzz this time around is the galaxy zoo.

i dont have much of a spoiler for you at this point, but keep watching for a contribution that i've been asked to make to the galaxy zoo... :) yippee! i'm excited about it!!

another moment of science

the ten finalists for the "moment of science", science experiment video contest have been announced!! i'll share a couple that i thought were especially entertaining and then you can go to the skepchick blog to see the rest and vote for your favorite!

i actually thought of an experiment to do, but i've been too busy with working and traveling (and, more importantly, lacking the props i need for the demonstration) to enter my video on time. i think i'll postpone my contribution until i return to austin. stay tuned.

in the meantime, enjoy....

how i spend a lot of time...

gorgeous

a beautiful picture of monday night's sight from missouri, usa, earth... taken by dan bush... you can see the bright venus to the left, regulus at the top, two day old sliver moon and saturn just to the right of the moon.

i found it at APOD today.

sky pleasure

anyone get to see the alignment last night? or better yet... take pictures? we had a beautiful sunset here, but the clouds covered the goods :(

next month around the next moon (august 12th), we'll be treated to dark sky version of the perseid meteor shower! more on that later... i'm just excited!

peru, parte 2: machu picchu

eric likes to travel to high up places with fantastic views... and take a nap.

planetary gazing

wow, both venus and jupiter remain super bright in the sky right now! i love being able to see them well before the sun goes down or even before the light blue sky turns dark! venus and saturn have been moving apart from each other in the western sky over the last couple weeks. venus approaches regulus while saturn slowly follows about 6 degrees in the sky below. tonight there will be a nice triangular alignment between these two planets and the star regulus!


tomorrow night's new moon allows for a wonderful view of venus as it maintains its
greatest brilliancy right now at a magnitude of -4.7 (saturn's current magnitude is about 0.6 [the more negative the magnitude, the brighter it looks]).

as the illumination of the sliver moon grows, the moon rises earlier each evening so that it's visible above the horizon just before sunset on sunday. the moon jumps up and over 12 degrees in the sky each night, making a full rotation around the earth each month. it hops right into another nice alignment with regulus, venus and saturn on monday night, july 16th (you'll recall that there was a similar alignment one month ago when the moon was in this part of our sky!).



happy sky gazing!

apt anagrams

some anagrams:

astronomer ... moon-starer

astronaut ... unto a star

astronomers ... on! more stars!

the eyes ... they see!

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." --Neil Armstrong ..."A thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"

moonlight ... thin gloom


i'm not so keen on this one:
astronomers ... morons stare!

galaxy zoo

there are billions and billions of galaxies in the universe... too many to count... too many to really know the exact number... and too many to search for, find, observe, describe and classify by eye! that's why the new public classification "game" set up by chris lintott and others at oxford called the galaxy zoo is so super cool!!!

you can go and sign up for an account, look through a short and beautiful tutorial to learn how to classify galaxies and then search through the millions of galaxies in the sloan digital sky survey (SDSS) to help astronomers know which types of galaxies are actually out there in the universe! this task is such a brilliant idea... it's interactive and fun to participate and also, the human eye is a lot more skilled at finding subtle patterns in galaxy structure than computers are. when surveys collect so so much data, it's impossible to look at *every* image of a galaxy... even with droves of undergraduate** and graduate students to help!

so.... go register at the galaxy zoo and get classifying!

** my favorite summer job as an undergraduate was working for SDSS. i moved up to chicago for 2 summers to work with the SDSS which occupies two floors of the main building at the FermiLab compound. my job at the beginning of each summer was to go through thousands of spectra and classify the objects by eye to test how well the automatic computer detection system worked. spectra are a bit less glorious than actual galaxy images, but i really enjoyed the work and can tell you the very detailed differences between a spectrum of G-type and an A-type star! i estimate that i looked through about 50,000 spectra during those two summers and enjoyed every minute of it.... i'm so glad these clever astronomers are now allowing everyone on earth to potentially have the same satisfying experience *while* contributing to the science of astronomy.

happy hunting!

terrestrial mars-stronauts

ever wonder what psychological effects a 17 month trip to mars would have on a person? the european space agency wants to know and is currently calling for european volunteers to sit in mock-space modules in moscow for 520 days! the volunteers will endure simulations of daily tasks, eat spaceship food, wait 40 minutes while radio signals travel along the pretend trajectory between mars and earth, and much much more!

if youre interested, go here to download the volunteer form. if you get chosen.... i want to hear ALL about it ;)

an atheist bible?

the non-atheist, joan konner, has some interesting things to say about her new book the atheist's bible: an illustrious collection of irreverent thoughts. i dont like the title of her book, but i like how she handles herself in this interview. as usual, the interviewer, tucker carlson, contradicts himself repeatedly and shares "juvenile" opinions...

also, notice how many times they spell "atheist" wrong on the screen!

viva chile mierda!

it's so hard to believe that 8 months has passed since i began my adventures on this crazy continent. tomorrow i start my journey from here...



Viva Chile Mierda!!

to here....



America, Fuck Yeah!!

similar flags but oh so different places. thank you to everyone i met along the way. i've learned many things during this journey and i can confidently say i'm a different person than who i was when i arrived. i'll miss everything from the endless avocado and peeled tomato salads to the interesting translations to the random treasures in the andes... and most especially the empanadas!!

goodbye chile... for now. hello again austin!

peru, parte uno

cusco is the city in peru from where almost all treks to the surrounding peaks covered by incan ruins begin. the city sits at around 3,500 meters above sea level which provides a perfect setting for the necessary acclimatization before the journey! during the first day, i got a pounding headache everytime we walked up the steep hill of stairs to our hostal! it's true... the brain needs oxygen! we enjoyed exploring this steep, old, simple city.

i'll tease you today with pictures from around cusco in order to build up the anticipation for machu picchu and the trek to choquequirao!! (heehee)






my partner in high crime... eric.





pisco sour and corn beer...





incan wall (a kid passing by as we looked at this wall told us it was "more famous than michael jackson")