everyone is a genius

(lefty jenkins)

it's a good reminder for myself that i should seek the help of others to accomplish certain goals, instead of stubbornly trying to do too many things on my own. no need to reinvent the wheel, as they say. we each have our own unique strengths and abilities and we should recognize and acknowledge those qualities in each other in order to achieve more together.

ohioans flee earth

link: luminous red nova

actually, twenty-four astronauts are from ohio, including neil armstrong (from wapakoneta) and john glenn

mathematical sign language

surprisingly simple and useful representations of these various functions...

link

timelapse: the mountain

these timelapse films of various everyday natural phenomena... sunsets, clouds passing, the milky way crawling across the sky... make me sit back, relax, and smile in awe. enjoy. (full screen view recommended)

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

these scenes were all filmed in El Teide in spain. it's worth a click to read Terje Sorgjerd's full account of his adventure filming these amazing scenes.


hat tip to tom at timescapes.

picasso-style photo

weird, but interesting piece of art.

found at dark roasted blend

mangle with a clear conscience!

i'm currenty in cardiff, wales to give a talk at cardiff university. while exploring the city, guess what we found inside this cool building...

did you guess?

a penny smasher!!!

but not to worry... we can all mangle with a clear conscience :)

cardiff is a city where the buildings have hats.

and face boats. (?)

and it's by the sea! look, i think that's england!

fires near mcdonald observatory

i studied for my PhD in austin, texas and spent several months at the mcdonald observatory in west texas. i saw many beautiful thunderstorms and even some smoke plumes during my observing stints, but never did a full-fledged wildfire threaten the safety of people nearby.

that all changed several days ago when a devastating wildfire blasted through the nearby town of ft. davis. the observatory shared this incredible photo:

shown is the 107-inch telescope, the one i've used for a cumulative 4 months or so, as viewed from the catwalk of the 82-inch telescope that was built in the 1930s!

as of now, the observatory is safe, but here is a link for info on the current texas wildfire situation. best wishes to all!

UPDATE:
the NY Times posted an article with the images below included:

storm, by tim minchin

i'm impressed by the story told by tim minchin's in this beat poem and also the art of STORM the movie.

enjoy!

more from dotAstronomy3

here is an exciting summary of some of the scenes of dotAstronomy3 this week:

.astronomy3 Trailer from Markus Poessel on Vimeo.

and a short video explaining why we managed to wipe out the WiFi network. also, ABBA!

pluto, the previous planet: a song

a couple years ago i was walking to the bus stop with the song "rudolph the red nosed reindeer" stuck in my head, much to my frustration! in order to maintain my sanity, i started singing alternative lyrics based on the phrase that popped into my head: pluto the previous planet! i've been wanting to record this song and post it for the public ever since, but had never really been inspired.

so yesterday during the hack day portion of dotAstronomy meeting, i gathered a few fellow conference participants: astronomers, a great pianist, and an enthusiastic director.... and off we went!

so without futher ado... pluto, the previous planet!!

Pluto, the previous planet from carolune on Vimeo.

as much as i like the song as it is, the last verse might lead one to believe that i would like to reinstate pluto as a planet. i want to state for the record that this is NOT the case! i'm pleased that astronomers have decided on a definition of a planet that is based on some actual physics! the song is just fun and i hope people enjoy it.

with all this in mind, we also developed an accompanying website with a special message from pluto:

"First of all, thank you everyone for your concern, but really, I’m happy in my new role as the original dwarf planet! And there’s no need to worry, nothing physically happened to me to cause my reclassification. In fact, Charon’s been jealous for years that I was considered a planet, while we’ve been dancing around each other in our joint orbit around the sun. And don’t forget about our other two small satellites: Nix and Hydra! They may be small, but they’re important to me. And your Earth only has one Moon, so I feel special..."

here's the website: http://youpiter.org/pluto/

hope you enjoy!

dotAstronomy - Oxford, UK

the third dotAstronomy conference is well underway in oxford's new college! i'll have exciting results to reveal tomorrow from this year's hack day, but for now, here are a few photos of the harry-potter-like venue!

stellar path

not sure who created this artwork, but i like it and saw it at onyx earth

ant in drop of water

this photo of an ant stuck in a water droplet was captured accidentally by photographer adam gormley.

(link)

"Trapped in a tiny perfect sphere of water, this unlucky ant is unable to escape. A sudden downpour gave it no time to take cover, and photographer Adam Gormley was there to snap the image. Adam, from Noosaville, Queensland, Australia, had been photographing spiders in his neighbour's garden when the rain came down. He had no idea there was an ant in one of the three millimetre droplets until he viewed the images later. He said: "I thought it was some dirt inside the drop, and it was not my main focus, I liked the way the drop was sitting on the aloe-vera leaf, with the tiny hairs. When I uploaded the shot to my PC, I viewed it large, and I think I shouted out loud in excitement when I realised what I'd captured by accident!" "

european odyssey

today i begin a very large stretch of travel. first i fly to the UK, stop in my old haunt of nottingham to hopefully finish a couple projects with astronomers i continue to collaborate with there. then i'm off to oxford for the third installment of the exciting dotAstronomy conference series. you can read some of my previous posts about it if you dont remember the fun!

then its a whirlwind tour of universities and institutions to present talks about my recent research results, including: the university of cardiff, the max planck institutes in heidelberg and munich, and then the royal observatory in edinburgh (where maybe i'll get to see some cool first edition books by the likes of copernicus, galileo, and newton), and finally, a bit of holiday.

i think this will be an intense trip filled with lots of fun and lots of science. it will be good to see old friends, visit new places, share my research, and get both positive and negative (i'm sure) feedback about what i've been up to.

i havent had much time to actually get excited about this trip because i've been working really hard to get several projects to a point of relative completeness.... but i'm finally feeling relief and really looking forward be sitting on the plane, except for the fact that i woke up this morning feeling a little ill. boo.

anyway, get ready europe, here i come!

KMOS on the very large telescope

the very large telescope array (VLT) is a fascinating and beautiful set of four 8-meter diameter telescopes in the high plains of northern chile. the telescopes can be used together to create one large interferometer, or they can each be used individually with the unique instruments that have been crafted specially for each one.

A new instrument that will be attached to one of the VLT telescopes in the not-too-distant future (next year?) is the K-band (near-infrared) multi-object spectrograph, or more simply, KMOS.

as part of his backstage science series, brady was lucky enough to get a tour of the instrument as it is currently being constructed in scotland. we are lucky enough that he made a video of his experience that we can all watch!

KMOS is an instrument i'm excited to (hopefully) use one day and this video gives a good idea of how technically challenging these upgrades are (remember, the telescope is already built, this is just how the light is processed after it bounces off the main big mirrors!), and it gives some insight to purpose of the robot on the UK schmidt telescope that i showed photos of a few weeks ago.

enjoy!

flowery milky way

masahiro miyasaka shares gorgeous astrophotos among his flickr pages. as i was flipping though his images, i realized that i chose one last year for my april apparitions gallery for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year project sponsored by the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

looking forward to more great work!

found this time via luminous red nova

the aurora

an aurora is a colorful dance created by energetic particles from the sun interacting with a planet's magnetic field.

i. must. see. earth's. aurora. in. person. one. day!!!

this is just beautiful...

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

star wars is for *everyone*

i was completely disheartened the other day when i read an account of a 7 year old girl who was bullied because she liked star wars so much that she carried a star wars backpack and matching water bottle to school!

apparently some kids at her school think star wars is only for boys and made her feel so bad that she made up excuses for her mother in order to take a *pink* water bottle and blend in with the other girls at school. she didnt want to be different anymore. seven years old and these kids in groups are already absorbing nonsensical gender identifications and bullying other kids to conform.

the mother of the little girl solicited her female readers to share stories of their enjoyment of star wars, which she then shared with her daughter. the article is definitely worth a read.

so, here i am saying not only do i like (the original) star wars series, but i have an entire tag on this blog dedicated to the science fantasy space opera!

to show my enjoyment of how the series continues to inspire, i was going to choose just one of these great posters by olly moss to share. but i couldnt decide on only one and i really like the whole set. (just when i start to think there was no original star wars stuff out there...)

sculptured staircase

cool design!

link