dave chappelle and maya angelou

this video shows a a clip of a fascinating conversation between (ohioan!) dave chappelle and maya angelou (RIP) in 2006.

a birthday month of yoga

one of my closest friends lives in ohio, USA.  it is not ideal for a close friendship, but we make it work.  last year we started a tradition to each do yoga for at least 20 minutes a day for all the days between our birthdays (hers on april 28th, mine today, may 26th).  

a month of yoga days.

laurasykora on instagram

it is possibly my favourite new tradition.

Acro Yoga (credit: yoga beyond) 

we mark our progress for each day online, and feel more connected, even though we still sleep at opposite times of the day and i live 15 hours in the future.  

laurasykora on instagram

we chat more regularly during the birthday yoga month to share our individual yoga practices. we seem to feel accountable to share the occurrences of a day that managed to prevent a mere 20 minutes dedicated to relaxation and simple breath.

laurasykora on instagram

the best part about the month is that after so many days of steady strengthening, increasing flexibility and balance, the final practice on my birthday is the best of the entire month!   it's amazing how much more deeply i can relax into increasingly crazy poses as the month progresses!

yoga beyond on instagram

i cant do most of these crazy poses that laurasykora or the Yoga Beyond team show on instagram, but by the end of the month, i can actually get me heels down from the beginning of the practice instead of only at the end when i'm fully warmed up and relaxed.

Acro Yoga with yoga beyond

its hard to feel anything but good about getting older when my body has enjoyed such a meditative month of strengthening and accomplishment.

thanks, sara! i'm so happy and proud that we participated in another successful birthday yoga month! and i'm amazed that you can fit it in with your career and family.  your dedication motivates me!

what if saturn flew past the earth?

great video simulating what would happen if saturn flew very near the earth.   it includes some interesting facts i didnt know and then shows fantastic visuals of the meteor shower that would occur as saturn approched, as the earth collected ring dust in its atmosphere. video produced by yeti dynamics.

supercell storm timelapse

those supercell storm are photos are really incredible - but the timelapse movie shot in wyoming, US is unbelievable!

most detailed simulation of our universe.

this is your universe, simulated.   watch full screen and enjoy!




"The Illustris simulation is the most ambitious computer simulation of our Universe yet performed. The calculation tracks the expansion of the universe, the gravitational pull of matter onto itself, the motion of cosmic gas, as well as the formation of stars and black holes. These physical components and processes are all modeled starting from initial conditions resembling the very young universe 300,000 years after the Big Bang and until the present day, spanning over 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution. The simulated volume contains tens of thousands of galaxies captured in high-detail, covering a wide range of masses, rates of star formation, shapes, sizes, and with properties that agree well with the galaxy population observed in the real universe. The simulations were run on supercomputers in France, Germany, and the US. The largest was run on 8,192 compute cores, and took 19 million CPU hours. A single state-of-the-art desktop computer would require more than 2000 years to perform this calculation."

Find out more at:
http://www.illustris-project.org

Publication:
"Properties of galaxies reproduced by a hydrodynamic simulation", Vogelsberger, Genel, Springel, Torrey, Sijacki, Xu, Snyder, Bird, Nelson, Hernquist, Nature 509, 177-182 (08 May 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13316

New Zealand South Island

I recently visited new zealand's south island for a week of work.  i love that place - every turn provides a different beautiful scene.  here are some photos.

finally opened brian schmidt's 2005 maipenrai pinot noir.   it was surprisingly full bodied with a hint of cherry!  delicious :)

observing galaxies with a 4-metre telescope

here's a video i created in about the last 24 hours.   it has been a fun little project with a hack day feel :)

it shows scenes from one night observing galaxies with the 4-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia.  

all of the footage was taken with a GoPro camera and edited together with imovie.

enjoy!



SAMI is the Sydney Australian Astronomical Observatory Multi-object Integral Field Spectrograph, a brand new instrument on the 4-meter AAT.  Integral field spectroscopy allows a unique view of how stars and gas zoom around inside distant galaxies because we collect dozens of spectra across the entire face of each galaxy.

The new technology includes the bundles of wires shown in orange and silver which plug into the metal plate. In the silver cords are 61 optical fibres! One bundle points at a single galaxy and captures its stars and gas swirling around in 61 different spots across the face of the galaxy! There are 13 of these galaxy hexabundles, making the survey uniquely efficient.

The new technology has been designed to fit inside the original photographic plate base structure built in the 1970s. It looks solid, doesnt it? I like all the manual dials, and there's even an eyepiece!

The only negative is that after observing with one configuration for 4 hours (in a series of 30 minute exposures), we have to climb into the cage in the middle of the night to manually unplug and replug a different plate. It's an active observing campaign!

This footage was shot on the night of 27 April 2014, the 40th Anniversary of the first starlight ever collected by the AAT.

sunsets and galaxies

i'm observing this week with the 4-metre AAT telescope at siding spring observatory in NSW, australia.  we're using SAMI - the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral Field Unit.  so far the SAMI Survey has observed almost 700 galaxies with this unique technology - the biggest collection of galaxies to date observed with integral field spectroscopy.  exciting!

tonight provided a spectacular stormy sunset, then a little bit of observing before the clouds really thickened.  so i took some photos.

swirling storm of sunset and showers

 i love seeing rain falling in the distance.

sunset through the rain

observing companions for the week

i'm amazed as how much the instrument has improved since my last observing run with SAMI in 2011.

getting reacquainted with SAMI

we have to climb in that little space to plug all the bundles into the metal plate.

hanging out with SAMI at prime focus

the new technology includes the bundles of wires shown in orange and silver which plug into the metal plate.  in the silver cords are 61 optical fibres!  one bundle points at a single galaxy and captures its stars and gas swirling around in 61 different spots!  there are 13 of these galaxy hexabundles, making the survey uniquely efficient.

the new technology has been designed to fit inside one of the original base structures built in the 1970s. it looks solid, doesnt it?  i like all the manual dials, and there's even an eyepiece!

the only negative is that after observing with one configuration for 4 hours (in a series of 30 minute exposures), we have to climb into the cage in the middle of the night to manually unplug and replug a different plate.  it's an active observing campaign!

the necessity of plate-plugging in the middle of the night makes me very excited for the development of new AAO technology: the starbug micro-robots, which zoom around a plate (of glass) to position themselves independently and very quickly! 

australia's snake-catching spider

i was walking around the botanical gardens in sydney this week when i came across several huge golden orb-weaving spiders and their webs.

the the golden orb-weaving spider in the centre of its metre-wide web.

the spider and its.... lunch?

yes, the spiders were large and a bit creepy, but i knew their venom isnt fatally harmful to humans, so i just looked on in awe.

then i saw this video captured by daniel reardon.   a brown tree snake falls out of a tree, into a golden orb spider’s web, and loses the battle.   ACK!



also.... help?