the game begins.... my money is on the stormtroopers.
order of the empire found at kiku's on tumblr.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
the moon thru an old telescope
I took some family members up to see UT's old 9-in refracting telescope while they were in austin. we discovered that the tower was lit up in honor of all 2008 graduates! congratuations graduates!
i hadnt previously tried to capture the view of the moon thru the telescope, thru my digi-cam, but the results were pretty successful, as you can see! on each image, there's a dark line toward the top right and a dot to the left, showing stuff stuck on the telescope's eyepiece lens.
the first image is a little darker so you can see the details of the lines that stretch out from each crater on the surface of the moon, marking where ejecta shot out in every direction after the impact that created each crater.
the contrast of the second image highlights the texture toward the top right of the image, showing the depth of the craters at the edge of the moon. thats my favorite part of looking at the moon thru a telescope!
i hadnt previously tried to capture the view of the moon thru the telescope, thru my digi-cam, but the results were pretty successful, as you can see! on each image, there's a dark line toward the top right and a dot to the left, showing stuff stuck on the telescope's eyepiece lens.
the first image is a little darker so you can see the details of the lines that stretch out from each crater on the surface of the moon, marking where ejecta shot out in every direction after the impact that created each crater.
the contrast of the second image highlights the texture toward the top right of the image, showing the depth of the craters at the edge of the moon. thats my favorite part of looking at the moon thru a telescope!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
seminarcolepsy
here's an entertaining homemade video for a song about a particular difficulty in academia...
spotted by old grimy
spotted by old grimy
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
happy not 30th birthday to me!
you know its going to be a memorable birthday when you wake up with a chilled keg in your room! (?)
and from xkcd today:
and from xkcd today:
Monday, May 26, 2008
make a donation
if the information on this site interests you, intrigues you, or otherwise inspires you and you would like to make a donation to astropixie, please use one of the options below to make a contribution. the amount you donate is entirely up to you.
why donate? amanda wants to spend her time sharing with people the knowledge and inspiration she has gained while studying the universe. she wants to help people directly by creating new blog posts, articles, podcasts, and videos; and by speaking to worldwide groups. if you want to support amanda in her mission to supply people with the tools to appreciate the astronomical phenomena that affect all humans equally, and the inspiration to think critically about their surroundings, please make a contribution. any amount is appreciated!
To make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the button below:
thank you very much for your support and encouragement!
why donate? amanda wants to spend her time sharing with people the knowledge and inspiration she has gained while studying the universe. she wants to help people directly by creating new blog posts, articles, podcasts, and videos; and by speaking to worldwide groups. if you want to support amanda in her mission to supply people with the tools to appreciate the astronomical phenomena that affect all humans equally, and the inspiration to think critically about their surroundings, please make a contribution. any amount is appreciated!
To make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the button below:
thank you very much for your support and encouragement!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
exciting may weekend!
we have an exciting weekend ahead, over our heads! not only is monday my birthday, but many entertaining astronomical events are occurring as well!
if youre up early either saturday or sunday morning, you'll see the bright planet jupiter rising close to the waning gibbous moon. look to the south about an hour before sunrise:
the international space station (ISS) is currently orbiting the earth just near the line that splits night and day, which provides a continuously beeming bright ISS shooting across the sky every hour and a half! check out the heaven's above website to figure out when the bright ISS passes over your head.
finally.... the phoenix mars spacecraft will be landing on the surface of mars near the mysterious north pole region this sunday!! you can watch the event LIVE on NASA tv from 3:00 - 8:00 pm (i think thats pacific time?). you can also head over to mars live, where chris lintott and doug ellison will guide a guaranteed-to-be-entertaining live tour!
if youre up early either saturday or sunday morning, you'll see the bright planet jupiter rising close to the waning gibbous moon. look to the south about an hour before sunrise:
the international space station (ISS) is currently orbiting the earth just near the line that splits night and day, which provides a continuously beeming bright ISS shooting across the sky every hour and a half! check out the heaven's above website to figure out when the bright ISS passes over your head.
finally.... the phoenix mars spacecraft will be landing on the surface of mars near the mysterious north pole region this sunday!! you can watch the event LIVE on NASA tv from 3:00 - 8:00 pm (i think thats pacific time?). you can also head over to mars live, where chris lintott and doug ellison will guide a guaranteed-to-be-entertaining live tour!
Friday, May 23, 2008
keep amanda weird
there exists a fantastic tradition among the astronomy graduate students at UT: when a person earns a PhD, the rest of the students honor that person by creating a special t-shirt which includes photos, memories from grad school, inside jokes and his or her dissertation research. the t-shirt is informally presented and explained at the official PhD party.
i don't know for certain how long ago this tradition started (any deas?), but the original t-shirts had a single plot from the dissertation and that was all! the rise of photoshop and gimp have initiated the development of quite intricate shirts over the years.
i admit i was super excited to join the PhD club *and* receive my official shirt at my party last weekend. it's a rite of passage, really, and i'm so pleased with the result!!! the front of the shirt generally shares random events from the grad school years, usually presented thru some sort of a theme. since the students found so many pictures of me from this blog and other sources, they chose to show pictures of me eating and drinking in all the places i've traveled to and spent time during grad school with the theme: on the road again!
the top left is me trying hard to keep my beer out of the water during one of our many boat parties on a lake just outside of austin. below that is "flat amanda" followed by my advisor pouring me a margarita while we were in mexico celebrating the wedding of former UT astronomers. on down the line.... drinking in brasil and eating homemade empanadas in chile. the right side features me eating a huge plate of meat in a viking-themed restaurant in sanitago, chile, and drinking a larger-than-my-head-sized mug of beer at the oktoberfestival while wearing my bona fide dirnd'l!
they also thought to include my evolving modes of transportation. although i've never owned a volkswagen, i've always been affiliated with people who have, and joined the austin aircoolers vw gang pretty much immediately after i moved to austin. i owned a car for a couple years, but upgraded to a scooter and a bicycle at some point. several months ago, i sold the scooter so now i'm down to my bike and the city bus system... and i love it (although its definitely summer now in texas so i'm little sweaty whenever i arrive somewhere by bike!)!
the back of the shirt is themed after the astropixie blog! the subtitle comes from cleverly changing a very popular phrase around here: keep austin weird, to "keep amanda weird"!! haha!
if you've been to austin, maybe you've noticed that it's a little weird in general, but the basis of the "keep austin weird" project is to support local stores and style so people can sustain their independent businesses, and the city can retain its unique subtlety without be run over by big money superstores that are frankly.. no fun at all!
the shirt superbly ties in so many memories from grad school, and even includes a tiny little plot from my research on the right.... just under the "science: it works, bitches" banner! as a play on the cartoon that i have at the bottom of the blog, they included several pictures of me "in disguise." they joked that they found way more pictures of me in costumes than they had room to include on the t-shirt... so i guess it's fair to say that i enjoy dressing up ;)
thank you so much amy, marty, andrea and everyone else!!
yippeee :)
i don't know for certain how long ago this tradition started (any deas?), but the original t-shirts had a single plot from the dissertation and that was all! the rise of photoshop and gimp have initiated the development of quite intricate shirts over the years.
i admit i was super excited to join the PhD club *and* receive my official shirt at my party last weekend. it's a rite of passage, really, and i'm so pleased with the result!!! the front of the shirt generally shares random events from the grad school years, usually presented thru some sort of a theme. since the students found so many pictures of me from this blog and other sources, they chose to show pictures of me eating and drinking in all the places i've traveled to and spent time during grad school with the theme: on the road again!
the top left is me trying hard to keep my beer out of the water during one of our many boat parties on a lake just outside of austin. below that is "flat amanda" followed by my advisor pouring me a margarita while we were in mexico celebrating the wedding of former UT astronomers. on down the line.... drinking in brasil and eating homemade empanadas in chile. the right side features me eating a huge plate of meat in a viking-themed restaurant in sanitago, chile, and drinking a larger-than-my-head-sized mug of beer at the oktoberfestival while wearing my bona fide dirnd'l!
they also thought to include my evolving modes of transportation. although i've never owned a volkswagen, i've always been affiliated with people who have, and joined the austin aircoolers vw gang pretty much immediately after i moved to austin. i owned a car for a couple years, but upgraded to a scooter and a bicycle at some point. several months ago, i sold the scooter so now i'm down to my bike and the city bus system... and i love it (although its definitely summer now in texas so i'm little sweaty whenever i arrive somewhere by bike!)!
the back of the shirt is themed after the astropixie blog! the subtitle comes from cleverly changing a very popular phrase around here: keep austin weird, to "keep amanda weird"!! haha!
if you've been to austin, maybe you've noticed that it's a little weird in general, but the basis of the "keep austin weird" project is to support local stores and style so people can sustain their independent businesses, and the city can retain its unique subtlety without be run over by big money superstores that are frankly.. no fun at all!
the shirt superbly ties in so many memories from grad school, and even includes a tiny little plot from my research on the right.... just under the "science: it works, bitches" banner! as a play on the cartoon that i have at the bottom of the blog, they included several pictures of me "in disguise." they joked that they found way more pictures of me in costumes than they had room to include on the t-shirt... so i guess it's fair to say that i enjoy dressing up ;)
thank you so much amy, marty, andrea and everyone else!!
yippeee :)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
living on another planet
here's the astronomy picture of the day today. it depicts what the environment might be like on the surface of the planet (uncreatively named) Gliese 876d. APOD explains:
On planet Gliese 876d, sunrises might be dangerous. Although nobody really knows what conditions are like on this close-in planet orbiting variable red dwarf star Gliese 876, the above artistic illustration gives one impression. With an orbit well inside Mercury and a mass several times that of Earth, Gliese 876d might rotate so slowly that dramatic differences exist between night and day. Gliese 876d is imagined above showing significant volcanism, possibly caused by gravitational tides flexing and internally heating the planet, and possibly more volatile during the day. The rising red dwarf star shows expected stellar magnetic activity which includes dramatic and violent prominences. In the sky above, a hypothetical moon has its thin atmosphere blown away by the red dwarf's stellar wind. Gliese 876d excites the imagination partly because it is one of the few extrasolar planets known to be close to the habitable zone of its parent star.
this dramatic image was created by Inga Nielsen and it's worth visiting her website and checking out some of her other digital art. here are some of my other favorites.
galaxy rise
far behind the skies
On planet Gliese 876d, sunrises might be dangerous. Although nobody really knows what conditions are like on this close-in planet orbiting variable red dwarf star Gliese 876, the above artistic illustration gives one impression. With an orbit well inside Mercury and a mass several times that of Earth, Gliese 876d might rotate so slowly that dramatic differences exist between night and day. Gliese 876d is imagined above showing significant volcanism, possibly caused by gravitational tides flexing and internally heating the planet, and possibly more volatile during the day. The rising red dwarf star shows expected stellar magnetic activity which includes dramatic and violent prominences. In the sky above, a hypothetical moon has its thin atmosphere blown away by the red dwarf's stellar wind. Gliese 876d excites the imagination partly because it is one of the few extrasolar planets known to be close to the habitable zone of its parent star.
this dramatic image was created by Inga Nielsen and it's worth visiting her website and checking out some of her other digital art. here are some of my other favorites.
galaxy rise
far behind the skies
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
animated grafitti
this is one of the coolest pieces of urban art ever... created in argentina and found at blublu.org.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
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