explorers of the world

keri smith scribbled this list one sleepless night. 

i think it's a perfect recipe for engaging with the present and/or potentially getting out of a rut.  she eventually turned this list into a book, for our creative pleasure.

neil armstrong

the inspired face of neil armstrong, inside the lunar module, still siting on the surface of the moon, shortly after his walk on the moon on 20 July 1969:

Photo Credit:  NASA

one amazing thing that he did was to allow every other human being pretend they could be there in that moment to feel what is reflected in his face in that image.

he lead a private life after his moon walk, but you can watch a rare interview with neil armstrong, which occurred in australia just last year. 

also, i read on twitter that apparently neil used to tell unfunny jokes about the moon, and follow them up with "ah, i guess you had to be there."  :)

the happy isles of oceania

a quote from the happy isles of oceania, by paul theroux.

Travel, which is nearly always seen as an attempt to escape from the ego, is in my opinion the opposite.   Nothing induces concentration or inspires memory like an alien landscape or a foreign culture.  It is simply not possible (as romantics think) to lose yourself in an exotic place.  Much more likely is an experience of intense nostalgia, a harking back to an earlier stage of your life, or seeing clearly a serious mistake.   But this does not happen to the exclusion of the exotic present.  What makes the whole experience vivid and sometimes thrilling is the juxtaposition of the present and the past. 

moon meets morning star

in mid-august, the moon met venus for a somber ascent.

Photo Credit: APOD

as you can see the from video below, the clouds cleared just in time over taebaek, korea, so that Kwon O Chul could capture the moon passing in front of venus on the rise.

Venus - Lunar Occultation. 2012. Aug. from kwon, o chul on Vimeo.

if it seems unlikely that such a thing would happen, just remember that the moon is always moving around the earth.   it covers the full 360 degrees in about 29 days, which mean it moves 12 degrees in the sky each day! if you reach your hand out at arms length, pinky and first finger spread, that is 15 degrees! 

Photo: link

that's almost how far the moon moves every day.   but the moon itself is only half a degree across (half of your first finger held out at arms length), and moves about the size of itself in the sky every hour.

what does all that mean?  it means the moon is actually moving quite quickly all the time, we just dont notice at a quick glance.  it becomes very clear when it is shown during occultation like this!

a good laugh and good boots

just cant be beat a hearty laugh with friends and/or a good pair of boots!

i cut this image out of a newspaper in austin several years ago.   i just found it last weekend in a notebook and it made me smile enough that i thought i'd share it here.  i'd love to find a better version somewhere online, but some quick google searches produced many images that i was definitely not looking for! 

the moon, mars, saturn and spica

we managed to get a few good shots around siding spring observatory this week, including the lovely trio of mars, saturn and spica! 

the dome of the AAT 4-meter telescope

Photo Credit: @mehmsy

you can see the AAT dome's silhouette in the lower left.   the top of the triangle is a mars, the bottom right is saturn and blue star at the bottom left is spica.  what struck me about this conjunction on the sky was how obviously the distant star spica twinkled through the atmosphere while the mars and saturn shined unflinchingly.

Photo Credit: Gabriela Iacobuta

Photo Credit: Gabriela Iacobuta

you can see the coalsack dark nebula right in the middle of this lovely image.

Photo Credit: @mehmsy

and because i never get tired of watching these creatures hopping around and eating grass....

Photo Credit: @mehmsy

planetary triangle

be sure to pop outside for the next couple nights to watch the sunset and the show soon after.   you'll see a crescent moon above the setting sun, which will sit in the sky very close to a special planetary and stellar alignment.   forming a nearly equilateral triangle is a bright mars, saturn, and spica. 

notice at how amazingly red mars looks compared to the other two!

Map from Sky & Telescope

this is a perfect setup to view with binoculars, as they typically have a 7 degree field of view and the triangle fits within 6 degrees. 

enjoy, and dont forget to wave to curiosity ;)

curiosity's landing: play by play

this video gave me goosebumps! 

it's a play by play of curiosity landing on mars, showing the high resolution images taken by curiosity as the NASA folks at mission control were receiving signals on earth.   the way their commentary and cheers line up with the real images is great!



i have to admit, i'm still amazed that the whole 7 minutes of terror, including the use of a sky crane, to land a car-sized rover on mars actually worked!   but it DID work, and we really shouldnt forget how awesome that is. 

i read a great tweet today:

walking the great wall

in honor of the international astronomical union (IAU) general assembly meeting being held in beijing, china over the next couple weeks, i thought i would share some photos of my hike along the great wall last year.  we completely lucked out with the weather on the day in october that we hiked.  

certainly the most challenging part of the trip was getting to the wall.  our taxi driver dropped us off in a small town, and we started walking up.  it took us almost three hours of a tough climb to make to the wall!

the section of the wall we started walking along was built around 700 years ago and has not been restored.

there are many towers built along the wall that were used to send signals quickly by smoke, etc... today, people hiking large stretches of the wall sleep in these towers.  some towers have smooth floors, others are covered in chunks of rock...

but they all have lovely views!

i've heard the wall described as being the largest dragon in china.  walking the wall felt like i was conquering the dragon, and sometimes it even looked like it too!

this stretch was dangerously steep and slick! we had to hold on tightly as we slowly slid down the slick, smooth rocks.  good thing there were trees growing through the old wall during this steep descent!

the great wall is estimated to stretch 13,000 miles across china, but it is not continuous.  it was built in many long sections, during different time periods starting in 700 BC, designed by different architects.   here's a map - in case you enjoy looking at them as much as i do!

Photo: link

i imagine each section has its own personality, built with different local stone, by different architects, and surrounded by unique mountainous landscapes.  even during our day trip, after hiking for about 2 hours on the original wall we crossed over to a recently restored section and the wall took on a completely different personality!   

walking on this section, i could imagine men on horses, side by side, surveying the landscape in ancient times. 

the mountain's spine. 

a feature of the day that i wasnt expecting, was getting down from the wall by riding a luge!   it was so fun, and they wisely didnt let me go as fast as i really wanted to!

despite what you may have heard, the great wall is not visible from the moon! it's barely visible from the window of the plane as i was leaving beijing! it was fun to spot though, because it weaves along the peaks, as opposed to roads and rivers which either curve around or follow the valleys.