I find it hard to believe, with the overriding push to have more appropriate and accurate terminology anymore, that this term not only still remains, but it’s being ignored wholesale despite its inherent bias, so I’m taking to this (admittedly infinitesimal) soapbox to start the ball rolling. Because it’s high time we eradicated the term “light year” in favor of a more
Category: Astronomy
Glutton for punishment?
I know I am. That’s why you’ll see me down at the lake in a few nights, because the Perseids meteor shower is peaking on August 12th, but of course, you’re likely to still see some within a few days before or after, so whenever the conditions suit you, have at it.
The nicer bit is, the moon will be a waxing crescent, so setting in the early part of the evening and long gone by midnight,
More of the shit I get up to
Back in 2015, I raised a question, or at least, pointed out that an answer could be determined, based on the details visible within a photo shown therein, reproduced in more detail below:
This was a photo that I took, with my cheesy little camera and crappy print film, while on a training seminar to Nashville, Tennessee, and in the post, I claimed that the date could be determined
Waited too long
Are you kidding me?
I’d seen the skies looking quite clear yesterday evening, the first time in days, so I thought I’d try for the meteor storm, and early this morning (like a little after midnight,) I drove down to Jordan Lake, the best night sky spot in the area, to see what I could see.
The first thing was, the humidity was very high and the haze had rolled in, so only stars of higher magnitude were visible
Just so you know you missed them
In a few days at the end of the month, both the southern delta Aquariids and the alpha Capricornids (both meteor showers, and that’s apparently the way you should capitalize them) will be peaking, though I really should have told you about this earlier, because now the moon will be still a bit bright and visibility thus greatly reduced for all but the brightest meteors – both were ‘active’
Throw numbers in the air
Over at Universe Today there’s an article about rewriting Drake’s Equation, and after reading it some time earlier, it’s been stewing in my mind a little potential posts about it have changed several times, and resulted in this one.
Long story short: an astronomer named Frank Drake wrote out a simple equation, back in the sixties, to examine the possibility of
Just a wafer thin one
[We’re back out at the beach again.] After the day of rain, we got a little better weather and a nice sunset, still with some high clouds to catch the colors, which in hindsight explains why I didn’t find something sooner – I’d been chiding myself for not paying attention, because I was aware of the moon phases for the trip and the new (dark) moon had fallen just two days
More things happening
In the next couple of days (May 5th and 6th, to be precise,) the Eta Aquarids meteor shower should be peaking – this is one of two meteor showers caused by debris from Comet Halley (the other being the Orionids in October.) However, Aquarius is the radiant and
Too cool, part 48: Ingenuity leaves the nest
Astronomy Picture of the Day had the news this morning, and you’ve likely already heard it anyway, but who would if I failed to cover this on my own? Two ‘Too Cools’ ago, we observed