One more for Hubble


And so the Hubble Space Telescope was launched 34 years ago today as a joint venture between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA) and ESA (European Space Agency,) and is still cranking out the classics, as seen here. Having a large telescope read more

Sorting finds n+8

Just two today – or is it three? How does one count these accurately? I don’t want to get in trouble with the IRS…


This one comes from the same session as these, but I didn’t notice this detail until I had brought the image up at full resolution to see if it retained read more

Too cool, part 53: Two comets

For reasons unknown, I never went looking for these after returning from the trip, but I also never had any such images pop up anywhere in my usual haunts, so I suspected that no one got anything worth keeping. Until now, that is.

Astronomy Picture of the Day features someone who actually got comet 12P/Pons-Brooks read more

Exactly/mostly as feared/intended

I don’t know who comes up with these holidays, I really don’t – it’s makes little sense to celebrate something so banal. Why don’t we have National Spaghetti Day or Stay Away From Seattle Day while we’re at it?

[Oh. We do.]

But anyway, today/yesterday is/was Encounter Extraordinary/Rotten Luck Day, and since there read more

Ze Frank is back… again

Yes indeed, we have more True Facts from Ze Frank, and this time, they’re about shrimp. Not one of which has anything to do with eating them, either.


Naturally, I can’t let it go at that, because ego. Plus the fact (true) that I’ve had two of the varieties that he featured close at hand, when I maintained a basic saltwater aquarium during my tenure in Florida. The first would be read more

Half again

Yes, today is that very special day, but only right here in this imaginary, electron-supported environment known as the blogoblob, because it’s the 15th anniversary of the first post on Walkabout. Imagine that! And this is the 2,750th post therein, which is why this past month or so has been overtaken by dross. I regret nothing read more

We need some others

I first began this post just after Memorial Day in this country, which didn’t spark these thoughts because I’ve had them for a while, but it brought them up again at least. It’s a federal holiday, one of only a handful, intended to honor and respect members of the US military who died in service. We also have Veterans’ Day, which honors those who served, especially those read more

More human than human

Our legal system, at least in the US but I imagine in many other countries as well, has gradually become so broken that it barely serves its original purpose anymore, and while by all rights it should be improving, it is instead collapsing into a wildly manipulative affair that falls a long way from, “justice.” There are multiple factors behind this, but I’ll stick to the larger read more

Too cool, part 51: Enki Catena

I still routinely check out Astronomy Picture of the Day, even though I’ve come to personally call it the Photoshop of the Day because the number of edited images are now surpassing the unaltered ones – virtually all of those showing starfields over landscapes, certainly. But yesterday’s deserves read more

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