Friday 31 October 2014

"Chernozem Steppe"

I did not submit a name for the landing site. I honour Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko in the name of Viktor and Irena Pronik who loved the Krim. I hope that this comet is beyond the current politics as ESA has joined nations after WW II- remember November 11. I travelled by train through the Ukraine in 1977. The people are good; I wonder about the world's politicans?

It has not yet been suggested so I will do so now: let us give the names of the discoverers to the 2 lobes of their comet. Looking at the picture below I see that Klim Churyumov is  taller than Svetlana Gerasimenko. Only on that basis, I suggest the larger lobe be named Churyumov, and the smaller one, Gerasimenko.

I hope our pilot has a steady hand:

Real people.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

The variety of Mother Nature - why are we still surprised. I hope we remain amazed.

It helps to have "ambition" - see the blogs below - and it helps to be prepared for the unexpected. Having marvelled at the different colours of lava on Teneriffe, I am not so surprised by anything comets and volcanoes "throw" at me. Might have a look HERE for more from Island Iceland.

By the way, while out walking Scout Valley today I saw a Meadowhawk dragonfly. 12C partly sunny, and windy. It flew away before I could photograph/ID it. I walked and waited for maybe 10 minutes but it did not return.

Landing on a feather - remotely, with eyes closed

It is time for Canadians like myself to brush up their German!

Back on the 11th of June 2011 I compared what is going to happen on Wed Nov 12 to trying to land a "Santa Claus" or dandelion seed head, on a feather with both floating in a breeze but falling under gravity. So here goes:  Wie die Landung auf einer Feder

Or:
I hope the patient lives!
However, nothing ventured, nothing gained - this is much more difficult than landing on the moon and I wish the pilot every success on the 12th and hope to see him the following week, rain or shine!

In the meantime, there is some background to AMBITION with several links to additional footage and sound. It is interesting that the film team thought it strange that one neede a film to attract people to the Rosetta Mission. I tend to agree, mainly because the public has not been continually informed about what is happening. Consider how often people get their daily weather forecast! Or traffic report.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Saturday Afternoon, October 25th

I am months away from filling in this summer - and the risk is great that even this past weekend will not make it to the blog or to your SPAM!
On Saturday Vicki and I walked 4K in warm Autumn sunshine but it was windy. My goal was to see if there were still dragonflies around. I went to a spot where there were fallen apples and I was rewarded:
I did not see any apples on the ground but there were swarms of flies. The apples that were defying Newton were quite red:
How to show that it was windy?

How to show that it was warm?
And that I was still thinking about comets?

(Do a mouse-over to get my name for that image.) All within 2Km of New Uhthoff - so who or what was Uhthoff?
WOB


Friday 24 October 2014

I will soon be off to witness the landing of Philae - here is a prologue

The following film was made made more than decade ago and shows the path followed by Rosetta.
ESA made the film to attract young people into the team - acting, graphics, computer programming,
etc, we cannot all be one or the other, not all can be astronomers from my egoocentric
position. How to encourage and motivate people? Give them a vision in which they might
find themselves
   

For those of you who cannot wait for pictures from Philae, here is a 58minute video recored live from June 2011:
I appear about 6 times! for 2 minutes each time - but do not believe it! Unfortunately, I do like the music - WOB

Thursday 23 October 2014

Bass Lake Eclipse, ISS, Iridium Flare

Vicki and I were at Bass Lake, east side, parked off Line 15 west of Orillia, to watch a partial solar eclipse as well as the ISS and an Iridium Flare. The weather was near perfect, 10C breeze to keep the July-August bugs away for another year and no clouds at thre start. I set up the H-alpha telescope and we saw the eclipse, sunspots, prominences on the limb and a "snake" on the face of the sun. The eclipsed sun photos were taken through a mylar filter.





Vicki suggested that the ISS might have been partially in the moon's shadow since I did not pick it up until it was well passed the zenith.
Here is the ISS path vs moon shadow

The H-Alpha views showed a narrow dark line, a prominence, projected on the sun on the other side of the sun's equator (north lat) to the large sunspot group, probably #2192. The line might have been associated with #2193?

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Astronomy in Killarney

had some trouble - this is a test.

Astronomy in Killarney.

Sun - white light on Tue Aug 5, 2014:

H-Alpha light on Aug 8:

Moon on "Mon"day, Aug 4 2014:

 Aristoteles, Eudoxus, Caucasus Mts, Mare Serenitatas:
 Copernicus, Eratosthenes:
 Herschel, Ptolomäus, Alphonsus:
 Mare Imbrium, Archimedes, Aristillus, Autolycus, Spizbergen Mts :


Aug 13
Saturn
Big Dipper:
 Dome and Cas - northerm Milky Way:
George lake on Mon Aug 18 with the red glow of light polution on the clouds facing Sudbury:

Sunday 12 October 2014

Autumn Colours on the move

I have been wondering about my last entry: "busy". I do not feel that is correct - active is maybe better. Out and about paddling the kayak, walking with Vicki, poweroutages with hiking poles in Scout Valley. The time since Killarney has just zoomed by.

So I just want to send a few signals that I am alive and well and living somewhere, somehow. These 2 are from Friday and from the balcony - do not have to go far to see colour.



Vicki and I have seen several, "a few" Monarch butterflies this year but numbers are a way down..


These photos were taken at Bon Echo  geology here:
http://www.geologyontario.mndmf.gov.on.ca/mndmfiles/pub/data/imaging/OFR5899/OFR5899.pdf
I like this work but there are not too many pictures - so here are some:
We went to Lake Mazinaw because of the pictographs - another blog - and because the lakes offered the posibilities to photograph the Milky Way and any Aurora (we saw none).



The above are looking south-west.
The next are looking east of North:

I think my camera has a red sensitivity issue. Anyway, there are more than a 1000 photos between the first and last one. So I was friendly to your email account, maybe? I have a new non-green Darner to post plus maybe a spreadwing. And Autumn colours and visits, and ... WOB