Mood:
caffeinatedTopic: Weird Science
It's the International Year Of Astronomy! To celebrate the anniversary of Galileo's first gazes into the sky, someone somewhere decided that this will be the international year of astronomy. I think it might have been Brian May, or not. He made astrophysics almost as cool as guitar solos. Here's the Official Canadian website: http://www.astronomy2009.ca/
I've always enjoyed stargazing for as long as i can remember. I think I first caught the bug in school, around grade four when I took out a book on how to recognize the constellations. I was surprised that I wasn't the only one to put Orion together in a group, or Ursa Major, or Cassiopeia, and the little group of stars that i called "the tiny dipper" was called "The Pleiads" and had an interesting story behind them. The turned out to be part of a larger group, Taurus, and the big red star was called "Aldebaran" or "the eye of the bull"
Orion has always been my favourite constellation, and my first "Galileo moment" where you take a binoculars or telescope to the stars. That's the point of this international festival, the "Galileo moment" where you look in a telescope and see beyond what you usually see of the stars. The best part of the blackout several years ago was the sky and the stars. They felt so close, and there were so many, a carpet, a blanket of stars wrapping up a warm summer night. It's what the sky looked like to our primitive relatives, far away and so close. In Orion I could clearly see the nebulae in the sword, and I could see so much else, so many stars that weren't visible without the telescope.
There are many sponsored Galileo events planned, from outdoor stargazing groups to museum displays, to whatever If you participate in one of these you can fill out a "Galileo moment" card and have your moment officially recognized. It's a way to spread the word that the sun isn't the only star and earth isn't the only planet, and we are one of many millions of stars and planets and this is a small way to connect with the rest of the universe.
Here's NASA's IYA site: http://astronomy2009.nasa.gov/
This is the official USA event site: http://astronomy2009.us/ Notice the prominent placement of Star Wars Stormtroopers on the page? In the coming months you will be able to buy your own Galileo telescope to commemorate this important event.
Here we have the official site of the Gallileoscope! http://www.galileoscope.org/ I think we can all agree that this is a totally cool present for everyone who has a birthday sometime this year!
And just in time for the year of astronomy; we have a new comet visiting the earth! This one's name is Lulin and it''s visible through binoculars in the east sky just before sunrise. it's a fuzzy patch above the horizon in the zodiac. Here's an article about it, and advice on how to find it: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/35992534.html
No collection of internet astronomy sites is complete without a mention of "the night sky guy" http://www.thenightskyguy.com/ he has all the latest and greatest from the world of sky gazing and he has a segment every Friday morning on the Weather Network.
Speaking of things beyond earth, Google earth can now also be called "google mars" the Latest edition of google earth allows you to search mars maps the same way you can search earth. http://earth.google.com/index.html you can also search the ocean with the google earth 5, and maybe find cthulhu's secret lair (and the source of "bloop")
Let's not forget the one thing that helped revive astronomy and helped us to see not only beyond our Galaxy, but beyond time: the Hubble telescope. it's brought us galaxies without end, nebulae that are beyond imagination, it's revealed stars and stars secrets better than TMZ could ever hope. What should it look at next? More deep field images? Star clusters? Planets orbiting far stars? Galaxies colliding? You can decide what it should look at next! The official Hubble Telescope Site; http://hubblesite.org/ has a page where you can help decide Hubble's next big project. it's called You Decide! http://youdecide.hubblesite.org/ I voted for the interacting (colliding) galaxies.
The part of the site I would love to try is the instructions telling me how to make my own hand held Hubble with parts from the craft and hardware store! http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hand-held_hubble/ you can make it out of PVC pipes which is easy; paper which is classified as moderate difficulty; or you can make the expert level paper telescope classed as very difficult found here: http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hand-held_hubble/paper-expert.php The paper ones can be printed at home and glued together with dowels, wires
And let's not forget the guy who started all the Galileo himself: http://Galileo.rice.edu/ Yes, i know it's really fun to sing "Galileo! galileo!" at the top of your voice whenever you hear his name, but he's so much more than a line in Bohemian Rhapsody.
Lastly and not leastly, here's the official international hub site: http://www.astronomy2009.org/
In other closer to earth news, yesterday look like it might have been the last of the inhumanly cold days for a while. Today is to be -3 which at this point seems almost tropical compared to what we've been experiencing. Also, tomorrow's the last day of operation for the Waterloo Farmer's Market. I'm buying 6 loaves of rice flour bread and that should hold me for a while. We might have to go to the tourist market across the street or pay for parking at the kitchener market. They spent all that money on a new market and they screwed it up again! I'm going to miss the waterloo market, it was known as "the local market" oh well, things change and there's not anything I can do so I'll save my frustration for things i can change.
