Talking Solar System at the Berks County Amateur Astronomical Society
Hot off the heels of my guest lecture on the Solar System at the Community College of Baltimore County, I’ve been invited back to the Berks County Amateur Astronomical Society in Reading, PA to discuss the same thing, which is a good thing as I’ll probably be teaching it in greater depth at the upcoming Launchpad Astronomy Workshop in [...]
My Kepler Exoplanet Talk at cf.Objective() 2013
Last week I was at cf.Objective() 2013 in Minneapolis, MN. cf.Objective() is an excellent software development conference, and I was there to help promote Railo, as well as talk a little bit about HTML5, I decided to do a lightning talk on the hunt for exoplanets with the Kepler Space Telescope. Lightning talks are fun [...]
The Sequester, NASA, and BRAIN
Sequestration is having a horrific effect on Americans from one coast to another (except, of course, for those that enacted it) and it’s only going to get worse as time goes by. We’re watching it unfold before our eyes – cuts in funding for schools, airport towers shutting down, federal employees and contractors being furloughed, [...]
Spring Equinox 2013 From Space
Yesterday, March 20 was the vernal equinox. That is, the moment in Earth’s orbit around the Sun where both hemispheres are equally lit. Not only did we get to experience an even 12 hours of daylight / 12 hours of night here on the surface, but it looked pretty cool in space as well: As [...]
Saving Maryland’s Night Sky (video)
Here’s some hopeful news! There is a bill before Maryland’s House of Delegates to require energy-efficient lighting, and done so in such a way as to reduce light pollution – that is, street light spilling into the night sky where it does nobody any good whatsoever. Here’s the synopsis: Expanding the prohibition on the use [...]
Stardust: Voyager’s witness
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged (sorry about that, much has been going on in the last month but still), but I would be more than a little remiss if I didn’t share this amazing video: This is Stardust from PostPanic director Mischa Rozema. It depicts Voyager 1, currently on its way out of [...]
In Saturn’s shadow, part deux
The Cassini mission to Saturn has given us one astonishing view of the ringed planet and its moons after another since 2004, but this is one for the books: Is that amazing or what? And you really have to get the full-resolution, 6672×3104-pixel image to really grok the awesomeness. This image was created on October [...]
A dying star, dancing in the night
Behold, I bring you great tidings of joy this holiday season, for unto us comes awesome: Do you see what I see? A star, a star, dying in the night, and it’s bringing us goodness and light! This is NGC 5189, which lies about 1,800 light-years away in the southern constellation Musca. Once upon a [...]
Terra Lumina
One of the things I love about science is that it gives us insight into what would otherwise be a mysterious and confusing world to live in. True, there are things that we still don’t quite yet fully understand, but what we have learned in just a cosmic blink of an eye is truly astonishing. [...]
NASA Johnson Style!
I confess I haven’t blogged nearly as much as I expected to this month, and perhaps that’s because I’ve allowed the events in the news to consume more of my attention than I wish it had. Still, there is an amazing universe out there to explore. And there’s also this: There are several parodies of [...]
