I spent much of last weekend working on the gallery system, and have put up a gallery in association with this blog (Gallery Link).
What was fun was the process of collecting all my astronomy images that have been scattered far and wide through many and varied computers. While most of these images have turned up in the blog, I'd not really appreciated the volume and variety of images that I've collected throughout my astronomy hobby. I think there might still be a few missing, but what is there certainly represents the bulk of my images. For example, I know there are more comet sketches someplace (though I may not have scanned them...).
Enjoy.
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So winter is droning by. I've not felt terribly compelled to observe much. There were a couple of times where it could have been ok, but generally it's been cloudy. On the upside, the weather has been warm, mostly 20s and 30s, but with that usually comes cloudy/wet/sloppy conditions. That's king of the way it is around here: warm=wet, clear=super cold and neither is all that great for observing.
Last night would have been nice for looking at the moon, but I had class a 6 pm.
So I'm basically just waiting for spring and the later sunsets.
I have thought of a couple things I should be doing. I think building an observing chair should be something I could get done before the end of winter. Maybe I'll start on collecting up the pieces I need for that. It's basically a one-day sort of project, but one that will be pretty worthwhile.
I had thought to take apart my mount and re-grease it, but now I'm thinking that I won't bother. Unless I decide to try and shoot photos with it, but I'd need a new camera for that. In any case, the mount works acceptable for the use I've been putting it to, so no sense right now risking damage by taking it apart.
I was amused to see that Xena is showing data that indicates it's larger than Pluto. I think that it's time this major planet / minor planet mess gets sorted once and for all. Again, my vote has always been that if it's Pluto sized or bigger, than call it a planet and be done with it. Rather than demote Pluto, because it'll just come up again when we find something nearer to the size of mercury or mars out there. And there very well could be something out there the size or Mercury that we've not seen. Remember, these things are Really Far Away. Really Far.
So, best set a standard and go with it.
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As with everyone, not much happening on the observing front. The weather has been pretty nasty generally - when not super cold, it's been snowing. We've got about 10" now in the last 10 days. And it's still snowing. January usually dries out, and it we get enough sunshine we can actually lose most of the snow. There has been a few times that I was able to observe from Cherry Grove in January in reasonable comfort.
But I was thinking yesterday about spring, how nice it will be when the temp warms up and be excited about getting the new (and still unnamed) scope out.
I did spend a little time the other day looking to identify a star noted by a sailor. It's kind of funny, really, how disconnected we've become from the sky, even to people as traditionally connected as sailors. Personally, I cannot imagine sailing an ocean without knowing what stars are around. I also think it would be very cool to attempt to cross an ocean using celestial navigation as a primary means (with GPS as a backup).
But even without going that far, I'm surprised that a simple planisphere is not "standard equipment" on any boat that plans to be on the ocean at night. Another sailing friend commented on one of her early offshore passages that she was fascinated with the sky when pulling dog watch - but couldn't name anything and was wishing she'd paid a bit more attention in college astronomy. College astronomy is certainly not required, but a simple chart would go a long way to making sailing with the stars a lot more friendly, as well as potentially useful.
And not only that, but reconnect with sailing history. Astronomy and skywatching were *necessities* to sailing as little as 100 years ago. Much effort was devoted to astronomy in pursuit of aiding mariners. It is a tradition worth keeping.
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this is a test
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Typical weather for this time of year. Lots of clouds, wildly swinging temperatures, snow, rain, holiday events & parties, work functions, etc. Needless to say not much observing happening.
I knew it would be a drag getting a new scope this time of year. If you look through the logs here you'll see that things slow down in to observing cycle a lot. However, i do think that this is true everywhere, and contributed in no small measure in finding my scope on sale - sort of in that icky time when the weather is poor and before the holiday sales kick in.
On the other hand, I also try not to feel guilty about not observing. I used to struggle with being tired, stressed overworked etc. and not wanting to get out there on those days it happened to be clear. I think that some of it comes from the need to somehow "justify" the capitol - both emotional and monetary - expended in pursuit of the hobby. I've come to realize that it's not about money, for sure. I mean, you cannot justify the expense of this kind of equipment in terms of an entertainment budget. I tried that with Stella, and after nearly 10 years I got the cost down to something in the neighborhood of a movie in cost-per-hour of usage. But that was after a lot of serious, serious effort to get out whenever it was possible.
But now I don't worry about it so much. You can take any hobby and try and find yourself crying on the floor at the cost of the "stuff" that goes along with it. Think about the cost-per-hour of most motor homes or boats.
The point is that justifying something like this in terms of money will be a constant source of angst. But when you remove the money from the equation it becomes easier to take control of the activity for your own gain. That means doing it when I can, having fun, and not fretting about missing nights, because there will be other nights, with no snow and no bugs and no other stresses and perfect seeing and all that. They will come around again. And I'll be there.
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