January 21, 2008, 3:22 pm, Birmingham, AL
When Barnes and Noble began a sale for their DVDs that they had left over from Christmas, I was able to purchase three DVDs.
1. Roving Mars
2. Magnificent Desolation
3. The Universe: Complete Season One
This write up will look at the first two.
When I first heard of Magnificent Desolation, I was very excited. It is an IMAX format movie that has computer generated graphics to simulate walking on the Moon, just like an Apollo astronaut. Or at least that is what I thought. The movie begins with some dialog about Apollo. Then it leads to some children asked who walked on the Moon. Only one or two of the children name Armstrong. Also some questions are asked about what the astronauts ate, and did on the Moon. Unfortunately the kids give incorrect, if at times humorous answers. Lastly the kids are asked if they would want to go to the Moon, and most say yes. From there we get a quick history of Apollo and how little we know about the Moon. Also a few minutes are devoted to debunking the Moon landing hoaxers. Finally the movie starts to show some of the computer generated footage that had caught my interest in the previews. The viewer gets to see a landing at Hadley Rille (Apollo 15), also we get to ride the rover. Additionally a simulated accident occurs, the pretext being a rover turns over and the astronauts have to buddy breath (like scuba divers) back to the lunar module. After that the movie shows some future lunar base that might be built in 2030 or so. While the last few sentences have been a quick rundown of the plot of this film, I think my description is fair. So what did I think of the movie? Well I was very disappointed in it. It seems that the target audience is probably 8-10 year olds (however showing children that age not knowing anything about the Moon landings seems counterproductive to me), and it seems the writers really just tried to weave some history into some cool computer graphics. If you have some young children they would probably enjoy this film, but for the average adult, they are probably not going to be impressed by this movie. The movie runs around 40 minutes, maybe your local library has it, just FYI that is where my copy ended up. Grade C- (biggest disappointment being the poor writing/plot trying to tie in some cool graphics)
In contrast Roving Mars was an excellent film. While I was a little worried since it was produced by Walt Disney, I can say I totally enjoyed this film. If you have followed the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit, you probably won't learn much in this. However if you have a family member who wonders why you spend so much time out with your telescope or looking at space/astronomy sites on the Internet, I highly suggest you sit down with them and watch this film. The film basically shows the building and launch of the rovers, next there is a good segment on landing followed by a good twenty minutes of "Roving Mars." The science of the movie is pretty up to date and much of it revolves around finding water (or evidence of water at one time) on Mars. I felt the graphics were excellent and that the film had a good storyline that really followed the graphics. The soundtrack is done by Phillip Glass and is very good as well. In the end, what I like about this film the most I think, is that it is written to captivate the public, both young people and adults likewise. Grade A- (Good writing, science and graphics though I wasn't that impressed with the bonus feature of a 1957 film)
In the coming days I will get my opinions written down on what I think of the third DVD I got.... The Universe: Complete season 1..... So stay tuned, and as always if you got a question or want some clarification of anything I wrote here... shoot me a line
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January 6, 2008, 1:48 pm, Birmingham, AL
Well it is a new year! I had a good holiday and was able to get out to the dark sky site on New Year's Eve. The seeing was the usual (average) however the sky was nice and transparent.
I spent a good part of the evening looking at H400 objects in Cassiopeia and in general, the northern end of the sky. One object on the H400 list that I was really disappointed in was Kemble's Cascade. This object is a string of stars that come off a nearby star cluster. I guess I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was a little disappointed. I guess I expected the stars to be brighter. However this area of the sky has numerous interesting objects, many of which are in the H400 list.
The other time of the evening I spent with my 10X50 binoculars. I am always impressed at how different the sky and familiar objects are through the 10X50's. I had a blast logging the Auriga clusters M36, M37 and M38 for the Binocular Messier pin. I found it was fun to see how each cluster was different. I highly encourage you to hunt down these clusters with a small scope or binoculars and see how different they are to you.
Another challenge object with binoculars is M78 in Orion. It took me about 10-15mins to find it and confirm it. Can you find it?
I hope the next blog entry is not in three months like that last one was. I have been busy working and weather had not been very cooperative.
I hope you enjoyed my short ramblings ?
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September 21, 2007, 1:05 pm, Birmingham, AL
The difference a month makes! Oh boy!
Well it has been over a month since I was last out with the scope. The cause of this delay was that I accidentally I put some fingerprints on the corrector of my Nexstar 11 GPS scope which sets the stage for this blog entry....
I being the cautious type decided to send the scope off to OPT to be serviced. They charge good rates and I had bought the scope from them so I trusted them. I am very glad that I sent the scope to them too! I found out that I some mildew growing on the corrector and they were able to clean it off before it became a problem. While the money sending the scope back to OPT was a quite a bit, I figure saving my corrector's coatings is more then worth it.
Now however the scope returned yesterday (9/19/2007) and I see the rear cell had taken a pretty bad hit. The threads had a major gash in them, making the scope unusable. I am pretty convinced that UPS is to blame. I have since ordered a new cell from Astro-Physics, hopefully that will get the scope up and running. Astro-Physics also sells a special plug that will keep mildew from getting inside the scope. Needless to say I ordered one! So if you live in a humid environ (as in the deep south) I would encourage you to consider getting one of their plugs. It might save you a lot of trouble in the future.
The last night I was out with the scope (in August), the skies were just awesome over Chandler Mtn. Very transparent! I spent most of the night looking for Messiers with my 10X50 binoculars, only knocking out about 6 objects on the H400 list with the 11in Nexstar. However the treat of the night was catching the GRACE 1 and GRACE 2 satellite pair for the second satellite formation requirement for the Astro League's EOSOC pin. There were some others at the observing field, and this gave the chance to observe through a NP 127 with a micro focuser. All I can say is WOW what a scope. I will be saving those nickels and dimes for a quite a while, but I know what scope I want to have as my primary observing instrument at the house! The 127 was mounted on a DM6 that DSCs and made for a nice observing instrument. I think I would probably go with the GM8 myself though.
While this month has been boring without the scope, at least observing wise, it has allowed me to get a lot of reading in. I finished the book The Last of the Great Observatories, which is about the Spitzer Space Telescope. That book I found to be boring and no where as interesting as The Hubble Wars. I am currently reading a book called A History of the Kennedy Space Center by Lipartito and Butler. I have waiting on my bed stand:
Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program by Peter J Westwick
and
Life from Cape Canaveral by Jay Barbee
Recently I was able to see the "Seeing in the Dark" on our PBS station here in Birmingham. I thought it was a wonderful show, though some on an astronomy forum I frequent felt the show could have been done better. I feel the critics really missed the meaning of the show, to show how exciting amateur astronomy can be. That same excitement documented in the show is one that has always kept me going in this hobby.
So while blog postings may be come less frequent (i.e. not as much Internet time due to new job), and telescopes may come and go (I will always have a scope of some kind) the night sky has always ignited wonder and excitement in me, as I hope it does in you!
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