A journey through space and time
Today is June 6, 2012. The day after the last transit of Venus that everyone alive today will ever see. Well, there may be a few people that were born on June 4 that will live to be 105 1/2, and see the transit that occurs in December of 2117, but we’re discounting those few. By now, you’ve probably heard that transits of Venus occur in pairs separated by 8 years, but those pairs are separated by 105 or 121
A picture is worth 112 years worth of words. Warning – Clicking on this image will open a 4MB high resolution version of this image. Of course, I highly recommend it.
I wish I could take credit for this, but I can’t. Love the image, though.
On May 20, 2012, a rare and spectacular annular solar eclipse will take place for the Western half of the United States. Sadly, this Astropotamus is in the Eastern half of the United States and won’t see it. If you are interested in this annular eclipse, lots of information is available on the Internet. If you want to know more about what makes an annular eclipse special (and not an annual eclipse), then read on.
In playing with the new camera, I came across a particular fact of life as an Astropotamus: I do not have night vision. As a result of not having night vision, I cannot see in the dark without an external light source. And if I shine a bright light in the dark, my eyes will stop being dark adapted for a while. It’s then that you should avoid walking on a raised concrete walkway. The camera was still on a
Throughout the ages, Orion has played a prominent role in astronomy. The Pyramids are said to be aligned with its belt, though most Astropotamuses don’t believe this. The Orion Nebula (the middle “star” of his belt”) has been a form of eye test for thousands of years. And my favorite, it signifies the return of cold, dark, clear winter skies.
When its time to change, you’e got to rearrange.-The Brady Bunch Mrs. Astropotamus has changed. And she’s rearranging. Luckily, the change is a good one and the rearranging is for the best. Mrs. Astropotamus works for a small company doing technical stuff and mundane stuff and all the stuff that makes an office work as well as all the customer support stuff. It’s been a great place for her to work. Now it’s time to change.
Just a quick post about the faster than light neutrinos discovered at CERN. I love it when topics discussed on Astropotamus are used to compare and contrast things in the real world. You can see why SN1987A is useful for determining if neutrinos really do travel faster than light at this link.
It’s official: it’s autumn in the Northern Hemisphere (which is where Astropotamus lives). And as everyone knows, on the equinox, there are equal parts day and night, right? Oh, and that you can balance an egg on its end, too. Surely this is all true?
We take a break from astroimaging for a moment to talk about things that go bang. We all know about fireworks, smash-em-up derbies, and an obscure rock group from the early 70s. But I’m talking about things that go bang in the sky.