Smartphone Stargazing: Your Ticket to Celestial Wonders in Your Pocket
Unveiling the Universe, One Snap at a Time, Using Just Your Smartphone … Continue readingSmartphone Stargazing: Your Ticket to Celestial Wonders in Your Pocket
New Tool for Estimating Auroras
NOAA has outdone themselves. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast is a new tool that not only estimates the strength of the current auroral conditions, but how easily they can be seen on the ground, which is where Astropotamus lives. Check it out, and make sure to say thank you to your congressperson the next time that NOAA’s funding comes up for renewal!
Equal Parts, Day and Night, Just Add Egg
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?
3800 Days Later
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.
Can You See Me Now?
Today, we’re going to pretend we are a photon of light, rather than looking at photons of light. This lets us take a break from time traveling for a minute and spend some time talking about what happens to light when it goes through the Time Machine and ends up on the sensor of our camera.
A Lot Up There
Traveling back in time billions of years is fun, but sometimes it’s also fun to be in the present. Especially when it involves Mrs. Astropotamus.
Better to “C” you With
Astropotamus has been absent this summer from the Time Machine. This is due, in part, to being busy, but also because it’s somewhat frustrating to take image of the heavens with the camera that I put at the end of the Time Machine. Luckily, I just bought a new one.
Massless Massfulness
Do you know how big one square centimeter is? Point your index finger at your eye. The end you see is about a square centimeter. Do you know how big 65,000,000,000 is? It’s 6.5E10 in scientific notation. It looks big. Considering that there are about 1E19 atoms of air in a cubic centimeter of air at sea level, 65,000,000,000 starts to look small. But what if I said that every second, about 65 billion solar neutrinos pass through every square
Do You Do the Dew?
Time Machines do their best work at night. If you’ve ever slept in a tent, you know that dew does, too. Which is why dew is the enemy of every Astropotamus. We use all sorts of things to get rid of it when it shows up. Mostly hair dryers and big tubes on the end of our Time Machines. Sometimes we use electric heaters like you have on your car’s rear window. In the end, it’s all about physics.
Seeing is Believing
If Astropotamus looks at the moon with his eyes, it looks beautiful. Just like is has for billions of years. Bright, crisp, full of dark splotches and light splatters. If I use my Time Machine and look at what the moon looked like 8 minutes and 14 seconds ago, I’m sometimes disappointed. I can’t see the moon as clearly through the eyepiece of the Time Machine as I can with my naked eye. Very frustrating! What’s up with that?