Month: July 2012

Sliver of a Dying Moon

I tossed and turned most of last night, dreaming about missing the opportunity to observe nearly the last shred of the dying crescent moon.  I remember waking up at two o’clock, three o’clock and again at four o’clock, and struggling to return to sleep.  Getting up that early would not have helped me observe the moon, since it wouldn’t rise above the horizon until 4:46 a.m. Central.

My cell phone buzzed me with my alert at ten minutes to five o’clock.  I’d been staring up at the dark ceiling of my bedroom waiting for it to officially wake me up.  I grumbled my way down the stairs, with Apollo in tow, and greeted my husband and our new Rottweiler, Lexy.  I only took a moment to slip on my flip-flops, grab the camera gear, my purse and the van key. I drove a block and a half up the hill to the dead end in front of City Hall and just like I did two days ago, setup my tripod in the middle of the street.

Eastern Horizon Star Chart for 5:10 am Tues 17 July 2012
Eastern Horizon Star Chart for 5:10 am Tues 17 July 2012

I could clearly see the sliver of the waning crescent moon, just a few degrees (less than five degrees actually) above the eastern horizon.  The sky appeared to be only minimally hazed.  I began taking photos at 5:04 a.m. and tried various automatic settings and then revert to manually manipulating the shutter, aperture and finally the ISO, setting it to 800 (something I don’t like doing because it sacrifices pixels and detail for more light).  Here is the unaltered series of photos I took, stopping at 5:13 a.m. this morning (click the image to view rest of album):

Last Sliver of Old Moon
Waning Sliver of Old Moon (click for rest of album)

I may try again tomorrow morning, but I fear the twilight will wash out any chance of seeing the extremely thin crescent of a moon less than eighteen hours away from being reborn as a new moon.  Moon rise tomorrow morning occurs at 5:43 a.m. Central, but twilight begins at 4:15 a.m.  Sun rise will occur at 6:08 a.m. so I would have less than a half hour to spy an even thinner crescent moon amid the growing glare of the rising sun.

I also plan to attempt to capture the first sliver of the new moon on Thursday evening, but I don’t think I will be successful.  The sun sets at 8:42 p.m. and the moon sets at 8:50 p.m., just eight minutes later.  The new moon occurs near midnight (about a half hour before straight up midnight) during night the 18th (tomorrow).

Crescent Moon Sails Between Jupiter and Venus on the Ides of July

I need my head examined.  Why else would I suddenly sit up in bed and immediately head to a window in the darkest hour of the night, just to see if an astronomical conjunction was visible yet?  And that’s exactly what I did this morning, without the aid of an alarm clock.  Some internal portion of my brain must be tapped into some universal system (let’s hope it’s not that Dark Energy that’s making the cosmological headlines lately), because I woke up at 3:55 a.m. earlier today, just so I could photograph two planets, a star and a crescent moon.

A quick peak out my second story east facing window showed something bright glittering through my large oak tree’s leaves.  For a better look, I went out the front door and walked halfway down the driveway.  Yep, I could clearly see the crescent moon, Jupiter above, and Venus below, as well as the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus (although that was the only star I could see in that constellation with my blurry bleary sleepy eyes).

Eastern Horizon for Lansing, Kansas at 4:10 a.m. 7/15/2012 (courtesy Astronomy Magazine’s Star Dome Plus subscriber only java web applet).

I went back inside and grabbed my camera gear and the keys to the van.  I remembered my purse, since I planned to setup the tripod in the cul-de-sac in front of Lansing City Hall and the Police Department.  I’ve been questioned more than once by the local ‘protect and serve’ brigade while attempting astrophotography on their front lawn.

I took a couple of shots with the normal lens, but quickly determined I really needed the telephoto.  Once I switched the lenses, I could zoom in and capture just the four primary objects in one frame.  I took a half dozen photos before returning the gear to the van.  At least one police car did cruise by, but he probably didn’t see me ensconced in the dark dead end to his right as he turned left down the hill.

Once I got back home, I went back to bed.  Five hours later, I woke up and thought to look at the photos I’d taken while half asleep.  I settled on the second to last one I took.  Here is that photo (twice … once without labels and once with):

CrescentMoonJupiterVenusAldeberan15July2012

CrescentMoonJupiterVenusAldeberan15July2012labeled

A Fiery End to an Extremely Hot Day

Sunset Saturday 14 July 2012
Sunset Saturday 14 July 2012 (click image for rest of album)

I can blame nobody but myself.  I gave up the opportunity to sit in an air conditioned smoke-free bar (Woody’s Watering Hole in Leavenworth), where I could have listened to my husband and his band buddies perform classic rock to support A Ride for the Wounded.  I could have supported a worthy cause through my presence and donations and had a great time with old friends.

But no, I thought I would have a better time with my co-workers at our firm’s summer event, where the beer, barbecue and baseball were all free.  And so was the scorching heat and unrelenting sunshine beating down on us on the unshaded Bud Light Party Deck in right field at the T-Bones stadium.

Sizzle greets Toni and Tracey
Sizzling on the Bud Light Party Deck

Since I don’t drink beer, I walked back down along the concourse to purchase a very tall and cold glass of lemonade. The bottle of water I’d gotten on the Party Deck with one of my two free drink tickets had been warm. I hung out with coworkers, many of them people I see everyday, Monday through Friday, in our small corner of the universe called IT. I ended up giving my other drink ticket to my of my female coworkers, but not before attempting to exchange it for something first (like another lemonade?).

I hardly noticed when the game started. The T-Bones played against the Wichita Wingnuts (who used to be known as the Wranglers when I lived there in the 80s and 90s, but that team name has since moved to Arkansas). Staring directly into the sun from right field and unable to clearly see the scoreboard behind my right shoulder, I completely missed the Wingnuts scoring a run in the second inning. I did notice multiple rookie errors on the part of the T-bones. The only scoring for the home team came with two home-runs (with no one on base). I gave myself a headache staring into the sun for nearly an hour, when it finally hid itself behind a thin cloud bank approaching from the northwest.

With no comfortable seating available on the Party Deck (and because I’d opted to take a ‘left over’ ticket for the firm’s summer event), I decided enough was enough and left the park during the bottom of the fifth inning. Five innings, two runs and five errors on the part of the T-bones.  The Wingnuts had no errors and two runs.  I could see where this game was heading.  As I walked to the van, I could tell the sunset was shaping up to be a fiery one (click first photo above for entire album).

After taking a few photos from West Mary Street, I returned home to discover the bass player’s car parked where I usually park the van. I thought that was odd, since it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. I found Terry and Sean in the nearly empty band room, eating a late supper and reporting that the gig went extremely well. This perturbed me to no end. Since my home hosts most band practices for this group, I get exposed to the best and the worst of the amplified rock music. So I had a somewhat jaundiced view of this latest collection of musicians’ ability to pull it together.  Who knows, if I had attended, I probably would have jinxed the performance.  But it still would have been nice to sit in a cool air conditioned bar and drank something other than beer (or lemonade … unless it was Hard Lemonade) and listen to my husband sing Cumbersome (which he’s not).

Terry singing (and playing) Cumbersome (Sat 14 July 2012)

Movie Review: One for the Money (2012)

One for the Money (2012)

3 out of 5 stars

I can count on one hand (well, half a hand) the number of movies produced by Lionsgate that I enjoyed (most of them I couldn’t finish).  The most recent one I liked was Man on a Ledge and before that it was Conan, but only barely.  So I had a chip on my shoulder when I started watching One for the Money earlier this week.  I convinced myself I would not like the film but soon found myself laughing and forgetting the whole Lionsgate bad reputation stigma.

I only scratched my head once in confusion during the movie.  And it had nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with a t-shirt Katherine Heigl wore early in the movie.  Why would a girl from Jersey (where the movie was set) be wearing a University of Kansas t-shirt?  I even checked Heigl’s biography at IMDB.com but could find no trace of her being from Kansas, or attending KU, or having any ties to my home state whatsoever.  Perhaps the director is a fan?

Wardrobe malfunctions aside, the movie was funny and predictable, and I didn’t mind wasting my time watching it.  A little brevity goes a long way during the dog days of Summer.

Good Morning Stars

Waning Moon
Waning Moon (pre-dawn Tuesday 10 July 2012)

I let Apollo out this morning and looked up (like I always do) and realized the sky was unusually clear, free of haze or clouds. I vaguely remembered reading an astronomy alert on Monday about Jupiter or Venus being less than ten degrees from a bright star (which one I couldn’t remember off the top fo my head). So, I left Apollo in the back yard and traversed the house to the front door on the east side. I stepped outside and had to walk down the steps to get out from under my large black oak tree, which blocks all of the eastern horizon when you look out the front door or windows of my house. Up and to the southeast I easily found the waning moon (see photo above). Turning back to the east, I found a very bright Venus and a somewhat less bright (but not by much) Jupiter directly above it. And just to the lower right of Venus, I could barely see a star twinkling. 

I went back in the house and grabbed my camera.  The tripod stayed locked in the trunk of the car.  I just hoped I could keep steady enough to capture the ‘morning stars’ from the driveway.  I took half a dozen shots of Jupiter and Venus and three or four of the waning moon.  Then I went inside to review the results. 

All but the last photo of Jupiter and Venus were blurry from not using a tripod.  Only one photo of the moon, done with some manual fiddling with the shutter and aperture proved to be passably viewable. 

I hopped on the Astronomy.com website to access their Star Dome Plus subscriber only star atlas Java application.  I needed to determine the name of the star faintly sparkling next to bright Venus.  I set the app to look at 45 degrees of the eastern horizon at the time I took the photo (5:35 a.m. Central) and discovered Aldebaran of the constellation Taurus to be the star near our sister planet.  Here’s a screenshot of the eastern horizon courtesy of Star Dome Plus:

Eastern Horizon (Lansing, KS) Tues 10 July 2012 5:35 a.m. Central

I quickly edited my one good photo of the ‘morning stars’, rotating the orentation from landscape to portrait and adding some text labels to identify the objects observed. Here are both the unlabelled and labelled versions of that photo:

Morning Stars
Venus, Jupiter and Aldebaran (pre-dawn Tuesday 10 July 2012)

Morning Stars (labeled)

I did remember to let Apollo back in from his morning soujourn through the backyard. He turned his nose up at his breakfast and climbed up on the couch for his morning nap.

Movie Review: Johnny English Reborn (2011)

Johnny English Reborn (2011)

3.5 out of 5 stars

Terry and I watched this movie on a lazy summer Sunday afternoon.  We got quite a few laughs from the antics of Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English, a reinstated (disgraced) secret agent for MI7.  The surprising appearance of Gillian Anderson as Pegasus, the head of MI7, supplied an interesting dramatic validity to an otherwise ‘normal’ British comedy.

Heat Bubble Bursts Just in Time for Summer Stargazing

Powell ObservatorySaturday evening I headed south to Louisburg to volunteer for my second scheduled night of the 2012 Powell Observatory public season.  My dad decided to tag along, to enjoy the show and help keep me awake for the long drive home.  We left Lansing about twenty minutes after five and my car’s external thermometer reported 106 to 107 degrees, which has been our afternoon average for about a week now, give or take two or three degrees either way.  We stopped in Bonner Springs to grab a quick, cool sandwich from Subway and returned to the highway just shortly after six o’clock.  I needed to be at Powell Observatory by seven o’clock to help prepare the facility for the weekly public program and observing night.

As we approached Louisburg from the north, I noticed a definite increase in the wind, so much so that my car was jostled several times.  At the same time, I noticed a significant drop in the external temperature.  By the time I exited US-69, the thermometer read 92 degrees, and was still falling.  Except for early mornings the past couple of weeks, I had not seen or felt such low temperatures while the sun still shone.  I pulled into the west observing field parking area and realized I was again the first person to arrive.  Since the temperature had dropped, I turned off the car and opened all the windows.  The breeze felt incredibly refreshing.

My team leader arrived within a few minutes and I received my Powell Observatory ‘Staff’ T-shirt, which I changed into as soon as the building was unlocked.  I helped setup the class room for the program, ‘Sounds of Space.’  Another ASKC member arrived and setup his ten-inch Dobsonian for solar observing and I caught a glimpse of some great sunspots before our public guests began arriving.  The clouds provided some dramatic solar observing situations.

Pre sunset from Powell Observatory
Click image for more sunset photos from Powell Observatory

I repeated my role as gatekeeper and accepted donations from the public and queried them for their ZIP codes to record for future grant petitions.  The first group of twenty-five guests began the ‘Sounds of Space’ program at 8:30 p.m., but I soon had at least that many waiting for the second showing. At one point as I sat waiting for more guests to arrive, what I thought was a stray dog wandered into the observing field, soon followed by three horses, two with riders and a third colt between them.  They trotted across the field to the west, with the dog trailing after, riding off into the sunset … literally.

Constellation Scorpius
Constellation Scorpius

As the sky continued to darken, despite a few wispy clouds, we opened the dome so those waiting for the next program could observe Saturn and a globular cluster found in the constellation Scorpius.  I didn’t get a chance to look at the cluster through the 30-inch scope, but I believe they looked at M4, which is near the bright star Antares.

We ended up having nearly ninety public guests Saturday evening and ran a third showing of our program.  After the last two guests had left the dome a bit after eleven o’clock, I quickly snuck a peak at the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra, one of the Messier Objects I’ve been trying go get a glimpse of for quite some time.  Lyra is also home to the very bright star Vega, one of the three stars that form the Summer Triangle.

As the final guests drove away, my team members and I began cleaning the building and storing chairs, tables and other items for the next Saturday.  I signed myself out of the Observatory at 11:35 and gathered up my dad for the long drive home.  He related information he’d gleaned from another team members about various types of Dobsonian telescopes and helped keep me alert as we sped north towards Leavenworth County.

Next week, we present a program on ‘Our Amazing Moon’ and the following week we’ll pose the question ‘Is There Life Out There?’  We look forward to showing you the astronomical sights (and sounds).

Until then, Keep Looking Up!

Movie Review: Red Riding Hood (2011)

Red Riding Hood (2011)

2 out of 5 stars

One of a crop of edgier dark fairy tales retold in recent years, Red Riding Hood bears a passing resemblance to the French ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ by Perrault; more so than Grimm’s ‘Little Red Cap.’  But plain old wolves weren’t good enough or scarier enough for director Catherine Hardwicke (perhaps she should have consulted Joe Carnahan or watched the Grey?).  The villagers of Daggerhorn suffered a werewolf among them for years, or generations even.

The only acting performance of note not surprisingly came from veteran actress Julie Christie, whom I fondly remember as Lara.  Even Gary Oldman couldn’t inspire the uninspired plot.

Nook Color Software Update 1.4.3 (Released Jun/Jul 2012)

I woke up to a green ‘n’ yesterday morning in my Notification alerts on my Nook Color. Even though I use my Nook Color daily, I had no idea another software update was coming down the pipe. The last update arrived in the late Winter/early Spring. First thing I did (on my laptop, not my Nook) was to read the ‘What’s New’ section on the B&N Nook Color Software Updates page:

The NOOK Color Ver1.4.3 update contains new features and enhancements, including:

  • Zoom view in comics and graphic novels
  • 2-Page mode in landscape for viewing PagePerfect™ and PDF documents
  • Other minor system enhancements

Meh.  I don’t read comics and graphic novels, so what do I care about my ability to zoom while reading those formats?

I quickly tested the second feature enhancement, since I had just received my astronomy club newsletter via e-mail a couple of days earlier.  The Reader software loaded the PDF and I flipped the Nook Color to landscape orientation.  The first time I did this, the Reader application appeared to reset itself, taking me back to the Home screen.

So, just to be on the ‘safe’ side, I did a shutdown on the Nook Color and let it sit powered off for a few minutes.  I turned it back on and then returned to reading my astronomy newsletter PDF.  This time, I could see the two page view in landscape orientation, but the Reader application did seem to have problems with the odd page at the end.  In other words, unless there’s an even number of pages to display side-by-side, the Reader application doesn’t display anything for the last page, just a blank black screen.  Once I flipped the Nook Color back to portrait orientation, the final page became visible.

I had hoped that the ‘Other minor system enhancements’ might have improved the wireless functionality of the Nook Color, but alas that does not appear to be the case.  For the most part, I have very few issues with the wifi on my Nook Color, so long as I have access to visible wireless networks, like my own personal ones at home and those provided by libraries or lunch time hotspots near my work.

But whenever I need to access a hidden secured network, I run into extreme difficulties.  My most recent frustrations include a change to the wireless networks provided by my employer.  At the end of May, we completely redid our wireless networks to include a visible internal secured network (for laptops mostly so you can walk into a conference room and not have to plugin a cable), a visible secured guest network (for clients and venders) and a hidden secured network (for iPhones, iPads and other tablets).  For most of June, my Nook Color had no problem connecting to this hidden network.  About a week ago, something changed and now the Nook Color refuses to find or connect to the hidden network.  I’ve created and recreated the connection information a half dozen times with the same results … no connection.  I contacted the network engineer about the hidden network, but he assures me no changes were made to that hidden network recently.

So now, when I get to work, I just turn the wifi off on my Nook Color, so it won’t sit there scanning all day long and wasting the battery.  When I take my lunch break in the break room, I can still read my ebooks, but I can’t check my e-mail or the weather or any other normal activity that requires Internet access on my Nook Color.  I can retreat to the lobby and connect to the free wifi provided by the Kansas City Public Library, but that’s such a hassle.

I have another ten months on my extended warranty on the Nook Color.  By then, I’ll be itching to wipe the internal storage and root it to a true Android tablet, unless I make the jump to a smartphone, like the Samsung Galaxy S III or the Galaxy Tablet.