I was raised in an age of comparative innocence. I remember going into the Barber Shop near downtown Topeka, Kansas, as a nine- or ten-year old boy, still wet behind the ears as they say, and encountering my first Negro. (The things one remembers! And only because I happened to call for a haircut appointment [...]
Several times over the past 5 years or so I have posted about my encounters with Kenneth L. Abbott at 22nd and Washington, near the mid-point of my daily walks. He passed into the company of his Maker on March 11, 2012 at age 89. Last fall he pulled to the curb in his immaculate [...]
This shot is too good not to pass along. Son Larry is spending a few months in Bisbee, Arizona, this winter and doing a little sight-seeing. Here we have in one view 50 million-year-old rocks, 100 year-old trees, a 57 year-old man, and perhaps a bunch of 20-year-old microwave and cellular towers, all happily coexisting. [...]
From today’s Wall Street Journal: Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing to seek bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would cap a stunning comedown for a company that once ranked among America’s corporate titans. It is interesting how certain events seem to mark the ending of an [...]
Since mankind (I refuse to say humankind) has always sliced the inexorable passage of time into four-season packages, and since package #2011 is drawing to a merciful end, and since I now find myself at our Lake of the Ozarks hideaway with time to ponder, please humor me by reading a few public ponderings. When [...]
I might as well ‘fess up. It’s the glitter that gets me. Like that fraud on TV, I just like the heavy feel of a fistful of gold coins. I wish I had more of ‘em. I wish I had the Midas touch, except perhaps when reading Acts 20:33. I remember, back in the 1980s, [...]
For years I have observed a special two-season calendar with my summer starting with major league baseball spring training and ending with the last pitch of the World Series. My second season is “bummer,” which started a week ago on October 29 and will last for another five months or so. (Sigh!) I usually try [...]
I gathered these photons using a newly available telescope located near South Alpen, France. If you’re curious, it’s the center telescope picture here. For my first test of using this large telescope, I exposed “luminance” images of the Pelican Nebula (no color for now). From Wikipedia, The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC5070 and IC5067) [...]
Here is another of my practice images using raw image data generously offered by Jim Misti. One of these days I hope to be acquiring my own photons again. But in the meantime, here is my version of the Andromeda Galaxy, about the size of our Milky Way and on a collision course with our [...]
Data acquisition by Jim Misti On August 24, 2011, a supernova torched off in the Pinwheel Galaxy, only 21 million light-years away. This makes it one of the closest supernovas seen in decades. The guys and gals who track these things dubbed it PTF 11kly, a type of white dwarf detonation that usually progresses in [...]
