I have been renting time on telescopes located near beautiful downtown Rodeo, New Mexico, in the extreme southwest corner of the state. Rodeo is nestled in a mountain valley at an altitude of 4,000 feet in an area known to astronomers for pristine skies with “good seeing.” If you have ever been out on the [...]
What would I do without Astronomy Picture of the Day as inspiration for posts? Dominating the horizon of the bleak Australian landscape below is a sandstone formation called Uluru, fondly (by me) known as Ayers Rock.
The picture was taken shortly after sunset, and there is a blue arch rising in the east which is the [...]
The quote below appeared on Slashdot (News for nerds, stuff that matters). It appears that another nail on the coffin of film photography is being hammered down with the last stroke in December of this year.
Wired’s Gadget Lab picked up a wistful story from the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle on the processing of the last roll [...]
You may remember my mention of a prolific writer-theoretical physicist named Stephen Hawking. He is the author of a book (among many others) called A Briefer History of Time. It is not easy to figure out what he is talking about, even though he writes for a non-technical audience.
Let me introduce you now to [...]
Today is the first day of my 80th year in this vale of tears. I was swinging along down Maine Street, deep in thought, when I heard a voice. I glanced around, but no one was in sight. Then I heard very distinctly, “Oh, the bother of it all,” coming from the direction of [...]
In a press release dated June 29, 2020, the Gemini Observatory announced the first confirmed planet in orbit around a sun-like star.
A planet only about eight times the mass of Jupiter has been confirmed orbiting a Sun-like star at over 300 times farther from the star than the Earth is from our [...]
Well, if I can use a gratuitous exclamation point for one post, I guess I can do it for another. Daughter Linda doesn’t know it yet, but she has just become an author on the Orlop. She opined as follows in an e-mail:
Did someone say BP? Ah well, I must weigh in, though [...]
I have been reading Black Holes & Time Warps: Einsteins Outrageous Legacy by Kip S. Thorne. He wrote it in late 1993, and it was published in 1994. A cover blurb states, “Deeply satisfying…[An] engrossing blend of theory, history, and anecdote” –Wall Street Journal. In his Preface, Thorne explains his goal for the book.
For thirty [...]
The great globular cluster (of stars) in the constellation Hercules, a.k.a. Messier 13, is high in the night sky right now. If you have good eyes, said Edmond Halley in 1714, “it shows itself to the naked eye when the sky is serene and the Moon absent.” It is 25,100 light years away and has [...]
A previous post showed Space Shuttle Atlantis being readied for its final mission to the International Space Station. Photographer Thierry Lagault caught Atlantis 50 minutes before docking as it passed across the face of the sun. By now, Atlantis has returned safely, but you sure wouldn’t know it from the headlines. Here’s an [...]
