At least according to my simple-minded two-season year it is. As usual my summer turns to bummer after the World Series, changing back to summer when major league spring training begins in February. The timing seems especially auspicious this year as we have jumped from blizzard conditions with a couple feet of snow early this [...]
The following is a guest essay by daughter Linda, now somewhat older than she was on this particular fishing trip. I was chilled lying on the bottom of the boat, rocking gently. I stared up into the fading light and watched the bottoms of the clouds brushed with gold. I felt happy, it was true. [...]
I’m pretty proud of this one. In a previous post I showed off the grayscale luminance image taken remotely by a LightBuckets observatory in Rodeo, New Mexico on January 3, 2011. To get color, I needed images of the same nebula taken through red, blue, and green filters, and it took me until January 27 [...]
(Click on image to enlarge) According to Wikipedia, The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and [...]
Gaze at the dark sky and what do you see? Mostly white stars against a black background. A few of the brighter ones show some color, but the human eye is pretty picky when it comes to transmitting color information to our brain. Really dim stuff always comes out bland and gray. The eye needs [...]
The age of ebooks and ebook readers has arrived. Amazon.com revealed the other day that they now are selling more ebooks than bound books. When I bought my Kindle a few months ago, I was amazed how many Amazon books are available in instant gratification Kindle editions. And it is so easy. Turn on your [...]
2010-11-05 The Hard Maple trees in our front and back yards are true outliers. They always wait until the verdict is in on general fall color. Then they suddenly decide to put on a display just before jettisoning their leaves. It’s just not fair. Dave, never learning to hold his fire.
Colorless Fall 2010 This is an experiment using Picasa to do the heavy lifting to post images to the Orlop. Let me know if it doesn’t work for you. I snapped these on my afternoon walk, and it is pretty clear that we didn’t get the usual fall color. The walk route for those who [...]
Sometimes life seems to get all tangled up or maybe life goes on its merry way and I get all tangled up trying to make sense of it. Either way, the last month-and-a-half has been a real dandy for this member of the Ayers clan. Not that you care all that much, of course, but [...]
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 [...]
