I've always been a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson.. but I'll admit I had never read anything by him. I've always seen clips and videos of him that impress me. For instance, talking about spaghettification with Ryan Watt or Slacker Astronomy's impromptu interview of him at AAS highlight his attitude, enthusiasm, and humor when it comes to Astronomy. I ( Read more... )

Timothy Ferris was the speaker for Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor Reads author presentation. If you don't know who he is, he's the author of numerous books, including "Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe" and numerous PBS series such as "Seeing In The Dark", "Life Beyond Earth", and "Creation of the Universe ( Read more... )

The All-Sky camera I talked about in this post is giving me some major trouble. It appears the stupid video processing box has locked up when attempting to do some tweaks to the capturing. That means I get to try to get someone to power cycle it up there or make a trip up to Lapeer, MI in the near future. The next group trip I won't be able to go ( Read more... )

Life this week has been interesting. With the lack of teaching Astronomy Labs I've had a lot more free time - most of that has been spent working at umich. I only have two final exams - but both are going to be moderatly challenging. I'm not overly worried, however, which is nice for once. I'm ready for this semester to be done, altho I am taking ( Read more... )