Posting from the National Radio Quiet Zone, thanks to the miracle of Ethernet cable.

I arrived at Green Bank on Sunday afternoon for the SETI workshop. Met extremely interesting people. This was followed by a fabulous day which included a visit to the Green Bank Telescope.


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Speaking of history, the other day I mentioned the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Their original site was in Green Bank, West Virginia, though today they operate radio telescopes in other locations as well. Green Bank is a beautiful spot, so I hear-- I've never been there.

In the autumn of 1962 a photographer for Life, Michael Rougier, ( Read more... )

brotherguy passed along a reminder that tonight is the 400th anniversary of the date Galileo first turned his telescope upon a crescent Moon, beginning the observations that made his name famous in astronomy.

Thanks to Thomas Gill of North Central College, I have enhanced my previous entry with a few photos.

(Yes, I do actually have an Egoboo File. It's in the basement.)

Gary Westfahl of the University of California at Riverside, a science fiction critic whose work I have often admired, quoted our 1977 filksong "Home on Lagrange" in his 1996 book Islands in the Sky: The Space Station Theme in Science Fiction Literature. This I learned because there ( Read more... )

I'll be speaking next Tuesday at North Central College in downtown Naperville, Illinois. As part of the International Year of Astronomy celebrations, NASA has encouraged institutions across the U.S. to hold "unveilings" of a new image of our galaxy's center. Here's the press release for the event. Quoting a portion:

Oesterle Library displays new ( Read more... )

The NASA administrator is unwilling to launch the previously-scheduled repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. But he did ask a blue-ribbon committee to look at it, and also evaluate a possible robotic repair mission.

Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope is a brief 10-page letter offering the ( Read more... )