End of year meme thingy ( Read more... )

I'm moving to Dreamwidth since Livejournal is DEAD DEAD DEAD.  I set up to cross post everything there to LJ so anyone still clinging to LJ can still reply to me here.

So it seems Leonardo Di Vinci conceived of but never built a new musical instrument, a keyboard playable string instrument.  A Polish musician went over the plans and managed to construct it.  Here is what it sounds like!

Click to view

Woke up early and popped out to the dark sky site to get a quickie of Comet ISON. It is still magnitude 9, but expected to brighten dramatically later this month.


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Here is the moon, half lit thist time. What is special about this one? Near the terminator between light and dark, craters and mountains cast significant shadow, causing them to stand out from landscape that looks simply flat when viewed when the moon is full!
Click image for larger version!

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( Ok this one is going to be cut, but there is some neat stuff inside, so have a look! )

So in Seattle!  As I mentioned flight was nice, no clouds except for 2 parts. First clouds were over the Rockies, which were flat boring ones.  Over Seattle however my favorite kinds!  The big billowy puffy ones that make all kinds of interesting towering shapes.

Got this amazing shot of Mt. Rainier on the way down.


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So I am in Seattle now, visiting with Tyrnn and will attend rainfurrest this coming weekend.  While on the flight over, I lucked into mostly clear skies and was able to take some interesting photos of a large swath of the US from Cincinnati to Seattle.  I didn't get the rockies because they were shrouded in clouds, but I did get lots of before and ( Read more... )

I'm going to be in Seattle from Sept21st through Sept 30th.

I'll be attending Rainfurrest with Tyrnn and a few others. If anyone wants to do a meetup before or during the convention drop me a line. 30th I won't be available as I'll be packing for an 11PM flight back home.

I'm reachable here and as @arcturax on twitter.

Figured I would do an astronomy post. Recently watched a thing on netflix about the status of Pluto and the controversy surrounding its "demotion" to dwarf planet. The show was hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson, who has taken up the torch of public awareness in space and space science from the late Carl Sagan. Dr. Tysons take on the status of Pluto ( Read more... )