Comet McNaught III

Comet McNaught is only getting better (I procalaim as I sit under a blanket of clouds and peer into the sky restlessly hoping for the snow to stop and the sky to once again be blue) and remote viewing is pretty darn good when you have SOHO doing the looking for you. Below are two images from SOHO that show the comet and its brightness. I am guessing that it is now at about -1 mag? I can check this out, but it is a daytime object and that means it has passed a given threshold of brightness...just not sure specifically. It doesnt matter, really. The piintis that SOHO has some pretty neat stuff. Here they are:

The sun is (blocked out) in the middle and the comet is, need I say it, the bright thing in the upper left quadrant.

This is the latest image from SOHO (Jan 14/07) showing not only the comet but the tail a well. Wow.

I wrote earlier (quite incorrectly) that this comet would be comming back in its orbit about the Sun again in our lifetimes; greater minds and those who are actually plotting this diddy have posited that this is in fact not true and that this may be the only time we (or any earth bound species) will see Comet McNaught. Its eccentricity is greater than 1, meaning that its orbit is not circular and the escape velocity (energy to escape a given gravity) is going to be reached for this star it is passing. Basically, the sun is too small (thus the mass causes to little gravity) to lock this thing up and to keep it comming back, and if Jupiter or Saturn gets a hold of it on its way around it will get a slingshot of alternate gravity that spells 'goodbye' to our famed comet. Even without other planetary gravity causing it trajectory confusion, this comet (as is currently understood) is not going to be a solar system object for long.

So, if you want to see the comet of our time, now is the time.

see ya.

Comet McNaught II

This is the more prescriptive twilight/sunset view of the comet that I got a few days ago as I molested my body with cold.

This is a shot taken today (Jan 13/07) as it became a daytime visible object. Pretty astounding, no?

These are obviously not my pictures. I copied them from SpaceWeather.com (link below) as clouds have won the battle around PG.

And more on the comet, now suggested to be, at its brightest, the brightest of the century. Pretty neat for something that kinda came out of nowhere (nowhere being, yes, the Kuiper Belt, but relatively nowhere...).

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/01/12/comet-mcnaught-videoblog/

Yes, another link to BadAstronomy.com

Clouds have hampered any realisitc chances of getting another view, daytime or nighttime view, of this celestial tansient so the best I can do is go straight to the source...and then link to it. Here Phil has set up a neat little videoblog of his bino's and it makes for a great shot - when you consider the technology he is dealing with - of the comet. Check it out, and if you have clear skies one last attempt is worth it. Look west as the sun sets and go about (umm..this is a rough estimate) 1 degree away from the sun and it should be that bright comet-like thing. Venus is actually opposite it(opposite side of the sun) so it if the comet is visible then wait a few more minutes and try to spot a solar companion. A less transient one, at least!

Also check out http://spaceweather.com/ for up to date info about all things astronomical.

Enjoy.

Kudos to Phil and BA

A blunt taste of our education politics

This comic was instigated by the inability for American educational leaders to move beyond Christianity and Jesus-centric ideologies and realize that there is a scientific truth overtly apparent to anyone who (without being funded by ExxonMobil) studies or pays attention to the research of our environment, specifically climate. Children are not being allowed to learn about our climate because the religious (not only extremists) portion of the population wish to rather believe that any warming is either due to god's spite or due to natural causes - exonerating both church and state, religion and oil.
It makes for great conversation, yes indeed. But the stark and horrible reality is that at the end of the day millions of children in one of the most guilty regions of the world are going home ignorant of their actions. They are bred to maintain a stance of being unaware that god is neither here to save nor spite them, and that the control of the sustainability of this planet is not a question for debate, but for action. Allowing a foreign and domestic policy to be dictated by a religion is an arcane way of dealing with a country, let alone a country that is one of the roots of the problem.

An atheist approach clearly erases this illusion of godly saving. It puts the onus on us, our way of being, our cultures. It puts the onus on those who wronged to do right - our energy system has worked, but it is now wrong and it is now proving to be more wrong than imaginable - and we need clarity and separation from religion to do so.

So, education is but another puppet of the christian fed politics of America.

And in Canada, the land of "god keep our land, glorious and free", we are not much further ahead in the effort for enlightenment. Less controlled by the bible, but still, as a population, controlled by it. Stand in a classroom and see how long it takes before the christian myth is assumed to be true through the curriculum and conversations.

We are enganging in demonous acts all in the name of a mythical creature (god, jesus, moses, Abraham, ...), of a mythical history, or a fiction novel. We are (well, certainly not me and not in my classrooms) maintaining an unhealthy predisposition to christian based ideologies, which have demonstrably injured all life on Earth.

God....god nothing.

Pharyngula Blog Link

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/ridicule_is_a_useful_tool.php#more

PLEASE! Please go and check this blog out. Specifically, the post about the biblical literalist (need I say more) and global warming.

Comet McNaught

I just spent an hour standing still in the frakin' cold starring out across the vast expanse of horizontal glory to try to spy the illustrious comet McNaught on one of its last days of visibility (for a while, at least). It is the brightest comet to grace us in the last 30 years and is actually a daytime naked eye object (if you are careful enough to properly block out the sun and peek a few degrees to the left of it).

As soon as I clambered us the snowy slope of a hillside I gazed out, steadfast beside a fellow amateur astronomer, and saw...clouds.

Clouds.

Beautiful, crimson red and deep yellow clouds. Beautiful, yes, but completely, 100% obstructing my view of the object of my desires. In -25 c weather, as the sun completely vanished from view, on my last chance to see the comet of the decades, clouds took away the show.

All ready to pack up and call it a viewing, I turned away to hear the bellow of my companion through my parka hood, balaclava and toque - "I see it!!".

Then, turning quickly and grasping for a piece of sky that hosted a bright object that looked unnatural for an evening view, I saw a brights spot emerging from the clouds and resting placidly in a gap.

Rummaging for my bino's, I took off my gloves and allowed my fingers to go numb as I stood and gazed in awe at the sight through the magnified eyes. It was beautiful, and bright. I lowered my biono's and took it in with naked eyes, and was not let down. For the next five minutes I switched between my bino's, naked eye, and my companions telescope to witness this piece of astronomical history. Fingers dead with cold and beyond repair of consolation from my armpits and heated breath, I had to call it a night as the clouds one again took over the show and sheltered us from the comet. We quickly packed up, scrambled down the hillside and went our separate ways.

I have never experienced fingers so cold before in my whole life, and I sat there warming them up for a good 15min before I could feel them. However, that was not as graceful as I had hoped because once I could feel them I felt nothing but agonizing tingles and thumping pain. Pain, it seems, enjoys to stay. It stayed until I I got home, and even then it was a ragged attempt to keep them warm in my armpits, driving standard, in icy conditions, dodging logging trucks and trying to sing along with the Rheostatics (you have to have music to subdue the pain...ya gotta!).

Now, safely at home and assured that my fingers are not due to be chopped from the vices of frostbite, I am quite amused at my evening and more than satiated that I did get to see, through many lenses, the comet of the decade(s). Bring on summer astronomy!

Here, then, are the views we were greeted with as our eager retinas scanned for the ghostly bright spot of Comet McNaught...these are NOT of a comet, but rather of a glorious sunset. My fingers were far to cold to physically operate any device more complex than mittens or armpits. Pictures of the comet were nearly impossible. Digits too cold. Feet too cold. Face too cold. Head too cold (it is now shaved). Body achingly cold....but I saw it and I have the memories to chill my bones as I sleep.

peace, enjoy. This is the west of Prince George.

I am a Father

I now own a SeaMonkey...

Better said, I take care of a SeaMonkey (the only pet I know to come in a "just add water" package...no kidding).

-T

TAIWAN: XIV

And this is why we come to HeHuan - the mornings and the views.

A poisonous snake that I decided to get too close to...barefoot.

Sunrise.

Sunrise.

Sunrise.

Sunrise junkies.