Carl Sagan

Ten years ago, we got the news that Carl Sagan had died of pneumonia, a side effect of his long battle with cancer. It felt almost like I had lost a friend, even though I had only once briefly been within two feet of him and had only been in the same room with him three times.

It's hard for me to make an eloquent summary of how Sagan impacted my life, so I'll just ramble about some of my favorite Carl Sagan books and shows.

I have had an interest in science, and astronomy in particular, for most of my life and "Cosmos" came along at a good time to nurture that. I remember seeing "Cosmos" when it was originally on (I was about 8 years old) and I still enjoy watching it today on TV and DVD. Even though some of the graphics have been updated, it is amazing how well the original information holds up after 25+ years. To this day I'm fascinated by Hypatia of Alexandria and her famous library because of that show. I kept hearing Sagan's voice the first time I saw the Rosetta stone at the British Museum, sounding out the letters of Ptolemy's name as he described how it was used to decipher Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. The cartoon of the evolution of life from single-celled organisms to us was my introduction to the topic. The Cosmic Calendar, with the Big Bang at January 1 and human life at the final minutes of December 31 first showed me the awe of deep time. And how many people my age first knew what a googol was because of this show and not because of a search engine with the same name (although a different spelling)?

I first read "Contact" when I was 14 years old and a freshman in high school. At the time I wasn't absolutely sure what I wanted to do with my life, and after a side-track of wanting to be an astronaut I ended up studying astronomy in college. I didn't end up going all the way to a PhD, but I did get my Bachelor's degree in astronomy and I still work in the field doing educational support and public outreach at the University of Texas.

My final semester in college, I took a brilliant class called "Pseudoscience and the Paranormal" taught by one of our Physics professors and shortly after, Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World" came along, which only strengthened and reinforced my ability to use my "skeptical toolbox". My favorite chapter is "The Dragon In My Garage". It precisely sums up the extent that people will go to hold on to beliefs. It reminds me of one of my favorite Sagan quotes: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". "Evidence" being the operative word.

It is hard to believe that it has been ten years since Sagan's death, and I wish he had lived longer to see the amazing developments in astronomy. But I'd like to think that he lives on in a way through the many people he has inspired over the years.

You can see other memories and thoughts on the life and work of Carl Sagan at Joel's Humanistic Blog at the Carl Sagan Memorial blog-a-thon.

The Beauty of Solar Burps

Part of my job is working with a solar telescope and talking about the sun with school kids, so I tend to keep up with solar activity. The sun has a roughly 11-year cycle where it goes from essentially no activity (meaning sunspots, flares, CMEs, etc.) to a bunch of activity and then back down to none. Right now we're at about the bottom, although activity is starting to creep back up and this week a large sunspot has produced several flares and CMEs. The cool thing about these eruptions is that when that energy impacts the Earth's atmosphere, it produces aurorae. Folks in more northerly areas are reporting and photographing some beautiful Northern Lights this week, and some have submitted the photos to the aurora gallery at one of my favorite websites, spaceweather.com.

Being in Texas, it is rare for us to see aurorae, but with particularly large explosions they can be seen. They are usually a red glow on the northern horizon (in my experience), not the rich variety of colors seen at more northern latitudes. Someday I'm going to be father north at the right time to see some!

The little movie at top is from the SOHO spacecraft, which monitors for solar activity everyday. This is the flare from December 14th and is at 195 Angstroms (the sun doesn't actually look green at that wavelength, it's just colored that way in the computer... that wavelength is in the ultraviolet and cannot be seen with the human eye).

Amazing Mars

You know, since I'm in astronomy for a living and there are all kinds of amazing images and discoveries coming in everyday, you'd think I would have been blogging about astronomy more. And since I love science in general, you'd think I'd be blogging about all science more too! Well, hopefully this post will be the first of many more to come of things that catch my eye.

Mars is currently being studied by five spacecraft, and until recently it was six (since Mars Global Surveyor seems to have gone bye-bye), so there has been no shortage of incredible images and science coming from the Red Planet recently. Of course, there was the water announcement last week, for starters. Then there are the rovers Spirit and Opportunity that keep on roving and sending back amazing pictures. And the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which has the highest resolution camera ever to photograph Mars onboard. Mars Odyssey is the fifth spacecraft for those keeping count.

The picture up top is the latest release from the Reconnaissance Orbiter. In addition to the incredible details and the interesting science from the image, it's just plain pretty to look at.

No dragons were harmed in the making of these sausages...

Or, in Monty Python parlance, Welsh Dragon sausages without so much dragon in them (or spam, for that matter).

From the BBC:

Trading standards said Black Mountains Smokery in Powys must also include the type of meat used in the sausages - pork - to meet labelling regulations. ... Jon Carthew said: "I don't think any of our customers actually believe that we use dragon meat in our sausages.

Full article

Texas Renaissance Festival

In the busy week and head cold that followed it, I forgot to post a link to the photos I took at the Renaissance Festival on Nov. 4. Click on the photo at the top to go to the Flickr set.

We had a good time, as always. I've been going to TRF for 20 years now and I've pretty much had every type of weather Texas can throw at you in October and November, except ice and snow (we got close one year at 35F and raining... I think it turned to sleet that night after we were home). This year was lovely... around 70 and partly cloudy.

I've taken my camera many times, but other than the first year I went, I think this is the largest number of photos I've taken. I guess I get sidetracked by shopping and music and forget the camera most of the time!

Busy day and not over yet... while coming down with a cold

Besides staying up way too long to watch election results last night, I have had a totally busy day today. Depending on where on you were, you may have been able to watch Mercury transit the sun. It's one of those types of astronomical events that some people find really neat and others can't figure out what the big deal is. In this case, Mercury is very small and it moves pretty slowly across the disk, but the alignment is fairly rare (the next one is 10 years away and the last one visible from Austin was in 1999). I've linked the above image to a photo I took of the image from our solar telescope at work. It's actually projecting against a wall, so it may look a little weird in places where the paint has chipped a little. All-in-all, it was a neat transit. Now I have the Venus transit of 2012 to look forward to!

And right now I'm sniffling my way through the night-time public viewing on our 16-inch telescope. It's a nice night and I've been clouded out for 4 weeks straight, so it's kind of nice to finally open up again. I just wish I didn't feel so terrible! The next few days at work should be slow (especially compared to today and the very busy few weeks I've had up to now), so hopefully I can take it easy...

Photos from the Air and Space Museums now up

Air & Space Dulles Photo Set

Air & Space Downtown Photo Set

The new Air and Space out at Dulles was absolutely wonderful for a space junkie like me. I also loved some of the old aircraft, especially the early Pan Am commercial airplane. Seeing the Enola Gay in one piece was neat too, since only half of it was in the American History Museum (I think...) 10 years ago, and the other have was getting restored at the Paul Garber facility. So, I have seen both halves separately and together now. Getting to see a space shuttle up close was pretty awesome too!

I had been to the downtown Air & Space nearly 10 years ago, but it was nice to get back there too. They had a new exhibit of the Wright Flyer and they have added the SpaceShip One - the first privately funded ship to go into space. I was also happy to get some better pictures of Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega, since the photos I took last time didn't come out very good and I was quite disappointed. I took lots and lots of photos, but I just chose a few to put up on Flickr since the world only needs so many photos of an SR-71...

Aaahhhhhhhhh

I love fall. No two ways about it, it's my favorite season although it's followed closely by spring and all the beautiful wildflowers it brings to Central Texas. I figure this comes from being a life-long Texan and when that first strong cold front of the season comes through and finally breaks the heat, it is such a welcome relief.

The first burst of Canadian cold air is working its way through town right now and it is finally starting to feel like fall in Texas. Now if we could just get some of those cool fall colors on the trees...

Washington DC Photoset up

I've put up a new Washington DC photoset over on Flickr of some of the photos I took when we were walking around DC a couple of weeks ago. If you like those, you might want to take a look at the photos from my last trip to Washington and Baltimore in 1997.

More new photosets coming soon!

Austin Area Quilt Guild 2006 Show and Photos

I went to the AAQG 2006 quilt show over the weekend. I only took pictures of some of the quilts that particularly caught my eye because I forgot to bring my larger compact flash card for my camera! Here's the Flickr photoset

Also over the weekend I finally finished stitching the binding on a quilt I have been working on for ages. I'll take some photos of my own stuff and get them up on the website eventually. :)