Dragonflies!

Central Texas got off easy this summer. The temperatures were relatively mild and we got enough rain for everything to stay green instead of turning to a dusty brown. Okay, so maybe at times we got too much rain... One of the side effects of this is an interesting change in the behavior of birds (the hummingbirds have hung around a lot longer this year) and in the insects, in particular the dragonflies. I've seen at least 5 different types this year and in higher numbers than in the past. I haven't had a lot of luck getting photos of them, but this magenta-colored one was nice enough to keep landing on my car antenna and holding still long enough for me to get some photos. Click above to go to the Flickr photoset (which I hope I'll be able to add to in the future!).

Storm photos from last week

We have had some spotty popcorn showers over the past couple of weeks, a lot of them coming from moisture sweeping up from the Gulf. By the time they get to central Texas, it's usually close to sunset, so we can get some really amazing skies in the evenings. I've added the most recent photos (including the one above) to my "Sunsets and Weather from Elgin" Flickr set linked through the photo. (The new photos are at the bottom of the set.)

Introducing...

Lara's Loose Threads

I was trying to figure out how to incorporate my needlework and quilting stuff into the re-worked version of my homepage and I realized that the answer was staring me in the face. A blog! There isn't a whole lot up over there yet, but I'll be posting more photos in the future.

Today's Best Spam Subject Line

Today's winner is: sandwich 376 fetishists - This one has a lot of comedic potential. I'm picturing 376 peanut butter and jelly fetishists being squeezed together.

Start of a semi-regular series "Best Spam Subject Line of the Day"

Between the four email accounts I use regularly, I get a lot of spam. While it annoys me greatly to have to spend so much time sorting through it to make sure that some real mail hasn't been caught in the filters, I've found that the subject lines can sometimes be quite amusing and sometimes even profound in an existentialist sort of way. Most of my amusement comes from the emails where they take two or three words and randomly pair them in the subject heading, but I do have to admit that I'm also getting a chuckle out of the fact that even the spammers are riding Harry Potter's robe-tails and now "enhancement" products are using "magic wand" as a euphemism for a certain part of male anatomy.

So here are some from today's haul of spam that made me grin:

Worldly tripod - this one actually kind of works for me. Makes me think of travel photography.

A pretty-pretty fly - What happens when an insect ends up in a supermodel's teleportation device.

Dirt-encrusted squid - What happens when you drop your calamari

A few photos from West Texas

I didn't get a chance to take a lot of photos when I was out in West Texas last month, but I did post the few that I did take over on my Flickr page. If you click the photo above, it will take you to the West Texas photo set, which also includes photos from when I was out in December 2003 (and has a lot more photos of actual telescopes!).

As you can see from the photos, it was the rainy season in West Texas. While that isn't great for using telescopes or having outdoor functions at a meeting, it does make for pretty green scenery and nice sunsets. The last night I was out there though was crystal clear and beautiful. I ended up not even looking through a telescope ... just sitting on a porch and looking at the Milky Way!

On travel for a few days

I just wanted to let folks know that I'm going to be traveling for work through Sunday, so I won't be answering emails or making blog posts in that time period. I'll have internet access, but I don't think I'll have a lot of time to deal with non-work stuff!

Cutty Sark

I was heartbroken to see the fire on the Cutty Sark this morning. The good news is that about 50% of the ship was away for restoration. The bad news is that right now the fire is being treated as "suspicious".

I've visited the ship twice, although I've never actually gone aboard for some silly reason. The picture above goes to the Greenwich set from my 2003 trip, which includes a few photos the ship.

Here's a link to an article at BBC News

And here is a link to the Cutty Sark Trust.

{cross-posted with the Tudor History blog}

More bragging on colleagues

We go from gigantic stars blowing up to finding the one of the oldest stars in the Galaxy! This time it is Anna Frebel, the William J. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow and her metal poor star HE 1523-0901. Yeah, it isn't the sexiest name for a star, but that's not what's important about it. Since Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy has already boiled down the science, I'll just link to his post.

Big-Badda-Boom!

I've got to brag on a couple of colleagues who were mentioned in the New York Times today. From the article:

In a cascade of superlatives that belies the traditional cerebral reserve of their profession, astronomers reported today that they had seen the brightest and most powerful stellar explosion ever recorded.

... Astronomers have been following the star since last September, when it was discovered in a galaxy 240 million light years away in the constellation Perseus by Robert Quimby, a University of Texas graduate student, who was using a small robotic telescope at McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Tex., to troll for supernovas. [note: one addition... Robert is a Post-Doctoral Fellow now, and still at UT]

... “The core is still composed of explosive oxygen,” explained Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas and another of the paper’s authors. “The oxygen ignites and blows the star to smithereens with no remnant, no black hole left.” [another note: Craig is also the current president of the American Astronomical Society]

The star up at the top of the page is Eta Carinae, which is mentioned in the article. It similar to the star that exploded, but much closer to home. If you click on the image it will take you to the press release from Hubble.