Earlier this month (April 8, 2024), a total solar eclipse cut through Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Total solar eclipses are paramount spectacles. It’s unlikely you will see anything else in your short, pointless life that will match a total eclipse. Thus, whenever an eclipse passes nearby, you should endeavor to place yourself in … Continue reading The First Total Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century
Category: Astronomy
Sympathy for Ptolemaic Epicyclers
Histories of science tend to cast “old theory holdouts” as uncouth, backward, prejudiced, and stinky nitwits. If you don’t immediately jump on the shiny new science bandwagon you’re on the wrong side of history and doomed to a legacy of ridicule and disdain. Mind you, these just so histories fail to mention that most new … Continue reading Sympathy for Ptolemaic Epicyclers
Neowise Nostalgia
Comet Neowise is fading fast. For the last two weeks, I've been watching Neowise climb higher and higher in the early evening northwestern sky. Neowise was a welcome sight in this shit-storm (2020) year. Gazing at its diffuse tail takes your mind off the Wuhan Coronavirus1 and the global, mostly self-inflicted, economic clusterfuck it caused. … Continue reading Neowise Nostalgia
Who Thought Blinking Windfarms was a Good Idea?
Click here for a PDF version of this post. One night, a few weeks ago, I was driving west on I86 near American Falls when I spotted a long string of blinking red lights. The lights stretched over a large arc of the horizon. My first thought was “Jesus H. Christ now what?” As an … Continue reading Who Thought Blinking Windfarms was a Good Idea?
Don’t be a Weenie Launch Cassini
Future generations will remember Bill Clinton for two things, not having sex with that woman and authorizing the launch of Cassini. I was working in Dallas Texas in the months before Cassini's launch. It was 1997 and the Internet was just beginning to disrupt everyday life. Google was morphing from a thesis to a company … Continue reading Don’t be a Weenie Launch Cassini
Still Totally Awesome
The total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, was my fourth complete solar eclipse. I've seen two annular eclipses, 1994 and 2012, and two total eclipses, 2001 and 2017. Annular eclipses, or rings of fire, are worthy spectacles but nothing compares to a total solar eclipse. Some things have to be experienced to be fully … Continue reading Still Totally Awesome
Mauna Kea Morons on the March
There are two types of stories about major astronomical observatories. There are stories about new discoveries and observation technologies and then there are stories about how batshit crazy people are! Lately a rash of batshit crazy has broken out over the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. The ignorant press is casting … Continue reading Mauna Kea Morons on the March
Blood Morons
Here we go again; literal lunatics are, for the zillionth time, announcing the end of the world. What’s going to do us in this time? Would you believe the next four lunar eclipses? Starting tonight, an unusual, but not rare, sequence of four lunar eclipses begins. Some religious loons are claiming this so-called eclipse tetrad … Continue reading Blood Morons
John L. Dobson R.I.P.
At tonight’s meeting of the St. Louis Astronomical Society I learned of John Dobson’s recent death. John Dobson was widely known as the inventor of the homemade “Dobsonian” telescope and the co-founder of the Sidewalk Astronomers: perhaps the most famous and effective amateur astronomy outreach group in modern times. “Big Dob” light buckets are a … Continue reading John L. Dobson R.I.P.
Venus puts a period on our Time
I left work early yesterday to scoot down to Forest Park, one of St. Louis’s best city parks, and take in the transit of Venus. The St. Louis Astronomical Society conducted a public outreach event on the grounds of the World’s Fair Pavilion. The pavilion sits atop a small hill with a good view of … Continue reading Venus puts a period on our Time
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 