Monday, July 31, 2017
Flyover Country
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a short video showing New Horizon's flyby of Pluto. Let's go back!
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Sky Show
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows auroral activity from the viewpoint of the International Space Station.
Friday, July 28, 2017
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Rich Summer
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day brings us the wonders of the Sagittarius skies pointing to the galactic center. This sort of thing is the best part of northern hemisphere summer skies.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Monument Arch
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the arch of the Milky Way over Monument Valley near the Arizona-Utah border. "Mouseover" the image in the link for a constellation and geology guide.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Drone
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the latest robot to find a home on the International Space Station.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Do Mighty Things
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows Buzz Aldrin deploying a solar wind experiment on July 20, 1969.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Satellite
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a image courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope showing Mars and a surprise visitor.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Roving Mars
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a MSL Curiosity image of Ireson Hill on Mars. The image is somewhat "compressed" (see below, courtesy of Jason Major).
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Monday, July 17, 2017
Shadowrun
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a short video showing the chase of Sun reflections and Moon shadows across Earth.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Under the Blood Red Moon
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a bloody Moon under a lightning sky. A ruined eclipse picture or an unexpected bonus?
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Big Red
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows an image of the Great Red Spot courtesy of the Juno orbiter. Holy heck.
Old Bach
‘Oh well,’ said Jack: and then, ‘Did you ever meet Bach?’
‘Which Bach?’
‘London Bach.’
‘Not I.’
‘I did. He wrote some pieces for my uncle Fisher, and his young man copied them out fair. But they were lost years and years ago, so last time I was in town I went to see whether I could find the originals: the young man has set up on his own, having inherited his master’s music-library. We searched through the papers – such a disorder you would hardly credit, and I had always supposed publishers were as neat as bees – we searched for hours, and no uncle’s pieces did we find. But the whole point is this: Bach had a father.’
‘Heavens, Jack, what things you tell me. Yet upon recollection I seem to have known other men in much the same case.’
‘And this father, this old Bach, you understand me, had written piles and piles of musical scores in the pantry.’
‘A whimsical place to compose in, perhaps; but then birds sing in trees, do they not? Why not antediluvian Germans in a pantry?’
‘I mean the piles were kept in the pantry. Mice and blackbeetles and cook-maids had played Old Harry with some cantatas and a vast great Passion according to St Mark, in High Dutch; but lower down all was well, and I brought away several pieces, ’cello for you, fiddle for me, and some for both together. It is strange stuff, fugues and suites of the last age, crabbed and knotted sometimes and not at all in the modern taste, but I do assure you, Stephen, there is meat in it. I have tried this partita in C a good many times, and the argument goes so deep, so close and deep, that I scarcely follow it yet, let alone make it sing. How I should love to hear it played really well – to hear Viotti dashing away.’
Stephen studied the ’cello suite in his hand, booming and humming sotto voce. ‘Tweedly-tweedly, tweedly tweedly, deedly deedly pom pom pom. Oh, this would call for the delicate hand of the world,’ he said. ‘Otherwise it would sound like boors dancing. Oh, the double-stopping . . . and how to bow it?’
‘Shall we make an attempt upon the D minor double sonata?’ said Jack, ‘and knit up the ravelled sleeve of care with sore labour’s bath?’
‘By all means,’ said Stephen. ‘A better way of dealing with a sleeve cannot be imagined.’
Neither had at any time been more than a fairly accomplished amateur: of recent years neither had had much leisure for practice, and various wounds (an American musket-ball in Jack’s case, a French interrogation in Stephen’s) had so slowed down their fingers that in places they were obliged to indicate the notes by hooting; and as they felt their way through the difficult sonata time after time they made the night so hideous that Killick’s indignation broke out at last and he said to the Captain’s cook, ‘There they go again, tweedly-deedly, tweedly-deedly, belly-aching the whole bleeding night, and the toasted cheese seizing on to their plates like goddam glue, which I dursen’t go in to fetch them; and never an honest tune from beginning to end.’
Perhaps there was not: but after a particularly difficult, severe and abstract passage the last movement ended with a triumphant summing-up and resolution that they could both play at first sight and that they repeated again and again; and the grave happiness of the music was still with Captain Aubrey when he walked on to his quarterdeck in the bright morning to see his stump topgallantmasts and their attendant royals come aboard, followed almost immediately by the Tamar’s barge bringing a score of glum but resigned and obviously competent Skates to the larboard side and by a Plymouth wherry with two pink-faced pink-faced young men, very carefully shaved, wearing identical uniforms, their best, and solemn expressions.
(Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission)
Friday, July 14, 2017
Small is Relative
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows NGC 4449, a "dwarf" galaxy working hard to produce new stars.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Globular
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows globular cluster Omega Centauri.
"This figure shows one of the most beautiful things in the sky—a globular star cluster. If one cannot see gravitation ating here, he has no soul!" (Richard Feynman)
Monday, July 10, 2017
Active Nucleus
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day examines the very active galaxy NGC 1512. What lies at the center?
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Emperor Strephon
An interview with game designer Marc W. Miller, known for his work on Traveller, the Europa series of wargames and many other titles.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Friday, July 7, 2017
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Shepherd Moons
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows three of Saturn's smaller moons: Atlas, Daphnis and Pan. Thank you, Cassini! We will miss you!
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Aphelion
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows our Sun rising at the point where we are the furthest from it (aphelion).
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Westerlund 2
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is a short video of celestial fireworks at cluster Westerlund 2.
Monday, July 3, 2017
Great Wall of Stars
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the Summer Triangle over the Great Wall of China. Behind: a veritable wall of stars in the Milky Way. "Mouseover" the image in the link for a guide.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Titans
A look at Star Trek: Planet of the Titans. Never heard of it? Well, after Star Trek, after the animated series, after Star Wars (remember that), an attempt was made to relaunch Star Trek. We had a movie. We had a series (Phase II). Then we had...a movie (Star Trek: The Motion Picture). It makes the road to Star Trek: Discovery look like a cakewalk. Images, above and below, by Ralph McQuarrie.
