Conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter, January 21, 2013

On Jan 21, the moon and Jupiter appeared near each other. I was looking through my photos today and discovered this one. You can see cloud bands of Jupiter and lunar detail in one photo. This event repeats on Feb 17, though the objects will be a little farther apart, but viewable in a pair of binoculars. I photographed this with a 3-inch telescope at prime focus, focal ration of f6.4.

This image shows Jupiter without any reduction in pixel size.

jg

Public Star Parties, February 2013

There are two star gazing events in February that are open to the general public.

Friday, February 15. 7:00 PM. Town Square Park, Murrieta
http://www.murrieta.org/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=171&TargetID=1
This event is conducted by the First Light Astronomy Club of Temecula High with assistance from the Temecula Valley Astronomers, and involves outdoor observing only. The start time is 7:00 pm. An end time hasn't been announced yet, but I expect that the event will last for two hours.

Tuesday, February 19. 6:00 -8:00 PM. The Murrieta Library, Murrieta
http://www.murrieta.org/news/displaynews.asp?NewsID=175&TargetID=1
A indoor show on astronomy tailored for children starts at 6:00 pm. Observing is between 6:30 - 8:00.

CORRECTION: The link above for the Murrieta Library star party mentions that there is a 60-person seating limit. This is not correct.  The event will accommodate more than 60 persons.

jg

Red Queen' Race

My first broken new year resolution: Get caught up on my reading. Though I failed on the big goal, I did manage to stay in place (like the Red Queen, running full speed to stay in place). Here are a few quotes from my recent reading that I want to remember.

From The Particle at the End of the Universe, by Sean Carroll, reporting of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy in 1969:

When asked if there were national security benefits to funding the multi-billion dollar Superconducting Super Collider, physicist Robert Wilson of Fermilab replied,

"It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending."

And second, this opinion article, Silencing the Science on Gun Research, from the Journal of the American Medical Association should be part of the national conversation on the topic of gun-related deaths:

"Injury prevention research can have real and lasting effects. Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans dying in motor vehicle crashes has decreased by 31%.1 Deaths from fires and drowning have been reduced even more, by 38% and 52%, respectively.1 This progress was achieved without banning automobiles, swimming pools, or matches. Instead, it came from translating research findings into effective interventions."

jg

Water droplets refracting the morning sun

On Dec 31, 2012, I observed the refraction of water droplets over my garage door.

You can see the drops, their shadows, and between them, curves like upside down sand dunes drawn by the refracted light. The rain drops also have comet-like tails (3rd picture).

jg

Skeptical Science Post: The Dirt on Climate

I posted an article on Skeptical Science:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/DirtOnClimate.html

My grandmother was always fascinated by knowing that a region in Northern China (the Chinese Loess Plateau) had similar geology and formation history as a region near her home. Both the Chinese Loess Plateau and the loess bluffs that gave Council Bluffs in western Iowa (USA) its name, were formed from windblown dust deposited during times of northern hemisphere glaciations. The Chinese Loess Plateau is exceptional in that Hao et al. (writing in Nature, 18 Oct. 2012) link dust size to weather systems whose strengths correlate to glacial and interglacial conditions. Therefore, they were able to use layers of loess to estimate the extent of previous interglacials.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of examining this research is the opportunity it presented to contact the authors. My summary on Skeptical Science was greatly enhanced by the contribution of photos from Qingzhen Hao of the region he studied.

jg

A bright and colorful picture of impending doom and gloom

As global warming heats the arctic faster than the rest of the
world, vast stores of methane and CO2 are likely to be released.
I've contributed an illustration to a post at www.skepticalscience.com
summarizing the mechanisms of greenhouse gas release from the
arctic. My diagram appears in Part 1 of the series:

Subcap Methane Feedbacks, Part 1

Humanity is getting a 2 for the cost of 1 deal on our greenhouse gas
emissions: because the oceans and terrestrial biosphere have been
absorbing half of our emissions, we incur half the environmental
cost of our energy use. Eventually, the ability of the oceans and
biosphere to absorb emissions may become saturated and even
reversed, so that these regions emit greenhouse gases, a process
that's starting in the Arctic.
jg

TEDx Temecula: Light Pollution

On Oct. 12, 2012, I participated in an independenly organized TEDx event in Temecula. My 12-minute talk on light pollution can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIZYTFUrhCY&feature=player_embedded

jg