Michael Rogers' Star Talk Weblog

Michael Rogers' Star Talk Weblog
Astronomy, technology, small business, politics

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

News - Corn maze and astronomy observatory: http://www.maze-n-market.com/observatory.htm

Comment - An elaborate corn maze, plus they promote their on-site observatory with 10-inch and 12-inch Meade telescopes. That's some serious equipment! Too bad it's been so cloudy that no one has been able to get out and observe this month. I'll have to contact the owner and make sure he or she knows about our monthly astronomy club meetings at MSU.

News - It's been very cloudy, but I did get outside and observe a little bit last night in the backyard.

It was cold and I was only outside for a little while. I got some nice views of globular clusters in Aquarius and Pegasus. And I looked at M31, the Andromeda Galaxy: "Visible to the naked eye even under moderate conditions, this object was known as the "little cloud" to the Persian astronomer Abd-al-Rahman Al-Sufi, who described and depicted it in 964 AD in his Book of Fixed Stars: It must have been observed by and commonly known to Persian astronomers at Isfahan as early as 905 AD, or earlier."

Click here (http://user.mc.net/arf/m31.htm ) and look at the first picture at the top. That's close to what Andromeda looks like through an amateur telescope.

News - Computer program helps you "carve" a virtual jack-o-lantern that you can display on your computer: http://www.gnomedownloads.com/Desktop/EnhancementUtilities/jack.html

Comment - I thought the jack-o-lanterns at Dave and Beth's party looked great. But real pumpkins are smelly. Try a virtual pumpkin on your computer! This program lets you "choose from a variety of professionally created stencils, assemble creations using pre-made parts, or build designs from scratch using the virtual carving tools. Your creations come to life on your screen with animated candle flicker, sound effects and Halloween music. Sharing your creations is easy. Print your designs to use as carving stencils, send your digital creations to family and friends as e-mail postcards, or save your favorite creation as your desktop wallpaper."

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11:48:16 AM

		© Copyright 2002 Michael Rogers. Last update: 11/1/02; 1:58:29 PM.