The Squid Zone

Saludos desde la República Dominicana

The Squid is reporting in from Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic today!

Had to charge Beth´s iPod, so here I am at the internet café at 10 dollars (US) an hour entering a blog post.  This has, of course, removed me from beach time.  In any case, it appears to be working, so it is a 10 dollar lesson to remember to bring a charger with a USB connection on it.

It has been a good time so far.  I have learned a few things so far.

Most recently, for example, I have learned that a Spanish keyboard does not have an obvious dollar sign, despite there being one marked above the 4.

As you can imagine, the weather here is vastly superior to the weather at home.  It did rain for a few minutes a couple days ago, but for the most part it has been clear, 28 C give or take, with a sea breeze.  Bountiful bosoms bounce along the beach.  Unfortunately so too do gentlemen who should have better sense than to display themselves in banana hammocks.  Oh well, one´s hat can always be pulled over one´s head when necessary.

The food is decent.  This is a nice resort.  I´ll probably have more on that later with pictures when I can extract them from my camera... I hadn´t expected to end up in front of a computer until next week, so I didn´t bring the appropriate cabling.

Nights have generally been clear, although I haven´t had the binos out for stargazing yet (only beachgazing).

What happened?

It being 2010, I was immediately reminded of this:

Yes, sometime in the past, at least one forward thinker figured we'd have workable artificial intelligence by 1997 (1992 in the movies), have manned missions to Jupiter by nine years ago, and further exploration this year.

Kinda missed the space-ship on that one I guess.

All I want for Christmas is a new star!

I found this today over at Night Sky Girl's blog and it is very cool.  A new star has been discovered in the Big Dipper (aka, Ursa Major).

The Big Dipper is an easy constellation for star gazers... it's probably the first one we learn since the two stars that form the front of the "bowl" of the Dipper (Dubhe and Merak) are often referred to as "the pointers" since they lead the eye to Polaris, the North Star in the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper.  Ursa Major has been observed for milennia.

More correctly, the Big and Little Dippers are, respectively, the hind quarters of Ursa Major (the great bear) and Ursa Minor (the little bear).  Yes, the dippers are bear butts.  They are well observed constellations and all their stars have names.  In the Big Dipper the stars are:

credit: University of Wisconsin

Mizar, located second from the left is an interesting star.  To the naked eye (of most people), it appears as a single magnitude 1 star.  If you have very good eyes, Mizar separates into two stars - the brighter Mizar and the somewhat dimmer Alcor, separated by 12 arcminutes.  These stars orbit each other and are part of the same system.

But it gets better...  After the invention of the telescope, we learned that Mizar is itself a double star.  A small telescope reveals the companion, Mizar B, about 14 arcseconds away.  In a small telescope you can see these three stars easily as the dimmest is still magnitude 4 and would be visible to the naked eye if it wasn't so close to Mizar.

Recent discoveries have shown that both Mizar A and Mizar B are, in fact, double stars, but you'd need a big telescope to see that.  The two stars of Mizar A orbit each other as do the two stars of Mizar B.  The two pairs orbit each other, and Alcor orbits the whole thing in a grand celestial dance.

New observations, taken in March by astronomers at the Palomar Observatory in California, have discovered that Alcor is more than it seems.  A tiny red dwarf companion has been found orbiting Alcor, bringing the total number of stars in that system to 6.

credit: Night Sky Girl

You can see, in that picture, the black dot that is the shield blocking the bright light of Alcor, and the little glow of Alcor B in the lower right.  Alcor B has about 1/4 the mass of our sun and would be too dim to see with instruments accessible to hobbyists.  A new star (well, new to us, it's probably not that new in the grand scheme of things).

The Palomar Observatory has released information about this discovery.  Read about it here.

In 2012, nothing scarier than normal will happen.

There's a prediction that I make with confidence.  You can bank on that baby.  Or, if you're paranoid and dead-from-the-neck-up, you can follow this guy.

The Mayan calendar running out doesn't mean anything

In 2012, the Mayan calendar will roll over.  This is the same general effect as our calendar rolling over from 1999 to 2000.  In particular, the longest commonly used cycle measured by the Mayan calendar is a B'ak'tun, equivalent to 144000 days, or about 394 of our years.  In late 2012, the end of the current B'ak'tun (12) comes up.

So what happens at the end of the B'ak'tun?

Nothing.  They increment the B'ak'tun count by 1 (to 13 in this case), set the rest of it to zero and start counting all over again.  It is exactly like what happens when you go from 1999 to 2000.  The B'ak'tun isn't even the longest cycle in the Mayan calendar... there are four higher order cycles, each 20 times longer than the previous.  Thus, the Mayan calendar isn't "ending" in 2012.  It wouldn't end until 20*20*20*20*20*394.5 years (that's a long time, 1 260 800 000 years... longer than any of us have to worry about, although I'm sure Dick Clark will still be doing the Rockin' New Years show).  That really means that the roll-over is more like us rolling over from 2009 to 2010.

Something to Ponder

If the Mayan calendar was so good about predicting the end of the world, you'd think the Mayans would have been more prepared for the European invasion that pretty well wiped them out 500 years ago.  In fact, since 500 years is more than one B'ak'tun, it's worth noting that we've already passed the "end of the Mayan" calendar within recorded history (1617 or so) and nothing special happened then either.

What of the end of the world?

The doom-and-gloom predictions are made by what amount to death cultists and frauds.  The former want any excuse to hope for the end of the world, whether it's a magical battle like Armageddon, or UFOs to take the faithful to Nbiru and smite the infidels, or some other weird scenario involving the death of everyone or everyone but them.  The latter just want to separate stupid people from their money, and there's a lot more of them.  I think the last few lines of the news article I linked to above say it all:

So where will [Pinchbeck] be on the fateful day in 2012?

"I could be in a flying saucer, in a cave in Peru or on my roof in New York," he said. 

In fact, the ONLY thing anyone has to fear about 2012 is running into some crazy fool who is TRYING to bring about the end of the world in his own personal way.  I'd say that with the crazies coming out of the woodwork, there's probably a slightly higher chance of meeting some loonie with a firearm or a home-made gas bomb in late 2012.  I predict that some death cultists will commit a mass suicide near that time and we'll all say "what a shame."  I deliberately won't put bounds on "near" so my prediction will seem much more psychic.

So, in December 2012, near Christmas, have a cup of hot chocolate and think of the Mayans, who invented chocolate, not douchebaggy end-of-the-world crap.

Thanks to Eugen for finding the link to Mr. Pinchbeck.

If you think the moon landing was faked, you are an idiot

With the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the pubishing of photos of the moon landing sites taken from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the amateur radio event, I have encountered another wave of the weakest minds I've ever known to exist: Moon Landing Denialists. 

Now, at the best of times, conspiracy theorists come off as wackaloons.  Their reasoning is mostly illogical, or if it shows a thread of logic, it's almost always twisted and contorted to the breaking point.  They don't tend to be highly educated, although some certainly are.  But being educated and being smart aren't the same thing...  Indeed, I've noticed that there are even some participants in AMSAT (the amateur radio satellite organization) - people who benefit from the technology derived prior to and because of the moon landings - who are moon landing conspiracy yahoos

If you've been fortunate enough not to meet a moon landing denier, consider yourself fortunate - there are plenty of them, and their general belief is that the movie "Capricorn One" was a documentary... that the moon landings were faked by some unseen cabal for the benefit of the unwashed masses.

It really comes down to a single question:  Which of these two scenarios is more likely...

1. That, in 1969, and a few times thereafter, men walked on the moon; OR
2. That in 1969, and a few times thereafter, a grand conspiracy involving thousands of people and backed by the government of the United States perpetrated a hoax to make people think we walked on the moon.  They did this in the face of the well-funded competing governments of Russia, China, Cuba, and a host of others who would have benefitted greatly from seeing such a conspiracy exposed.  They managed to keep the secret for 40 years now (more really, because such a conspiracy would have required preparation) despite the fact that the US government can't keep even little secrets like "I went to Argentina to get a little hottie on the side" and "the cigar tube incident." They managed to convince everyone in spite of 40 years of critical analysis despite the fact that they've demonstrated they were unable to create so much as a semi-convincing lie about WMD in Iraq.  In all the years, none of the thousands of people involved have ever talked.  And, of course, the made up fake rocks, fake photos, fake everything and sent it around the world for people to see.

To me, moon landing deniers are the stupidest of the stupid.  There is a mountain of evidence that men have been to the moon. Here is a taste of some, debunking an abysmal Fox television program.  Deniers have never produced a shred of irrefutable evidence that people faked the moon landing or any part of the moon landing, and they've never been able to produce a sound refutation of any of the evidence that we have walked on the moon.  It is truly amazing that the delusion of a grand conspiracy can continue all these years after the fact.

So if you are a moon landing conspiracy type, please, never mention it around me.  I'll call you on it in any venue and I'll know you're an idiot.  Better yet, take all that energy you put into thinking of weird conspiracy fantasies and put it toward helping the poor and healing the sick instead.  Start by taking a course on basic logic.

40th Anniversary of the first man on the moon!

On 16 July, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched with three astronauts aboard.  Four days later, the lander would touchdown on the moon and Neil Armstrong would become the first man to set foot on another celestial body.  Like many of you, I watched this on TV on the night of 20 July, 1969.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of this event, my friends and I will be operating a special event call

(click image to enlarge)

from 14-27 July, 2009.  Our plan is to activate science, space, and aviation related sites during the event.  The stations we will use are QRV on all bands from 80m to 70cm.  Expected operation will be primarily digital modes (PSK, RTTY, Feld Hell, CW, SSTV) although there may be some phone operation - particularly on satellites.

There will be a QSL card for the event call.

Mars will not be as big as the full moon, EVER.

With the coming summer, the rumour is circulating again.  I've already received 3 copies of it in my email from various sources.

So let me spell it out for everyone, once and for all:

1. Mars has not, and will not ever within the lifetime of all humans, appear to be as large as the full moon.
2. Mars is not making its closest approach in <large number> of years.  That event took place.
3. The whole thing is a hoax, based on a factual, if poorly worded, internet circular from many years ago.

Explanation:

Point 1 - Mars has not, and will not ever within the lifetime of all humans, appear to be as large as the full moon.

The full moon is LARGE in the sky.  Its apparent size varies with its orbital anomaly (the relative position along its orbit).  As you might imagine, it appears largest when it is closest, and smallest when it is far away.  The change in size can be as much as 12%.  However, give or take that little bit, the full moon appears to be about 31 arc-minutes in diameter (a little more than half a degree).  An arc-minute is 1/60 of a degree, and 1/21600 of a circle.  For most people "31 arc-minutes" is a relatively useless measure, so let me put it in simpler terms... it's about 1/720 of a circle. 

How big is 1/720 of a circle?  To find this out, take a quarter from your change jar.  A Canadian 25-cent piece is 24mm in diameter.  If that 24mm was 1/720 of a circle, that would mean the circle is 17.28 metres around.  That would mean the circle had a radius of 2.75m

So, a quarter held up 2.75m away is about the size of the full moon, give or take.

How big is Mars?  It turns out that the next closest approach of Mars occurs on 27 Jan, 2010, when the Red Planet will be 99 million km from Earth.  It will have an apparent diameter of just over 14 arc-seconds in the sky.

An arc-second is 1/60 of an arc-minute, or 1/3600 of a degree or 1/1296000 of a circle.  It's a pretty tiny measure.  Mars, at its biggest that we will see between 2008 and 2011, will be only 14 / 1296000 of a circle.

How big is that?  Since you've currently got a quarter sitting 2.75 m away, we can use the same quarter.  The 24mm of the quarter is now 14/1296000 of the circle.  That means our circle has a circumference of 2.21 km!  Such a circle has a radius of just over 350 metres.  Mars, at its biggest that we will see between 2008 and 2011 will be the same apparent size as a quarter held 350 metres away.

In fact, for Mars to appear as large as the full moon, it would have to approach to something like 1 million km give or take.  That is never going to happen, and if, as a result of some horrible cosmic cataclysm it did happen, it would be bad.

Point 2 - Mars is not making its closest approach in <large number> of years.  That event took place.

In August of 2003, Mars and the Earth came into their closest approach that will occur for a bit less than 300 years.  That was six years ago, and Mars was, at that time 55.76 million km from Earth - about half what it will be at the Jan 2010 approach.  The August 2003 approach was the smallest distance between the two planets for the last 57500 years.  On 28 August, 2287, Mars will approach 70000 km closer than in 2003, although none of us will see it, AND IT STILL WILL NOT BE AS BIG AS THE FULL MOON... although the rumour will still be circulating, I'm sure.  In August 2050, Mars will approach to only 0.2 million km farther than in 2003, so many of us WILL get to see that again, looking about the same as it did in 2003.

How big did it look in 2003?  It was just over 25 arc-seconds.  Yell down to your man holding the quarter at 350 metres to move 152 metres toward you.  When he's holding the quarter at 198 metres away from you, and you'll see that quarter to be the same size Mars appeared in the sky at its closest approach in 2003.

Point 3 - The whole thing is a hoax, based on a factual, if poorly worded, internet circular from many years ago.

Yes, it is.

The original text of the message that people were circulating in 2003 said this:

At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye .

And that is correct for the time.  Tiny, little, red Mars when magnified 75x in a telescope will appear, IN THE TELESCOPE, to be as big as the full moon does TO THE NAKED EYE.  After that, a telephone game took over and the telescope requirement fell by the wayside.

The notification, once true back in 2003, now circulates... wandering the internet like some kind of electronic zombie, spreading disinformation wherever it goes.  If you get this the "Mars is going to be huge" chain letter, please do not forward it on, but feel free to reply to the sender with a link to this post.

The Cephalopodist Creation Story - Stars in the Sky

Here's the truth of it all...

Enjoy!

(by way of Pharyngula)

Teach the controversy: Students should learn Intelligent Falling Theory

We hear a lot in the news about various places trying to get scientists and teachers to uphold their academic philosophies regarding open expression of ideas and balanced views.  Biologists, in particular, use every legal means available to impose the teaching of Darwinism to the exclusion of all other ideas about the origin of Man.  Despite the status of Evolution as just a theory, the idea of Darwinism goes unchallenged by competing ideas - like the theory of Intelligent Design that spells how how the Christian God an unnamed intelligent super-architect created laid the framework of design for the whole universe right down to little bitty baby bunnies whose perfectly designed cuteness was intended by the architect to make you, yes you personally, happy.  The Darwinists are loud, but it's not just the field of biology where their oppression excludes the free discussion of ideas.

Indeed, physicists have, for years, promulgated the Theory of Gravity - Newtonism if you prefer.  Newton was a mathematician in the 18th century.  He happened to notice that apples fell from trees, and that things generally stick to the Earth (guess he hadn't heard of rockets and hot air balloons).  He constructed a set of rules.  Centuries later, Einstein would refine those rules, and the whole package is now what we call the Theory of Gravity.

But look at the name.  Just like Evilution, gravity is ONLY A THEORY.  That's right, it's not the fact of gravity, it's the THEORY of gravity.  Despite this, Newtonists and Einsteinists have managed to convince the educational establishment to teach this "theory" to the exclusion of all other explanations for the basic mechanics of why matter attracts matter.  Scientists cite "evidence" for gravity, but there are many gaps in the theory.

First off, their theory says that gravity is transmitted by waves and particles.  We're used to that, light is transmitted that way.  Unlike light, however, these scientists have been unable to find a gravity wave, nor a gravity particle.  So do they admit they're wrong?  NO.  They carry on happily hoping to deflect criticism and distract people away from the obvious reason why they can't detect gravity waves and particles: God does it.

That's right, every object in the universe moves according to God's plan.  Orbits are ellipses?  Of course they are.  The ellipse is a Divine Conic Section, and God's sense of divine aesthetics meant he used these ellipses for orbits.  This allowed us to learn about mathematics when we discovered the motion of celestial bodies.  Better still, he put some objects on parabolic and hyperbolic orbits, so we can learn more advanced math too.  God *COULD* have made things orbit in squares, but he didn't, just for us.  This is the Intelligent Orbit hypothesis.

Scientists also say that matter attracts matter due to gravity.  Again, this is magic - no mechanism has been found to make this attraction happen.  And frankly, I'm not all that attracted to some matter.  In any case,  there is a simple reason why we don't all fly off the planet: God made the Earth suck.  That's right, when Adam and Eve were tossed from the garden, God made the Earth suck.  Prior to that, everything was cuddles and smiles - snakes could talk, and Adam and Eve could fly around just by thinking about where they wanted to go.  But after the whole Tree of Knowledge incident, the Earth had to suck, and humans were stuck to the ground.  Now everything that goes up must eventually come down and it does so in a way planned by the Almighty Himself.

How does God keep us from being sucked off?  We know the moon sucks too because we've been there.  That's where divine power comes in.  There's no magical gravitons or mysterious waves (gravitons - sheesh, they call God's power "magic" and come up with gravitons)... God wills it to be so.  What greater power is there than His will?  You don't need magic when you have the power of God.  This is important.  How do scientists explain the mechanics of The Rapture?  They can't, that's how.  But since God can return each of his worshippers to a state of grace, the forgiven will be able to fly to Heaven just like we could before the fall.  Score a big one for Intelligent Falling.

The Divine Gravity hypothesis combined with Intelligent Orbiting forms the Theory of Intelligent Falling.  This is really a scientific theory backed by the evidence I've just summarized for you.  It's important that we get teachers all across North America to start teaching the controversy.  Intelligent Falling is a scientific theory full of multisyllabic words and all sorts of cool-sounding terms.  It even addresses gaps that Newtonism and Einsteinism can't explain.  For example, how does Newtonism explain the Coathanger Cluster?  How can you say that wasn't put there by divine will.  What evidence do you have to support that this was a random arrangement?  It's Intelligent Falling, my friend.

Here's the Theory of Intelligent Falling in point form for easy dissemination:

• Celestial objects usually orbit in conic sections (usually ellipses) because God wants us to see the beauty of the conic section and to be able to learn math.
• Matter doesn't attract matter - planets and stars just suck.
• What goes up must come down, space flight is evil and is an invention of Satan.
• Any flying is evil because God took away our power of flight after the fall.  That's why mosquitoes and wasps and all sorts of nasty stuff fly.

Call your school board now and demand academic freedom for your child!

For more information about intelligent falling and the crusade to alter science in the classroom, please see these resources.

Astrophotography... not tonight.

Argh.

I walked outside this evening and noticed that the constellation Orion was nicely placed where I could see the sword from my driveway.  This immediately made me think that I could stick my telescope out on the driveway and maybe test out my Nikon D80 on the Orion Nebula (M42).  I've photographed it before with other equipment, so I thought I could do a much better job with the spiffy (and vastly superior) camera.

What a trial that turned out to be.

Step 1: Find the telescope equipment.  The actual telescope and tripod are easy enough to find because they're large.  The telescope is actually stored in our kitchen where visitors regularly mistake it for some kind of coffee urn.  Mercifully, nobody has actually tried to make coffee in it, although the front lens should prevent coffee grinds from entering the main body of the telescope.  However, our stuff has been reorganized for various reasons lately, and my telescope equipment (oculars, filters, Barlows, etc.) was moved from either of its two usual spots: my office, or the more usual "back room" to the basement, under a blanket.  This required a half-hour search to uncover.  No huge deal other than intense irritation that something wasn't where it's supposed to be.  Orion moved to a better position anyway, but I noticed clouds to the east.  Not good.

Step 2: Power up the telescope.  Now for this, I use a car starter (like this one, although it's not from Canadian Tire, nor is it that model) which, conveniently is an excellent 12 volt power source.  I use a home-made cable to connect it to the power input on the telescope.  Sometime last year, the cigarette lighter adapter that cable used to have broke into shards, but that's not a problem because there are ways of connecting the loose leads to the jumper cables of the thing.  I plug it in to the telescope, and the plug at the telescope end breaks. Grrr.  Fortunately, the telescope will run on 8 AA cells, which I happened to have, so after futzing about for another 15 minutes, to get the batteries, remember how to open the nearly-unused battery compartment and wedge the batteries in there (it's harder than you might think) I got it powered up.

Step 3: Align the telescope.  My scope has a GPS mounted on it for alignment (mine is not mounted as in that picture).  The GPS gets the time, latitude and longitude, and then puts the scope into a 2-star alignment: it points in the general vicinity of a known star, you centre it in the view, and repeat.  This lets the computer figure out exactly where everything is.  Doing this is made MUCH easier because the telescope has a laser finder on it... but of course, at some point in the past, the laser finder has evidently been played with or bumped because the battery is totally dead.  I have replacement batteries but changing it outside in the cold and dark is a real PITA.  So I go at it the old-fashioned way: using the Mark I eyeball.  Some 30 minutes later I have it lined up on Rigel and Betelgeuse... less than optimal (it prefers stars that are about 90 degrees apart), but since I want to photograph in Orion anyway, it should get the job done.  It is during this process that I notice that the clouds are moving in... not good.

Step 4: Find the nebula.  That's pretty easy: grab the telescope's computer control and enter "Orion Nebula".  The awesome job of using only stars in the constellation Orion has the telescope slew right on to the nebula and needing only a gentle nudge on the control to have it right in the centre.  This is the first positive event of the evening.  The nebula is gorgeous in my telescope.  The Trapezium is easily resolved and it lights up the cloud beautifully in my 25mm ocular (magnification about 80x).  This was the high point of the evening.  Time to get the camera.

Step 5: Set up the camera.  Connecting the Nikon D80 to the telescope is not a particular challenge.  My T-ring is for a 1.25" back and I use 2" optics, but I have an adapter so that's not a problem.  Set the camera for 30 sec exposure at ASA 800 and look at the display to focus.  What's this?!  This camera, unlike my previous cameras, doesn't let you view/focus through the LCD display.  Ugh.  This began about 10 minutes of futzing around seeing if I could tease that functionality out of the camera.  No worries, it is an SLR, so I can focus through the viewfinder... the telescope is, after all, essentially a huge telephoto lens.   Unfortunately, now the fucking clouds have moved in and covered up the fucking nebula.  So I can't even look at the thing with my eyes, let alone photograph it.

Well, all my gear got to go outside and sit around the driveway for a while.  At least I had the foresight to actually look at the nebula with my eyes, so I got to see something cool and it wasn't a total wash.

Step 6: Haul everything back into the house... Just in time for Beth to return from skiing.  I was blocking her side of the driveway anyway.

Anyway, here's a picture of the nebula from the Hubble, since I failed abysmally tonight: