http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress If you aren't going to care about something, may as well not care about astronomy Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:48:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Hi, all. Been a long time! I'm starting my fourth year in grad school and beginning dissertation work. The end is within sight, after which I hope to return to some level of activity. I'm using what few brain cells are left to think up some new, crazy stuff. But ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/06/citizen-sky-a-different-type-of-citizen-science/ Doug and I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Dr. Evalyn Gates, Assistant Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. She studies white dwarfs (dwarves?), dark matter, cosmic strings, black holes and she recently wrote a book on gravitational lensing, Einstein’s Telescope: The Hunt for Dark ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/06/interview-evalyn-gates/ Astrometry is the process of measuring positions on the 2-D projection of the sky through imaging. So you take a picture of the sky, identify all of the stars against a known star catalog and then determine the position of some object(s) relative to that catalog. Pre-telescope astronomy was based ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/05/first-exoplanet-discovered-with-astrometry/ John Hearnshaw, as part of Cosmic Diary, has written a very nice article: Recollections of three great photometrists: Whitford, Eggen and Cousins. As a student and practitioner of modern astronomical photometry, it is very interesting to read up on my predecessors. I, too, have recollections of great photometrists, having spent time ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/05/nice-tribute/ Here is video of some of the people who worked on the mission to upgrade and repair Hubble as they watch it released from the space shuttle. From http://hubblesite.org/servicing_mission_4/ http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/05/hubble-team/ As you know, it is the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) as well as the 400th anniversary of the astronomical telescope. There is a very cool telescope that is part of these celebrations, the Galileoscope, and it is only $15 and takes just a few minutes to assemble. If you are ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/05/really-cool-galileo-telescope-for-15/ We have a new podcast on the feed. Doug interviews Peter Brookhouse about saving Australian observatories from bush fires. It is a fascinating interview that also touches on the horrific fires that killed so many people last year. Download or listen now! [podcast]http://www.slackerastronomy.org/shows/090512-sa.mp3[/podcast] http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/05/interview-peter-brookhouse/ Once the solid rocket boosters leave the space shuttle, they are pretty much forgotten about by most people. Until now. flickr user nasa1fan has posted a bunch of photos of the solid rocket boosters during their recovery at sea. Very cool lookin'. (picked this up from Dick's Rocket Dungeon) We have ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/04/splashdown/ In Part I we presented 2 interviews from Mike Simonsen of Simostronomy (and the AAVSO) from a conference he attended recently, Wild Stars in the Old West II . Mike has blogged extensively about this. In this episode we present 3 new interviews with professional astronomers about cataclysmic variable ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/04/podcast-simo-slacker-interviews-pt-ii/ The 100 Hours of Astronomy is going on right now! Go see what is near you! http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/04/the-100-hours-of-astronomy-is-right-now/ This just in, some guy wrote a web page, which is a way to present content on the Internet, a world-wide network of computers networks, and on that web page he made a list of the "Top 10 Astronomy and Space Weblogs". I have to say, we are in good ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/04/some-guy-says-we-are-the-5-astronomy-blog/ At last, we have another exciting episode of Slacker Astronomy. This episode is packed full of Slackery goodness including, but not limited to, the following: 2008 TC3 Mars Hubble 100 Hours of Astronomy Simostronomy Cataclysmic variable stars including an interview with Brad Schaefer and another interview with Steve Howell the ISS If you aren't smart enough to subscribe ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/03/podcast-simo-slacker-interviews-pt-i/ Eta Carinae is an enigma. Look it up, it totally is. And it doesn't look like that is going to change anytime soon! The image at right shows 3 cycles of the X-ray light curve. You can see the most recent event is quite different than previous events. We are ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/03/eta-car-still-an-enigma/ Today is Ada Lovelace Day, "an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology". People familiar with Slacker Astronomy have probably heard of Dr. Roberta Humphreys from my interviews with her. She is a professional astronomer at the University of Minnesota and she is a very well-connected ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/03/dr-roberta-humphreys/ We remodeled our basement and in preparation we boxed up a lot of stuff. The basement is finished now and the boxes are down there ready to be unpacked. One of them has all of my old beginning astronomy books in it and I opened it up last night ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/03/my-love-affair-with-astronomy/ I've cross-posted on to the feed our last two contributions to The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. This is a two-part series with Dr. Roberta Humphreys and Dr. Kris Davidson from the University of Minnesota. They are experts on massive stars, supernova imposters and Eta Carinae. Thus, these are the ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/03/massive-stars-part-1-and-2/ I have my telescope on the bench for repairs, so I am missing the Comet Lulin hubbub. I hope you are getting out and taking a look! We have some new podcasts in the works...check the feed soon for some new audio. Busy busy! M. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/03/seen-the-comet/ You live somewhere, yes? Chances are you live in a place that has a local government which has authority to create guidelines for activities within its jurisdiction. Where I live, these are called City Councils and lighting ordinances for new construction are within their purview. You, as their constituent, have more ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/02/model-lighting-ordinance-for-your-city/ I caught up with George Hrab at AAS in Long Beach. Here is our interview. George is a musician, skeptic, podcaster and The 365 Days of Astronomy theme song writer. It also includes a live extended version of The 365 Days of Astronomy theme song! Listen now! [podcast]http://www.slackerastronomy.org/shows/090125-sa.mp3[/podcast] This episode of Slacker Astronomy ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/interview-george-hrab/ Are you listening to The 365 Days of Astronomy? I am totally digging it. I listen almost every day and if I get behind I catch up, so I've listened to them all. Check out some of these titles: Armchair Astronauts Exploring the Solar System Five Years of Spirit on Mars Galileo Discovers ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/getting-your-daily-aural-astronomy/ OK, so it's totally off-topic, but I just want to wish Steve Jobs the best. He is an amazing man and I hope he licks whatever health problems he is dealing with. If Apple can't survive without Steve Jobs Apple can't survive. I hope Steve Jobs is at Apple for another ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/good-luck-steve/ Aaron and I got a chance to interview Dr. Michael Turner, the cosmologist who coined the term "dark energy". Dr. Turner shares his views on dark energy, cosmology and science in general in this 25 minute audio interview. Favorite quote: the description of the universe as The Clash of the Dark ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/dark-energy-with-dr-michael-turner/ Here at #aas in Long Beach there is a high density of astronomers, astro-bloggers, astro-podcasters and other minor stars of the astronomy world. Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 7th at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Long Beach, CA, USA, they will all be getting together from 6pm to 9pm with beers ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/astro-blog-caster-meetup-tomorrow-in-the-la-area/ There are a whole bunch of astro-blog-casters at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, CA. If you want the play-by-play, check out Astronomy Cast LIVE. You can also follow the action on Twitter. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/reporting-from-the-american-astronomical-society-meeting/ Scientists think they've found a smoking gun, linking a mass extinction 13,000 years ago with a comet: [A] team of scientists says it has found new evidence that a comet triggered [an] extinction ...13,000 years ago, when humans were around to witness the event and suffer its terrible consequences. The researchers also ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/killer-comet/ OK, enough talk, the International Year of Astronomy 2009 is finally here! If you haven't already, you should head over to http://365daysofastronomy.org/ and subscribe to the daily astronomy podcast. The first episode is on the feed with another scheduled to publish tomorrow, and so on, every day for the rest of ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2009/01/welcome-to-the-iya/ Doug interviews Ken Mogul, who has been using the Global Rent-a-Scope system to observe variable stars from his bed. Doug and I also discuss some random topics including some interesting papers on astro-ph. Here's some links from the interview: Global-Rent-a-Scope Grant Program for High-School Students Global-Rent-a-Scope AAVSO Mike Simonsen's Blog Astronomy Cast Important paper on Type II ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/12/interview-ken-mogul-on-using-global-rent-a-scope/ Hey. This is non-astro related so apologies for putting noise in your signal. I've started a new blog called: Two Eyes, 3D It's about stereoscopic vision and technology, what most people associated with "3D glasses". It's the center of my research interest in grad school. So if you are into that sort ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/12/a-new-post-slacker-blog/ The Office of Commercial Space Transportation, a division of the Federal Aviation Administration, has issued new regulations for amateur rocketry. The paper, Requirements for Amateur Rocket Activities Final Rule, December 4, 2008, is a bit long and dry but, from what I can tell, simplifies life for most amateur rocketeers. In ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/12/good-news-for-rocketeers/ Hey, all. Long time listener... first time caller (so it seems)... As listeners know, I like to critique poor astronomy press releases. Part of the problem stems from writers who base entire articles on those press releases, with doing no vetting on their own. Can you imagine if political writers did ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/12/props-where-props-are-due/ We've mentioned The 365 Days of Astronomy podcast -- they are trying to find eight (8) people to make a podcast for them in January. Do you like astronomy? You could make a nice little 5-10 minute podcast about astronomy and you'd probably enjoy doing it! Listen to the sample ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/11/make-an-astronomy-podcast/ Michael and Doug ramble through a random selection of topics including Mars Phoenix, Hubble and iPhone rockets. Then the main event -- a great interview with Dr. JJ Kavelaars about Kuiper Belt objects and specifically the discovery of 2008 KV42, "the first ever trans-neptunian object known to orbit backwards around ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/11/podcast-interview-jj-kavelaars-and-2008-kv42/ This really is big news and Phil sums it up beautifully. We have unequivocally imaged other planets. Most of us were born in a world where we knew of no other planets besides our solar system. Now we have pictures of them. Our children will grow up in a world ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/11/images-of-other-worlds/ iPhone Rocket Launch and Interview (from MobileOrchard.com) from Mobile Orchard on Vimeo. This is a little video from a project I've been working on. It's, um, kinda-sorta related to space and stuff? http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/11/the-iphone-rocket/ Eta Carinae is one of the most interesting stars that we know of. It has an annual a recurring "event" that occurs every 5.5 years and it just happens to be occurring right now. A lot is known about the event but much mystery remains. We know that there is ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/10/eta-car-does-its-thing/ We have a new podcast on the feed, recorded on lovely Nantucket island during the fall AAVSO meeting. Aaron, Doug and I have a casual chat about a myriad of astronomical topics. Then we join Doug Welch as he interviews his old friend Dr. Geoff Clayton, an expert on R ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/10/new-podcast-interview/ Stephen Hawking is retiring from his position as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. I hope he is doing OK. A friend in my local astronomy club forwarded along a list of all of the previous Lucasian Professors: * 1664 Isaac Barrow * 1669 Sir ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/10/stephen-hawking-to-leave-prestigious-position/ Fall is a great time to get outside and observe the stars with your naked eyes. The air is crisp. The bugs are gone. And now you have another reason -- the Great Worldwide Star Count From October 20 to November 3 (all dates 2008), go outside and see stars. ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/10/great-worldwide-star-count-oct-20-to-nov-3/ If you like astronomy and you like listening to podcasts then 2009 is going to be a very, very good year for you. Slacker Astronomy is going to be a strong supporter and contributor to The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast, the Daily Podcast of the IYA. The 365 Days ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/10/coming-soon-to-a-year-near-you/ We posted a new podcast to the feed a few days ago, full of fascinating insights, knee-slapping humor and Nobel-prize worthy oratory. You can't miss this episode! If you never listen to a podcast again in your life, it will be OK if you listen to this episode. This is ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/09/podcast-another-slacker-chat/ Oh noes! Hubble Space Telescope malfunctions, space shuttle repair mission uncertain, NASA says http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/09/hubble-hosed/ From xkcd. I wanted to post the cartoon in this post but they probably don't like that. The 46 billion year part is only off by a factor of 4 or so. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/09/the-universe-concise-and-illustrated/ We recorded a great show last Tuesday, which I would have posted by now except I had a hard drive fail in my Mac mini and the show was lost. I tried various data recovery options to no avail. I'm bummed -- it was a nice show with Doug, Aaron ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/09/the-lost-episode/ Check out the latest from Cassini: Cassini images reveal the existence of a faint arc of material orbiting with Saturn's small moon Anthe. The moon is moving downward and to the right in this perspective. In this image, most of the visible material in the arc lies ahead of Anthe (2 kilometers, ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/09/the-anthe-arc-is-pretty-cool/ Brief discussions about Sophia and the upcoming Hubble servicing mission from the AAS meeting in Saint Louis. Cameos by Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy) and Mike Simonson (AAVSO). Also available in MP4 format. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/09/video-sofia-and-hubble/ Andrew Fraknoi over at the ASP has put together a nice collection about women in astronomy. He describes it as "...a resource for those educators and students who wish to explore the challenges and triumphs of women [in astronomy] of the past and present." There are tons of really smart, really ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/08/astro-chicks/ It's been a while since we had a chit-chat show. Doug, Aaron, Travis and I had a chance to catch up recently and here it is, 49 minutes of fun. As usual, we did the show from 4 locations scattered over the US and Canada, so there are moments of ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/08/podcast-slacker-chat-with-doug-michael-aaron-and-travis/ Emily sums it up perfectly: The longer I listened to the "great planet debate" last week, the more strongly I felt that if it were up to me, I would define "planet" to mean "everything in the universe that's smaller than a star." The fact of the matter is, every time ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/08/what-is-a-planet/ The ecplising binary system Beta Lyrae has been imaged with interferometry. From the abstract: We present the first resolved images of the eclipsing binary Beta Lyrae, obtained with the CHARA Array interferometer and the MIRC combiner in the H band. The images clearly show the mass donor and the thick disk ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/08/eclipsing-binary-imaged/ Astronomers spend a lot of time and money getting telescopes with bigger apertures to try to collect more photons. The BIPH (Binocular Photon Machine) is a device which makes better use of the photons you do get, multiplying the signal 50,000 times, effectively tripling your aperture. Doug Welch and I interview ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/08/doug-baum-biph/ We have another interview up on the feed! Doug interviews Dr. Ethan Vishniac, a theoretical astrophysicist and editor-in-chief of The Astrophysical Journal, "a prestigious international journal founded in 1890 at the University of Chicago. Vishniac is only the third editor since its inception." ApJ, as it is known, is one of ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/interview-ethan-vishniac/ Well, we created a monster in Mike Simonsen, the AAVSO person who runs CVNet and Simostronomy. He has now created a very cool site which aggregates astronomy blogging, especially those blogs and posts which relate to stellar astrophysics and variables stars. It's called the AAVSO Writer's Bureau and the intent ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/variable-star-blogging/ (For the grammar nerds, my understanding is, if a proper name ends with an 's' you still put an apostrophe 's' after it. The only case where you put only the apostrophe after the 's' is when the word is plural e.g. "our clients' best interests".) I was going to write ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/polariss-pulsation/ I upgraded Wordpress and it screwed up the permalinks. I didn't like the format anyway so I have changed the permalink structure. This might create some problems for bookmarks and links from other sites. I'm going to fix that up when I get back home later this week. Thanks for ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/permalinks/ The right-hand column of the web site now includes a Donate button. We also recently added Google ads to the site. 100% of all income from these activities will be used to provide travel and technology opportunities for Slacker Astronomy so we can provide fun stuff for you to watch, ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/tip-jar/ http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/milky-way-galaxy-seeks-new-dwarf-companion/ The official trailer for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) in 2009 is out! Check it out on YouTube by clicking here. Let's just say that "The Dark Night" is opening in skies all over the planet! http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/official-trailer-for-iya-2009/ You've maybe heard of cataclysmic variable stars. They are binary systems where one of the stars is stealing material from the other star due to their close proximity. This material forms a pancake around the star called an accretion disk. We've never imaged one of these systems but we have ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/superhumping/ We have a new podcast on the feed featuring an interview with Ben Wiehe of WGBH on how he conducts science cafes. Subscribe to the feed or click below to listen. You can also watch the video of just the interview portion. Interview: Science Cafes (MP3, 14.5MB, 15:27, Show Notes) http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/interview-ben-wiehe-on-science-cafes/ The AAVSO has posted their Variable Star of the Season and this time around it's FG Sagittae, a star that has given us an opportunity to watch it evolve over human timescales, something very rare in stellar evolution. ...many papers have detailed the remarkable evolution of FG Sge from a ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/a-white-dwarf-in-the-making/ Here's your weekly astronomy and space science fix at Carnival of Space #61. I could not get my sh*t together this week but I'm hoping to contribute to future carnivals. Weekly is a daunting thing for slackers. Go read up and tell us what you think! http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/07/carnival-of-space/ Slacker Astronomy founder and Tufts grad student Aaron Price has won a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award for his poster on BZ UMa. I stopped by Aaron's poster at AAS in St. Louis and he explained the work he presented while I grabbed it on video. Here you go -- enjoy! Aaron Price ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/slacker-wins-award/ Hear ye, hear ye! Assembled here is the official Carnival of Space No. 60 wherein the written assemblage of the musings of many eminent natural philosophers are here provided for your amusement and betterment. In order of receipt by yours truly and in the own very words of the author, notwithstanding ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/carnival-of-space-no-60/ Looking out at the night sky, it is easy to believe that we've learned everything there is to know about the brightest stars. Fortunately, they keep surprising us! A delightful paper has just appeared on the astro-ph preprint server which combines many elements of a great story. Regulus is the 22nd ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/regulus-just-when-you-think-you-know-a-star/ Hey, bloggers, writers and astronomy/space enthusiasts! We're hosting the next Carnival of Space right here at Slacker Astronomy. Here's Fraser's standard blurb: If you've got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/space-out/ We bring you another fascinating cosmology interview with a genius over at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. This time we speak to Juan Collar, a name that I am, apparently, incapable of saying. He leads a group at Kavli which is pursuing several experimental approaches to detecting dark matter ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/interview-juan-collar-and-detecting-dark-matter/ Here is a short interview with Susana Deustua of the Space Telescope Science Institute about the International Year of Astronomy, with a brief cameo by Mike Simonson of the AAVSO. I caught them at the opening reception of the American Astronomical Society meeting in St. Louis. Interview: Susana Deustua of the ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/interview-susana-deustua/ I don't know if you noticed that Slacker Astronomy does not have advertising. We did have a sponsor or two in the early days. But the web site is entirely devoid of ads and we do no advertising in the more recent podcasts. What do you think of this? We are entering ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/not-ad-supported/ I had heard of Chris Lintott but I didn't really know why. It turns out he is an astronomical celebrity in the UK due to his work on The Sky At Night. He is also one of the main people behind the very clever crowdsourcing project called Galaxy Zoo. To the ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/chris-lintott/ Mike Simonson is a friend of mine and he is the creator of CVnet, a web site and email list that discusses cataclysmic variable stars. He's also an avid amateur observer and has been a great supporter of the AAVSO. In fact, he was recently hired by the AAVSO to ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/simostronomy-an-astronomy-blog-is-born/ Our friends Pamela Gay, Nancy Atkinson and Phil Plait have all the latest from this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Saint Louis. I have a whole bunch of great video that I'll be uploading in the next few days or weeks as well. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/aas-updates-at-astronomy-cast/ Here is a short interview with Rick Fienberg of Sky and Telescope magazine. I edited this and added some nice Slacker graphics but the new iMovie sucks and I couldn't get it to export properly. So this is the raw footage, taken at the American Astronomical Society meeting in St. ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/interview-rick-fienberg-of-sky-and-telescope/ There is a cool documentary coming out called 400 Years of the Telescope. We saw a preview of the trailer last night and it looked very nicely done. In addition, they had a special Sierra Nevada beer called Galileo's Astronomical Ale. It was quite good! http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/400-years-of-the-telescope-beer/ Hi. I just came back from the astro-drinking-blogger meetup. It was a lot of fun. With apologies to the people my brain is too dim to name individually, there was a very nice group of people there including Phil, Pamela, Chris, Sean, Nick and Nancy. I've had a couple of beers, if ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/the-life-astronomy-improves/ From AAS in St. Louis. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/iya-new-media-overview/ This is a walk through Pamela Gay's very lovely house during a party she threw for astronomers in town for the AAS meeting. Who can you spot? http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/06/astro-bbq-at-pamelas/ I've been informed that there will be some serious astronomy blogger congregation in St. Louis, MO. Phil "Bad Astrology" Plait will be there along with Pamela Gay and some other people I haven't met but are soon to be my friends for life. Like you! So limber up your pint lifting ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/astro-drinking-in-st-louis/ Slacker Astronomy has been delinquent in promoting the Carnival of Space. I've always been a little wary of the word "space". It's a really odd and not that useful word to explain the universe beyond our little planet here. But people use the word "space" and we all know what ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/carnival-of-space-no-56/ We have a new podcast on the feed. Doug and I discuss the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory, supernovae light echos and buying a star. Check out the show notes for more details. Ice Cube (MP3, 23.4MB, 25:27) http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/podcast-ice-cube-neutrino-observatory/ Slackerpedes, I upgraded the wiki software that runs Slackerpedia Galactica. Everything seems to be working OK. We had problems before where people couldn't register as new users. I just tested that and it seems to work fine. Let me know if you have a different experience. Let me say, the Slackerpedia Galactica ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/slackerpedia-galactica-update/ Hey, all. Please forgive me for this non-astronomy interlude. Our old friend (and Slacker Astronomy cofounder) Travis Searle has some exciting news and needs your help. His band is going to be on a local Boston reality/talent show and he needs your vote. Travis is the vocalist/keyboardist. Even if you ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/support-an-old-friend/ Special Correspondent Julie Wilbert brings us a podcast report on light pollution with members of the Minnesota Astronomical Society. Light Pollution (MP3, 17.2MB, 18:40) Subscribe! http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/podcast-light-pollution/ Stuart over at Astronomy Blog tackles and tackles again the reasons why you should not pay to "name a star" for yourself or a loved one. While it can be heartfelt to want to memorialize someone by naming a star, you can do that without sending a check to shady ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/astronomy-blog-reminds-us-dont-name-a-star/ Here is a nice video from the KQED QUEST Science Video Podcast called Amateur Astronomers. It features John Dobson, Timothy Ferris and many others. Looks like a pretty cool podcast in general. http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/05/amateur-astronomers-from-kqed/ I posted this to the feed a while ago. It's a short-ish podcast which discusses the history of Slacker Astronomy with Aaron Price, the founder of Slacker Astronomy, and includes random musings by yours truly about the future of the podcast/blog. I marked this explicit in iTunes because I use ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/04/whatever-the-hell-is-slacker-astronomy/ Our own Doug Welch wrote a very nice article in the latest issue of Sky and Telescope called "How to Hunt for Supernova Fossils in the Milky Way". I can't find a link to the article itself but S&T has a post about the article. It's really cool stuff -- an ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/04/doug-shows-us-the-light/ I'm taking a class on Differential Equations. These are hard to explain but I'm going to give it a try. To do so I am going to try to explain differential calculus in a nutshell. Your driving down the road in an automobile. You have an odometer in the car which ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/04/differential-equations/ We've had a report that our comments weren't working on this blog. I tested it and it worked OK for me. Can you please try to comment and/or email us at info@slackerastronomy.org if you have problems? Thank you! We have a new show in the works. Michael http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/04/please-comment/ It pains me deep in my heart that I am not on my way to the joint AAVSO/BAA meeting in Cambridge, England. I believe our good friends Doug and Pamela are both there. I have been a loyal AAVSO member for quite a few years now and I have been ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/04/not-in-cambridge/ We have a new show! Doug and I had a great chat with Brant Robertson, who is a Spitzer Fellow doing research at The Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. Brant is a theoretical astrophysicist involved with computer simulations of the evolution of galaxies. Check this sh!t out: Credit: Brant Robertson, Spitzer ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/03/podcast-interview-with-brant-robertson/ Phil "The Bad Astronomer" Plait has a nice article on new results from Cassini. Coupled together, these two items indicate that if there is an ocean beneath the frozen crust of the moon, then it’s reasonably warm, and rich in organic compounds. We don’t know how life started on Earth, ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/03/enceladus-has-gas/ The folks at the Pi in the Sky project imaged a recent gamma-ray burst and it looks like it got bright enough to be seen by the unaided eye. It looks like it would have been visible for only 10-20 seconds and it would have been about as bright as ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/03/naked-eye-gamma-ray-burst/ This is really cool: The North Polar Region of Enceladus http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/03/high-rez-enceladus/ Every year, the Globe at Night project asks people around the world to get outside and observe the constellation Orion. Report your location and which of the charts best matches what you saw. This is a great slacker project. It doesn't take much time or any tools. You can do it ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/03/avoid-the-light-do-globe-at-night/ I've always wanted to take a shot of the moon during a total eclipse because it is the only time you can get stars in the background. Usually the moon is so bright that it drowns out all the stars. So I snapped a few photos tonight with my wife's digital ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/02/lunar-eclipse-2008/ I loved Merit-bound Alley's post title so much that I just stole it entirely. So you owe it to Joe over there to go read his post: Angry gods to eat moon tomorrow. And then get out and experience the eclipse tomorrow! http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/02/angry-gods-to-eat-moon-tomorrow/ Thomas F. Droege, founder of The Amateur Sky Survey (TASS), died on Monday, February 4th, 2008. He had been battling cancer. Tom was a unique character and TASS was a project I got involved in early in my amateur astronomy days. He was recently awarded an honorary lifetime membership to the ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/02/amateur-sky-survey-founder-dies/ Check out CASSIE (Cassini at Saturn Interactive Explorer). It uses some weird plugin but once installed you can zoom around the Cassini timeline and watch the view from the spacecraft. (Thanks Ben!) http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/02/cassini-eye-view-of-saturn/ Via Cosmic Log: Ten years after supernovae provided the first evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, a survey of more than 10,000 galaxies has provided independent confirmation that the cosmic speed-up factor known as dark energy is for real. Cosmic Log provides a very nice analysis of this press ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/01/the-acceleration-of-the-expansion-of-the-universe-confirmed/ The Keck Interferometer combines light very carefully from the two 10m Keck telescope to do super high resolution imaging. They can run the interferometer in "nulling" mode to remove the effects of bright stars and study the much dimmer surrounding areas. It's complicated stuff but it looks like the technique ... http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/2008/01/keck-images-dust-around-nova-rs-oph/