Christopher McKitterick's Blog, page 31
December 6, 2011
Squirrels are not well socialized.
There's this charming little squirrel I've named Spot (because he bears a light-colored spot on his back; clever, I know) who is not terribly afraid of people; in fact, when we toss seeds onto the back patio (in response to his begging), he doesn't run away but instead waits while his siblings dash off to safety. In fact, Spot seems as if he wants to come inside. Lately, I always close the garage door behind me when I enter.
This scene takes place several times a day: Spot climbs to the top of this fencepost, right outside the kitchen window, and looks cute and globular in an attempt to get more handouts. It usually works. Most often, he trundles up to the back door, a sliding-glass affair, and peers in as if to say, "Hungry out here. The seed is gone. More please!" When the dumb humans fail to heed his call, he finds other ways to get our attention, such as this. He also climbs the wall and gets on top of the back-yard floodlights, so as to reach eye-level and peer inside. "Ahem. Hungry!" Clever boy.
Because I'm an optimist and a fool, today I decided to try something new. Holding an almond in my outstretched fingers, I opened the patio door, knelt down, and made the universal tongue-smacking-feeding-time sound at Spot. He nervously hopped around, looking at me, at one point uttering a chittering sound with his teeth. I think it translates roughly as, "Stupid human. Just drop the almond and no one gets hurt!" Of course I didn't listen.
Eventually he decided to take the almond. Now, don't think Disney-princess interaction here, imagine something more along the lines of Cujo. Yup, charming little Spot leaped onto the back of my hand and then jumped away, skittering around a bit until coming to rest a foot or two away from my now-scratched-up hand. "Warned you, buddy. Now drop it."
I tossed him the almond and closed the door.
Moral of the story? In the immortal words of Guy Fleegman, "Of course they're cute now. But in a second they're going to turn mean and ugly somehow and then there are going to be a million more of them!"
Yeah, maybe I won't continue my efforts to hand-train ungrateful little Spot.
Chris
This scene takes place several times a day: Spot climbs to the top of this fencepost, right outside the kitchen window, and looks cute and globular in an attempt to get more handouts. It usually works. Most often, he trundles up to the back door, a sliding-glass affair, and peers in as if to say, "Hungry out here. The seed is gone. More please!" When the dumb humans fail to heed his call, he finds other ways to get our attention, such as this. He also climbs the wall and gets on top of the back-yard floodlights, so as to reach eye-level and peer inside. "Ahem. Hungry!" Clever boy.
Because I'm an optimist and a fool, today I decided to try something new. Holding an almond in my outstretched fingers, I opened the patio door, knelt down, and made the universal tongue-smacking-feeding-time sound at Spot. He nervously hopped around, looking at me, at one point uttering a chittering sound with his teeth. I think it translates roughly as, "Stupid human. Just drop the almond and no one gets hurt!" Of course I didn't listen.
Eventually he decided to take the almond. Now, don't think Disney-princess interaction here, imagine something more along the lines of Cujo. Yup, charming little Spot leaped onto the back of my hand and then jumped away, skittering around a bit until coming to rest a foot or two away from my now-scratched-up hand. "Warned you, buddy. Now drop it."
I tossed him the almond and closed the door.
Moral of the story? In the immortal words of Guy Fleegman, "Of course they're cute now. But in a second they're going to turn mean and ugly somehow and then there are going to be a million more of them!"
Yeah, maybe I won't continue my efforts to hand-train ungrateful little Spot.
Chris
November 28, 2011
Health and fitness update: How cars reflect ourselves.
Drove the hot-rod Newport to physical therapy today, on request of my therapist, self-diagnosed gearhead. I gave it a little rev or two in the lot right outside his window, and he loved it! When I left, he lifted his blinds to watch me drive away. Driving that machine always makes me smile, and it pleases me that it also entertains others. Speaking of which, here's a photo from the Newport's (and my) first car show, Rev It Up! here in Lawrence, KS, a few weeks ago:
[image error]
Look at that: Shorts! Today it's in the 20s F. Ah, Kansas weather, you are a fickle sonofagun.
Therapist Rob continued to work on the tendon stiffness in my elbow and gave me stretches to deal with growing abdominal/rib soreness - turns out it's just more tendon issues. I'm supposed to do backward and side stretches on the big ball after workouts on the punching bag or anything else that really works the abs.
He also gave me a rule of thumb for rest after a workout that causes muscle soreness: Wait 36 hours before repeating the exercise to allow the muscles to heal up and get stronger; that soreness is actually little tears in the muscle, and the body deposits new proteins to heal them, which makes 'em stronger. One can do light workouts or work other muscle groups the next day, but give a break to the sore muscles.
Oh, and to my question, "Why do I keep encountering this kind of tendon issue?" he said, "How old are you?" I told him, and he smiled.
"Guys like us who choose to stay active at our age just have to deal with discomfort like this," he said.
Hmph.
He went on: "You make the choice to live with tendon and muscle soreness or get diabetes and heart disease. I'd rather have the occasional ache than let my body fall apart and die young."
Word.
Which reminds me: I meant to take new fitness-tracking photos over the weekend, but alas. Next weekend.
Something just came to me: Perhaps one of the (subconscious?) reasons I get such pleasure from hot-rodding the Newport is that I transformed a not-so-special late-'60s vehicle into something much more powerful and spry than it ever was before... much as I'm doing my best to transform this late-'60s Middle American into the fittest I've ever been, too, to hell with age. Both of us can get a little creaky, but we can still show the young whippersnappers a thing or two. Hm. Something to ponder.
Hope you're doing well. Now I'm back to the (never-ending) grading. Who assigns them all this stuff? Oh, right.
Chris
[image error]
Look at that: Shorts! Today it's in the 20s F. Ah, Kansas weather, you are a fickle sonofagun.
Therapist Rob continued to work on the tendon stiffness in my elbow and gave me stretches to deal with growing abdominal/rib soreness - turns out it's just more tendon issues. I'm supposed to do backward and side stretches on the big ball after workouts on the punching bag or anything else that really works the abs.
He also gave me a rule of thumb for rest after a workout that causes muscle soreness: Wait 36 hours before repeating the exercise to allow the muscles to heal up and get stronger; that soreness is actually little tears in the muscle, and the body deposits new proteins to heal them, which makes 'em stronger. One can do light workouts or work other muscle groups the next day, but give a break to the sore muscles.
Oh, and to my question, "Why do I keep encountering this kind of tendon issue?" he said, "How old are you?" I told him, and he smiled.
"Guys like us who choose to stay active at our age just have to deal with discomfort like this," he said.
Hmph.
He went on: "You make the choice to live with tendon and muscle soreness or get diabetes and heart disease. I'd rather have the occasional ache than let my body fall apart and die young."
Word.
Which reminds me: I meant to take new fitness-tracking photos over the weekend, but alas. Next weekend.
Something just came to me: Perhaps one of the (subconscious?) reasons I get such pleasure from hot-rodding the Newport is that I transformed a not-so-special late-'60s vehicle into something much more powerful and spry than it ever was before... much as I'm doing my best to transform this late-'60s Middle American into the fittest I've ever been, too, to hell with age. Both of us can get a little creaky, but we can still show the young whippersnappers a thing or two. Hm. Something to ponder.
Hope you're doing well. Now I'm back to the (never-ending) grading. Who assigns them all this stuff? Oh, right.
Chris
November 27, 2011
Astro-Porn of the Day: Backyard astronomer photographs alien solar system!
WOW! Who needs a huge observatory instrument to take amazing astrophotos? Not Rolf Olsen of New Zealand, for one. Behold, the first amateur photo of a protoplanetary disc around another star:
Click the image to see Olsen's page about this project.
The dashed line indicates the plane of the solar-system disc, almost edge-on from our Earthly perspective. For comparison, here's an image of Beta Pictoris as taken by the professional observatory at Las Campanas (note that it's rotated 90° from Olsen's photo):
Click the image to see the Daily Mail story.
These photos show the protoplanetary disc of gas, dust, and rock orbiting the star Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years away from Earth. This very young solar system is only about 12 million years old and shows how our own Solar System looked 4.5 billion years ago.
For the last couple of years I have been wondering if it was possible for amateurs to capture this special target but have never come across any such images. The main difficulty is the overwhelming glare from Beta Pictoris itself which completely drowns out the dust disc that is circling very close to the star. Images of the disc taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and from big observatories, are usually made by physically blocking out the glare of Beta Pictoris itself within the optical path.
But recently I then found this 1993 paper, "Observation of the central part of the beta Pictoris disk with an anti-blooming CCD."
I then realised that it might not be entirely impossible to also record this object with my own equipment. I followed the technique described in the paper, which basically consists of imaging Beta and then taking another image of a similar reference star under the same conditions. The two images are subtracted from each other to eliminate the stellar glare, and the dust disc should then hopefully reveal itself.
First I collected 55 images of Beta Pictoris at 30 seconds each. The dust disc is most prominent in IR so ideally a better result would be expected with the use of an IR pass filter. Since I only have a traditional IR/UV block filter I just imaged without any filter, to at least get as much IR light through as possible.
Next step was to capture a similar image of a reference star under the same conditions. For this purpose I used Alpha Pictoris as the paper suggested. This star is of nearly the same spectral type (A7IV compared to Beta's A6V) and is also close enough to Beta in the sky so that the slight change in telescope orientation should not affect the diffaction pattern. However, since the two stars have different magnitudes I needed to calculate how long to expose Alpha for in order to get a similar image which I could subtract from the Beta image.
The magnitude difference between the stars is 3.86(Beta) - 3.30(Alpha) = 0.56
Due to the logarithmic nature of the magnitude scale we know that a difference of 1 magnitude equals a brightness ratio of 2.512. Therefore 2.512 to the power of the numerical magnitude difference then equals the variation in brightness.
2.512^0.56 = 1.67, so it appears Alpha is 1.67 times brighter than Beta. This means that exposure for Alpha should be 1/1.67 = 0.597x that of Beta. I took the liberty of using 0.6x for simplicity's sake... So I collected 55 images of 18 seconds (30 x 0.6) for Alpha.
Both sets of images were stacked separately in Registax and I then imported these into Photoshop, layered Alpha in "Difference" mode on top of Beta and flattened the result. This produces a very dark image (which it should!) apart from the different background stars. But after some curves adjustment I was able to see clear signs of the actual dust disc protruding on both sides from the glare of the star. I was very happy to conclude that the position angle with regards to the background stars matched the official images exactly.
This raw Difference image looked rather horrible though, so to produce a more natural looking result I took the original stacked Beta image and then blended in the central parts from the Difference image that showed the dust disc. I decided to also keep the black spot of the central glare from the Difference image since the contrast with the protruding disc seems better this way.
And that's it! Oh, and did I mention that Olsen only uses a 10" f/5 Newtonian telescope with a modified Philips ToUCam Pro webcam? Whoah. Oh, and he built the truss-tube setup himself. This guy is my hero:
Click the image to see the full description of the telescope and construction photos.
Let this be an inspiration to the budding astrophotographer in you!
Chris
Click the image to see Olsen's page about this project.
The dashed line indicates the plane of the solar-system disc, almost edge-on from our Earthly perspective. For comparison, here's an image of Beta Pictoris as taken by the professional observatory at Las Campanas (note that it's rotated 90° from Olsen's photo):
Click the image to see the Daily Mail story.
These photos show the protoplanetary disc of gas, dust, and rock orbiting the star Beta Pictoris, 63 light-years away from Earth. This very young solar system is only about 12 million years old and shows how our own Solar System looked 4.5 billion years ago.
For the last couple of years I have been wondering if it was possible for amateurs to capture this special target but have never come across any such images. The main difficulty is the overwhelming glare from Beta Pictoris itself which completely drowns out the dust disc that is circling very close to the star. Images of the disc taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and from big observatories, are usually made by physically blocking out the glare of Beta Pictoris itself within the optical path.
But recently I then found this 1993 paper, "Observation of the central part of the beta Pictoris disk with an anti-blooming CCD."
I then realised that it might not be entirely impossible to also record this object with my own equipment. I followed the technique described in the paper, which basically consists of imaging Beta and then taking another image of a similar reference star under the same conditions. The two images are subtracted from each other to eliminate the stellar glare, and the dust disc should then hopefully reveal itself.
First I collected 55 images of Beta Pictoris at 30 seconds each. The dust disc is most prominent in IR so ideally a better result would be expected with the use of an IR pass filter. Since I only have a traditional IR/UV block filter I just imaged without any filter, to at least get as much IR light through as possible.
Next step was to capture a similar image of a reference star under the same conditions. For this purpose I used Alpha Pictoris as the paper suggested. This star is of nearly the same spectral type (A7IV compared to Beta's A6V) and is also close enough to Beta in the sky so that the slight change in telescope orientation should not affect the diffaction pattern. However, since the two stars have different magnitudes I needed to calculate how long to expose Alpha for in order to get a similar image which I could subtract from the Beta image.
The magnitude difference between the stars is 3.86(Beta) - 3.30(Alpha) = 0.56
Due to the logarithmic nature of the magnitude scale we know that a difference of 1 magnitude equals a brightness ratio of 2.512. Therefore 2.512 to the power of the numerical magnitude difference then equals the variation in brightness.
2.512^0.56 = 1.67, so it appears Alpha is 1.67 times brighter than Beta. This means that exposure for Alpha should be 1/1.67 = 0.597x that of Beta. I took the liberty of using 0.6x for simplicity's sake... So I collected 55 images of 18 seconds (30 x 0.6) for Alpha.
Both sets of images were stacked separately in Registax and I then imported these into Photoshop, layered Alpha in "Difference" mode on top of Beta and flattened the result. This produces a very dark image (which it should!) apart from the different background stars. But after some curves adjustment I was able to see clear signs of the actual dust disc protruding on both sides from the glare of the star. I was very happy to conclude that the position angle with regards to the background stars matched the official images exactly.
This raw Difference image looked rather horrible though, so to produce a more natural looking result I took the original stacked Beta image and then blended in the central parts from the Difference image that showed the dust disc. I decided to also keep the black spot of the central glare from the Difference image since the contrast with the protruding disc seems better this way.
And that's it! Oh, and did I mention that Olsen only uses a 10" f/5 Newtonian telescope with a modified Philips ToUCam Pro webcam? Whoah. Oh, and he built the truss-tube setup himself. This guy is my hero:
Click the image to see the full description of the telescope and construction photos.
Let this be an inspiration to the budding astrophotographer in you!
Chris
November 23, 2011
Big speculative fiction ebook sale... incuding mine!
Hadley Rille Books, my publisher, is having a massive 6th Birthday sale right now!
You can buy many of their ebook (titles - including my novel, Transcendence - for just 99¢! This includes both the Nook edition and the Kindle edition.
This offer is good for a limited time only: ends November 29, so act fast!
Oh, and I'll let you in on a little secret: On Black Friday, watch for a print-book sale, too....
Happy Birthday, Hadley Rille Books!
Enjoy!
Best,
Chris
You can buy many of their ebook (titles - including my novel, Transcendence - for just 99¢! This includes both the Nook edition and the Kindle edition.
This offer is good for a limited time only: ends November 29, so act fast!
Oh, and I'll let you in on a little secret: On Black Friday, watch for a print-book sale, too....
Happy Birthday, Hadley Rille Books!
Enjoy!
Best,
Chris
November 16, 2011
Oh bountiful skies
The sky is filled with wonders and delights, treasures hidden in plain sight. How often have you walked outside on a clear night and forgotten to look up, then looking up, forgotten to imagine what lies beyond the thin veil of our visual acuity? Remembering to imagine, not taken a moment to immerse yourself? For all of us, too, too often!
Tonight I peered outside from the warmth of the living room out into the cold, up, and felt the sharp pricks of the stars, the bellowing yellow of Jupiter, the endless secrets of stars and galaxies and nebulae glowing in that corner of my memory's eye such that even fatigue from a long day's work and a mild flu could not stop me from hauling my telescope out beneath the dome of night and pointing my much-expanded eye in these treasures' direction.
First I visited Jupiter. Oh, Jupiter! Even to the naked eye you are the fiery beacon of the night! In the eyepiece you are glorious with bands and zones that burst with storms greater than the vastness of the Earth, roiling with swirls and whorls and other unforgotten amazements that will never cease to take my breath away no matter how many times I visit. Attended by your four beacon-squires who dance around you in hours or days, unblinking faux-stars: Oh, how you fill me with such joy!
Click the image to see NASA's Solar System Tour.
Next I swept my great eye across the sky without aim or direction, simply letting myself travel like a nomad among the stars, happening upon bright gold Aldebaran, Taurus' eye, among suns beyond count, tens or hundreds or thousands of light-years distant in space and time from our little Sol. The sensation of space-travel while slowly sliding one's enhanced view across the sky is breath-taking.
Next I pointed almost directly overhead at the first galaxy beyond the Milky Way that I ever visited as a young boy, the huge and nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Drenched in city light, I didn't expect to see much, but 12" of light-gathering power is 1400 times greater than the human eye, and dear Andromeda is so very bright, as is her companion galaxy, that they immediately leaped into view; she even blazed clearly visible in the little finder-scope.
Click the image to see a NASA page about M31.
I wanted to explore further and farther, but the night is cold and I don't feel well. Most important, though, this little sojourn among the stars had been enough to delight me and remind me of the joy and wonders waiting for us just beyond our mundane evenings. It also reminded me that only half an hour beneath the stars is enough to refill a flagging sense-of-wonder bottle. I'll go again, and soon, before the bottle is dry again!
Mostly I write now because I wanted to share this, to urge you to take a moment - it only takes a short time! - to sink into the wonder of the night sky. You do not need a telescope or even a binocular: All you need is your imagination and the space-nomad's love of traveling among the stars.
Chris
Tonight I peered outside from the warmth of the living room out into the cold, up, and felt the sharp pricks of the stars, the bellowing yellow of Jupiter, the endless secrets of stars and galaxies and nebulae glowing in that corner of my memory's eye such that even fatigue from a long day's work and a mild flu could not stop me from hauling my telescope out beneath the dome of night and pointing my much-expanded eye in these treasures' direction.
First I visited Jupiter. Oh, Jupiter! Even to the naked eye you are the fiery beacon of the night! In the eyepiece you are glorious with bands and zones that burst with storms greater than the vastness of the Earth, roiling with swirls and whorls and other unforgotten amazements that will never cease to take my breath away no matter how many times I visit. Attended by your four beacon-squires who dance around you in hours or days, unblinking faux-stars: Oh, how you fill me with such joy!
Click the image to see NASA's Solar System Tour.
Next I swept my great eye across the sky without aim or direction, simply letting myself travel like a nomad among the stars, happening upon bright gold Aldebaran, Taurus' eye, among suns beyond count, tens or hundreds or thousands of light-years distant in space and time from our little Sol. The sensation of space-travel while slowly sliding one's enhanced view across the sky is breath-taking.
Next I pointed almost directly overhead at the first galaxy beyond the Milky Way that I ever visited as a young boy, the huge and nearby Andromeda Galaxy. Drenched in city light, I didn't expect to see much, but 12" of light-gathering power is 1400 times greater than the human eye, and dear Andromeda is so very bright, as is her companion galaxy, that they immediately leaped into view; she even blazed clearly visible in the little finder-scope.
Click the image to see a NASA page about M31.
I wanted to explore further and farther, but the night is cold and I don't feel well. Most important, though, this little sojourn among the stars had been enough to delight me and remind me of the joy and wonders waiting for us just beyond our mundane evenings. It also reminded me that only half an hour beneath the stars is enough to refill a flagging sense-of-wonder bottle. I'll go again, and soon, before the bottle is dry again!
Mostly I write now because I wanted to share this, to urge you to take a moment - it only takes a short time! - to sink into the wonder of the night sky. You do not need a telescope or even a binocular: All you need is your imagination and the space-nomad's love of traveling among the stars.
Chris
Ten-squirrel party in the back yard.
A few minutes ago, ten (10!) squirrels were eating the seeds I put out this morning! This might be a new record. I didn't even know that many lived so close to the yard.
One was eating bird-seed out of the bird-feeder. Now, I love my squirrels, but the seed is also intended for the neighborhood bird population. We have Jays, Cardinals, Doves, and many varieties of Little Brown Birds. So I went outside to have a chat with the fellow in the feeder to encourage him to leave. Most of the other squirrels scattered when I opened the sliding-glass door; however, en route, one squirrel on the back patio refused to move more than a few steps out of my way. Brave little beggar - I think this is the one who stands at the door asking for dinner every day. Here's a before-shot of the party; Brave Dude is in the center-front, nearest the glass:
When I reached the garage, the bird-feeder squirrel just looked at me for a few seconds as I stood mere feet away. "Hey, little fellow, those are for the birds." *blink-blink*
Then he hopped to the ladder on the side of the garage (a foot or two farther away) and stared at me for a few more seconds until finally getting frustrated that I wasn't leaving. I went back inside to heat up some coffee. Minutes later? Yeah, back in the feeder. *sigh*
Just in case you missed 'em in the last photo, here is a visual aid. Note that three are not visible: one each to the right and left, and one in the fire-pit gnawing on dead Jack-O-Lanterns:
Every day is a party at Casa del McKitterick!
EDIT: Speaking of urban-wildlife fun, check out this amazing photo-filled post of my Dreamwidth friend Haruka hand-feeding chickadees. SRSLY!
Chris
One was eating bird-seed out of the bird-feeder. Now, I love my squirrels, but the seed is also intended for the neighborhood bird population. We have Jays, Cardinals, Doves, and many varieties of Little Brown Birds. So I went outside to have a chat with the fellow in the feeder to encourage him to leave. Most of the other squirrels scattered when I opened the sliding-glass door; however, en route, one squirrel on the back patio refused to move more than a few steps out of my way. Brave little beggar - I think this is the one who stands at the door asking for dinner every day. Here's a before-shot of the party; Brave Dude is in the center-front, nearest the glass:
When I reached the garage, the bird-feeder squirrel just looked at me for a few seconds as I stood mere feet away. "Hey, little fellow, those are for the birds." *blink-blink*
Then he hopped to the ladder on the side of the garage (a foot or two farther away) and stared at me for a few more seconds until finally getting frustrated that I wasn't leaving. I went back inside to heat up some coffee. Minutes later? Yeah, back in the feeder. *sigh*
Just in case you missed 'em in the last photo, here is a visual aid. Note that three are not visible: one each to the right and left, and one in the fire-pit gnawing on dead Jack-O-Lanterns:
Every day is a party at Casa del McKitterick!
EDIT: Speaking of urban-wildlife fun, check out this amazing photo-filled post of my Dreamwidth friend Haruka hand-feeding chickadees. SRSLY!
Chris
November 10, 2011
Massive Music Fest in Lawrence on 11/11/11
Hey, music fans: Lawrence, KS, will be the music hub of the world tomorrow. For just $15 (advance) or $20 day of show, you get to see this massive variety of bands spread across downtown Larryville:
Click the image to see more details on the KJHK website.
Even better, proceeds go to health care access and music in schools.
Chris
Click the image to see more details on the KJHK website.
Even better, proceeds go to health care access and music in schools.
Chris
November 7, 2011
Astro-Porn of the Day: Asteroid to Buzz Earth Tomorrow!
Tomorrow evening, aircraft-carrier-sized asteroid (Man, I love that size analogy!) 2005 YU55 will pass between the Earth and the Moon. Here's what it looks like:
Click the image to see the NASA page about this asteroid.
As the above Aricebo radio telescope image suggests, 2005 YU55 is approximately spherical. It also slowly spins with a rotation period of about 18 hours. The asteroid's surface is darker than charcoal at optical wavelengths, but because it's so big and will be so close, you should be able to see it using a telescope with an aperture of 6" or more. However, at its closest approach it'll be streaking across the sky at about 9° per hour; that's about the size of your fist held at arm's length, so even if you can find it, it'll slide across your eyepiece field of view pretty quickly. Because it's blazing along at 30,000 miles/hour, it'll go from a point source among the outer planets to something you can see in your little 'scope back to a point source among the inner planets in basically two days! Zoom!
If you really want to hunt down this micro-planet with your telescope, this JPL page has lots of useful information.
This is the closest that this Earth-grazer has passed for more than 200 years and the closest approach by such a big asteroid that we've ever known about... in advance, that is (hello, dinosaurs!). In fact, the next time an asteroid of similar size (that we know of) approaches this close to Earth is in 2028. Sadly for doomsday fans, though this asteroid passes within 0.84 of the Earth-Moon distance, it likely won't have any effect on Earthly tides or electronics or anything else, really. Unless, y'know, you happen to be en route to the Moon, in which case you could enjoy a lovely close encounter with this space beast.
Chris
Click the image to see the NASA page about this asteroid.
As the above Aricebo radio telescope image suggests, 2005 YU55 is approximately spherical. It also slowly spins with a rotation period of about 18 hours. The asteroid's surface is darker than charcoal at optical wavelengths, but because it's so big and will be so close, you should be able to see it using a telescope with an aperture of 6" or more. However, at its closest approach it'll be streaking across the sky at about 9° per hour; that's about the size of your fist held at arm's length, so even if you can find it, it'll slide across your eyepiece field of view pretty quickly. Because it's blazing along at 30,000 miles/hour, it'll go from a point source among the outer planets to something you can see in your little 'scope back to a point source among the inner planets in basically two days! Zoom!
If you really want to hunt down this micro-planet with your telescope, this JPL page has lots of useful information.
This is the closest that this Earth-grazer has passed for more than 200 years and the closest approach by such a big asteroid that we've ever known about... in advance, that is (hello, dinosaurs!). In fact, the next time an asteroid of similar size (that we know of) approaches this close to Earth is in 2028. Sadly for doomsday fans, though this asteroid passes within 0.84 of the Earth-Moon distance, it likely won't have any effect on Earthly tides or electronics or anything else, really. Unless, y'know, you happen to be en route to the Moon, in which case you could enjoy a lovely close encounter with this space beast.
Chris
October 31, 2011
Happy Halloween!
Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination.
Now I'm off to class - yes, in the face paint!
Chris
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination.
Now I'm off to class - yes, in the face paint!
Chris
October 28, 2011
"The Gothic Imagination" this coming Monday at KU
Hey, Lawrence-area folks, whatcha doing next Monday afternoon? Come to John C. Tibbetts' horror-themed book-release party! There'll be readings (from John, James Gunn, Ben Cartwright, and me), costumes, video snippets, and more! Oh, and you can get books signed, too. No cost (unless you buy a book, natch).
Hope to see you there!
Click the image to see the KU Bookstore page.
Best,
Chris
Hope to see you there!
Click the image to see the KU Bookstore page.
Best,
Chris
Christopher McKitterick's Blog
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