David Lee Summers's Blog, page 67

Practice Makes Perfect

I spent last week at Kitt Peak National Observatory assisting with the installation of the Dark Energy Spectrographic Instrument on the Mayall 4-meter Telescope. We spent a couple of months running the refurbished telescope through its paces on the sky with a simple commissioning camera and now it’s time to finish installing the complete instrument. As we get ready to install this complex array of 5000 robot-positioned fibers that feed ten spectrographs, I find myself thinking of the old saw...

LightSail 2 Launch

On Monday, The Planetary Society’s experimental solar sail, LightSail 2 is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. I’m a member of the society and one of this mission’s Kickstarter backers, so I’m really excited to see this mission getting underway.

[image error]Artist’s Concept of LightSail above the Earth, courtesy The Planetary Society

Currently, LightSail 2 is tucked into a package about the size of a loaf of bread called a CubeSat and this CubeSat sits inside a suitcase sized satellite call...

Godzilla vs Godzilla

This past weekend, my daughter took me to see the American film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters for Father’s Day. Earlier in the week, we watched the 2016 Japanese film Shin Godzilla. Afterwards, we had fun comparing and contrasting the two films. Since Shin Godzilla is something of a reboot, it might make more sense to compare the Japanese film to the 2014 American Godzilla, but King of the Monsters is the one that’s fresh in my memory and it is a direct sequel to the earlier film.

[image error]

As I und...

Fathers in Fact and Fiction

We’re celebrating Father’s Day a day early at my house. Tomorrow, I have to get on the road and drive to Arizona for a shift at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Alas, I didn’t get to sleep in. It’s the first day this break from work I’ve had a chance to catch up some yard work and I want to get that done before the summer heat reaches full intensity. That said, there will be a nice payoff tonight with a family barbecue.

[image error]

Father’s day feels especially poignant this year since I’m now the same...

Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers

Back in March, I shared a post about an animated space western I remember fondly called BraveStarr about a Native American marshal on the frontier world of New Texas and the band of desperadoes he had to cope with. Responding to that post, Deby Fredericks recommended another animated space western from about the same time called Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. I finally had a chance to watch a few episodes and I found it to be an interesting, albeit different take on the space western.

[image error]

Adv...

Taboo Tech

This past week, I had the opportunity to read Joy V. Smith’s latest novel, Taboo Tech. It tells the story of a young woman named Lacie Leigh Collier. Her parents seek out and try to understand old, dangerous, and forbidden technologies. As the novel opens, Lacie is graduating from primary school and preparing to move on to secondary school. Meanwhile, her parents have just found a lead on such a cache of taboo tech and leave her in the care of her uncle. If anything her uncle has an even grea...

Downtown Arts Ramble

On Friday, June 7, I’ll be at Zia Comics in Las Cruces, New Mexico from 5-7 pm, where I’ll be available to talk about my books and sign them as part of the Las Cruces Downtown Arts Ramble. The Downtown Art Ramble is held on the 1st Friday of every month.  As a self-guided tour, visitors get to explore the galleries, shops, businesses, and restaurants of Downtown Las Cruces. With refreshments and entertainment along the way, this event is a great Friday night out.

[image error]

At the event, I’ll be featu...

Setting Mini-Goals

Earlier this week, I received a question here at the Web Journal about how I manage to post so frequently. I gave an answer in the comments, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought a little more insight into my time management process might prove helpful to some people. What’s more, talking about goals seems timely with high school and college graduation season upon us. Of course most commencement speakers raising the subject of goals will likely talk about long-term career or per...

Seeing Daylight Once Again

As I write this, the DESI Commissioning Instrument run at the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory will be nearing completion. The Commissioning Instrument is an array of five digital cameras that view the sky through the telescope’s new optics. Once the Commissioning Instrument comes off, the actual DESI fibers and robot positioners will be assembled at the focal plane. This is a process that’s estimated to take about three months to complete. During that time, I’ll be...

Zion’s Fiction

About a year ago, a book arrived in the mail. It was right after I had finished some reading I had to do for some projects and right before I was scheduled to leave for my daughter’s graduation in New Orleans. The book went to the back of my desk and I’m afraid it disappeared behind other work that arrived after I returned from that trip. I recently uncovered the book, started reading and couldn’t put it down.

[image error]

The book is an anthology of Israeli science fiction stories called Zion’s Fiction,...