astro-stuff
Couldn't sleep so about 3:50 went out to uncover the telescope and take a look at Saturn. The scope worked fine: turn it on and punch in SELECT & SLEW > SOLAR SYSTEM > PLANETS > SATURN and it whirs in two axes and stops less than a degree away.
Not a great sky; only a few stars visible. Sometimes that's good for planets, the haze steadying the atmosphere, but you never know until you look. In this case, it was not so good. In the low-power wide-field eyepiece Saturn was a tiny pale cartoon with only one moon, Titan; I should be able to see four or five. At 200X you could tell Saturn was a little brighter than normal, but no dramatic sign of the storm that's currently taking place there.
I looked for a few minutes but didn't try any higher power, and there was not much else to see through the haze, so I came back in. Back to this discussion about Hemingway.
Maybe he needed a hobby, besides shooting animals and chasing women all over the world. As a young man he was an energetic naturalist, collecting and classifying, as I think many writers are. Did any writers continue that into adulthood? Steinbeck and his marine specimens. I don't know of any novelists besides myself and Arthur C. Clarke who peered through telescopes.
Though when we toured Hemingway's cottage outside of Havana, the Finca Vieja, I was excited to see that he had two books on his headboard/bookshelf that I would have had at the same time, mid-fifties: THE HANDBOOK OF THE HEAVENS and THE STARS FOR SAM, amateur astronomy handbooks.
The novel I'm reading now is HAVANA BAY, by Martin Cruz Smith, and it's a time trip. About twenty years ago Gay and I covered the same beat in and around Havana; it's fun to revisit the bars and nightlife. It hadn't changed that much since Hemingway's time. Sultry and mysterious, everywhere dark rum and sticky tropical fruits, heavy sweet cigar smoke. Ancient American and Russian cars held together with baling wire and beaten tin cans. Friendly charming people full of secrets. Love to go back. Nice if I could rent a new pancreas for the week. I'm not sure what Cuba would be like without alcohol.
It's five and I better get to work.
Joe
Not a great sky; only a few stars visible. Sometimes that's good for planets, the haze steadying the atmosphere, but you never know until you look. In this case, it was not so good. In the low-power wide-field eyepiece Saturn was a tiny pale cartoon with only one moon, Titan; I should be able to see four or five. At 200X you could tell Saturn was a little brighter than normal, but no dramatic sign of the storm that's currently taking place there.
I looked for a few minutes but didn't try any higher power, and there was not much else to see through the haze, so I came back in. Back to this discussion about Hemingway.
Maybe he needed a hobby, besides shooting animals and chasing women all over the world. As a young man he was an energetic naturalist, collecting and classifying, as I think many writers are. Did any writers continue that into adulthood? Steinbeck and his marine specimens. I don't know of any novelists besides myself and Arthur C. Clarke who peered through telescopes.
Though when we toured Hemingway's cottage outside of Havana, the Finca Vieja, I was excited to see that he had two books on his headboard/bookshelf that I would have had at the same time, mid-fifties: THE HANDBOOK OF THE HEAVENS and THE STARS FOR SAM, amateur astronomy handbooks.
The novel I'm reading now is HAVANA BAY, by Martin Cruz Smith, and it's a time trip. About twenty years ago Gay and I covered the same beat in and around Havana; it's fun to revisit the bars and nightlife. It hadn't changed that much since Hemingway's time. Sultry and mysterious, everywhere dark rum and sticky tropical fruits, heavy sweet cigar smoke. Ancient American and Russian cars held together with baling wire and beaten tin cans. Friendly charming people full of secrets. Love to go back. Nice if I could rent a new pancreas for the week. I'm not sure what Cuba would be like without alcohol.
It's five and I better get to work.
Joe
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