THE DOG HOUSE

The first time I got put into the Dog House, you know, when either the Mrs. kicks you out,or things have got so out of hand that she leaves herself, I saw a most amazing thing.
I was in my backyard, about 4A.M., doing what she told me to do, just thinkin' things over.
Orion was rising, along with the sparkling dancing Sirius, and it was an especially clear night. I had tired of looking up and was now studying the last of the green grass of summer.
Suddenly, I could see my shadow on the ground, and it seemed that the Pine tree lit up with some Celestial Illumination.
I quickly looked up and saw the most magnificient Meteor I had ever seen! It was directly overhead and it seemed as though it was in slow motion as it burned a trail all the way to the horizon, the great ball leaving a trail of sparks behind. As I mouthed silently "WOW" I discovered the event was not over yet....in the next ten seconds I actually heard it crackle!

Anyway, I told the Mrs. the next day that I wasn't going anywhere....but if she felt like she needed to she could leave.
She stayed.

About a year later I was back in the Doghouse and it was 4A.M. This time I was at a friends house in his backyard.
A sudden glow, a look up and another spectacular trail followed by a crackle, like an egg frying, or the sound on the 4th of July of very distant fireworks.
Two times in my life I have seen a Meteor large enough to even be able to hear it and both times I was in a lotta trouble.
Anyway, the next day I told the Mrs. that if she wanted to leave she could if thats what she thought she should do, but she already had my bags packed.
Thats when you are all the way out of the Doghouse.
I knew I wouldn't be coming back; that is to say, she wouldn't be asking me back. I knew that when I saw that Meteor.

American Indians say that a Meteor is a sign of bad times to come.
We all have our Meteors I suppose.

PLANET CARAVAN

We sail through endless skies
Stars shine like eyes
The black night sighs
The moon in silver trees
Falls down in tears
Light of the night
The earth, a purple blaze
Of sapphire haze
In orbit always

While down below the trees
Bathed in cool breeze
Silver starlight
breaks down the night
And so we pass on by
the crimson eye
Of great God mars
As we travel the universe
Black Sabbath


Cliffs near the northern polar region of Mars as taken by ESA's (European Space Agency) Mars Express. Clearly visible in this enhanced photograph are ice, red rock, and sand. The darker colored regions are believed to be Volcanic ash.

For more about this photo and Mars Express...click here







I remember Dad showing me the "Man in the Moon when I was 4 years old and telling him I couldn't see a man but the was definitly a Rabbit up there.
Like most kids, I was fascinated by space and planets and the man in the moon.
In the 8th grade I was President of the Rocket club.
I wasn't geeky enough to be NASA material...that is to say I was not studious or smart enough, and Math held no big attraction.



My best friend Scott and I would get together and each build a Rocket every Friday night, staying up till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, riding our bikes up nto the 7-11 and getting an Apple Beer at 3:30.
It was while building those rockets in the deep watches of the night that I caught on to Rock and Roll and the Beatles.
Then we would oversleep till 7 or 8:00, having hoped to be up at 6:00, taking our launch pads and rockets and engines up to the School.





Anyway, I am still fascinated by the Universe. I have a very good Astronomy book that has fairly simple and basic explanations of the physical Laws that govern our universe and all that is in it.
I watched Barbara Morgan and the Space Shuttle "Endeavor" launch last week, beginning the completion of the mission that Christa McCollough began 22 years ago.
We, and all the wide eyed youngsters at last have a Teacher in orbit and involved "hands on" in space, working alongside some very smart people on the Space Station.



Mars has always been a source of intrigue and fascination. It is currently the only planet in the Solar System on which there is a strong possibility of finding life - past, or perhaps present. It is a prime candidate for future manned exploration, and even colonization.
I believe that this will happen.

NASA currently has two rovers on Mars. They have been in operation since January 2004.
The two rockets that took them there were launched 20 days apart. It took them each 6 months to arrive in orbit around Mars.
I remember doing the math at the time...Mars was 53 Million miles away at launch and traveling at 18,000 MPH it didn't quite add up...these spacecraft would be traveling 77 million miles, not 53 million.
Then I realized that since the Earth and Mars are both moving, they would have to travel more than 53 million miles because of that movement.
The level of difficulty was compared to hitting a golf ball in Los Angeles and hitting a coffee cup that was in motion in New York City.
The rockets carried a couple of remote control Dune Buggys called Rovers and like my old boat, they had a lot of High Tech equipment in them. Unlike my old boat, they are able to transmit data back from the surface of Mars.

What I find extremely remarkable is that the estimated life span for the two rovers was 3 months...and they have now been in operation for three and a half years!!! For the last several weeks they have been in danger from dust storms that keep the solar panels from providing power but as of 8/24 they are back in business!
The Spirit and Opportunity rovers were named through a student essay competition.
The winning entry was by Sofi Collis, a third-grade Russian-American student from Arizona.

"I used to live in an Orphanage.
It was dark and cold and lonely.
At night, I looked up at the sparkly sky and felt better.
I dreamed I could fly there. Thank-you for the SPIRIT and OPPORTUNITY"

RED DRESSES, RINGS and BLUE MOONS

"To find your strategy to peace is war"

If you click on any of the links below, you can learn more about Saturn and it rings than you would ever want to know...I think its fascinating that one of the gaps in the rings is carved out from one of Saturns many Moons, Pan.

"gravity is directly proportional to the product of two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between" DAVE MOWS GRASS

Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune also have faint rings around them, but Saturn hit the ring jackpot, doncha think?

Saturn was the Roman God of agriculture.

Explanation: What size particles compose Saturn's rings? To help find out, the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn broadcast radio waves of three different wavelengths right through the rings to Earth earlier this month. The experiment was sensitive to ring particle sizes because ring particles much larger than a broadcast radio wavelength will reflect those radio waves away. Three different wavelengths were used: approximately 1 centimeter, 3.5 centimeters, and 13 centimeters. The results are coded into the above false-color digitally reconstructed image. In the above image, the color purple indicates regions populated predominantly by ring particles larger than 5 centimeters, while the color green indicates regions with a significant population of small ring particles less than even 1 centimeter. The white center of Saturn's B-ring indicates that the density of ring particles was too high to make a good determination. Other radio observations indicate that some ring particles can be as large as several meters across. The impressive nature and clarity of the above sharp image may help determine clues about the origin of Saturn's beautiful but enigmatic ring system.



I've been wanting to post a song and some lyrics by my buudy Chris Smither, but things keep getting in the way, like Red Scribbles post/picture yesterday of the most ringed of all the Planets...Saturn...and it took me back to Stevie Wonders "Songs in the Key of life" and a really nice cut from that exellent album that never got much airtime...
I give you...

"Saturn"

Packing my bags -- going away
To a place where the air is clean
On Saturn
There's no sense to sit and watch people die
We don't fight our wars the way you do
We put back all the things we use
On Saturn
There's no sense to keep on doing such crimes

There's no principles in what you say
No direction in the things you do
For your world is soon to come to a close
Through the ages all great men have taught
Truth and happiness just can't be bought - or sold
Tell me why are you people so cold

I'm....
Going back to Saturn
where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow
On Saturn
People live to be two hundred and five
Going back to Saturn where the people smile
Don't need cars cause we've learned to fly
On Saturn
Just to live to us is our natural high

We have come here many times before
To find your strategy to peace is war
Killing helpless men, women and children
That don't even know what they're dying for
We can't trust you when you take a stand
With a gun and bible in your hand
And the cold expression on your face
Saying give us what we want or we'll destroy

I'm....
Going back to Saturn
where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow
On Saturn
People live to be two hundred and five
Going back to Saturn where the people smile
Don't need cars cause we've learned to fly
On Saturn
Just to live to us is our natural high

NOCTI-LUCENTITY

For our friend that captures such great pictures of the skies;

AZIMUTH
Though it be night
there are still clouds at work
moving in the Dark
Silvery Linings at play softly
Shimmering high and brightly
Even as we sleep
Beyond the usual horizon
Hold your lense High
And keep your chin up.

Explanation: Alluring noctilucent or night-shining clouds lie near the edge of space, some 80 kilometers above Earth's surface. Of course, when viewed from space the clouds are more properly called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) -- seen here for the first time in image data from the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite. The clouds form over the poles in the corresponding summer season and are now being seen more frequently at lower latitudes. This paticular view from June 11 details the PMC structures forming over the north polar region in white and blue. (Black indicates no cloud data was available.) The AIM satellite should be able to track two complete cloud seasons over both poles to investigate possible connections between the high altitude night-shining clouds and global change in the lower atmosphere.

The preceeding was pulled from my 'Astronomy Photo of the Day" site, and if you click on the links, there are probaly better pics than the ones I have chosen and more info on NLC's.

They hover on the edge of space. Thin, wispy clouds, glowing electric blue. Some scientists think they're seeded by space dust. Others suspect they're a telltale sign of global warming.
They're called noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds (NLCs). And whatever causes them, they're lovely.
They are a faily recent phnomemna, first noted in 1885 after Krakatoa erupted.
I saw these and thought of Annelisa.

One more, shall we?

Too small...

FLY ME TO THE MOON

Did I ever mention that I am fascinated by Astronomy?
This is from yesterday.
Check out the Archives *here* and todays Solstice.
Recent favorites are from 6/17 the "Analemma" and 6/13 "Warped Sky".

A Daylight Eclipse of Venus
Credit & Copyright: Peter Heinzen
"Explanation: Something was about to happen. Just two days ago, two of the three celestial objects easily visible during the day appeared to collide. But actually, Earth's Moon passed well in front of the distant planet Venus. The occultation was caught from Switzerland in the hours before sunset.

Moments after this image was taken, the Moon, visible as the crescent on the right of the above image, eclipsed Venus, appearing in gibbous phase on the lower left. Clouds that once threatened to obscure the whole event, were visible on the far left. About 90 minutes later, Venus re-appeared just to the right of the bright crescent."

So who can tell me the third celestial object easily visible during the day? Hint:One of three you will never see (from the Earths surface at the Equator) within the several hours before and after midnight. Two of the three are Venus and the Sun.

Here are more photos from around the world here of the occultation.