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Pictured is a Delta IV rocket launch from Cape Canaveral on November 21st, 2010. The image is a 20 second exposure taken at dusk, shot from about 100 miles west of the launch site. The launch placed a classified payload in orbit for the United States Air Force.
Difficult but not impossible to catch against the dawn or dusk sky, spotting an extreme crescent moon can be a challenge. The slender crescent pictured was shot 30 minutes before sunrise when the Moon was less than 20 hours away from New. A true feat of visual athletics to catch, a good pair of binoculars or a well aimed wide field telescopic view can help with the hunt.
The Sun is our nearest star, and goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. This image was taken via a properly filtered telescope, and shows the Sun as it appeared during its last maximum peak in 2003. This was during solar cycle #23, a period during which the Sun hurled several large flares Earthward. The next solar cycle is due to peak around 2013-14.
Located in the belt of the constellation Orion, Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula is one of the finest deep sky objects in the northern hemisphere sky. Just visible as a faint smudge to the naked eye on a clear dark night, the Orion Nebula is a sure star party favorite, as it shows tendrils of gas contrasted with bright stars. M42 is a large stellar nursery, a star forming region about 1,000 light years distant.
Orbiting the planet in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) every 90 minutes, many people fail to realize that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) from most of the planet on a near-weekly basis. In fact, the ISS has been known to make up to four visible passes over the same location in one night. The image pictured is from the Fourth of July, 2011 and is a 20 second exposure of a bright ISS pass.
Next to the Sun, the two brightest objects in the sky are the Moon and the planet Venus. In fact, when Venus is favorably placed next to the Moon, it might just be possible to spot the two in the daytime. Another intriguing effect known as earthshine or ashen light is also seen in the image on the night side of the Moon; this is caused by sunlight reflected back off of the Earth towards our only satellite.
A mosaic of three images taken during the total lunar eclipse of December 21st, 2010. The eclipse occurred the same day as the winter solstice. The curve and size of the Earth’s shadow is apparent in the image.
The Algonquin Indians had names for each of the seasonal Full Moons, many of which survive today. The Full Snow Moon pictured occurs in the month of December, when the first large winter storms coat the ground with snow. This Full Moon also tends to fall near the Winter Solstice, and thus rides high in the nightly sky opposite to the Sun on long winter nights.
Every rocket launch is unique, but twilight shuttle launches where by far the most impressive. The image pictured was of the April 5th, 2010 launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center at dawn. The exhaust plume caught the rising Sun overhead just right, and numerous noctilucent clouds persisted right up until sunrise. Unfortunately, space shuttle launches are now relegated to the pages of history.
Review: The Glorious Golden Ratio by Alfred S. Posamentier & Ingmar Lehmann..
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At the heart of all science is the mathematics that makes it “tick”. And while math drives the universe, some of the curious relationships that arise are, well, just down-right bizzaro. Such is the topic of this week’s review entitled The Glorious Golden Ratio by Alfred S Posamentier & Ingmar Lehmann and published by Prometheus Books. The golden ratio has been known since antiquity and pops up in some unsuspecting places. Signified by the symbol “ɸ” The golden ratio is simply the division point at which the larger section has the same ratio to the whole as the second smaller section has to the larger. (Phew, a simple home-brewed explanation sans wiki, people!) This comes down to an approximation of 1.61803398874989484820458683436563…. ad infinitum, much like another famous non-repeating decimal, pi. Curiously, the reciprocal of ɸ (1/ɸ, remember your high school math, people!) is 0.61803…. or ɸ – 1, the only number for which this is true! But it gets stranger from there; the authors of The Glorious Golden Ratio do not back away from the “Mathiness,” in a way that would make Buffy’s Giles proud. Kepler himself compared the Pythagorean Theorem to “a heap of gold” while the golden ratio to “a precious jewel”. If God is indeed a geometer, he must have an affinity for this ratio that pops up in the strangest of places. Of course, Kepler spent much of his academic life chasing a supposed link between the five perfect solids and the then known five planets, a caveat against reading too much into mathematical coincidences.
Still, the authors do a good job with relating the golden ratio and its various instances across geometry, architecture, and even in nature, as well as its close relationship with the Fibonacci sequence. Did you know that the golden ratio pops up in fractal patterns? Or in the “Cross of Lorraine”? Or in the leaves of a daffodil? Or in Illinois (!) I don’t pretend to understand all of the “mathiness” contained within the covers of this book, although our 43-year old brain can still hold its own. And yes, it sent me off measuring the golden ratio noted by Leonardo da Vinci between the height of my navel versus overall height! (Hey, something had to fall around 0.61803…)
But such is the Sunday afternoon fun that one can have with mathematics. Wisely, the authors do not draw any mystical/metaphysical connections with these curiosities, but instead use them as a teachable moment to demonstrate how math pops up, all around us. And of course, it’s fascinating to conjecture as to just when ancient man became aware of the golden ratio. And on the astro-biological tip, we wonder if E.T. might be beaming the golden ratio and/or it’s reciprocal at us, instead of pi or prime numbers? Has Jodi Foster or Seth Shostak checked into this?
Do check out The Glorious Golden Ratio as a serious straight up low-down sans Woo of all that is ɸ… and don’t forget to celebrate “Golden Ratio Day” next January 6th at 18:03! (Hey, its never too early to hype!)