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[...] did I know that the second half of my life was to begin that summer, when George Lucas dropped Star Wars and altered nerd-dom forever post-Space: 1999 (true story: my four year old cousin Willie insisted [...]
The Sky is Waiting.
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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.
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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.
May 5th: Revenge of the Sith
A Sith Lord (?) at the eyepiece.
So, did you survive May the 4th? Yeah, much like Talk Like a Pirate Day, �May the 4th Be With You� is now on its way to crass commercialization. And while there are nerdier days out there to celebrate such as Pi Day (March 14th) or Towel Day (May 25th) commemorating Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, May 4th, has become a time for fans to expound on all things Star Wars.
True, May the 5th is a much tougher stretch, and a date that has an uphill battle to fight as it shares a place on the calendar with one of the major drink ’til you vomit holidays, Cinco de Mayo also referred to by legendary alcoholics as �amateur drinking night,� we don’t see Sith Lords taking down hordes of inebriated, �tequila-fueled suburbanites anytime soon. And besides, Cinco de Mayo celebrates the loss of an obscure battle, what’s not to love about that?
Truth is, though Star Wars holds a cherished place in my childhood, I’m becoming a bit ambivalent about the latest Disney franchise. True, I’ve been in line for every movie release on opening day except the first one (episode 4) and not many fans have THAT claim to fame, as it was a limited opening waaaaay back in 1977 with a very slow to build buzz. (this was pre-social media, remember).
And yet, we found ourselves anticipating and enjoying The Martian more than Episode 7: The Force Awakens. Don’t get me wrong: we’ll probably continue to stand in line for each and every release. The movies are still a �happening,� something larger than the simple film itself. It seems to me that you need a bit of time and distance to judge whether a Star Wars film is �worthy� or not… for example, I remember how many a fan actually hated Episode 4: The Empire Strikes Back back in 1980, because it wasn’t exactly like the original… now, it’s viewed as the best of the bunch. Likewise, many praised the prequels when they came out, and now, they’re generally considered flops.
I thought the prequels did OK, though The Phantom Menace seemed like a beta test of a reboot unleashed on the unsuspecting public, and they didn’t really fix the flaws ’til Episode III. Hey, we can all find solace in the fact that Jar Jar probably bought it when the Empire blew up Alderaan in A New Hope. And we did enjoy Rogue One, though it seemed to really unnecessarily jump scenes really fast at times.
True story: The very few accounts I’ve ever had to block on Twitter were due to arguments about Star Wars. Sorry fans… a parsec is still a measure of distance, not time, a gaffe that Lucas neglected to fix in the re-releases and was echoed in Episode VII. It was a writer’s error (after all, it has the abbreviation �sec� in it, right?) and the best apologist explanation we’ve heard to date was that perhaps, Han Solo was trying to test his potential clients to see just what sort of rubes they were.
But in the end, the true power of Star Wars lies in myth making. The original series, more fantasy than science fiction, exemplified the myths of our age, and I think that’s truly what they’ll be remembered for ages hence.
Sith Lords and Jedi knights can rejoice in that fact, for decades to come.