Star Stryder

Archive for July, 2007

Jul 31st, 2007
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Family-Friendly tribulations

Today I was part of a session on family-friendly policies in academia (policies that promote healthy policies that allow faculty to not have to choose between family and work). My role was small - I recorded a digital video of one of the presenters because she is currently on maternity leave and was unable to […]

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Jul 30th, 2007
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Increasing Science Literacy requires Clarity and Passion

Today I attended a pair of excellent presentations by award winners Gerry Wheeler and Neil deGrasse Tyson (shown with me at AAS last January). Both, in very different ways, challenged the audience of physics (and astronomy) teachers and professors to not just instill in their audiences the facts of science, but to also make scientific […]

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Jul 29th, 2007
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Getting Real Research out of Your Consumer Telescope

Today at AAPT, I gave an 8 hour workshop on using small telescopes to do real research. Since I don’t think any of you were there, I want to share with you what I covered. Below is the content and links from the web-text I created for the workshop. The links will connect you over […]

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Jul 28th, 2007
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Meeting time again

This morning I got up at 3am, contemplated how much more I like going to bed at 3am, and then loaded myself into a car to go to the airport. Several hours of travel and one nap later, I am mostly coherent in Greensboro, NC where I am attending the summer meeting of the American […]

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Jul 27th, 2007
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Black holes take a bite out of galaxies

Astronomers usually try to educate the public that black holes do not go around actively eating the hearts out of galaxies. Usually. On July 24, astronomers announced that in the early days of the universe large numbers of young supermassive black holes actually spent their days feeding on galaxy cores. (image credit: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ./J.Eastman […]

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Jul 26th, 2007
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Mars Rovers Update:
To bravely hunker down and wait

Many great explorers quests’ were brought to a standstill by weather – Odysseus hung out on an island, Magellan paused in Patagonia, and Amundsen shivered near Antartica’s coast. Following in the footsteps of these great and weather respecting men are two little robots, Spirit and Opportunity. These Mars Exploration Rovers currently hunkered down, with all […]

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Jul 26th, 2007
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A telescope dream for any budget

As a graduate student at the University of Texas, I got to accompany the undergraduates on star parties (nominally as the ‘responsible’ adult, but really as a colleague in madness). We’d load up our cars with every telescope we could find, about a dozen pair of binoculars, and laptops with planetarium software. We’d get pizza […]

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Jul 25th, 2007
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Quantifying the Darkness

We’ve all had those magical moments of looking up and suddenly seeing something breathtaking in the sky. Perhaps it was just a moon low in the sky with a planet near and bright. Perhaps it was the Milky Way pouring itself into the horizon over a country road. Whatever the source of wonder, our ability […]

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Jul 24th, 2007
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Mercury & Venus: Understanding hot rocks & Greenhouse gases

The latest episode of The Universe focused on our solar system’s hottest two planets: Mercury and Venus. In looking at each of these worlds, scientists are faced with Sun related issues no other planet has: we can never study these planets when they are high in the sky well after sunset (the ideal time to […]

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Jul 22nd, 2007
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Summer Days, Drifting Away . . .

As an academic, I can be as bad as any school child when it comes to counting down the days until summer begins. The holidays of Easter & Passover always mark the final race toward finals, and with these spring celebrations I know a brief reprieve from scheduled days and grading is on the way. […]

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