Star Stryder

Archive for October, 2007

Oct 30th, 2007
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Totally Random

Random 1: Tomorrow I fly out to Boston for a meeting of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. I’ll be their until mid day Sunday. If you want to get together, let me know. I may be planting myself at a pub on Sunday to work and chat.
Random 2: There is an interview of […]

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Oct 30th, 2007
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Return to the Moon

The last time man walked on the moon I wasn’t alive.
Hopefully I won’t be able to say that for too much longer. Several different nations are gearing up to make manned assaults on the surface of the Moon.
Before the people, there is a wave of explorer bots. (The good kind, not the bad spam bots […]

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Oct 28th, 2007
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Comet 17P/Holmes

If the Sun is down and you are in the northern hemisphere, look at the finder chart here and then go outside and look at this object. Now. This website will still be here when you get back.
Hi there. Have a good time?
No one quite knows what happened. This normally bland, boring, not visible without […]

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Oct 28th, 2007
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Death to Bots

As a web administrator I spent a frightening amount of time trying to prevent spam from cropping up on this site and some of the other sites I maintain. I don’t always succeed, and occasionally spam creeps into my comments. A have tools to ban specific words and I personally keep an eye on things, […]

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Oct 25th, 2007
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Space Carnival

It is starting to reach that busy time of year when people can’t quite keep up with everything that needs to get done.
If you, like me, are looking for ways to procrastinate on writing reports, preparing Halloween costumes, or preparing for a mid0term (writing it or studying for it), then I have the procrastination tool […]

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Oct 24th, 2007
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The Improbable Universe

Slide Show + Audio (.mp4)
Transcript: This is a talk I originally prepared to present as part of the 2206-2007 convocation series at Illinois College. Since then I have given it before several other audiences, and with every presentation I’ve had more people ask, will this be online. Finally, I can saw yes. Here’s the link. […]

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Oct 23rd, 2007
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Mt Palomar and San Diego Fires

N.B. I just checked the Palomar Observatory website. They simply say the observatory is closed due to fire. I tried accessing the Hale webcam and my connection timed out.
Nothing good comes from a firestorm. Perhaps this one will at least spare the telescopes.

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Oct 18th, 2007
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New Computers and Returning Carnivals

I got a new laptop. I’m currently trying to transplant my brain onto it and the surgery is taking longer than expected (although, so far there seem to be no complications). The surprise I had planned for yesterday it currently sedated, but I expect the patient to start to get out of bed tomorrow.
In the […]

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Oct 16th, 2007
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Making photometric data fit in a Standard System Using Excel

This entry goes out to all you amazing observers who want to do better science with your photometric data. Over on the AAVSO listervs I also see emails from folks asking for good comparison stars for variable stars, especially those one off variables - supernova and nova - that tend to go off once, or […]

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Oct 14th, 2007
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AstroFest

I go to a lot of conferences. Some are good, some are bad, and most are just, well, a generic conference. In addition to the science content presented, I tend to judge conferences by three other criteria: Is it pleasant (are the hotel and conference center places I like being and within walking distance of […]

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