Archive of Writings
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Another Day, Another Coast
After spending the beginning of the week in the Eastern time zone at the AAPT meeting in Greensboro, NC, I am now planning to spend the second half of my week in the Pacific time zone attending the ASP's Cosmos in the Classroom meeting in Pomona, CA. I'm writing this...
Carnival of Space #14
If it's Thursday, there is a carnival. Check out the 14th Carnival of Space over on my Astronomy Cast co-host Fraser Cain's . Enjoy the intellectual rides 🙂
It’s raining stars!
It has long been known that there are stellar interlopers in the solar neighborhood. These stars just passing through as they orbit the galaxy on a path that originates in galactic halo. Unlike the stars like the sun that normally live in the galactic disk, these...
Float left, Opera
I never cease to be amazed at the differences in website appearances from browser to browser. I'd come up with a web design I didn't totally like, but I could live with, for Firefox and Safari. After getting some comments on its horribleness in Opera, I installed...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...