by Pamela | Mar 13, 2007 | Nebulae, Observing
As I’ve mentioned before, press releases that don’t really contain science are one of my pet peeves. That said, one such press release came across my inbox this morning and made me giggle happily. The image was of the Crab Nebula (above left: credit:...
by Pamela | Mar 10, 2007 | Planets, Teaching
In Astronomy we have two terrible patterns of words to try and remember. One is the order of the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (image left, credit: NASA). The other is the spectral types of stars: O, B, A, F, G, K, M. For both...
by Pamela | Mar 8, 2007 | Light Pollution, Observing, Politics
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…First star? Hello? You’re supposed to come out now. Stars? Someone? Shine? Please? While I was a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin I watched the Ring Nebula (M57) disappear. When I first...
by Pamela | Mar 8, 2007 | Personal, Podcasting, Random
The past 10 days have been an insanely busy whirlwind of activity for me, and I’m afraid real life pulled me away from online life for a bit. Last Thursday, I gave a presentation at my home university, SIUE, on both my research and podcasting (this was an...
by Pamela | Feb 26, 2007 | Teaching
As an instructor I find that there are good days – days when my students remind me of why I selected my profession, and there are also bad days when small collections of specific students make me really frustrated. Most days, however, are just days where all of...
