Jonah and I went to the Pine Mountain Observatory last Friday evening for one of their summer season star gazing events and it was just incredible. Jonah has been into astronomy for a long time so this was a treat for us to do together. The next night we went to the Eugene Astronomy Society’s annual Star Party which was also fun and quite different (think: more people, more telescopes, longer lines, but still great). Photos below. These are two of the observatory domes that house telescopes. We were there well before dark, so we had a chance to look around, plus see a fantastic sunset over the Sisters Mountains to our west. From the top of Pine Mountain, which sits at 6300 feet…
@seansharp
Posts from the “science” Category
Final installment of the holiday weekend. Jonah and his Uncle Jon and I went to the Boeing Museum of Flight. We spent the whole day there and had a great time: A model of the lunar rover. I learned from Jonah that the lunar rover could only go as far away as the lander so that if the astronauts had to walk back to the lander, they wouldn’t run out of air. So even though it could have gone further, it was limited so the fellas survived. Interesting! This was Air Force One for Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon:
“In our modern lifestyle we are not runners anymore. So we are basically disconnected from what we previously had to do. Most of us are out of shape and we don’t have to run for our hamburger or our dinner. But deep down we are still all runners and so our minds, as much as our muscles are part of this running phenotype.â€
This was created by a friend of mine who is a Landscape Architecture professor here in the College of Design. Basically he took the published data for the dates and times of the sunrise and sunset and created a chart. It shows the dates and times of the earliest SUNSET, after which the light lasts a little bit longer each evening. Also on the chart is the time of the latest SUNRISE, afterwhich the sunrise will begin rising a little bit earlier as the planet makes its way around the sun. Great graphic of this phenomenon, in my opinion. 🙂
Yes, it has been wet around these parts. Stats include: 10.39 inches this month which is 5.58 inches ABOVE normal. 15.62 inches since October 1 (the meteorological rain year start) which is .16 inches ABOVE normal. For this and more, I am grateful. The bike rides in have been wet, but mostly quite enjoyable. I had one ride home with a slashing wind from the south that was strong enough to slap my cheeks with the stings of rain. It made me howl at times. Of course, going home is nice, because it’s, well, home: dry socks, pants, warmth and family. Yep, good times out west, that’s for sure . . . .