word on the amateur astronomy streets is that the LINEAR comet has brightened in recent days to magnitude 4.4 and can finally be seen in the northern hemisphere in the pegasus constellation -- provided that you're able to wake up right before dawn to catch a glimpse of the comet through binoculars or telescope, and that the sky isn't overcasted. well, i didn't have the problem of waking up because i didn't bother sleeping, waiting until 4am to go out in the backyard (where i have a mildly unobstructed view of the southern sky, where pegasus lies in plain sight) and start hunting for LINEAR with a pair of binoculars on a very clear night. it didn't take long before i spotted a fuzzy grey oval shape. if somebody didn't tell me, i'd have probably guessed it was either a very large nebula or galaxy or even a passing cloud fragment. not very impressive, but a sighting is a sighting, and i know better than anybody that astronomy is not about clear seeing (at least not here!) and the romance of the stars. we new england astronomers take'em when we can get'em. if it's clear tomorrow night, i might try it with the telescope, maybe i can resolve some more details.
i tried to get a photo of the comet with the 24x monocular setup, but it was just too dark, and it was already a little bit of a challenge to locate the comet through binoculars, let alone a monocular image piped through a 2" lcd display on the back of the nikon 950. however, i did manage to take a few snapshots of our old friend the moon, where it sat bright in the pre-dawn sky, half light half dark. i also got to see this conjunction of stars and planets people have been talking about, a clumping of saturn, venus, and aldebaran (taurus constellation) out on the eastern sky.
 grimaldi 138 mi. diam. |
montes juras |
copernicus 58 mi. diam. |
craters in south pole |
nothing bad happened to me on this friday the 13th -- that is, if you don't count what i was wearing to go running today. usually running clothes i don't give very much thought to. grab a pair of shorts, grab a t-shirt, take a sniff test to make sure they're clean, put them on, and off i go. but today, through some random grab bag misfortune, i went with a pair of green plaid shorts matched with a blue batik t-shirt*. it was like two pattern worlds colliding and fighting it out to the death while i'm going around the charles river wearing this great piece of clashing battle. i spent the rest of the day apologizing profusely to anyone who was unlucky enough to see the outfit before i took a shower later in the afternoon and changed back into my regular clothes.
mandy came to me today to show me the extent of her jimmies addiction -- an empty coffee mug with a layer of jimmies at the bottom. maybe there was some sort of beverage in the cup prior to the impromptu show-and-tell, who knows, we can only hope and guess that she isn't eating jimmies straight up from the dispenser. i forgot what she said though. she either just wanted jimmies, or wanted some ice cream, or maybe she wanted chocolate. whatever it is she desired, i hope she got eventually. on a side note, i guess the term jimmies is not politically correct, it's just a local term for what's more commonly known as sprinkles (at least common outside of boston).
james was kind enough to find a piece of hard metal plate for me to use underneath the motorcycle's kickstand, so that the kickstand won't sink into the soft asphalt on those hot summer days. i don't know where he found that metal plate -- looks like a door hinge or some sort of locking mechanism for a door handle. i liked it so much, i took it with me when i went home, so i can use it wherever i go.
getting onto memorial drive i saw a much of sportsbikers congregrating at the foot of the bridge. a quick glance back, i saw that one of the bikes had flipped onto one of the the grassy island. a motorcycle accident! a motorcycle rule suddenly flashed in my head, always stop for a fellow biker in need. but since it appears he was with his buddies (i didn't see the guy, hope he's okay, they were pretty geared up, so i say his chances of survival are high), i figured the situation was under control so i sped off.