The old and the new

The other day, CBC radio aired an episode about things old and new. The theme concerned typewriter keyboards, and other older technology. The question in the background was why some of the old technologies have survived and been incorporated into the latest technologies, and why some people stick with the older technologies (I'm one of those).

For example, the sound equipment in our home is decades old. The radio show (Spark) mentioned and interviewed a number of people who have the same philosophy as I, namely: if it ain't broke, don't fix it (or throw it away). As far as I'm concerned, use this older equipment, take reasonable care of it, and it'll serve you for many years. This goes for our cars, television sets, computers, kitchen utensils and equipment, and generally for all those things which are subject to the exhortations of the people who want to sell you new stuff.

That's not to say that I'm against the new technologies. We own digital cameras, a flat-screen computer display, an MP3 player, etc. I also own a computer-driven telescope which has been updated from its original state - I bought the telescope itself about 32 years ago at which time computer control of amateur telescopes was extremely rare. In the 1980's I wrote a computer program for an Apple II, as well as constructed the necessary mechanical additions for the telescope to make this telescope obey computer navigational commands. I have now replaced all that with up-to-date hardware and software. This is to show that I like new technology too, I'm certainly no Luddite. I definitely wouldn't be running my business if new technology was my "enemy".

This weekend, my wife organized a family dinner (for my 70th birthday - we usually have around 20 people on occasions like this), and even though we asked for no presents, I received some very nice ones. Derek, being the technical "geek" in our family, presented me with a portable GPS car display (a Tomtom ONE), with which I have played around for the last couple of days. Today my wife and I went for a walk in the neighbourhood, and I took it along. It's amazing how well that unit showed our position in real time all along the way. Being into astronomy, electronics, and computers, I well know the amazing underlying technologies that make this possible. I'm very pleased with this unit and will likely use it for many years to come.

So. I'll adopt any new technology which I consider useful, but I'll certainly not buy anything that is intended to replace those things that work well and whose replacement would result in little improvement. I really don't care about what's fashionable - for me it's what's practical.

Mother's Day

The years go by in a hurry when you're our age.

Yesterday our granddaughters lived up to family tradition and made some "Mother's Day" bread for their Mom. The breadmaking session was all part of my wife's making a large loaf for the granddaughters' piano recital which took place today.

At that recital, our older granddaughter played a moving interpretation of the "Moonlight Sonata", the younger one played a wonderful rendition of "the Lion sleeps tonight"; she also sang a medley of Beatle tunes. Both of them teamed up to sing a duet towards the end of that medley. Each has a beautiful voice (no bias here!) - we're proud grandparents.

Time goes by.

Since it was Mother's Day, the many mothers who go through a lot of effort to make it possible for the music students to attend the Crowe Music Studio were given their due recognition - as was Ms. Crowe (the teacher, mentor, confidante) herself. All her family was in attendance; they handed her a nice flower bouquet. It was nice to see them all. We've come to know Ms. Crowe as a wonderful and accomplished music teacher (she's also an examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music) - and it showed in the calibre of the students' recitals. There is also another connection: Ms. Crowe and I both have German roots. When I drop off our granddaughters for their lessons, we occasionally converse in that language - to the apparent wonderment of most of the students attending her studio at the time.

Here are some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimiandpapa/sets/72157617884534175/

Astronomy Day May 2, 2009

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), along with many other like-minded groups is "observing" Astronomy Day with a host of activities for all ages and involving many space-related topics. Here in the Vancouver area, telescopes, talks, and exhibits will be set up at the "Gordon Southam Observatory" (GSO), next to the Planetarium in Kitsilano. Here are a couple of links to further information:

http://astronomy.meetup.com/131/calendar/9744297/
http://rasc-vancouver.com/

The event will take place rain or shine. If weather permits, you can view the Moon, the planet Saturn, and other interesting astronomical objects through various telescopes.

The event is free to anyone.

Have an educational time!

A few travel notes

As mentioned in my last post, we've spent some time with friends in California, and travelled there by car. We returned yesterday, taking four days to come back, and driving along some of the roads less travelled.





While the American interstate highway system goes through some magnificent scenery (the view at left is of Mount Shasta), the smaller roads offer some wonderful, sometimes unexpected views of nature as well.


As an example, we stayed in Calistoga, a small city in the Napa Valley of California (this area is known as one of the top wine-producing areas in the world). The hotel was a beautifully restored place, reminiscent of high-class hotels of about 100 years ago, mixing "Art-deco" and "American-West" styled rooms with present-day wireless internet access, DVD players, and TV in every room.

On our way out, just outside of town, we stopped at a place featuring the smaller sibling of "Old Faithful" (in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming), also called "Old Faithful", seen at left. This geyser erupts every ten minutes or so. Each eruption is preceded by about a minute of bubbling, gurgling sound, not unlike that of our electric coffee maker at home. The geyser is located on private land, so we had to pay some admission ($6 each); we considered it well worth the experience. Since we had arrived early, we were the only visitors and could look at the geyser, the museum and videos at leisure and without interfering with anyone.



During our travels, the other amazing thing to consider was the fact that all the roads on which we travelled were either blacktopped, or concrete-covered. The picture shows the road through a part of California's famous Redwood Forest. If you consider the immense road system in the USA alone, how much does this represent in natural resources and evironmental alteration? How could the majority of people learn to appreciate these natural wonders without such cost?






Our vacation ended on a beautiful and romantic note. We headed to Cannon Beach (Derek's family's favourite vacation spot), on the Oregon Coast, for our last evening "on the road". It happened to be the day of our 44th wedding anniversary. Accommodation was in a beachside hotel room with balcony, looking west over the Pacific Ocean. With a bottle of red Oregon wine, and a couple of piccolos of champagne, we had a nice, sunset French "Dinner" on the balcony (consisting of French bread, some cheeses and sausage, rather more like an elaborate picnic). This was a fitting end to a trip which included the reunion with many good friends and good times with them.

Southern California?

We have spent the last week here in San Diego visiting close friends. The occasion was a birthday get-together with some of the members of our "travel group" (we meet in various places at unspecified times). This time, my wife and I travelled here by car. On the way, we hit a lot of "unCalifornian" weather - strong winds and rain. It DOES rain in Southern California, notwithstanding the hit song of three decades ago. Fortunately, the days on which the birthday festivities took place, and on the day of the Easter Sunday brunch, the sun was shining and the temperature was more like what you'd expect. Today, it's cold and windy again, and it just rained for a few minutes. Feels more like home.

All this pales in comparison to better news. Derek's latest CT scan shows that his cancer has been stable over the last two months - as his parents that means more to us than anything.

Halo

This afternoon, I was sitting in the back yard, soaking up some sun. The sky was somewhat hazy. Momentarily glancing at the sky in the direction of the Sun (with my eyes shielded against it), I noticed a faint halo around the Sun. Here is the image, taken with a Canon Rebel Xt, 18-200mm Sigma zoom lens at 18mm, ISO 100, f22, 1/1000th sec exposure.

According to Wikipedia, a halo is an optical phenomenon that appears near or around the Sun or Moon, and sometimes near other strong light sources such as street lights. There are many types of optical halos, but they are mostly caused by ice crystals in cold cirrus clouds located high (5–10 km, or 3–6 miles) in the upper troposphere. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals is responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split up into colors because of dispersion, similarly to the rainbow.

Disappointing Earth

On Saturday, the hour from 8:30 to 9:30pm was designated "Earth hour". The idea started in Australia, and its purpose is to cut down on energy consumption for that hour. In most cases, this means shutting off extra lights, computers, and other unused appliances in one's house.

We lit a few candles, shut off all our lights (we use the non-incandescent bulbs anyway), the network computers in our house, and did not turn on the TV, even though one of the programs we regularly watch was scheduled for that time.

I looked out our windows during that hour. Sad to say, I noticed absolutely no difference from the normal situation. All our neighbours' lights were on as usual, the highrises in our neighbourhood were lit up like Christmas trees (as usual), and the sky did not look one whit darker (it was as light-polluted as ever). If I want to be charitable, I'll say that most people did not even know about this hour; otherwise I have to assume that people around us just don't give a damn.

As it turns out, our city, along with many others, saved less energy this time than last year. What does that say about individual people's attitude towards "Global Warming" and climate change?

Hazy Astronomy

As I've mentioned before, this year is designated as International Year of Astronomy (IYA). To that end, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC - I've been a member for more than 30 years) is undertaking many public activities, free for all to take part in. Worldwide, there are many astronomy associations and educational institutions involved in the same activities.
After several locally scheduled events were "rained out" lately, last night turned out to be more promising. A clear evening was predicted by Attilla Danko's "ClearDarkSky" program which uses data from Environment Canada's weather forcasting system.
Things turned not quite as clear as predicted - there were thin, hazy clouds drifting across the sky all evening. However, they were transparent enough to show the brighter objects, one of which was the planet Saturn. Three of us were slated to run this meeting, and two of us had committed to set up our own telescopes at the H.R. McMillan planetarium for this date, so I set up my Celestron C-8 in front of the Gordon Southam observatory. The third member in our group operated the observatory telescope itself.
This year, Saturn's rings are seen almost edge-on. That's a consequence of the tilt of Saturn's axis of rotation with respect the plane of its orbital plane and generally all the major planets' orbits. This presents some interesting viewing since some of Saturn's moons, most of which orbit Saturn in the same plane as its rings, can occasionally be seen crossing Saturn's disk, along with their respective shadows. Since the hazy clouds had a detrimental effect on seeing some of the very fine details through the telescopes, such an event would be somewhat difficult to perceive. However, the rings and Saturn's bright moon Titan were easily visible. To the left you see what Saturn and Titan looked like as seen through a telescope, at a magnification of about 90 power. Click on the picture for a larger view.
There were more than 100 people who took advantage of the occasion - some had been attending a show at the planetarium, others just happened to be out for a walk. Many had never had a look through an astronomical telescope, and were very impressed about what could be seen. It's amazing how interested people are in what's going on in space; many just don't know how to meet people with similar interests. So this get-together fulfilled its primary purpose of bringing these people together. Some enquired about how they could get more involved. Here is one possibility: the RASC member meetings and sky observing sessions are open to the public, and are free. If you become a member, there are a number of privileges which you'll enjoy. In Canada, for more information, go to http://www.rasc.ca/, and pick the link to your closest local centre. If you live elsewhere, look for an astronomy club in your area - IYA is a worldwide effort.

Turning 3000

About 3 years ago, my brother-in-law's brother and wife gave us an exercise bike which they were replacing with a more up-to-date version. At the time, it's speedometer indicated about 300 miles. It is a totally mechanical bike, with an adjustable tension roller pressing against the wheel, which makes it possible to simulate mountain "grades" and, if adjusted properly, will make us work hard. On the days when weather or a particluar time commitment prevents us from going for our walk, we use this bike for about one half hour - and for myself, I adjust it so that I work up a real sweat. On average, I cover about 9.3 miles in that half hour (according to the odometer). If I do any less, I'm not working hard enough. Both my wife and I are making pretty good use of it, but since she gets quite a bit of exercise around the house, it is I who does the bulk of the pedalling on the bike (90%, or so).



In the winter, the bike is used almost daily. In the summer we're much more likely to walk - our neighbourhood is hilly, and a good walk is good exercise. In any case, the other day, when I was doing my usual half hour on the bike, the odometer turned 3000 miles (it's an older bike, and still calibrated in miles). This means that we've added about 2700 miles (a bit more than 4300km) to its total use. That's the distance from Vancouver, BC (our city) to Halifax on the East Coast. It also means that the bike has been used about 320 times by us (it's getting close to the equivalent of one year's worth of half-hour per day pedalling). I never thought we'd "bike" all the way across Canada - we did it "virtually", of course. Luckily, the bike doesn't simulate any inclement weather "along the way".

The bike works just fine - I've oiled the various bearings, chain, and especially the pressure roller about 3 times. I expect it to last a lot longer still.

Looking for Life

Most of the mainstream media don't pay much attention to the efforts being made regarding our search for the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe - including our own solar systems. Now and then, you are made aware of temporary highlights (the Kepler space telescope launch just yesterday, for example), but in general, ongoing coverage is not available.

You can find this kind of information on the websites maintained by the space agencies involved in these endeavours.

Here are some links for proposed space missions related to this topic:

Europa Jupiter System Mission
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=808

Titan Saturn System Mission
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=810

This is the International Year of Astronomy. Astronomy is closely involved with the search for life elsewhere. Amateur and professional astronomers are making many varied efforts to promote the awareness of this ancient science. Here, for the area where I'm at home, are a couple of links indicating the locations where observation of the sky, seminars on various astronomical topics, and other related efforts are taking place :

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vancouver Centre
http://www.vancouverastronomy.com/

Local meetings
http://astronomy.meetup.com/131/

There are similar events scheduled all over the world. Check you local astronomy club or association for more details.

More window views

A few days ago, during one of the frequent rain squalls which are common in our city, a momentary break in the clouds was the cause of a beautiful rainbow. The picture on the left was taken from the front stairs. The rainbow appears high in the sky, because it was late in the day, around 20 minutes before sunset.






This picture was taken through the living room window. Notice the secondary rainbow, the intense colours, and the difference of the sky colour inside and outside the rainbow.











Last night, Venus (at the moment the evening star) and the Moon were in conjunction, an astronomical term for the appearance of two or more objects close to each other in the sky. It does not mean that they were physically close, it is just a view from our perspective on Earth. In reality, Venus was about about 140 times further away than the Moon. Click on the picture for a larger view. The view is through my double-paned office window. It was taken with a 200mm Sigma zoom lens, set at 200mm. This is an enlarged section of that image.


Venus also shows a crescent, just like the Moon (both somewhat distorted, due to the window glass). If you have a reasonable pair of binoculars (7x50 or 10x50, say), and mount these on a photo tripod, or hold them very steady, you'll also see the tiny crescent of Venus. You'll be able to look at Venus for the next couple of weeks, or so - weather permitting. Look for the brightest star in the west after sunset. Its crescent will grow a bit larger and get thinner as Venus moves closer to Earth towards the line between Earth and the Sun. This also means that Venus will set in the west sooner and sooner after sunset. On March 27, it will pass north of the Sun (don't try to look for it then - you could damage your eyesight if you look directly at the Sun!) and then become the morning star.

A Picture Postcard day

Today is one of the days which keep my wife and me "glued" to the window. The scenery is one of the reasons why we love living in our house.

At left, you see a picture of Grouse Mountain, one of the "North Shore mountains" in Vancouver, taken with a 200 mm lens, through our double-paned living room window. The triangular area slightly above centre is the upper ski area, sometimes called the "upper cut".




This is the same area taken through a C-90 Celestron telescope, for which I have the appropriate adapters to attach my Canon Rebel XT digital SLR camera. This turns the telescope into a 1000mm f11 lens. Because there is no electrical connection between the telescope and the camera, the automatic features built into the camera cannot be used - manual focussing and exposures are required. The exposure for this picture was 1/4000 of a second at ASA 400. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, and look closely, you can see some tiny dots (skiers) near the lower left of the ski area, and the plume (or dirty exhaust?) from a (snowmaking?) machine at the top. Being a creature of comfort, I took this picture through the living room window as well. That affects the "definition" of the image, because the window glass is optically not perfect. I used Photoshop to increase the contrast somewhat, and also sharpened the picture a bit, to help overcome the effects of the window on the image.

Regarding the skiers visible in the picture, I'm always amazed about how small people are when compared to the grandeur of nature. Even Grouse Mountain, at about 1250m (4000 ft) a modest mountain, dwarfs a human being by a huge margin.

Woodpeckerwar

As Derek mentioned in his blog, the woodpecker which last year decided to use our kitchen stove exhausts on the roof as territorial markers, has come back to re-establish his claims. I had wrapped the exhausts with bubble-wrap to discourage this "disturbing" behaviour (the 'pecker sometimes "rings the bell" just a little after sunrise), but the ravages of time destroyed that wrap. I removed the remnants some time ago.

For the last couple of days, the 'pecker has again made sure that we couldn't sleep in. So today I decided to frustrate him - and to allow us to extend our morning bedtime. I purchased some wire mesh and fashioned it into a kind of "cage" which now covers the exhausts (see picture of one). The cage is secured to the exhaust by means of an appropriate piece of wire coathanger, so that this undoubtedly clever little monster can't lift it up and out of the way. We'll soon see whether peace has returned.