Vancouver Harbour

Derek's post of October 13, referring to the change in the Vancouver skyline over the last 50 years or so prompted me to dig out a couple of my own pictures of the Vancouver harbour view. I photographed the top image in 1956, the bottom one dates from 2008. Both pictures were taken from the same spot (within a couple of meters, or so). While the cameras and angle-of-view for the two source images are very different, I made an attempt to crop and resize the pictures in such a way as to make them appear similar. Click on the image for a larger view.

The change is astounding. The only edifice I can discern in both pictures is the spire of the Holy Rosary Cathedral on Dunsmuir Street in downtown Vancouver. The arrow in the top picture points to it. You can also spot it among the high rises in about the same relative position in the lower picture.

The two tallest structures in 1956 are the Vancouver Hotel on the right, and the Marine Building on the left. Both buildings are still in existence, but they are obscured by the newer high-rise buildings which have since sprung up.

Ah, progress!!

Crash Landing

After much hype in the media, the actual preplanned collision of the LCROSS (NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite)with the Moon was a visual disappointment for me. At first I was contemplating setting up my 200mm (8 inch) telescope, using my "new" eye, but advance information suggested that the telescope would have to perform at its very limit, and in excellent conditions - i.e no light pollution, absolutely clear and dark sky (an impossibility in this light-polluted city of Vancouver). I therefore decided to watch the NASA coverage instead, if I were to wake up around 4:15 in the morning. Well, I did watch it, but the images sent down from the Moon did not show me any impact. I've watched the replay several times, but to no avail.


Later today, NASA published more pictures, after analysis and using images from a "medium infrared imager" (MRI) camera. It showed the impact a little better, but I saw no sign of the calculated 10km debris plume, which was to expose any water ice possibly located in the permanently shadowed impact crater.

(both images from the NASA website - click on them to enlarge)



Here is the impact image the way I saw it. It shows the visible light image - the way you and I would see it if we were on board of the LCROSS satellite. I can't identify any crash.








This is the MIR image. Infrared shows hot spots a lot better, but the human eye cannot perceive infrared light.



Here is an excerpt from NASA's media advisory describing the mission:

MEDIA ADVISORY : 09-131AR

NASA Spacecraft Impacts Lunar Crater in Search for Water Ice

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, created twin impacts on the moon's surface early Friday in a search for water ice. Scientists will analyze data from the spacecraft's instruments to assess whether water ice is present. The satellite traveled 5.6 million miles during an historic 113-day mission that ended in the Cabeus crater, a permanently shadowed region near the moon's south pole. The spacecraft was launched June 18 as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "The LCROSS science instruments worked exceedingly well and returned a wealth of data that will greatly improve our understanding of our closest celestial neighbor," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "The team is excited to dive into data." In preparation for impact, LCROSS and its spent Centaur upper stage rocket separated about 54,000 miles above the surface of the moon on Thursday at approximately 6:50 p.m. PDT. Moving at a speed of more than 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur hit the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. Oct. 9, creating an impact that instruments aboard LCROSS observed for approximately four minutes. LCROSS then impacted the surface at approximately 4:36 a.m.

A new view

Well, as mentioned in my previous post, I had cataract surgery on my right eye on September 30. The procedure itself was painless, although I liken the level of comfort during the operation to the experience of having your teeth cleaned by a dental hygienist - i.e. slightly discomforting.

The result is absolutely astounding, though, and well worth a bit of uneasiness. My right eye can now discern fine detail I haven't seen in decades. Since I'm into astronomy, that result is exactly what I had hoped for.

At the moment, I have to take some care - no heavy lifting, and an interwoven schedule of taking medication in the form of eyedrops - but I'm looking at the world with a new eye (pun intended). Until now, I hadn't realized how much I was really losing, when looking around, and am now aware that my left eye, which was the better eye lately (using glasses) would also benefit from this kind of operation.

So, at the moment, I'm using eyeglasses in which the left part of the frame retains the bifocal lens formulated for my left eye; I have removed the right-eye lens altogether. The result, for distance viewing, is a reasonably close balance between my two eyes, with the right eye outperforming the left one by a noticable margin. It also makes it possible for me to read the newspaper and books (and typing this story on the computer) because, at my age, reading glasses are usually necessary. My reading is done with my left eye, through the "reading section" of the lens. This is no problem for me, because my right eye had deteriorated to the point at which I could not use it for reading anyway.

If and when I finally get my left eye "restored" in the fashion described above, I won't need glasses for distance view (that includes naked-eye astronomy, and watching TV, for instance). For reading, I can purchase some of those inexpensive, off-the-shelf reading glasses available anywhere. I'll then use both eyes for reading and close-up viewing.

In short, from my experience, if you are contemplating cataract surgery, go for it.

Plugging along

My busy days (Sept 19) have continued. Our friends who reside in Mexico, have just returned from their Alaska cruise, and are staying with us.

Every now and then, there is a bit of a break in all this. For example, last Sunday, the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada hosted the Paul Sykes Lecture (an annual event, funded through an endowment from Paul Sykes), hosted a talk by Dr. Neil Turok - the eminent mathematical physicist, and collegue of Dr. Stephen Hawking. His topic related to the evolution of the early universe, which is one his fields of interest. Dr. Turok presented the subject in a most engaging, humorous way, and did not shy away from telling us how little concrete information we have - even though there have been astounding breakthroughs achieved in accumulating accurate data. My wife, whose interests only peripherally include astronomy, enjoyed the talk, and said so several times.

After the meeting, the RASC's council invited Dr. Turok to supper, and a few of the council members (of whom I'm one) joined in spirited, wide ranging discussions about the various aspects of theoretical physics. A good time was had by all.

The Paul Sykes lecture is free to the public - come and join next year.

Tomorrow I'm slated for cataract surgery - another break in the routine.

Busy time.

I run a business which involves many of the larger educational institutions in our area. Since school started earlier this month, I've been very busy, including weekends. In addition, we have good friends visiting, and staying at our home. That has meant no time for blogging. For those of you who may be wondering, both my wife and I are ok - we're just involved in our various activities at the moment. This is a chance to write a little note here, before I continue with business today.

A somber weekend

There are periods when personal events induce a state of introspection and contemplation.. This weekend was one of them.

On Friday, we attended the memorial service for a good friend, who died a couple of weeks ago. Kilby Gibson was my sister-in-law's long-time friend (the two of them roomed together in their early twenties), and we had gotten to know Kilby at one of our family get-togethers many years ago. My wife, my sister-in-law, Kilby, and her sister Sheila used to meet for lunch on a semi-regular basis. In the last seven years Kilby had been battling lymphoid cancer, but never lost her vivaciousness and fighting spirit. She was politically active at various levels, and contributed a great deal to the betterment of those around her. Our hearts go out to her husband Gordon and his family.

Everyone is aware of the death of Ted Kennedy in the United States. He was also someone who worked for and had a great influence on the policies regarding less fortunate people in the U.S., and in the world. While his fight for universal health care in the U.S. is still ongoing, he's certainly put this issue in the centre of that nation's political attention. He will be missed.

Within our own family, our son Derek's fight with cancer is always on our mind. There are times when we all get a feeling of sadness (and rage) because of the unfairness of it all. This weekend was one of those times.

Time with the granddaughters

Since Derek and Airdrie are at Gnomedex, we have our two granddaughters to look after these days. Thursday we explored the new Canada subway line to the airport, yesterday we spent all day at the PNE (we sat on the grass for the "Beatle Anniversary" performance, too). Big crowds.



The "Canada Line" day was an all-day event for us. We decided that four of us would take public transport to get to all the places we were going to visit. The "Skytrain"is our elevated/subterranean remote-controlled light rapid transit line which has existed since the year of "Expo 86" (i.e. 23 years), and has become an integral part of the public transportation system in our "lower mainland" cities. One of its larger stations is located a 10 minute walk away from our house, so we walked and bought a day pass for all of us. At a total of $27, that turned out to be a bargain.



To begin with, we rode the skytrain to the Waterfront station, and then changed to the Seabus (a ferry service to North Vancouver, part of the public transportation system), to have lunch at Lonsdale Quay. The kids and my wife picked their traditional Chinese food; I don't particularly like Chinese food and ate a more traditional sandwich instead. Our older granddaughter also bought a new pair of shorts. We then returned via the Seabus to the Waterfront station, which is also the terminus of the new Canada Line subway.


The trains on that line consist of two cars (all pictures below are from the Translink web sites), connected by a "flexible" passthrough, much like subway trains in other parts of the world. The stations on the Canada line are just long enough to accommodate their combined length, so coupling two of these trains together would make them too long for the stations. The Canada Line train cars are wider than the Skytrain cars, making the cars incompatible with each other's stations. In fact, I don't know of any track connection between the two. That makes it necessary to have two different parts and maintenance centres. Personally I find this incompatibility illogical. I can understand that such incompatibilty might exist in some of the older cities in Europe, which started their electric subway services over one hundred years ago, but the skytrain line is still young (23 years), and the underlying remote-control technology cannot be that much different.

Another question I have is the use of only a single track into the airport itself - it means that only one train at a time can be at the airport station. I suppose that the underlying reason is the same as always - money, money, money. There was a big "Ahead-of-time, on-budget" statement from both our provincial government, and the public transit authority, made possible only by what I consider "corner-cutting"; even the underground track section which was originally meant to be a "bored" tunnel was actually built using the "cut-and-cover" method. That caused a great deal of financial losses to, and the closure of a number businesses along the Canada Line. Courtcases are still pending in that regard.



Notwithstanding all the above, the ride to and from Richmond and the airport is smooth, efficient, and will likely become popular with the commuting public and travelers from the airport to downtown. While most of the line is underground, the elevated and above-ground sections offer a grand view of Vancouver's spectacular scenery (that's true for the mostly elevated Skytrain too, of course).






The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) is the granddaughters' perennial favourite. While the younger one is more interested in the rides at Playland, the older one is developing a taste for the agricultural and "arts-and-crafts" aspects. Our granddaughters' maternal grandparents (we're the paternal ones) are both wonderful and accomplished people and very artistic, and they really involve the granddaughters in that way when they are staying with them.

Both granddaughters enjoy the animals at the 4-H displays. As usual, we consumed the obligatory junk food offerings (corn dogs, mini doughnuts, hamburgers etc...).

An added feature this year was an open-air performance in honour of the Beatles - on their 45th anniversary. The theatre grounds were jammed with people. The band "Revolver" performed ably, and had the crowd highly motivated - everyone seemed happy. The amazing thing is that our granddaughters knew and sang along with all the songs; we ourselves, being of a generation well ahead of the Beatles, could not do that.

Marina (the older one) is also developing a talent for photography. She has a camera cellphone and took some interesting and artisic pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigm/.

All-in-all we are having a great time with the two of them.

Less heat

Here in our town, we've had a record-breaking heatwave for over a week, highly unusual. Our entire province has been subject to the same phenomenon. As a result, there have been a number of serious fires caused, and new ones started by, sad to say, careless people and also thunderstorms. We had a spectacular storm here a few days ago. Our son took some great pictures. After that storm, the sunset was an eerie orange-red (picture taken through living room window). I suppose that the cause was the smoke from the various wildfires, even though those are some distance away from our city.





The heatwave here made all of us look for ways to cool down (temperatures reached 38 degrees Celsius - about 100 degrees Fahrenheit). The night temperatures stayed at what are normally our summer daytime values - so cooling fans were in great demand. As usual, kids are inventive, and our younger granddaughter and a friend made use of the garden sprinkler hose to get cool.







The ravens, which are numerous in our area, were also "taking baths". One took advantage of the birdbath in our back yard. I admire these clever and inventive birds. When they look at you, the intelligence in their eyes is obvious. Who knows, if we manage to wipe ourselves out, maybe they'll become the dominant species?





Today, temperatures have moderated, and we're very happy to sit outside to enjoy another beautiful day and evening.

Past glory

There is a lot of interest and comment today regarding the exact day, 40 years ago, on which humans first set foot on the Moon. To me, this is a bittersweet memory. The sweet part relates to the fact that our son, whose birth had occurred three weeks before, was having his mother's milk while we were watching the landing on TV. At the time I wondered whether he would grow up to be one of many future space travellers who would naturally go to space, with an ease similar to travel by airplane. In my mind, the image of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon's surface will forever be linked with those memories.

The bitter part of that memory is that mankind's ability even just to repeat that forty-year-old feat has withered on the vine. We are reduced to admiring achievements which occurred four decades ago, and treat them as though they are today's. No one is in a position to place a human on the Moon now, both for technical and financial reasons. It is sad to think that much of the talent and money which could have furthered our progress in space was instead directed toward, and wasted on, conducting useless wars and persuing infinite greed.

I find it a hopeful sign that a return to the Moon, and also an expedition to Mars are seriously being contemplated. Maybe our son's daughters will one day go into space. I wonder whether I'll be around to see it?

Musical Telescopes

This past Sunday, the Vancouver Symphony put on a concert at Deer Lake park here in Burnaby. This is a casual affair for the listeners (there is no cost), and everyone is free to bring their own lunch, chairs, etc. It's a "picnic atmosphere". For the occasion, food vendors, and others interested in making the public aware of what's going on in the community, are set up as well. Among the latter, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, of which I'm a member, showed telescopes, handed out brochures and other astronomy related publications. We would have pointed the telescopes at stars and other interesting objects in the sky, had it not been cloudy. As it was, we picked some distant targets to show what telescopes can do, and how they work. Here are some pictures:

The orchestra playing











The audience











People at the telescopes




Looking through the C-8

Pseudo vacation

Over the last few weeks, at various times, we've had visitors from both Mexico and Germany. Since the weather here has been great during the last six weeks or so, we decided to show our guests around. We went to the various Vancouver showpieces, and also included a trip to Whistler.

At Whistler we spent a day which included taking a ride on the new Peak2Peak gondola. This is a great experience, and I recommend it to anyone not afraid of heights. We went all the way to near the top of Blackcomb mountain ('seventh heaven') which gave us a great view of the snow-covered mountain peaks for 100km around. The viewpoint is located above the Horstman Glacier; we had a birds-eye view of the skiers and snowboarders who were displaying their talents.

Last weekend, Derek had his 40th birthday bar-b-q at home, attended by about one hundred of his friends, and our family and friends as well. Lots of food was consumed. The next day we took part in an open house at Derek's friend and former IHR partner Paul Garay's house in Maple Ridge - again with lots of food.

The last two weeks have therefore been filled with many social activities for my wife and me. Every now and then, though, I had to do things related to my business, but since the universities and colleges are running on summer hours right now, I wasn't too busy.

So this episode has been like an unplanned break - a "pseudo vacation" .

Update: Here are a few pictures from the Whistler excursion:

(click on any frame)

Pictures by K. Pelk

Ferries

Yesterday, I had some business in Victoria; So my wife and I took the ferry from Tsawwassen (Vancouver) to Swartz Bay (Victoria). For the trip to Victoria, we caught one of the Spirit class of ferries. We had a buffet breakfast on board (all you can eat, about $17.00 per person). You get a nice window table, if get there early enough.


"Spirit class" (BC Ferries' web page)

These vessels are 11,700 ton ships, built about 16 years ago, can carry over 400 cars at a time, and were the "stars" of the BC ferry fleet on the Vancouver-Victoria run until the arrival of the Super-C ferries within the last year, or so. They are capable ships, and are an important part of BC's transportation system.


Since we hadn't been on one the new ships yet, we arranged to return on the "Coastal Celebration", one of the three new Super-C class ferries. These are somewhat smaller than the "Spirit" vessels (10,100 tons - about 370 cars at a time). The major difference is that they are "double-ended", so they head straight into and out of their docking berths. By way of contrast, the Spirit ships need to turn around before they dock (Swartz Bay) or after they leave(Tsawwassen) the dock.



Super-C class (from BC Ferries' web page)

In other respects, the new ships have perhaps slightly more comfort and convenience in the on-board services, but they don't differ substantially from the older ships in that regard. A ferry trip to Vancouver Island always feel like a "mini-cruise" to us - the beautiful scenery through which BC Ferries' ships sail makes this a "word-class" experience, in our opinion. If you intend to visit Vancouver Island, this is a nice way to go.

Progress

37 years have elapsed since a human being last set foot on the Moon. Had the story continued as many space science pundits predicted at the time, we would have had space colonies there by now, and would be making ready for a manned expedition to Mars. As it has turned out, the political will (and that is what it was to begin with - a political exercise to 'win the race to the Moon' against the Russians) to do that disappeared after the US succeeded spectacularly. Right now there is no nation which has the capability to place humans on the Moon (including the USA).

Lately, there has been a concerted effort to "restart" a (continuous) human presence on the Moon, this time with the USA as only one of the "contenders". Some others are China, Japan, India, and the Europeans, all of whom seem to be at various stages of "fleshing out" the idea. The severe constraints to spending money in this field imposed on the USA by its immense deficits may mean that one of the other nations involved will be the next to land a human being on the Moon.

A continued human presence on the Moon requires the availability of "local" raw materials (the most important being water in either frozen or liquid form). Notwithstanding the comparative proximity of the Moon to Earth, in some respect we know less about the presence of water on the Moon than on the planet Mars. The robotic landers and orbiting satellites which are currently exploring Mars have given us very good evidence that water is present there in sufficient quantities to make human habitation possible.

A first step towards an expedition to Mars (a return trip would take several years) would involve learning about the details of maintaining human life on an extraterrestrial body; the Moon is the closest and most easily reached. There are many ideas about such an endeavour (an example: http://www.geoffreylandis.com/pole.html). It is important to have the necessary resources wherever humans may find themselves. To that end, the US is preparing to send some orbiters back to the Moon to explore specific areas - particularly the north and south poles where there are some spots which have eternal sunlight (for energy to supply a human settlement), and perpetual shadow (for possible water ice). For all the lunar observations which have taken place over the past four centuries or so, both from Earth and by lunar rovers, humans on the Moon, and samples brought back from there, we know little about what may be found at the lunar poles.

Another of the concerns to be addressed in any extraterrestrial human undertaking is how to deal with illness. While we are far from knowing all the answers, I feel that medical science here on Earth has made tremendous strides since the time of the Moon landings. As an example, our son's fight with cancer is certainly helped by the availability of drugs which did not exist at that time (as his parents, of the greatest importance to us). This is one area where progress has been greater than predicted.

I have a hope that I'll see more Moon landings in my lifetime, and, with luck, even a landing on Mars. Personally, the closest I can come to a "landing" is to look through my telescopes, and to use the internet links which keep me up-to-date in that regard.