Booms II

This week we celebrated Earth Science Day at Palomar College and I again helped out with the simulated volcanic explosion demos. Here's are the slow-motion videos that I shot of our three volcanic explosions.

Yeah, I rotated my phone during the explosion. Sorry about that.

 Explosion # 2. Check out the deformation in the trash barrel as it blows.


The third one I shot vertically, in an attempt to capture the ping-pong ball action.

Here's my post showing similar explosions from last year. 

27 1/2 Songs For Your Solar Eclipse Playlist

The August 21st solar eclipse will soon be here and I am preparing for it in a variety of ways. My camera and eye protection (including solar binoculars) are all ready and I'm just finishing up on one final thing, my somewhat eccentric music playlist to get ready for the eclipse.

Since it has been far too long since I've made a blog post, I thought I'd post it here, along with a few comments for each song.

1) We start off with Heaven and Hell by Vangelis. This was the theme music for Carl Sagan's classic TV series Cosmos. It always makes me think of voyaging through space and time.


2) Solar eclipses are all about an alignment of the Sun and Moon and clear weather is essential to see and enjoy the experience. On the day of the eclipse I'll be getting an early start and Bruce Springsteen's Waitin' on a Sunny Day is a good title for what I'm hoping to have.


3) I follow that up with Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles:


4) While the eclipse is a pretty unique event, I'm keeping the Sun and clear skies theme going, so I follow it up with Another Day of Sun from the La La Land soundtrack:


5) That brings me back to The Beatles and Good Day Sunshine, as the song captures exactly the kind of emotions I hope to have during the eclipse:


6) One more from The Beatles, I'll Follow the Sun:


7) Here's the first of two Carly Simon songs (I'll bet you can guess the other one), Touched by the Sun:


8) Sticking with some more pre-eclipse references to the Sun, next up is Elton John's Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me:


9) Eclipses are not just about the Sun. The Moon ultimately plays a central role in blocking the Sun's rays, an event the has for centuries been steeped in fear and superstition. In spite of its reference to "nasty weather," Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clearwater Revival makes my list:


10) Jonothon Coulton's Always the Moon is a beautiful creation myth song about love and the Moon:


11) Keeping the 'Moon' theme going, the next piece is an instrumental one, William Ackerman's Conferring With the Moon:


12) Solar eclipses can only occur when the Moon is in its "new" phase. This year's solar eclipse happens on a Monday, so Duran Duran's New Moon on Monday is a natural choice:


13) Another 'new moon' song, New Blue Moon by the Traveling Wilburys:


14) Moving toward the actual eclipse,and the music to celebrate it, we come to the grandmother of eclipse songs, Carly Simon's You're So Vain:


15) It gets dark during a total solar eclipse and in the past many people wondered if the Sun really was going away, so Neil Diamond's The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore is an appropriate choice:


16) Bill Withers wonderful Ain't No Sunshine keeps that idea going:


17) I follow that up with Invisible Sun by The Police:


18) Invisible Sun is a dark song, but total solar eclipses should be celebrated, so I begin the celebration with Moondance by Van Morrison:



19) and follow that up with another song by Bruce Springsteen, Dancing in the Dark:


20) There wont be any light from the Moon during the eclipse, but this still works for me, Dancing in the Moonlight by King Harvest:

 

21) That's followed up by a song that's actually about stargazing, Tom Petty's The Dark of the Sun:


22) I'm not sure if this is a great fit or not, but next up is Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden:


23) Love it or hate it, Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart has to be played at least one for the solar eclipse, doesn't it?


23 1/2) Actually, I prefer this version of Total Eclipse of the Heart, as it is actually about eclipses (and since it is the same song, it's the 1/2 song in the title of this post):


24) Another almost required choice, Pink Floyd's Eclipse from their Dark Side of the Moon album:


25) Okay, this is what used to be called a "deep cut." The Moon's A Window to Heaven from the soundtrack to Star Trek V. Yes, really.



26) If all goes well with your eclipse viewing at the end of the event you'll be overjoyed. I am hoping that Katrina & The Waves' Walking on Sunshine accurately describes how I'll be feeling at the end of the solar eclipse:


27) After the solar eclipse is over the Moon will leave it's new phase and soon return as a thin sliver in the evening skies, so I'll end this with KT Tunstall's Crescent Moon:


There are lots of other songs about the Sun and Moon that I could have included and maybe I missed some obvious choices, but

Booms!

It is Earth Science Week and at Palomar College today we celebrated with a demonstration (well, three of them actually) of a simulated volcanic eruption. I shot video of the three explosions. The first one in real time and the next two (which were bigger booms) in slow motion. Have a look:

Yes, the third one (complete with ping pong balls) broke the trash barrel.

Alien Moons

I gave a talk, Alien Moons of the Solar System, last night at Wavelength Brewing Company. You can watch it here:

City Lights from Space

Last night I gave a talk at Wavelength Brewing Company in Vista, California. They live-streamed the event through their Facebook page and you can watch it here:

Cloudy Transit

Astronomers around the world today witnessed a relatively rare alignment of the planet Mercury and the Sun. Mercury passed directly in front of the Sun's disc in an event known as a transit.

Southern California normally has clear skies, but in the San Diego area May and June can be particularly cloudy as low clouds frequently blow in from the ocean. Locally it is known as "May Gray" and "June Gloom."

Today's transit of Mercury was mostly a victim of the May Gray from my vantage point at Palomar College (that's where I teach astronomy).

The event began before the Sun rose in California, making the first part invisible. The clouds blocked most of the rest of the view, but they did part a bit early in the morning.

The college's NS Building has a rooftop solar telescope and the photo below comes from it:

Photo by Tony Kopec

This image was taken with a hydrogen alpha filter that reveals some of the details just above the Sun's photosphere. Mercury is the small black dot.

Compare the view of Mercury above, with the pic below that I took during the June 2012 transit of Venus:

Different telescopes were used (the Venus transit photo was of a white light projection using my personal telescope), but it is easy to see that Venus (the big black circle) looks a whole lot bigger than Mercury does. This is because Venus is a whole lot bigger than Mercury is and also because Venus is significantly closer to Earth than Mercury is. The other spots on the Sun are sunspots.

If you missed today's transit, here's how it looked from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:
The next Mercury transit event will be on November 11, 2019.

Gravitational Waves!

The astronomical world was rocked today (well, news of the announcement leaked out a few weeks ago) by the announcement of the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves --literally ripples in the space-time continuum-- caused by the collision and merger of two black holes located an estimated 1.3 billion light years away. Not only was this the first event detected by gravitational waves, it was the first direction detection of black holes and binary black holes.

This ushers in a new era in astronomy allowing us to probe the universe in a way that's never been done before. If the history of science is any guide, it is certain that there will be unanticipated discoveries that will be made.

There's an amazing amount of info on the 'net about this discovery, so here I've just added this video about it and will a couple of links as well.

The New Yorker has a compelling article on how the gravitational waves were detected. For the more technically inclined be sure to look at this article from the American Astronomical Society and this one from Sky & Telescope magazine.

We live in amazing times. 

Wonder Endlessly

Here's a cool, new star-filled time-lapse video from Jack Fusco:

Wonder Endlessly from Jack Fusco on Vimeo.

A Visit to the Set of Star Trek Continues

It's no secret that I am a big fan of Star Trek. Regular visitors to my blog know that I frequently blog about Trek, especially classic Trek from the 60s. A couple of years ago I discovered that there is a group of extremely dedicated fans that are creating new episodes of TOS Star Trek called Star Trek Continues (STC).

STC is extremely faithful to the original Star Trek and well worth watching. The sets, props, costumes, lighting, scripts, effects and acting are all top notch. You shouldn't take my word for it though, you should watch one of their episodes and decide for yourself.

I've blogged about STC before and, after having supported their first Kickstarter campaign, my wife and I got to collect one of our perks by visiting their set last January. While we were there the STC cast & crew was filming for their fifth episode. That episode "Divided We Stand" has just had its premier so the veil of secrecy has been lifted from our visit and I can share some photos.

I was amazed by the size of their production crew. At one point as we were watching the filming of a scene I counted 25 people, about six of them were actors in the scene. The rest were for lights, sound, camera, hair, makeup, costumes, continuity and a whole lot more. There were others scattered here and there about the studio bringing the total somewhere up to around 35 or so.

Here we are in Sick Bay with the cast during a break in the filming of what we now know to be a pivotal scene in Divided We Stand.

The Sick Bay set looked really great all lit up for filming. Here' a portion of the set above and a close up of some of Dr. McCoy's instruments.

After seeing the filming in Sick Bay, we got our set tour from Chris Doohan. That's Chris (above, left) standing with Steven Dengler, who plays the Security Chief.

For STC Chris is playing Scotty, the role his father had in the original series. His involvement in STC really helps to connect their new episodes to the legacy of the original series. Of course, STC is all about keeping that legacy going and they do so in many ways.

 

Here is Chris in front of the Jefferies Tube (at left) and the view looking up into this set piece. It is hard to see here but inside it is labeled "GNDN" which was an inside joke during the production of the original series. It stands for Goes Nowhere. Does Nothing.

Of course, no tour of the Enterprise would be complete, especially one conducted by its chief engineer, without visiting the transporter room. 

The transporter controls.

Even the corridors are awesome.

Unfortunately it was pretty dark on the bridge set when we were there (filming was taking place elsewhere, so lighting needed to be controlled), but it was still wonderful. There were many signs of the great attention to detail displayed in recreating the bridge set.

A still of Spock's science station above and a short clip of it below.

Here's the helm with its controls and Sulu's viewer. 

They've even got the chronometer, a wonderful addition to the set.

While on the Bridge, I got to sit in the Big Chair. 

Here is what is currently STC's lone engineering station, a panel from Auxiliary Control. Their last Kickstarter (held just after our visit) was so successful that they have been able to build an Engineering set, which we'll see in future episodes.

All-in-all it we had a great time visiting the 23rd Century.

Big thanks to Kasey Shafsky and Lisa Hansell for their time and attention in getting our set visit arranged and of course to Vic Mignogna and the entire Star Trek Continues cast and crew, including their photographer Donald for providing some of the images here (the bad shots are mine). 

We'll continue supporting Star Trek Continues and look forward to more great things to come from them.

Meanwhile, in Hawai'i...

Check out this great time-lapse video of the observatories on Mauna Kea:

Kilauea - The Fire Within

Check out this amazing time-lapse movie of Hawai'i's Kilauea Volcano. It makes me want to return to the Big Island to see it in person again.

 

Kilauea - The Fire Within from Page Films on Vimeo.

Sunrise: November 21, 2014

Yesterday morning's sunrise was pretty nice. Thankfully, I was able to capture it. Have a look:

Yesterday's Cloud Time-Lapse

Here's a short iPhone time-lapse movie of the clouds yesterday afternoon:

Golden Sunrise

Yeah, Wednesday's sunset was pretty fantastic, but Friday's sunrise wasn't too bad either.

Here are a couple of shots of it, followed by a timelapse that I captured with my iPhone.

iPhone Time-Lapse Videos

The new iOS 8 operating system for the iPhone has a nifty time-lapse feature. I recently picked up the wonderful Joby tripod for the iPhone and have shot a couple of short cloud videos.

Yesterday morning:

Yesterday afternoon:

This morning's sunrise:
This is a fun feature and I'll be shooting some more of these. When I get something especially interesting it will certainly get posted here.

Lightning Storm!

The summer monsoon season in the desert southwest is a wonderful time. It gives the region life-sustaining rain. At the same time it gives photographers a vast treasure trove of beautiful sunsets, rainbows and (my favorite) lightning.

Last night there was an impressive lightning display in and around Tucson, Arizona and I was able to catch the show from my back yard. Lightning is easiest to photograph when it is dark and when the storm is relatively far from you. This puts the lighting in one general direction (helping you to know where to point your camera) and keeps the danger at a minimum.

My first catch of the evening wasn't all that impressive as the lightning bolt was too far away, but things got better. Except where noted, all exposures were 30 seconds.

Two 30-second exposures combined in Star Stax

I decided to try a new direction and caught two shots (combined above) and realized that I was pointing in the wrong place and that the real action was just beginning. Below are some of my favorite shots from the lightning display.

I couldn't resist combining all of my images into one mega shot of all the lightning strikes. The combined images represent 22 minutes of exposure. I also dropped the images into iMovie to make a quick time-lapse video. Here is the result:

There's a chance of more thunderstorms tonight through the end of next week. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch some more lightning.

Star Trek: The Changeling

It's time for another episode of Star Trek:

The story begins with the crew of the Enterprise discovering that all life in the Malurian system has been killed and, before the opening credits roll, they come under attack.

Spock reports that the weapon that hit them was as powerful as "ninety of our photon torpedoes" and that their shields will hold for another three hits -- a fourth will knock out their shields. That's just plain ridiculous. Even more ridiculous, Kirk orders that they fire a photon torpedo at the attacker and is astonished to hear that it has absorbed the torpedo's energy. Wait, didn't their own shields just do the same thing, but for a weapon 90 times stronger?

They get hit several more times and with his back up against the wall, knowing that his weapons are useless and another hit from the alien will destroy the Enterprise, Kirk finally tries what he should have done right away -- talking to the attacker, a small intelligent alien machine known as Nomad.

Conversation disarms the situation and they beam Nomad aboard, where it promptly asks about their point of origin. Figuring that Nomad would not have any reference points, they agree to show it a diagram of our solar system.

Kirk explains to Nomad that in the 23rd Century Pluto is still a planet.

Nomad figures out that they are from Earth and refers to Kirk as "the creator." We also learn that Nomad's "function is to probe for biological infestations, to destroy that which is not perfect," which explains what happened in the Malurian system.

Kirk and the gang need to figure things out, without Nomad hanging around, so they leave him with an engineering tech (Lieutenant Singh) and have a pow wow. Spock uses the library computer to Google Nomad and we learn a few things. There was a probe called Nomad. It was created by Jackson Roykirk (above),  launched from Earth but it was lost, "presumed destroyed by a meteor collision" and that the Nomad with them now really doesn't look all that much like the original probe (below).

What the heck is a "Coupler Prediction Scanner"?

As they have their meeting Nomad hears Uhura singing over the intercom and goes to the bridge to learn what that's all about. 

Nomad scans and essentially erases Uhura's mind. Oh, and he kills Scotty too. Meanwhile, Kirk, Spock and McCoy seem pretty bored talking about Nomad in the Briefing Room.

They are called to the Bridge where Nomad having killed him now, thankfully, offers to repair the "unit Scott." Nomad can't repair Uhura, but still manages to put in a slam against women (something that happens a lot in TOS), calling them "a mass of conflicting impulses."

Uhrua gets re-educated by Nurse Chapel ("She'll be back on the job within a week.") and Spock mind melds with Nomad. He learns Nomad's back story and its current mission--sterilize imperfections--which proves to be so interesting that Kirk and Spock need to talk about it while Nomad stays under the watchful care of two Red Shirts. What could go wrong?

Oh, yeah. That.

Nomad then tries to improve the efficiency of the Enterprise, pushing their speed past warp 10 (yet, strangely, no one devolves into salamanders) before Kirk calls it off. As he does so, Kirk confesses that he, himself, is a biological unit. Not a good move. Nomad says, "There is much to be considered before I return to launch point. I must re-evaluate." Yeah, Nomad wants to head home where it will find Earth infested with imperfect biological units. That's a problem. Stalling for time, Kirk again tells Nomad to wait with two Red Shirts.

It’s often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I'm looking at you James T. Kirk.

Still, Kirk manages to save the day by pointing out that Nomad has made errors, is imperfect and must carry out its prime function. They beam it into space where it explodes and the day is saved (except for the four Red Shirts).

All-in-all, The Changeling is a fun episode as long as one doesn't look too closely. Yes, it is another in the series of Kirk vs. Computer episodes, but the many of the basic plot points were evidently good enough to be lifted for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (but that's another story).

There was no new music written for this episode. So, instead, you should totally check out this song by the band Five Year Mission:

Next up, The Apple.