NASA - Off-site viewing location tips

Information on Kennedy Space Center Passes for Launch Day

Other things to do in the area… in case of delay

Directions to one of the better public spaces

Technical information on Launches

A detailed explaination of KSC Passes

Best of luck to everyone at NASA. Blue skies!

I’ve played with some of those rotating disc maps over the years and never really got them to match up with what I was seeing. I’ve also played with some really neat astronomy simulation programs over the years, but the timing was never right.

Last week, I found Stellarium a multi-platform easy-to-use program. Since it was availble in OS X, I loaded it on my laptop and waited for a clear night. I only got to play with it for 20 minutes or so, but the experience was excellent! It was so smooth to whip it around, adjust the magnitudes to match what I could see, and spot things in the sky that I had only read about in science fiction. I found the star Vega, planet Jupiter, several constellations, and the North Star (Polaris). Polaris was not exactly were I expected it to be based on what I learned as a boy scout, but it was close enough that I could have found my way if I had to rely on it.

I also like setting the clock forward and watching the stars spin. I now understand the “ecliptic,” which was always a mystery to me before.

So check it out sometime. It loaded and unloaded very cleanly from my system and I highly recommend it.

The sea urchin one (a concept model, not actually available) supposedly bounces around so you have to chase it down to turn it off. The puzzle “explodes” the pieces so you have to find them and reassemble it to shut it off.

I have fairly high sleep inertia. I can get out of bed early if I really need to (such as to catch an early morning flight) but if I don’t absolutely have to, it’s really hard to get out of bed (or to go to bed). I’ve often thought about what kind of alarm clock I could make that would force me to get up. Maybe something that could create a big mess I would have to clean up if I don’t get up. The problem for me is staying up. I can wake up, walk around, check the mail and crawl back into bed if I wanted to. Putting the alarm clock across the room does not present enough challenge to really wake me up. Maybe I should keep a Mountain Dew next to the bed and take a few gulps when I hit that first snooze bar.

I also thought this device was fun. My brothers are really hard to get up. You pull the pin and toss it in the room with someone who is sleeping. 20 seconds later it starts beeping and honking and won’t stop until you reinsert the pin. This means the sleeper has to find the person who tossed it in to get the pin back. It might make a fun gift for mom. I don’t think I should carry it on the airplane, however.

Since the blogosphere has exploded over these, it makes me think I should explore some of my ideas on building other designs.

Here are the links: Brooklyn and Manhattan.

I’m very pleased to see B&H looks nice as I have ordered from there before and always had excellent service. And, I’m not surprised to see a few of the shady outfits where I either cancelled the order after weeks and weeks or had to pursue a charge back on my credit card.

What is really interesting is how a tiny little operation can obtain a nationally known (or nationally infamous) reputation.

Even the nicest stores have a “back room” or a “warehouse” that isn’t so nice.

After some experimenting, I found that the best way to do it was to put the camera on a tripod, place the laptop, zoom in on the laptop screen, mark the exact location of the laptop, remove the laptop, shoot the scene. Load that picture as the background on the laptop and put the laptop back on the desk. Zoom out and shoot the final picture. There are slight alignment issues that cause it to have a “refracted glass” look that I think adds realism to the illusion. I found the results looked better than shooting a picture with and without the laptop and trying to “punch out” the screen. The icons on the laptop screen look much better this way.

The illusion, of course, only works when you stand at the correct angle. If you still don’t get what’s going on, this picture with the laptop turned should help you figure it out.

Way back in 1996-7 I was saying that digital photography would eventually obsolete most photolabs. Sure, a small segment would still want or need the chemically based developer/stop/fixer photography, but I knew that it would put a serious dent in the marketplace.

Photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewart/7954868/