http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040106/D7VTFQNG0.html




I just think this is amazing.

Wait, where are the Rag Heads?

Wait, where are the Rag Heads?

Over here plotting your demise, infidel.

hahaha

Anyone here into astronomy? Ya know, setting up a telescope and star-gazing? I just bought a telescope last month and have been fascinated by Saturn recently, which was in opposition on 12/31/03 (happens every 27 years or so I believe) It's tilted at about 25 degrees so the rings are very visible right now. Rises in the east just after Sunset and is located in the Gemini constellation.

Anyone here into astronomy? Ya know, setting up a telescope and star-gazing?

Yeah, a bit. It's surprising how even a little 3-inch refractor can let you see Saturn's rings, Jupiter's cloud bands, and... when Mars was at its closest recently, I was barely able to make out an ice cap. Barely.

What I find most interesting about viewing things with an optical telescope is how it turns the distant planets into solid-looking objects instead of indistinct points of light. It gives you a real sense of place and position that you can't get from viewing photographs or images on a computer monitor.

I've got a friend who works on the computer imaging from some of those Mars missions, and he says he's never thought of Mars as something "distant". To him, it's always been a tangible place where you could walk around and take pictures, as much as the Grand Canyon or New York is to everyone else. I didn't get that sense until after I'd seen the planets with my own eye (through a set of lenses).

Dang!

I'm sure everyone knows but me, Heather, but do you mind sharing your ancestry/origins? (My best friend's Persian, and your avatar pic makes you look a bit like his cutest cousin.) Oh, and I promise not to tell [censored]....

I've got a friend who works on the computer imaging from some of those Mars missions,...

Does he work in Boulder, CO? Up the road from me is where some of the Mars data analysis is being done.

Does he work in Boulder, CO?

No, he's in the Bay Area. There's people all over the world doing work on these projects, some in far-flung locations. Digital age, and all.

does anyone have any of the 3d photos of Mars that they talked about on TV?

I have a telescope my grandad bought in 1952 for £50 (about £750/$1300 today!) and although it's only a brass 3" refractor you can *just* see the ice caps on Mars and the rings of Saturn. I haven't been out to look at Saturn recently but really must do so.

A good site for easy calculation of relvant data is http://www.heavens-above.com/ - I mainly use it for calculating Iridium flares which are very impressive if you haven't seen one (make sure the first one you see is a -6/7 - bring your sunglasses!)

Gareth

Another fun program, for those budding astronomers who haven't tried it yet, is Celestia.

Greetings!

Right over here on NASA's Astronomy Picture Of The Day site. Great archive photos too!!!

There's now a nice 8Mb JPEG here . I'm putting my tax dollars to work and downloading it. No, wait I'm in the UK so I guess I'm freeloading somebody else's tax dollars

I passed on the 40Mb TIFF here

Gareth

check out this video from the site:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/video/movies/mer_ch_edl_TerrorComb.mov

really amazing animation and description of how they got the thing there int he first place.

I'm sure everyone knows but me, Heather, but do you mind sharing your ancestry/origins?

No, no one else around here knows anything about that. All you people know is I'm female, fron NYC and I exploit people for a living.

As for the ancestry, as far back as I know of:

My father's father's mother was Persian/Iranian, his father was Croatian, hence the name. We had a little problem with the catholic church there, something about fraudulently selling absolution, so the family moved to Italy. Gramps was raised in Italy and considered himself an Italian. He moved to New York in the 1920's. My father's mother was German and came here around the same time also under some f'd up circumstances.

On my mother's side, her mother's mother was Mi'kmaq and her mother's father was Irish (moved to NY after she left her husband in the late 30's). My mother's father was Czech, he came over as a kid in 1918. He was the only legal immigrant of the lot.

No one ever guesses anything close to middle eastern, as I have very fair skin, which you can't really tell from that picture. Most guess Italian, probably because of the thick Bronx guido accent I have when speaking my native tongue (not the proper american the speech therapist taught me in college). Only recent immigrants from eastern europe come close to being right.

I thought I should post in this thread, considering the icon Zeke made me.

Heather, I like those kinds of geneology stories. I did a project in 8th grade that brought out all kinds of stories like that from everyone in my class.

Our contact for some of the information we got on our family said that very often, people will find out that one of their relatives had a less then honerable history, like they deserted in the Civil War. They'll hand it back and say "sorry, this isn't mine, you must have made a mistake."

My roommate always enjoys saying that his great great great grandfather saw the Statue of Liberty from Ellis Island....or at least as a swam pas Ellis Island after jumping ship

I always loved the intrigue in my past. Seems my last name wasn't always with the family. Apparently my great-great-however-great-grandfather on my father's side used to live in New Orleans, and somewhere there's a picture on the back of a Time or Life magazine with him and two aunts on a balcony. Turns out they were "seamstresses" and he "ran the business." Apparently at some point he was wanted by the police, moved to New England, and changed his name to the one I have now.

Good thing, too. I wouldn't want to be named Matthew Jolly

My german grandfather died in a nazi death camp. It's very sad... He was drunk and fell off a watchtower.

Unfortunately, presumably AFTER he'd passed on his DNA...

pca

Fascinating stuff, Heather. With that combination, your genes are wear-tested! What are the odds of the Mi'kmaq Nova Scotians being in there? (At least it's now fashionable to brag of having "Natives" in your lineage. And of course, as DiGNAN notes, any connection with Ellis Island is a plus.)

The best I can manage is to explain that my middle initial stands for "Lee" i.e. Virginia's own Robert E., General. A trifle odd, given my work on behalf of civil rights over the years.

Oh, and sorry for hijacking a piece of the Mars thread....