Situation for Philae

I am going off the air for awhile in sympathy for Philae!
So here is an outline from DLR about how the story might be written:

Es bedeutet, es wird besser, dauert ewig, bis Philae will/kann, Gedult, lese ein Buch, studiere Englisch, Volker!
            WOB

gardens - Luisenpark, Mannheim

Astronomers and myself are quite fortunate people: we get to do what we want and that sometimes takes us to some of the most beautiful places on earth, a planet - part of the solar sytem in the Milky Way galaxy, universe. And we are allowed to be curious and ignorant and to pursue our ignorance!

Like where do we come from? And in the spirit of yesterday's blog I look at that unusual garden, or "Garten", the Kindergarden or Kindergarten:

And the logical consequences are:

Mission accomplished!

QED!

wob

gardens - Kathleen's

There is a TVO prog - Around the World in 80 Gardens - that is being shown now. One can also watch via computer. The Orillia Camera Club has also chosen Gardens as their feature for May. So with so many stimuli I am challenged to submit some garden images. Where to start? There is Kathleen's, Luise's, and Vicki's and how I see each.
I thought I would begin with Kathleen's on the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Several people like poppies!
And birds:

Especially this one:

I enjoy myself here in this wonderful garden.

                                                                       wob

March Madness

Science is not democratic in that one cannot "vote" to decide whether something is or is not true/factual. Only experiment can decide whether something is so - and that procedure must be written up so that it can be scrutinized and verified as needs be.

Therefore I was shocked when I read that NASA and JPL had organized a vote on the nature of the white spots on Ceres.  6 options are given and "it's anyone's guess what those spots could be." So go ahead and cast your vote. My concern is that this will lead to confusion with real democratic procedures and ultimately with whether one can vote down global warming - and it will go away or go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Or vote on evolution vs creationism.


********************************************

OK. There is something else which I found interesting - how to make stone tools, and when. I saw a video demonstration in 2008 in connection with the Nebra Shield in Halle, Deutschland. I was surprised to see that the stone was struck on the opposite side to where the flaking was desired. I can understand it but it was not what I had expected beforehand. So this link to Scientific American  is interesting and adds to our humanity - maybe! Anyway there are lots of videos to help you survive your summer holidays.

Vicki and I expect to be back in Killarney Prov Park Aug 2-ish to Aug 16-ish looking for Perseid meteors, northern lights, sun spots and flares, planet(s), multiple stars and clusters, and may be a galaxy or 2. Hope everyone is well and having a safe healthy Spring leading into summer.

                                                                                                              wob


PS It snowed this morning and there are white-caps on the lake; +3deg C and winds up to 50kmh - for the curious!

Spring Fever - An hallucination may be sensory!

It is -1 deg C, not even as close to 2deg C that 2 was to 20, Michael. And it is snowing, Susan, so I am not having any further symptoms of withdrawal. On the other hand neighbours have been presenting me with an unnecessary number of shovels - bad for my back shovelling is.

And now that I have had my coffee I think I will resume hibernation - 6 weeks if I did not see my shadow!  wob

Wednesday's Child

My friend Michael wrote to me this morning from Darmstadt saying that it was close to 20 deg C - that is two zero - and I thought that that was close to our temperature as well: TWO deg C as in at least it was +2 deg C! (Zero is insignificant except as a placeholder! and so 2, 20 what is the diff when both are positive and wind  chill is not a factor when inside?)

And for Susan, it snowed on me, a real blizzard, complete with photo:

There is actually a photo there, above this line (IMGP0070.JPG) . I dare you to do a "mouse-over" or click on it.

Actually, it was an interesting 4 or so hours. There was one spot of snow on the terrace at 9:30am; it is now gone. The temp was 6deg C. We drove to Toronto where the temp was 12 deg C and actually bright, but
not really sunny - I never had to put on the sunglasses. On the way home - at 12 noon - we encountered
rain and hail at 6 deg C. At Barrie, there was a dusting of snow on the ground and then the white-out and the
rest has been said. I think I am over my winter withdrawal symptoms - still another 4 weeks until May 24th when it also has snowed on me.

wob

PS Tonight the terrace is a lovely clean white again with several cm of S N O W !!! 

The ICE LEFT COUCHICHING on Sunday April 19, 2015

Friday began foggy:

(The snow in the terrace, foreground, is still there today/Mon Apr 20)

It - the fog - soon dissipated:

I took these photos during an afternoon walk to see the final (?) signs of an all too brief winter (comment for Susan):

I have some good images of both Canada geese and turkey vultures from Fri and Sunday respectively - is there any interest in seeing them? wob

67P jet activity

This just was published:

The full story appears here.

I must confess to being a little sceptical about the "discovery" image, 2 minutes later. On the other hand one can see the star-like pieces comet drifting around. These caused some confusion for the Rosetta star tracking navigation system and have lead to Rosetta reverting to a fail-safe mode for awhile.

wob

DDO Doings - the new status of the David Dunlap Observatory.

Vicki and I met here in May 1965 - and we are still talking to each other!
Here is one news release - not about us! Dated - yes! Thursday April 16 2015.

And the RASC also has a release dated Wednesday April 15, 2015 which ought
to be available directly.

Sky&Telescope also has  the story covered..

Aurora over Couchiching at 2AM

From the balcony looking NNE or so between 2 and 3am.

This morning I received some link data  from Daniel Fischer in Germany. I can now add images of the sun responsible for the aurora.

Al has given me this link   for current solar activity/space weather as well as the appearance of the sun. Thanks - wob

PS extended 10 day forecast plus probability