For those who have been asking — yes, I did go out to see the Leonid meteor shower.  As predicted, the west coast of the U.S. was not the best place to see the narrow peak of activity, but we did have some some increased activity at the end of Monday night (morning of 11/17).  I put together a composite shot of the meteors caught on camera and a time-lapse video covering most of the night on my astrophotography page.  I’m still working on getting a higher resolution video online, but the service at YouTube is too new, and I’m having some problems.  I’ll post an update when I’m able to get the video uploaded and working properly.

By the way, according to my observatory neighbor Jim, there was also a fair amount of Leonid meteor activity on Tuesday night, but Monday night was better.

American postmodern composer Philip Glass, circa 1985. (Leon Morris/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

I can’t say I expected my next Space Music post to revolve around an opera, but here we are. And yes, I mean an honest-to-god opera. Not a pulp-fueled Star Warsian “space opera” and not even a science fiction opera like the L.A. Opera’s adaptation of “The Fly.” We’re talking ladies in Viking helmets, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” and all that jazz*.

Yes, according to the New York Times, the latest opera from living musical legend Philip Glass centers on the life of noted 16th century astronomer Johannes Kepler. The opera’s title? “Kepler.” What a minimalist, eh?

Heralded as the father of celestial mechanics, Kepler is the guy who proved planetary orbits were elliptical and that orbiting objects travel faster the closer they get to the sun. He even has a supernova named for him.  In short, Kepler’s Laws played a crucial role in the advancement of astronomy. NASA even named an exo-planet hunting satellite for him.

This marks the second time Glass has chosen to explore the life of a noted astronomer. His 2002 work “Galileo Galilei” sounds like a true tour-de-force, opening with the title character elderly, blind and broken by inquisition for heresy. The work, according to Glass’ website, “explores his religiosity as well as his break with the church, and expands into the greater, oscillating relationship of science to both religion and art.” The opera ends with Galileo as a baby. Think “Benjamin Button,” except with a relatable main character.

New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn points out the “Kepler” doesn’t venture into thematic territory quite as deep and brooding. Instead, it’s more about Kepler’s views on his own character flaws and how he irked most of his colleges, which just sounds like a Wood Allen movie. Kozinn at least says that, while “exceedingly nondramatic,” the music is as brilliant as you’d expect from an artist the caliber of Philip Glass.

If you’re planning to be in Linz, Austria any time over the next two weeks, you might get a chance to see “Kepler” for yourself. For the rest of you, check out some scenes from the opera in this video clip.

Thanks to my lovely wife Bonnie for bringing this story to my attention!

* But no actual jazz.

Ponder the Stars at HowStuffWorks.com:
How Stars Work
How Telescopes Work
Wide Angle: Top 10 Extreme Observatories
Wide Angle: Top 10 Moments in Astronomy

More Space Music:
Vol. 1: Astronauts and Ambient Music
Vol. 2: Desert Island Reads… IN SPACE
Vol. 3: Symphonies of the Planets: Music from the Hearts of Space?
Vol. 4: Carl Sagan – “A Glorious Dawn”

(The Planetary Society) – Cassini flies into the plumes …

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002227/

Last week, Chris forgot his lunch at work and I drove it out to him. I have to pass a cemetery to get to his workplace from home, only I never noticed it before.

I noticed it this time. And in that moment, I had a very small panic attack, something that has been happening more and more often.

These are not debilitating panic attacks. Someone sitting next to me, having a conversation with me even, wouldn’t notice. They manifest as a tightening in my chest and a fluttering in my stomach and a sudden mental picture of my death.

I don’t see my body. I don’t picture my funeral or casket. Nothing so tangible.

It’s just a moment of no longer being part of this earth, no longer being alive. I don’t like it.

Death has always been an abstract idea to me. I couldn’t imagine my soul no longer inhabiting my body. Maybe this is a symptom of getting older, feeling one’s mortality so profoundly. Or maybe I’m just really screwed up in the head. I hope I’m not psychic.

The truth is, although I may have a lot of complaints about my body: too flabby, bad hair days, I don’t like my nose, I’m not photogenic, I do really kind of like my body. And I like the things having a body allows me to experience. The idea of my body rotting in a grave or (and I prefer this) being burned to ashes isn’t very appealing to me. I know that I won’t be in it anymore. I won’t feel pain. I probably won’t even care by then. But I do now.

There are millions of people and probably even more animals that once walked this planet thinking and feeling and living and they’re all gone. They cease to exist, suddenly, out of nowhere. Because even if you’ve suffered with a fatal disease for a while and you know it’s coming, when it happens, it is out of nowhere.

My step-grandmother died of cancer. She lived with it for a couple years, and by the last few months was bedridden. In the last few weeks, she mostly slept and barely spoke. We all knew it was coming. Still, I didn’t expect it to actually happen.

I was newly 16 years old and my father and I were in Buffalo visiting because we knew there wasn’t much time left to say goodbye. I woke up one morning to find everyone in the house standing in her bedroom, so I joined them. I stood in the back by the doorway and the Hospice nurse told me my grandmother had slipped into a coma in the middle of the night and wasn’t going to wake up. I stood there in stoic silence until the nurse said my grandmother’s heart had stopped and it was official.

Tears welled up in my eyes and a lump rose in my throat. I choked it down, held in the tears, picked up the phone that was next to me and called my mother to tell her what happened. My father and I would be coming home to get her for the funeral.

The death wasn’t violent or unexpected. It was quite peaceful, frankly. But now, 17 years later, I still remember it like it happened yesterday. I will never forget it. I’m unsure how to process it, that she was there and then she wasn’t. And I know I don’t ever want to not be there like that. Not ever.

I’m not afraid of what happens to the spirit after death. I expect any one of many possibilities: some form of heaven, reincarnation, remaining earth-bound and moving through a parallel dimension, watching the living go about their lives. Or something entirely different. Maybe the Egyptians had it right and if I have a heart lighter than a feather, I will become a star.

Who knows?

But this body won’t be with me. And it’s served me well. I don’t want to forget it, but I also don’t want to think about it.

The idea of death, to me, is as amazing as the Big Bang theory: that once there was nothing and then there was a universe. But how could there be nothing? And I mean truly nothing. Because in order for the Big Bang to be true, there wasn’t even empty space. A “void,” as it’s often described, implies there was empty space. But there wasn’t. There was no existence. There was nothing. Wrap your minds around that! Think about it for a minute, and if your brain remains intact, keep reading.

I could probably write an entire blog – not just a post or two – about astronomy and the theories that go with it. It’s an amazing thing. It’s incomprehensible. And so is imagining one’s own death. Because I exist in my own mind. And if my mind, my Self, ceases to exist, then so do I. And that’s just not acceptable.

This video went viral in the skeptical community a couple of weeks ago and whilst I was aware of it, I didn’t have time to watch it until last night.  It is part of The Symphony of Science a musical project by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form.

A still more glorious dawn awaits,

Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise.

A morning filled with four hundred billion suns, the rising of the Milky Way.

There is something so beautiful about the universe that it almost makes me cry about just how beautiful it is.  Every since I can remember, I have wanted to travel to the stars and walk on alien worlds.  I think I was born about two hundreds too early, but one day we will get there.

Amazing …

This image of the central parts of Centaurus A reveals the parallelogram-shaped remains of a smaller galaxy that was gulped down about 200 to 700 million years ago. The image is based on data collected with the SOFI instrument on ESO’s New Technology Telescope at La Silla. The original image, obtained by observing in the near-infrared through three different filters (J, H and K) was specially processed to look through the dust, providing a clear view of the centre. The field of view is about 4 x 4 arcminutes.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (277-196 BC), knew that at noon on the summer solstice the sun shone directly down a well in Cyrene – 800 km from Alexandria. By measuring the angle that the sun hit the ground at Alexandria at this time, Eratosthenes could use geometry to calculate the circumference of the earth very accurately. He figured it to be just under 40,000 km. Interestingly the idea of a spherical earth was well established by the time of Aristotle (384-322 BC) (Robin Kerrod, 1999). I am surprised at how often historical accounts seem to understate the intelligence of the ancients; something  Graham Hancock and others have referred to as ‘aping the ancients’.

Sunday 22- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 41 and 64 degrees, winds NW at 4 to 12, humidity around 27 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 66. North northwest wind around 7 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 43. Northwest wind around 7 mph.”
I called a few Friends and Family during the day.
I put sealant on the tiles in the kitchen and it stunk up the whole house. I had all the windows open but the smell lingered throughout the day and into the night. I’m going to hate it when it comes time to put the sealant on the tiles in my bedroom. I mopped the floors over and over trying to get the rest of the leftover grout and it looks like I’ll be doing it a few more times before I get it all.
I worked on my 12” Dobsonian Telescope. I had to cut grooves into the new bolts so that I can turn them with a screwdriver and then cut a metal spring that goes on the bolts that holds the primary mirror onto the mount. With that done I remounted the whole assembly back onto the telescope tube and tried to align it as best as I could. It was daytime and I’ll have to wait until night fall to find out if the repairs worked by testing it out on a bright star to see if there is any aberrations. At least the view finder is lining up correctly where it didn’t before when I first purchased the scope.
Patty came over with her sister Debbie to pick up her computer. Debbie said that she has another computer that Patty can have but it needs to be fixed. I told her to bring it over and I’d have a look-see.
I watched “60 Minutes” about: Health Care for the terminally ill; a Newsweek reporter’s story of being held in an Iranian prison; James Cameron’s new film Avatar; and Andy Rooney talking about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims.
Then I went outside to test the telescope. Ah, so much better! The stars are dots instead of looking like comets! A vast improvement over what it was. I still need to tweak the primary mirror into better alignment and clean the mirror, too. But I’m happy that it’s working much better! A cold wind started to blow and I collected everything together and went back inside; my body isn’t acclimated to the cold yet this year.
I read a few chapters in “Golden Buddha” until late, then I did my stretches; practiced my guitar; wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume. In a higher manner, the bathrobe communicates the same pleasure. All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a robe is the principal event in chronology. For, the experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its robe. Let us interrogate the great apparition. Let us inquire, to what end is the bathrobe?

My robe should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. It shall exclude all other being. All persons that ever existed are its fugitive ministers. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my robe also. All things are made sacred by relation to it. Give me health and a bathrobe, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

The man is only half himself, the other half is his robe. It does not need be that a robe should be long. The young man reveres men of robes, because, to speak truly, the bathrobe alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation. These wings are the beauty of the robe’s soul. Robes are thus liberating gods.  No wonder, then, if these bathrobes be so deep, that we hover over them with a religious regard. We sat in the aurora of a robe which was to put out all the stars.

Build, therefore your own robe. Most men gamble with her. Who does not? We have all seen changes as considerable in wheat and caterpillars. But not so, O friends! Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but your bathrobe.

-Carl Peterson

The Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell “designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form.” Using Auto-Tune and clips from Carl Sagan’s PBS series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Boswell has created a captivating music video:

There is a second video available on his website, featuring Bill Nye the Science Guy.  The video above, “A Glorious Dawn”,  is also available on 7″ vinyl through Jack White’s record label, Third Man Records.

This is better than it might seem at first:

Back from a weekend jaunt to the wilds of darkest Iowa. Will pick up the thread of things before too much longer.

Jim Downey

(Via MeFi.)

Last week it was ESA and Rosetta. This week, NASA had to go one up on the Europeans.

Waaaaay back in 2006, Cassini was able to image geysers shooting off of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Since that discovery, the Cassini team has been able to swing the orbiting robot into a few really close passes to the moon.

A few days ago, they were able to capture this fantabulous shot!

Enceladus Geysers!

Stu over at Cumbrian Sky has a nice post that sums up my feelings as well (thanks for the pic!). How I’d love to be able to see these geysers with my own eyes!

Hubblecast 11: M74 (NGC 628) – A Grand Design In A Galactic Festoon.

The galaxy Messier 74 (“The Phantom Galaxy”) lies at a distance of over 30 million light years. In this latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope the enormous swirls of this stunning spiral galaxy arc across space, adorned with glowing pink regions of hydrogen gas and lit by the pale blue light of millions of newly formed stars

It’s official: There’s water ice on the moon, and lots of it. When melted, the water could potentially be used to drink or to extract hydrogen for rocket fuel.  NASA’s LCROSS probe discovered beds of water ice at the lunar south pole when it impacted the moon last month, mission scientists announced today. The findings confirm suspicions announced previously, and in a big way.

Based on the measurements, the team estimated about 100 kilograms of water in the view of their instruments — the equivalent of about a dozen 2-gallon buckets — in the area of the impact crater (about 66 feet, or 20 meters across) and the ejecta blanket (about 60 to 80 meters across). (credits: NASA, Space.com)

This universe where we’ve been hanging appears a tad rough and ready.

203413     การสํ ารวจทางดาราศาสตร์     Astronomy Surveying

ตรีโกณมิติทรงกลม ระบบพิกัดทรงกลมฟ้า ตํ าแหน่งและการเคลื่อนที่ของดาว ระบบเวลา ปฏิทินดาว การคํ านวณมุมแอซิมัธ ละติจูด ลองจิจูด โดยวิธีทางดาราศาสตร์

(Spherical trigonometry; celestial sphere coordinate systems; stellar position and motion; time systems; star almanac; determination of azimuth, latitude and longitude by astronomical methods.)

(203413 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

(ScienceDaily) – Jets and lobes emanating from the central black hole of Centaurus A have been imaged at submillimetre wavelengths for the first time. …

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090128074617.htm

(ScienceDaily) – A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO’s 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A …

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091120084619.htm