On station...

They say that only mad dogs and Englishmen will go out in the midday sun, and I suppose it takes nutso translators with an occasionally overabundant sense of wonder to emerge under the Leonid stars.

I've been up since a little after 1 am, the result of Sasha making noise along the lines of wanting to go out. I got outside with the camera around 1:15 or so, and immediately saw a couple of meteors in the area around Leo, the constellation after which the shower is named.

It is cold, if nothing else. The moon is still high in the sky, and is almost bright enough to read by. Off to the northwest, I saw a band of white clouds that looked pretty solid when I first got outside. By 1:40 or so, the clouds had moved "up" from the horizon, and I began to think we'd be socked in for the main event, which is supposed to occur around 90 minutes from now. However, looking out a few minutes ago, it would appear that the clouds are not that solid, and that there is a band of clear (or at least clearer) sky behind them, at about that position on the horizon that the clouds themselves occupied about an hour ago.

I'm warming up with a cup of hot tea and am off to check out a NASA site devoted to the Leonids (out of Marshall, if memory serves, but Google will set me straight in any event).

Cheers...

The iceman returneth...

I, in my Academy-award-winning role of walking icicle, have returned from the Great Outdoors (situated 6 m or so from the house) with what is hoped is film that will show more meteors than the one I took last year. (That should be no great accomplishment, as last year, I only recorded one streak.)

As I attempt to warm back up to something in the two-digit temperature range, I observe that what I saw was a pretty show, to be sure, but nothing to compare with last year's storm. Then again, last year I didn't have a full moon to contend with, either. (BTW, despite the math from earlier on, about how the moon is 93% full and all... my eyeballs were well and truly convinced the moon was just plain full. Heck, I could reset my timer by it.)

It's definitely late, and I'm sure to be among the first at the photo shop tomorrow. I'm interested in seeing how good this 1600 film is...

Cheers...

Reassuring news... not!

This morning's The Wall Street Journal devotes two columns above the page-one fold to a story on how a "watch list" develped by the FBI in the wake of September 11 has developed "a life of its own."

"Shortly after Sept. 11, the FBI had entrusted a quickly developed watch list to scores of corporations around the country," says the story, continuing on to note how the list was circulated to banks, car rental companies, travel reservation systems, consumer data collection firms (presumably these are credit agencies) and casino operators.

"A year later, the list has taken on a life of its own, with multiplying - and error-filled - versions being passed around like bootleg music. Some companies fed a version of the list into their own databases and now use it to screen job applicants and customers." And despite the fact that the list included people the FBI didn't suspect but just wanted to talk to, the WSJ notes that a web page in South Africa carreis a copy of the list, obtained from Venezuela, titled "List of suspected terrorists sent by the FBI to financial institutions."

And from today's USA Today, in a story about how a court has cleared the way for implementing domestic spying provisions that had earlier been struck down, AG Ashcroft is quoted as saying how this decision "revolutionizes" the government's ability to "catch terrorists."

While such language can be expected of any prosecutor, it should be noted that what has really been revolutionized is the state's ability to catch anyone doing anything.

I need to go on a news-free diet...

Cheers...

Leonid follow-up...

I'm back from the photo shop; the pictures ought to be ready in about 4 hours. I went through the same litany as last year, and got the same response (Scott was not there... he knows what the issues are, his help apparently does not).

As I probably mentioned, it was cold last night, but what am I to expect on a mid-November night at 7700 feet in Colorado? The skies cleared beautifully by 3:10 am or so. Drew says he was up for the show, too. It's a shame we were not able to hang out together... all that male bonding stuff, etc.

The photography - at least the doing of it - went better than last year, since I knew better what to expect. Most of my exposures were around 45 seconds, and all but the first exposure had the lens set wide open and focused on infinity.

Cheers...

The challenge remains...

The film is back, and although I've achieved more this year than I did last year, the results were by and large not spectacular.

As I was photographing the show last nightthis morning, I knew that meteor trails were forming in front of my lens. Unfortunately, only the brightest of these were registering, even given the 1600 speed of the film. (Last year, I learned that digital cameras are not sensitive enough to capture meteors.)

Here's an example of what I captured:



The bright "star" in the picture is actually the planet Jupiter. If you give your imagination a whirl, you can see a reversed question mark that starts around the middle of the photo and moves down, forming the "C" part of the question mark, with the tail pointing down and to the right. That's the constellation Leo, which gives the shower its "Leonid" name.

If you spend much time outside during the Leonids, a presentable number of meteors seem to be coming out of this constellation, and that's the result of the same kind of perspective illusion that makes train tracks converge in the distance. This photo, by the way, illustrates that phenomenon, as both trails point to Leo.

Enough lecturing... can you see the meteor trails? If not, here's a slightly "annotated" photo:



The whole business of scanning photos introduces an uncomfortably high level of loss. The trails are faint, but definite on the original photo, but weak and indefinite on the scan. The lack of "black' in these images is due to the fact that (basically) a full moon is shining pretty high in the sky behind me (I'm actually situated in the shadow of my house, so as to minimize the effects of the moon on my observations.)

Here's another meteor trail, which is somewhat better defined on the photo.



The next photo is my favorite, despite the fact it shows no meteors. It was taken (as were all of these shots) with a 28-mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens on an old 35-mm camera. All of the shots were made using the "bulb" shutter speed, which basically means light can enter the camera for an arbitrary amount of time (determined by the photographer, who manipulates a cable release), and the shutter was held open for between 45 seconds and 1 minute for most of the shots I took last night.

I've told you how bright the moon was last night, right? (Duh... Only about a dozen times!) Well, check out the following photo, which was taken with the camera pointed in a generally easterly direction, at some time between 1 and 2 in the morning:



This is not a trick photograph. The white sky along the horizon is accounted for by clouds (which continued to move east). The trees and mountains were reflecting moonlight into the camera for however long I held the shutter open, and you can see Jupiter and Leo in the sky as well. This shot makes up for my disappointment with not having captured more meteor trails.

The whole experience was fun, despite the cold and poor photographic results. Reports say the Leonids won't be spectacular again until some gawdawful long time (like 2098), but they will be there (along with other showers) on an annual basis. Maybe if I do a little research, I can improve my "astrophotography" techniques.

Cheers...

Paddling as fast as I can...

The job I got last week came in two parts. Little did I realize that the two parts were two distinct jobs, which normally would not be a big thing, except that one of those parts was due today. A couple of phone calls and e-mails straightened everything out, and I'm on the hook to provide the goods tomorrow morning.

The bulk of what's due lies inside of three Excel files. I fed them to Déjà Vu (which, inexplicably, did not complain the way it usually does when I try to feed it Excel files) and immediately experienced one of the major benefits of using TM software: it found stuff I might've missed. Maybe.

One of the perennial problems with translating Excel files is the fact that such files can contain multiple worksheets. It turns out that the last person to save these files did so with several sheets "hidden" off to what I think of as the left of the screen (i.e., the leftmost tab at the bottom of the screen was not that of the first worksheet in the file). My preliminary review showed each file to consist of three worksheets; there are actually eight worksheets in each file (one of the files has nine worksheets).

Quoting Dr. Lecter: "Goody. Goody."

Now, it's likely that I would have found the 'hidden" material on my own, but the question is: when? When I started seeing (and translating) segments in DV that I had not seen in my preliminary review of the files, I got curious, and went back to review them a second time, at which point I "found" the "hidden" material.

This definitely gets filed away under the heading of "Lessons Learned" (or, "One more reason to hate Excel files").

The amount of translation that needs to be done is not trivial, but I'm still good for tomorrow morning... assuming I can find that can labeled "midnight oil" that's lying around here, somewhere.

Cheers...

Still looking up...

Drew called a few minutes ago, asking if there would be any Leonid action tonight. I said I didn't know, and that last night was supposed to be the peak of the shower, which lasts for several days. In the end, he decided he wasn't going to stay up for them.

Then I mentioned the penumbral lunar eclipse.

Which got me to looking, at 6:46 pm local time, for the times of the eclipse.

Would you believe: 6:46 pm local time was the middle of the eclipse? Drew didn't, and neither did I, as we looked casually at the Moon. Then I went outside and took another good, hard look at it.

No, there's no telltale shadow on the Moon's surface, nor is the full moon red or orange. But... it is noticeably dimmer than it was last night. I will go out again in a couple of hours - after I finish the translation, which I'm about halfway done with as I type this - to confirm.

Cheers...

First pass done...

The next step will be to get up early tomorrow morning and review what I've done.

I went outside a few minutes ago to look at the Moon again, and sure enough, now it's reflecting enough light to cast distinct shadows on the ground (which it was barely doing when I checked it earlier).

I think I set some kind of personal record with posting today (not that such a record is something to pursue, necessarily). Anyway, it's time to go to sleep.

Cheers...