The 2010’s have gone by, and I have been blogging (more or less regularly) throughout the entire time. In the same space of time, I’ve lived out my twenties. Ten years is a staggering amount of time, yet it has flown by faster than pigs with wings. I’ve grown and…
Tag: Astronomy
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Summer of 1609
With apologies to Galileo Galilei and Bryan Adams. This is what comes of me reading up on the history of astronomy, and having a job that leaves a lot of room for creative thinking. I took my two curved lenses And placed them in a hollow tube I saw the…
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Quoth the tired astronomer
Imagine looking up into the sky at night, toward the stars that faintly glow, to curse your human mind for being slow and yet unable to cease asking why. Those distant lights insist on passing by, around the Earth and through your mind they go, suggesting that there is so…
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Imparting wisdom on the next generation
Summer’s job is at an end, and I’m back off to school. I have mentioned that I have the best job, right? Some things I’ve accomplished these past few weeks: Coming home from work covered in coca cola, glitter, cocoa powder and paint. Telling kids about Lund University’s Super Secret…
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Planets, galaxies and coming back to life
Achievement unlocked: observe all planets through a telescope! Mercury, I got you at last, and in crescent shape nonetheless. This was a most excellent night of stargazing, and just what I needed after these past few weeks of hell. Planets, moons, satellites, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies. Glimmers of hope in…
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Look! A galaxy!
Those are stars. Red giants, specifically. In a dwarf spheroidal galaxy called Leo II. I know that the diagram doesn’t make much sense to most people, unless they happen to be astronomers versed in photometry, but trust me. I’m so happy I’m just about dancing around like an idiot. Because…
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Asterism
Today? I’ve helped program an asterism into the planetarium in tribute to a dead hero. I’ve also read a fair bit of Almagest, a book written around 150 A.D. by Ptolemy which concerns the cosmological world-view of the time. Arguments for geocentricm, a spherical Earth, fixed stars, and things like that.…
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Blood moon ramblings
There’s a lunar eclipse. I’m a shitty blogger but I’m writing now anyway. Even though I’ve been emotionally reclusive of late I’d like to at least pretend for a moment that I exist and throw these feelings out into the proverbial aether. Maybe they’ll be relevant to someone, although that…
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This new year
Right then. So the Earth has once again passed that arbitrary point in its orbit which we define as the beginning and the end of a year. The entire event went by without much celebration on my part, since some abstract entity or other saw it fit that I should…
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All-nighter euphoria
So. True. BOOM. Project report finished. Well, sorta, at least. Still got some details to fix probably, but that is a problem for tomorrow. The equivalent of a bachelor’s project. Ten weeks’ worth of work. I’m about as happy about my accomplishments in this one as with my actual bachelor’s…