A Little Night Music
Music has soothed many a deep thinker over the centuries. Pythagoras discovered the principles of musical harmony. Einstein played the violin. And Thomas Edison tried his best to master the piano. This is unsurprising, perhaps, as both science and music are, at their best, creative arts. But while many scientists have become excellent amateur musicians, few musicians have made ground-breaking discoveries in astronomy. The exception? William Herschel. This great astronomer was surely one of the few to excel in both fields. I‘ve already outlined his scientific work. Today, a sample of his music…
Odds and Ends for 2009
Here are some odds and ends for you today on our final message of 2009…
We’ve finally posted the entire 20-part video series about choosing telescopes and observing equipment. We’ve had so many requests about telescope advice over the past couple of years, we thought this was the best way to get all the information in one place. These videos are produced by Anacortes Telescope; they are the best brief summaries we’ve seen about how to select a telescope and accessories.
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The Sky This Month – December 2009
Despite the colder weather, the constellation Orion is always a welcome sight this time of year. The great mythical hunter bounds over the eastern horizon shield-first not long after sunset, facing Taurus, the angry V-shaped celestial bull with its glowing red eye, the star Aldebaran. Because of its location in the plane of the Milky Way, this constellation is full of enough fascinating sights for an entire winter of stargazing. To quote from our own Binocular Tour of the Night Sky:
“To the naked eye, to binoculars, and to the telescope, Orion is a gold mine of wonders. This great constellation embraces almost every variety of interesting phenomena that the heavens contain. Here we have the grandest of the nebulae, some of the largest and most beautifully colored stars, starstreams, star-clusters, nebulous stars, variable stars.”
If the first seasonal appearance of mighty Orion fails to stir your imagination, it may be time to turn in your telescope. But not this year, I hope.
5 Ways Astronomy Can Help You Live To 100
You need not look far to see books, blogs, and all kinds of health gurus talking about the latest ways you might live to 100 years of age.
Meditation. Exercise. The “Okinawa Diet”. De-stress. Keep your mind active, and so on. All good ideas, no doubt.
But it got me thinking… doesn’t stargazing help you live a healthy lifestyle worthy someone who might live to 100 years old… and beyond?
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