Have Faith

Have Faith

A friend recently posted that those words can annoy her.

I definitely don’t want to annoy her.  I think she is correct that we may actually distance ourselves from the other’s pain when we give advice or repeat bland platitudes like “Have Faith.”  I try to sit and be present when a friend shares the space around a wound.  And I find it most difficult to keep my mouth shut.  When I do keep quiet sometimes I feel that I’ve failed at being sympathetic.

What does it mean, to “have faith”?  I guess it depends on your definition of the word, and having different meanings to our words is one of the hallmarks of our language.  Faith.

I tend to think that faith is connected to having belief in something unseen, and there might be different levels of faith.  I’ve heard that having faith in the law of gravity to keep me grounded is one thing, but it’s a whole different kind to jump from a 20-story building with faith that God will catch me.

I think the scientific method is the best way to learn about the natural world but I guess I have faith in the science community to follow the scientific method in exploring our universe.  I don’t know from personal experience that all or even most scientists actually did a particular experiment or bit of research, but I have faith that someone in the community reproduced the results satisfactorily. I have faith that they would not stay silent if the experimenter was wrong.

To one extreme, faith beyond belief might be called knowledge.  On the other extreme, faith might be called insanity.  Which way is which?  I have faith that we humans have the capacity to figure it out.  I could be insane.

I don’t want to annoy her, so I won’t say it.  But I’m thinking it real loud.

Dennis

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Science books may have the reputation of being filled with boring facts, but I've read my share of innovative and entertaining works.  Carl Sagan and Chet Raymo have long had a special place on my bookshelf.  I also have Alice in Quantumland by Robert Gilmore and Bad Astronomy by Philip Plait.  The later actually is a collection of facts, but they are presented as answers to misconceptions about space.

A definite new addition to my collection of "weird" astronomy books is The Edge of the Sky by Roberto Trotta.  It was a gift from Barbara (she knows what I like) and I finished it this afternoon.  I must admit that it was a little difficult to understand, almost like trying to read Old English, or listening to Australian accent.  It's a short book (85 pages) which is a good thing.  The description about the universe is woven around the account of an astronomer taking a one-night shift at a mountain-top observatory.

I bet it sounds pretty conventional, right?  The wrinkle is that the author only uses words that are most common in the English language.  Trotta restricts himself to the one-thousand most-used words.  This leads to all sorts of new terms like "Big-Seer "(think telescope), "Heavier Drop" (helium), and "star-crowd" (go ahead and guess.)

I found the story of the astronomer to be very flat, although many intriguing thoughts fill her head.  Maybe those ideas coulndn't be easily described in simple words, so they got left out?

A list of the 1,000 most common words is included in the forward, and Trotta claims to have used only 707 of them in this book.  I believe him, but I didn't count them myself.  There's also a glossary of some of the awkward terms is at the end of the book.  

I will do it here.  Each word in this word-group is on his list. His book was of interest to read for a short time, but soon became a job.

(That took some editing!)

If you are into language or weird astronomy books, this might be for you.  If you want to learn some astronomy, probably not-so-much.

Third item on my New Years resolutions is to read/complete at least one book /month.  And it' a galaxy.

Which way is North?

(Tom shared this activity with me, and I've used it successfully several times.)

On the first day of class, when I'm introducing basic sky-watching concepts, I ask my students to point North.  As you might expect. I get the usual mix of fingers pointed to different horizons, but I also get about 25% pointing straight up.

These students think the zenith is North.  It's an understandable misconception.  When we were younger, many of us learned to read maps with "north" being "up" on the map.  So north must be up, correct?

Moon Phases

Moon Phases

Yesterday,  just before my 1:25 class, the skies above HPU cleared and the view was glorious!

My Lab students came in and we put styrofoam balls on sticks and went outside.  The waxing -almost first quarter Moon was low in the eastern sky.  I asked what phase the Moon would b in if the Moon were close to the Sun, and they chimed in "New!"  We held our stryrofoam balls on sticks, our models of the Moon, up near the Sun and sure enough, we were looking at the dark side of the Moon.

Then we held our Moon models next to the Moon in our sky.  Low and behold, the models exhibited the same phase as the real Moon! I heard the gasps and comments of understanding.  What they had learned in lecture, they now understood in Lab.

Then I asked "How much of the total surface of the Moon is being lit during the Full Moon phase?"  They said half.  Correct.

Next I asked, "How much of the total lunar surface is being lit during the 1st quarter phase? "  Someone said half, and I said correct.

How much in New...half,  How much in waning gibbous?  ...half   How much all the time?  half!

A great day at school!

                                           One of my archived pictures of the Moon.

Immortal Stars

Immortal Stars

The life-span of humans seems so brief compared to that of stars 

What?   Stars have a life span? 

Yes, I know, that idea can be a bit unsettling at first.  Maybe we tend to think of stars as permanent because they last such a long time.

Our star, the Sun, has been around for more than 4 billion years.   Billion!  What a number!  It's a challenge to wrap a brain cell around such a hug number.  A billion.  Have you been alive a billion seconds?  (Only of you're older than 31 years!)

Stars are born, they live, then they die.  The Orion Nebula is one of those places in the universe where stars are born.  When we look at it, it's like lokig into a crib with a bunch of babies, and the blanket has been kicked away in places. We can see the babies inside. 

This image of the Orion Nebula (M42) was taken as part of my preparation for the Astronomy Labs I'm teaching this semester.  It's a 20 second exposure with an open filter by the Prompt 1 telescope in Chile.  The baby stars are hidden in the glow.  Next, I'm going to try to manipulate the image to bring them out. 

Southern Stars

Southern Stars

I'm beginning a new chapter in my variable star work,  Since taking an astronomy course at GTCC in 1997 I've been making visual observations of variable stars for the AAVSO.  I haven't done many, but a few every year usually get added to my records.

This year I'm learning how to take images of the variable stars and calculating magnitude using computer software.  In addition, I will be looking at stars in the southern sky, stars unavailable to observers this far north of the equator.

My first target is to calibrate exposure time.  I've taken an 80 second exposure of the variable star u tuc.  It's found in the constellation Tucana (the Toucan). There are apparently many unknowns about this particular star, including it's distance from Earth and the period of variability.

Art and Astronomy

Art and Astronomy

A couple weeks ago a special group from Winston Salem came to visit Cline Observatory and look thru our telescope. They were young artists seeking inspiration.

Wednesday evening these young artists presented their work at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston Salem. It was exciting to see them excited about astronomy and present their thoughts and feelings and impressions thru their media. (I wish I understood art more.)

Located on the Jamestown campus of GTCC, Cline Observatory is open to the public, free of charge every clear Friday night. This week we are scheduled from 7 to 9 with a high probability of clouds or rain.