Monthly Archives: August 2006

Globular Clusters Galore

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This last weekend I had my first chance to do some serious observing from Aguanga. I brought my Celestron 8″ SCT up as a permanent addition to the high desert site. I set the telescope up before it was fully dark. My first target, used to get the finder aligned, was Jupiter. A nice view of the planet and the four Galilean moons. Then I waited for dark.

After it was mostly dark (not fully “astronomical twilight“) I found M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. It was a nice pretty ring. I could not see the star at the center.

Using my Celestron sky guide, I looked for good objects in the southern sky. The new house has a great view to the south, something completely lacking in LA. The first and most obvious target was M8, the Lagoon Nebula. Almost as impressive as the nebula in Orion, it was a beautiful wispy sight.

I then turned to the constellation just to the north of Sagittarius, Ophiucus. It has several globular clusters. It straddles the Milky Way, and the globular clusters orbit the Milky Way, so this is a good place to see them. I have always liked observing globulars. Their compact and dense fuzziness, I find them most beautiful. I started in the southern section, looking for what I thought was M9 or M10. Instead, I found M19 and M62. With some help from the star chart, I moved north to find M10 and M12. These were particularly beautiful. Higher above the horizon, I could see foreground stars — really very nice. I’d love to image these object.

Finally, I sought out and found M14. The search showed me several things. The dark of Aguanga is sufficient to see the stars on the chart. I can search the sky with the 8″ SCT. And next time I’ll bring the Telrad. M14 was not as impressive as the others, but it was a good find.

Finally, a complaint. A neighbor to the north has a mercury vapor lamp that is so bright I can see a shadow. with dark-adapted eyes, I feel I could read by the light. Like a full Moon that does not light up the sky, it is a great distraction. A minor annoyance at a great location.

Yard Adventures in Aguanga

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Yesterday was yet another day of work in the yard in Aguanga. The effort to maintain 2.5 acres is beginning to sink in. The house in LA is virtually maintenance-free since it has all been recently landscaped and we can have a bi-weekly service come by for a very reasonable costs. Not so in Aguanga.

It started with the plumber’s arrival around 10am. When the LP gas company came by to set up our account, they found that the piping system would not hold pressure, so we were cut off. We have hired a plumber (covered by the home warranty we hope) to fix all the leaks. There are many leaks. The plumber estimates that at least half of the former owner’s gas bill was just leakage! Most of the leaks are new installations (since the last owners purchased) and show the signs of being done by amateur plumbers. There are zig-zagging short sections of pipe with many connections (75% of which leak). Our theory is that the installation was do-it-yourself as all the pipe lengths are off-the-shelf. A plumber would cut pipes to length and thread them. Not so the amateur.

After the plumber left, it was on to mowing the lawn. Last weekend we replaced the blade drive belt. The one the prior owner had on it (we bought the tractor-mower from him) was too short. Installed, it ran two of the three blades backwards. So, with it fixed, I was able to mow the lawn area. No problems here. It had been a couple of weeks, so it took two passes to get it done without bogging down the mower. Bagged the grass and I was done.

Next project: The jungle. On the hill in front of the house, an area of popple (or cottonwood) had been growing up like crazy and had become a jungle. Last weekend we fixed leaks in six of nine irrigation lines in the front. One was a broken pipe in the jungle. I bought a machete on Friday and attacked the jungle. An hour or so later, I had cleared a good portion of the jungle. I found another broken irrigation pipe. All that water was letting the plants grow out of control. There is still more clearing to do. If only I had the right motorized tool — a chainsaw perhaps?

I put a fresh tank of gas into the tractor mower, and thought I would clear some of the weeds out in the larger property. No problem until a wad of wire (that came from ?) went under the blades and wrapped around before I could shut them down. OK, run the tractor up on some boards, lie on the ground and slowly cut the wire away. 45 minutes later it was freed. A quick test run showed that it still cut on all three blades. I did have a scare when I heard a clattering noise. Fearing another wire tangle I looked back and saw a piece of re-bar sticking up out of the group. It is in a large piece of concrete near the gate. What other suprises are out there?

Finally, time for a shower and then off to Mass at Sacred Heart church in Anza. Oh, I forgot to mention checking the spa.

Whew. I was looking for a relaxing second home for observing. I’ll never get the observatory built until this backlog of maintenance gets knocked down. But I did get to observe. More on that in another post.

Check the Numbers, Scientific American

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In a recent article in Scientific American, there is a major statistical blunder. In the article, A Great leap in Graphics (subscription required), the author discussed the time it would take to render the images in their recent movie Cars. Sciam wrote “Even with Pixar’s fast network of 3,000 state-of-the-art computers, each second of film took days to render.”

This is absurd on its face. The film is 116 minutes long. If it took “days” and you assume that is merely more than one, that would be 13,920 days or over 38 years. I don’t think it took that long to make the movie.

Days of CPU time (with the reported 3,000 computers) I would buy. But not days per second of elapsed time.