On Crunchyroll there is an anime titled “The Magic Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies”. I stumbled across it as one does sometimes, and came across this soliloquy: “I was born to an elite evil family, worked my way up the elite evil ladder, got an elite evil job, and now I’m the elite evil right-hand man of the King of Evil…”.
Astrophotography after a haitus — M33
An endless summer of clear sunny days followed by fog rolling in by evening… Just isn’t worth it to fire up the telescope. But I did manage this view of M33.
Three Fates
Ski Trails
Who’s Next / Life House Super Deluxe Edition
It’s now $299 on Amazon, but I got it at a discount — $257.
I bought it out of loyalty to one of my favorite bands of all time, but in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting much.
Wrong. It’s great. Lots of new stuff, played by one of the best bands of all time, fresh versions of old songs, demos with weak spots that are still played by great musicians.
If you aren’t already a fan, then it probably wouldn’t hit you the same way, but I am, and it did.
Thank you, Caltrans
Forgot to post this when it happened, a few months ago…
Tuesday, when the “bomb cyclone” hit the Bay Area. We agreed to pick up my sister-in-law Diane at SFO on her return from China.
Bad driving conditions. Worn windshield wipers, intermittent rain and gusty wind, glaring headlights, almost invisible lane markers. Like driving through a Matisse. Fortunately, traffic was light, and we were all cautious.
We were on the road by 11 pm, CF and I and the little dog Cooper. The plane was delayed due to weather, and Diane didn’t clear customs and immigration until midnight.
Coming back across the San Mateo Bridge, the road noise got louder. Was it the truck following on the left? No, it passed. The volume increased. CF and Diane were chatting away in Chinese. The tire pressure light on the dashboard was on, and I had a sudden realization. Oh shit oh shit. A flat tier on the San Mateo bridge after midnight in a storm.
We pulled into one of those emergency pullouts. I got out and looked, in the wind and the drizzle — the left rear tire was mangled and flopping over the rim. CF called AAA and got through to one of the most unhelpful people you could imagine. Someone more interested in chewing gum than helping motorists stranded on a dark and stormy night…
After apparently rummaging around the cheat sheets on her desk for many minutes, and putting us on hold while she went and checked with her supervisor, the completely unsympathetic young woman finally came back and told us that Triple-A couldn’t help us — we needed to call Caltrans instead.
We called Caltrans. There a brisk woman told us that we shouldn’t call them directly, we should call our insurance company and they would call Caltrans.
Called AAA once again, and this time got someone who knew what to do. Half an hour later a giant Caltrans tow truck pulled up behind us, and an incredibly efficient and friendly driver in a yellow slicker soon had us on our way.
Another test post to mastodon
The number is approximate, of course. (From a scenic overlook on La Palma)
Congratulations to “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Richly deserved. I was motivated to add it to my DVD collection…
Witch Head Nebula, IC2118
I think most good astrophotographers plan their telescope runs in advance. I am not like that — I look at the objects that happen to be visible and take pictures to see what I get. I didn’t know that IC2118 was known as the Witch Head Nebula. Now I know that it is a famously dim, difficult-to-photograph object, and I will try again:
Do you see the witch? A profile view with a huge nose and an open mouth, eyes hidden in shadow. Facing right.
This was only five exposures; the individual exposures show absolutely nothing of the nebula — only through the magic of image stacking can anything be seen.
Comet Pix a failure
Comet C/2022 E3. Not a very good picture. Some faint star streaks and a stationary, vaguely comet-like blob.
Here’s an image of the comet moving against a stationary background of stars. Same data, just processed differently:
For the record, this is also comet C/2022 E3, not an exotic galaxy. The comet moves this much in about half an hour.
There are some tutorials on youtube about how to combine images like these into a composite with stationary stars and a stationary comet, but given the low-quality image of the comet, it probably isn’t worth it. Still, it would be educational. I have another run of exposures I may try to process. Best prepare for disappointment…