New decorations for the student lounge. courtesy of one of our radio astronomers. Come to think of it, we have a lot of radio astronomers.
Radio telescope arrays really could use some cooler names.
Posters
Tag: astronomy
January Snow
And we’re back from break. Snow!
Leonids
Ninety years ago, during the Leonids meteor shower, someone was counting a lot of burning bits of debris from comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. With one fifteen-minute window boasting forty-five meteors (!), that’s a powerfully active shower. Not quite a storm, but those happen with the Leonids sometimes.
According to NASA, the Leonids peak about every 33 years, with 1966 being a spectacular meteor storm. In one fifteen-minute window, thousands of meteors fell like glowing rain. How amazing is that?
Also: check out the times indicated. We’re assuming the counting started at 11:00pm and ran until early morning, with a 24-hour clock opposite how we’d expect it. (Maybe sleep deprivation?) Either that or it was a truly spectacular meteor shower!
Battery Access
When the screw heads to the battery access panel are stripped, just go all the way and open up the entire housing. Why not?
The real question is this: why are those screws stripped? Did it arrive that way, battery installed, or did they take a real beating after popping the first battery in? Why have screws to keep it shut in the first place?
Metersticks
In our Physics & Astronomy labs, we use metersticks with great frequency. Often for measurements, sometimes to approximate distances that make the arithmetic easier, and occasionally as a handy tool for pointing to the projector screen.
They aren’t super-high precision any more than the rulers you remember from elementary school, and for that we have other tools. Sometimes, as you can see above, the years have warped and twisted things a bit. We adjust.
As you might expect, they offer metric distances on one side, inches and feet on the other. The best ones – the oldest set – were long ago painted black to conceal those SAE units. Clearly, someone grew weary of students measuring everything in inches and then complaining that the math wasn’t working out right.
Red Light
Red lighting is so useful for being able to find things at night without ruining your dark-adapted vision. Key to visual astronomy.
Also, we now understand, for parties. Like, more than just star parties.
Light Bulbs
Sure, the other side says soft white, but let’s be honest: blanco suave sounds way, way better.
Small Radio Telescope
At the Observatory, we have a well-loved Small Radio Telescope, an older version of the one available from MIT’s Haystack Observatory. It’s an educational tool, suitable for undergraduates, which offers one charming advantage over our other, visual telescopes:
You can operate it comfortably from the climate-controlled building interior, conducting your radio observations in almost any weather.
Post Holder
It can be a real pleasure to find old objects lying around, with their dates of acquisition marked on the side. January 29th, ’09!
Which ’09, exactly?
Olin Science Building was constructed in 1954, so it’s doubtful this particular post holder dates back to 1909. Especially as the lettering on both sides matches up.
So we were still purchasing equipment for the old, cast-iron optics rails as recently as 15 years ago? Wow.
News Release: Space Potato
“Potato” isn’t a shape, it’s a lack of shape.