Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Around the time of sunset, the first quarter moon was at its First Quarter phase. Later in the night, I spotted what seemed to be Aries the Ram above the Pleiades cluster. Other constellations such as Taurus and Casseopeia were easily spotted as well.

Sunday, December 17th, 2006

Time: 7 PM - 9:30 PM
Place: Service Road

It took about an hour to get one of the new telescopes to align correctly, although once it did we were able to see the Pleiades, Hyades, double cluster of Perseus, a quadruple star, and a few other objects on the mounts "Tonight's Best" tour function.

From the media center field, we were able to see the constellations Taurus, Pegasus, Casseopeia, Orion, Gemini, Auriga, the Hare, and a few others. In the approximate east, Sirius and Canis Major were rising. Mr. Percival's ridiculously powerful laser pointer made spotting constellations infinitely easier.

APOD16

This was found in the ruins of a sunken ancient Greek ship. After decades of study, recent X-rays have discovered its function. It is an extremely accurate mechanical computer that predicts the motion of planets, stars, and even eclipses. The accuracy of this mechanism was thought to be impossible to achieve in 80 B.C. I'm willing to bet money that it was made by aliens.

APOD15

This is a really big machine. It digs up the ground with a giant spinning bucket wheet for surface mining. It can change the face of the earth and create features visible from space. It takes a while to cross the road as it has a top speed of less than 1 km/h.