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Seeing stars
Last night was my first chance at star gazing. It was a pretty nice night — 25º — a little too chilly for setting up my telescope, but nice enough to use my new binoculars. Most amateur astronomers will tell you to start with binoculars anyway. You don’t see huge detail in the objects in the sky, but it is easy to find things, and a good way to get familiar with the sky.I didn’t get out early enough to see the Moon. Tonight the Moon and Venus make a pretty nice pair in the early evening western sky. I’m going to try and get a view of them tonight.
I was surprised how many stars I could see through my binoculars that I couldn’t see with the naked eye. My view of the northern sky isn’t that great because of all the light from the city. I couldn’t see any stars, but with my binoculars I was a least able to make out the Big Dipper. Facing west, Jupiter was bright and impressive through my binoculars. Again you don’t get much detail through binoculars, but still great to see. I usually can’t make out the different colors of stars, but with binoculars I could clearly see the bright redness of Betelgeuse, and the bright white Rigel in Orion. What I was probably most impressed with was actually seeing the Orion Nebula.
I went out again early morning and got a shot of Mars. Again, no details, but it was obviously red, and just cool to at least get a better view than you can with the naked eye. I went out a few hours later to try and see Saturn, but it got cloudy, so I didn’t get to see Saturn.
I agree that binoculars are a great way to start. It’s easy to find things, and a good way to learn the sky. I can’t wait until it gets warmer so I can spend more time outside. I may even have to find a good place where I can get away from a lot of the light pollution.
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Shit Skeptics Say
via reddit.com
There is finally a Shit People Say video that I can relate to. -
Super-Realistic Sculptures of Beavis and Butt-Head in Real Life
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Flashback Friday: The Queers – “Punk Rock Girl”
In the early 90s I picked up the Screeching Weasel album Boogadaboogadaboogada! on a whim. I instantly fell in love with the band and the label they were on, Lookout!. I started to pick up albums just because they were on Lookout!. Back then you couldn’t listen to an album before you bought it. There was no internet to get a preview of songs, I was just buying albums on a whim. I loved almost every Lookout! album, from Mr. T Experience, The Donnas, Squirtgun, and maybe a little band you might have heard of called Green Day. Sadly this week Lookout! Records is calling it quits. It’s sad, but they really haven’t been the label they were in the 90s for some time now.This weeks video is from The Queers. They are another of those great Lookout! bands, and this song is so yummy yummy catchy.
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Beginner amateur astronomer
Yesterday I got my copy of Night Watch. It was a book that Fraser Cain recomended for begining amateur astronomers during one of his Google Plus Virtual Star Parties, which I can’t say enough good things about. I’ve been obsessed with learning everything I can about amateur astronomy since it’s not really nice enough to be outside and observing. Last night was a clear night, and I had a good view of Jupiter and Venus from my driveway early in the evening, but with temps below zero, I didn’t feel like spending much time outside. Instead I dove into my new book. I totally agree with Fraser, Night Watch probably is the book for begining amateur astronomers. I’m sure this wont be the last post about my new hobby that I am obsessed with. My ultimate goal is to get some amazing pictures from space. I’m probably a few years off of being able to do that, but here is one of Jupiter and Europa that a member of our local astronomy club took.
How cool is that? Someday I want to be the person that takes these pictures. -
Backing up with rsync and Automator
The beginning of this year I re-thought my backup strategy. I’m crazy about my backups, maybe a little too much. This year I’ve actually cut back on some of my backups. Last year I got a CrashPlan family plan to back up my two main computers. It works great. I love CrashPlan. Now thanks to iTunes Match, I was able to downgrade my CrashPlan to a single computer plan.
I’ve been slowly upgrading all my music to 256 kbps, from the crappy 128 kbps that I originally ripped all my music to back when hard drive space was more limiting. It’s been great to get them upgraded without having to re-rip the 1400 cds I own. That’s another reason why I make sure to have good backups. I dread having to re-rip my cds. iTunes Match serves as a great backup too. The $25 for iTunes Match is actually saving me money. Downgrading my CrashPlan account saves me $84 a year, adding the iTunes Match fee and I save $59 a year. Plus I don’t have to upload most of the new music I buy. It is just matched, and I have a backup.
So what about my other files on my iMac that need backed up? Well, I wrote an Automator script that uses rsync to backup my documents folder over to my Windows machine, which is then backed up to CrashPlan. Everything is also backed up to my NAS. Yeah, I’m anal, but I have a great system and will never lose a file. Here is the simple shell script that I used:
rsync -aE –delete ~/ Documents/ /Volumes/Users/mace/Documents/iMacBackup/ Documents/
I made an app with Automator that runs that script and just just put it on my desktop. I could have gotten more fancy and scheduled it to run with iCal, but I’m happy enough just clicking on the app once a day. Automator is so powerful, yet underused.
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Tips | Left-Handed Toons
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Flashback Friday: Counting Crows – “Mr. Jones”
I remember the day my college roommate played the Counting Crows, August and Everything After album for me for the first time. We bought a ton of cds that first year of college. My roommate had a crush on the record store girl, I was just in love with the music of the 90s. I never heard of the Counting Crows when my roommate brought it home, but I went out and bought it the next day. I had to have my own copy. Then “Mr. Jones” started to get some major MTV play, and the rest is history. I’ve been a little disappointed with the Counting Crows albums since August and Everything After, but that album was perfect.
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Amateur Astronomy
It’s killing me that I haven’t been able to try out my telescope yet. We’ve had a beautiful winter so far this year, but the few nights that I have had off work it’s been too cloudy, and now I think winter is probably here to stay. It’s below zero now, and our high for today was only 7 ºF, not really good outside weather.
One thing that has got me really excited to try out my telescope has been Fraser Cain, from Universe Today, and his Virtual Star Parties. They are something that he is just starting to do using Google Plus, and they are totally awesome. He gets amateur astronomers to hook up their telescopes to Google Plus, and we all can see the various objects. Last night I watched his first two Star Parties, and learned a ton. Someday I’ll have to catch one live. I’m so excited to keep on learning, and maybe be able to actually call myself an amateur astronomer one day.
It’s been a long time since I started a new hobby, and it exciting to learn something new. There have been a few hobbies that I have wanted to start, but never wanted to spend the time or money to get started. Maybe it’s time to start a few of them. Three hobbies that I can think of now that I wanted to start are home brewing beer, learn to play guitar, and amateur astronomy.
I haven’t even used my telescope yet, and I have already found a few I want to upgrade to. I think I will hold off on them for a while, and get a good pair of binoculars first. That’s what most people say to start with. They say you can see more than you would think, and it’s a great way to get started and find out if the hobby is for you before spending a ton of money.
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Sh*t Nobody Says
via mashable.comSo the meme of the day is the “Shit _____ says”. Fill in the blank with any group of people, and it probably exists. Most of them, not too funny. This is the first one that made me lol, they had me at Nickelback.
