Category Archives: musings

astronomy news, HII regions, molecular clouds, musings

November Roses and the Southern Sky

Leave a comment
CCPs Rose Tub
CCP's Rose Tub

I just got back from a week’s vacation in sunnier climes and was surprised to see one of my rose gardens still blooming after a snowstorm and some chilly rain while I was gone. We’ve had something of a mild autumn this year in New England, and some flower gardens are still glowing madly away, basking in the last warm weather before the snows start in earnest. This little tub of roses is dedicated to the memory of Caroline Robinson, late wife of Leif Robinson — a former colleague of mine from Sky Publishing. She loved to garden, and when I was planting these little Canadian roses earlier this year, I thought of her and her fight against cancer. A few weeks ago we attended Caroline’s memorial service and I thought about these roses out there, still blooming this late in the year.

N44 as seen by VLT
N44 as seen by VLT

Another set of blooms arrived in my computer’s inbox today — this set from the European Southern Observatory. These roses are really giant clouds of glowing hydrogen gas coloring the space in the Large Magellanic Cloud — a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. This European Southern Observatory image captures the beautiful sight of a 1,000 light-year-wide HII region (consisting of hydrogen gas being lit by radiation from 40 very bright bluish-colored stars) called N44. Astronomers studying this cloud think that some supernovae have exploded in N44 during the past few million years, “sweeping” the surrounding gas away from the supernova sites. Hot stellar winds from other massive stars in this area are blowing bubbles in the surrounding gases, twisting the material into wispy filaments and bright knots.

A small programming note: regular readers of this blog may notice that I’m fiddling around with the layout and template design. I hope to be through messing around with it soon but I do appreciate your patience while I figure out what I’m doing!

Also, have a look over at the library and gift shop on my website. I’ve been adding some holiday gift ideas at the suggestion of several readers who have been writing to ask me about the perfect gift for that stargazer they know. I’ve got links to books, telescopes, binoculars, star charts, space music and many other items — some with links to Amazon.com (which itself has loads of details about these products as well). Happy browsing!

housekeeping, musings

Everything Changes

Leave a comment

If you’re a regular visitor to my website at TheSpaceWriter.com you’ve probably noticed some changes in the pages lately. I’ve been busily re-coding them using style sheets, revamping backgrounds, editing text, adding new stuff, and re-evaluating how I want to communicate about science.

The web site got started way back in the mid 1990s when I was in grad school and wanted to do a web page. The first incarnation was pretty small, but I learned a lot about encoding HTML from that experience. Then I just kept adding to the pages and getting more hits. When blogging became available — especially thanks to Blogger — I seized on it as a way to link it to my site and update it more frequently.

So, I have an online planetarium show in the Henrietta Leavitt Flat Screen Space Theater — a way for you to step through a little tale about the cosmos. And, there’s an ‘art gallery’ of space shots with plain-English explanations of the science behind them. And links to other cool sites. And stuff about me and my philosophies about science and media.

I get feedback about the site from folks who are moved to write about their own experiences with astronomy. One of the most touching messages I got was from the sister of Al Hibbs, who I wrote about earlier this year. She had run across my blog and read about my experience with her brother. She wrote me a snailmail letter and I was really surprised to get it. (To her I say, “Thank YOU for writing.”)

One of the things that keeps cropping up in the emails I get from people is the question: “What book should I buy for my son/daughter/wife/husband/significant other /brother/sister/friend who’s interested in astronomy?” Great question and you’ve come to the right place. I am surrounded by books. And star charts. And several telescopes. And several pairs of binoculars. And battery-operated socks. And red flashlights. You name it, I’ve probably got it, or I’ve read it or about it or I want to buy it.

In the earliest days of the site, I had a few book suggestions, but when I went into revamp mode, I noticed those references were getting a little outdated, so this past week I decided to update them, add in some new books — in a nod to the folks who want to know about telescopes, binoculars, star charts, and all the other goodies that stargazers like to buy — I’m adding in some reviews of those products as well. And, to help folks buy them, I’ve put links to product pages at Amazon.com — where it appears you could pretty much buy anything you want. With the upcoming holidays looming on the horizon, lots of astronomers will be on people’s gift lists…

I’m also open to suggestions for astronomy-related topics to discuss on this blog or in the gallery pages on the web site. So, feel free to write me at ccpblog at hotmail dot com and share your thoughts about astronomy and space science, the web pages, books you’ve read, stuff you’ve used to help YOU enjoy the sky.

Note: I’m not open to requests from advertisers and spammers and pr0nmeisters and people who write suggestive emails, but I know there’s little I can do about you other than ignore your rudeness.