After all that, it was a long nighttime drive to the town of Truth or Consequences (yes, there really is a town in New Mexico by that name, although we affectionately refer to it as “T or C”; check its wikipedia entry). Then, up very early the next morning, to the local high school to catch buses that would take us all out to the New Mexico spaceport (Spaceport America) for its first annual Education Launch. I was privileged to be one of the “dignitaries” speaking at the launch, and meanwhile the launch itself went up on time and almost without a hitch.

Here is a photograph I took of the launch:

and the contrail afterwards:

Being a part of this student launch is extremely gratifying for me. Ever since I finished graduate school back in the early 1990s, I’ve been a member of the local citizen’s group that has pushed and advocated for a commercial spaceport to be developed here in southern New Mexico. Back then it was just some forward-minded people who met around a table once a month and talked about how to bring this vision to a reality. And now, all these years later, it has indeed become a reality . . . one of the other speakers, (one of the Vice-Presidents at New Mexico State University) commented that, “we weren’t supposed to do this”  — and yet we just did.

Right now Spaceport America isn’t much more than a couple of temporary buildings in a vast open area of the New Mexico desert. But this is changing . . . Virgin Galactic (who has just signed a 20-year lease with us) is building their world headquarters here, and we’ve got many, many more space projects (scientific, educational, commercial, and otherwise) that will be launched out of here in the years to come. It’s hard to put into words just how gratifying and satisfying it is to see something much bigger than myself come together like this — and to know I was in on it from the beginning and helped to make it happen.

Incidentally, the wikipedia entry for T or C mentions the “Fiesta” that takes place the first weekend in May. Our buses got back to T or C just in time for us to catch the parade . . .

Before I could go home, I had another event to make. I believe I’ve already mentioned in earlier postings that I’m a member of our local acting troupe. Well, we staged a “Murder Mystery” production at Holloman Air Force Base last night. In this type of production, the cast members assume the roles of various shady characters, and we’re all suspects in a “whodunit?” murder. Here I am in my costume:

Photos of the other cast members, and scenes from the play last night, are at our troupe’s web site — note that my character’s name was John Goodman (actually, an impersonator, Johnny Goodmann) — hence, the “Blues Brothers” attire. And no, I wasn’t the guy “whodunit” . . .

Anyway, I feel I’ve earned my time off today (although I’ve had to help some students in the on-line astronomy course I’m teaching) . . .

Until next time,

Alan

I traveled to Lebanon at the invitation of the Houssam Hariri High School located in Saida (perhaps better known worldwide as Sidon, the ancient Phoenician city), and spent several of the days giving presentations to students there and participating in other activities (including tours of some of the surrounding tourist sites) with some of the students and teachers. I found myself constantly being asked to appear in photographs taken with and by the students, so I figure it was only fair to turn the tables on them. Here is a group of some of the students (and one of their teachers) during one of our tours:

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the students, faculty, and staff at Houssam Hariri High School, and all the other people in Lebanon I met with, for the enjoyable and pleasant experiences I had there.

Once all the fun and games were done, it was time for the return trip home. Thursday, April 9, I arrived at the airport in Beirut at midnight for my flight that left at 2:00 A.M., and after flights across Europe, across the Atlantic, and across the U.S., and then a 2 1/2 hours’ drive home once I arrived at the airport in El Paso, I finally got home at midnight — 33 hours later. In addition to recovering from the trip, over the weekend I was hit with a vicious cold that struck with a vengeance, and felt pretty miserable — not the most enjoyable way to “celebrate” Easter and my son Tyler’s 17th birthday.

I’m feeling better now, although I’m nowhere near full speed. There was the usual “Monday crunch” of lesson plans, grading, and article research and writing, but that’s taken care of for the moment. Coming up are meetings with the Director of the local Space Museum concerning educational programs we’ll be conducting during the summer, and the various other things that crop up all the time — plus observing at night, of course, although we’ve had some weather systems cross southern New Mexico since my return and the nights haven’t quite been as clear as I might have liked. In any event, the life of the astronomer goes on . . .

Until next time,

Alan

Saturday I was one of several speakers at a somewhat formal program that included presentations to students and parents at Houssam Hariri High School in Saida (or Sidon — the ancient Phoenician city — as it is more commonly known). Unfortunately, we had clouds and were unable to view anything afterwards.

Sunday, there was a dramatized event at an old fortress along the coastline of the old city of Sidon. Students from a local school “arrived” at the fortress in some boats decorated to represent the ships of the Phoenicians (as Ravel’s “Bolero” played over the loudspeaker):

After they “arrived” the students (dressed as astronauts) came out of a tented Mars mock-up and did a dance for the crowd, to a Mike Oldfield tune:

The whole point of the dramatization was to connect the ancient Phoenicians’ explorations of the Mediterranean to the recent (and, hopefully, future) human explorations of the universe.

Anyway, I’m back at my hotel room in Beirut now, after a long and tiring day. I’ve got school presentations (among other things) on my schedule for the next three days, and then another series of long, boring flights heading back to the U.S.

Until next time,

Alan

I am leaving tomorrow morning for Beirut, Lebanon. I’ve been invited to give a series of talks to students at the Houssam Hariri High School in Saida, and also at a “100 Hours of Astronomy” event on Saturday evening, also in Saida. They’ve got a pretty busy schedule lined up for me, but there should be some time for playing tourist as well.

Since I’ve been delinquent on this blog from time to time, I’ll try to make up for that a bit and post a couple of times (with photos) from Lebanon.

The adventure starts bright and early tomorrow morning . . .

Until next time,

Alan

During the last couple of weeks of February and first week of March I was busy giving a series of school presentations and public presentations at State Parks in southeastern New Mexico — a project for which I received funding from the New Mexico State Legislature last year. Among the programs were star parties at the State Parks after my talks, and I deliberately scheduled these when I did to take advantage of the appearance of Comet Lulin, which was then near Earth (and which put on a rather good show). We had a good star party at Brantley Lake State Park (near the city of Carlsbad) on the evening of February 27, but unfortunately we were clouded out at Bottomless Lakes State Park (near the city of Roswell) on March 6.

Meanwhile, within the past three weeks I have begun a teaching job, as adjunct faculty, for the American Military University — part of the American Public University System. This is a purely on-line university that specifically caters to people who are stationed throughout the country and the world, and who may not have access to a traditional “bricks-and-mortar” university classroom environment. I’ve taught in traditional classroom environments, but that was a number of years ago; the on-line environment is a completely new experience for me, and it’s taking me some time to get comfortable in it and to get my feet wet. I’ll get there in time, I believe.

One other thing I’ve been involved in recently is helping to develop a curriculum for the summer “Shuttle Camp” at the nearby New Mexico Museum of Space History. The museum is completely revamping its summer educational program — and after this year it will no longer be known as “Shuttle Camp,” although it doesn’t quite have a new name yet — and I’ve been privileged to be asked to play a major role in that process. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been working on a proposal that will help underprivileged students from throughout New Mexico attend this summer’s program.

I’ve got a couple of major things coming up within the near future, both of a professional nature and of a personal nature — but I will wait a bit and write about those later. (And I promise not to wait another full month before posting this time . . . ) I guess one more thing I can mention is that I “celebrated” my birthday a couple of weeks ago . . . I’m not sure I care to mention which one this was, but I will remark that they seem to be coming by faster . . . I did get to do one cool thing on my birthday, and that was to give a public presentation to a public “Astronomy Day” celebration in Florida — from my dining room table! Isn’t modern technology wonderful? There have been some interesting “after-effects” from this presentation I gave that I will probably discuss in some future posting.

Finally, I offer my congratulations to the team of the Kepler project for their successful launch two weeks ago, and I look forward to some exciting results from them over the next few years. I actually did my Ph.D. thesis on exoplanets — back in the early 1990s when it was still a theoretical subject — and although my career went into somewhat of a different direction (thanks in part to that little “dirty snowball” that came into my life) I’ve always retained my interest in the topic, and have hopes of re-entering it at some point. I remember discussing the idea behind Kepler with Bill Borucki (the PI for Kepler) and other exoplanet scientists at some conferences I attended in the mid-1990s, and this mission has been under development for a long, long time. I’m sure all the scientists and engineers involved in the mission are happy that it is now flying!

Until next time,

Alan

These are generalized astronomy presentations, as part of an overall outreach program (called “Reach for the Stars”) that I’m conducting with the New Mexico State Parks Department. I’m hitting the parks now in order to talk about Comet Lulin, which is making its closest approach to Earth next week; for some of the presentations the local astronomical society will be bringing telescopes for some low-key star parties.

Wednesday (Feb. 18), meanwhile, is shaping up to be an interesting day. I’m driving down to El Paso (about 2 1/2 hours’ away) for an eye doctor’s appointment; two years ago I discovered I had developed cataracts in both my eyes, and later that year I had the (more severe) cataract removed from my right eye (in the process, improving my vision in that eye from an extremely nearsighted 20/400 to about 20/30 — I’m not complaining!) It’s now time to get the (less severe) cataract removed from my left eye, and this is my “pre-surgery” appointment. Hopefully I’ll be able to have the surgery done within the next couple of months.

That morning, though, I have a have a very fun activity in store: I’ll be a guest on the morning show for the radio station KLAQ-FM. (It’s a hard rock station, one of my favorites.) It turns out that I owe the host of the morning show a favor, and his “price” is my being a guest on the program (a debt I don’t mind paying in the least; I’ve been on his show a few times in the past, and have thoroughly enjoyed it). I’ll be discussing things like the “Reach for the Stars” presentations and Comet Lulin — and the Cosmic Diary! Since the whole purpose of the Cosmic Diary is to show the human side of astronomers, I’d like to think this can be some good publicity for our efforts here.

Those who live in southern New Mexico or western Texas can pick up KLAQ-FM at 95.5 MHz. Those of you who don’t — and that’s probably most of you — can listen in on their web site. My interview is supposed to start about 8:00 A.M. MST, which translates into 15:00 Universal Time.

I hope all of you can listen in! If anyone — including, especially, my fellow Cosmic Diary bloggers — has something in particular they’d like me to discuss, let me know!

Until next time,

Alan

Most of us are dependent upon some form of governmental funding for our work. Those who are employed at a university, for example, receive their salaries from that institution, and these often come from some type of governmental appropriation. The research activities themselves are usually funded by governmental grants, for example, here in the U.S. the funding agencies are generally NASA and the National Science Foundation. The funding is tight — and getting tighter in the current economic climate — and the competition for that funding is pretty fierce, so as some of my fellow bloggers have commented good proposal writing skills are a must.

What about those of us who aren’t affiliated with such institutions? In theory, NASA and NSF grants are available to me as well, but in practice people in my situation are pretty much overlooked. So, we have to get a little bit creative . . . One thing we can do is hook up with those who are in such institutions and get funding that way; although I’m still in discussions as to exactly what my role will be, it looks like I may be getting some funding through the Kepler mission that will be launched in just over a month.

There are other sources of funding, too, for example, private foundations. As one example, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (which is being conducted at Apache Point Observatory, not too far from where I live) is being funded by the Sloan Foundation. Since a lot of the work I do is educational (although I tie research work into it), I’ve managed over the years to get some educational funding from various private foundations, and will probably continue to do so. One has to write proposals for these grants, too, and although each foundation has its own guidelines as to what to include within these proposals, I’ve found that these are usually much more straightforward and to-the-point than are the proposals for federal grants.

And there are other ways as well . . . Sponsorships for various things are one example, and if I may be so bold as to make a pitch here, I’m looking for a sponsor for the Earthrise Institute’s comet observing award. Last year I went to Santa Fe (the capital city of New Mexico) during the legislative session and met personally with some of the legislators, and was able to obtain funding for some educational work I’ll be doing over the next few months — and now that the legislature is again in session, I’ll probably be heading back up to Santa Fe a couple of times over the next few weeks to meet more with legislators on various projects.

I probably speak for a lot of my fellow bloggers when I say that I wish having to search for funding wasn’t such a big part of the work we do, but unfortunately it comes with the territory. But we all manage to get by somehow . . . and it’s the work we get to do the rest of the time that makes it all worthwhile.

Until next time,

Alan

While a lot of astronomical research these days requires either very large and high-technology telescopes or spacecraft missions, that’s not true in all cases. Sometimes you can do good, valid work with small instruments.

Case in point: there’s a fairly bright comet in our morning sky right now, and it’s going to get brighter over the course of the next month.  This is Comet Lulin (officially designated C/2007 N3), which was discovered a year and a half ago by a Chinese university student, Quanzhi Ye, as part of the Lulin Sky Survey that is conducted out of neighboring Taiwan. It was a very dim and distant object at that time, but it has gotten a lot brighter since then.

Right now Comet Lulin is in the constellation Libra, and about 7th magnitude — i.e., bright enough to see in binoculars. A month from now it will pass 0.41 Astronomical Units (61.5 million kilometers) from Earth and may reach 5th magnitude, i.e., visible to the unaided eye (at least, from a dark rural site if you know where to look). At that time it will be racing westward along the ecliptic at five degrees (ten times the moon’s apparent diameter) per day, and will be opposition in the constellation Leo, visible all night.

Ever since its discovery amateur astronomers all over the world have been taking images of it in an effort to help refine its orbit. Now that it’s bright, an entire host of scientific observations can be conducted of it. The orbit it’s on seems to indicate that it may be making its first visit to the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud.

If you’d like to see Comet Lulin, this Sky & Telescope article has links to finder charts for it. Under a contract I have with the New Mexico State Parks department, I’ll be conducting some outreach programs in my part of New Mexico, and I hope to have telescopes set up to view the comet. It’s possible I may even have my imaging system back up and running by then, but in the meantime the Yahoo! Comet Images group has links to several images that some experienced observers have taken.

Happy viewing! Remember it was that fascination with the nighttime sky that brought us all together here in the first place.

Until next time,

Alan

We’ve just had a full moon, and this is often when I take a break from astronomical activities, and catch up on sleep and “real world” stuff. Since much of the work I do is education-oriented, and requires “real-time” visual observations of astronomical phenomena (for example, the “Countdown to 500 Comets” program I mentioned in my previous post), I can’t do too much of that when the moon is full. With modern imaging equipment, of course, full moon times aren’t quite the show-stopper they used to be, and once I get my imaging system set back up I’ll probably be taking images fairly regularly.

Right now I’m preparing for the on-line teaching job that I’ll begin in March, and for the time being I’m observing another class so I can get a feel for how things operate in this environment. I’m also in the process of preparing for educational programs for various institutions here in New Mexico (including a program with the New Mexico State Parks department — for which I was able to get some funding from the State legislature last year) and all this involves a fair amount of paperwork (going through educational standards and benchmarks, etc.). Once these programs are ready, I imagine things will get a bit busier around here.

Among other things, I have several regular astronomy and space columns that I write. One of these is a weekly column I write for a couple of local newspapers, entitled “In Our Skies” — a column I’ve been writing since 1995. Writing a column every week, and trying to keep it informative, up-to-date, and at least somewhat entertaining, is an interesting challenge, and forces me to keep up with the various goings-on in the sky and in space. This week I’ve written about the variable star Mira, which is currently near one of its 11-month maxima. It’s easy to see with the unaided eye right now and is well placed for viewing in the evening sky, and I encourage everyone to go check it out!

On the home front . . . I took my 16-year-old son Tyler to get his driver’s license today. (Time for Dad to get a few more gray hairs??) My older son, Zachary, celebrates birthday number 22 in a few days — it’s so hard to believe it’s been that long already. I remember two years ago, on his 20th birthday, and thinking about where time had gotten to — and then on the radio I happened to hear the song “Time Stand Still” from Rush (with the lyrics “children growing up, old friends growing older”). Time really does fly, and makes one realize just how precious is this life we have. All we can do is, make it count!

Until next time,

Alan

The whole point of the Cosmic Diary is to show that those of us who do astronomy for a living are in fact living, breathing human beings — just like all of you. And as you can see from the little blurb on the right side of the diary, I have the extra “attraction” of being somewhat famous — or perhaps infamous. But I’m still just a person, who happened to have something rather extraordinary happen to him a few years ago.

With all this in mind, let me introduce myself . . .

I live in a rural environment in southern New Mexico, in the Sacramento Mountains (elevation 2200 meters where I’m at), within the boundaries of the Lincoln National Forest. Although many people might associate New Mexico with desert, it’s forested here, and can get pretty chilly during the wintertime. We’re supposed to get some snow within the next few days . . .

As the blurb on the right indicates, I run a small non-profit educational/research organization called the Earthrise Institute. I’ve also recently accepted a position teaching for the American Public University System, an accredited on-line university that services those who aren’t in a position to attend a traditional classroom-style university. I’ll be teaching various astronomy and space science courses.

Most of you have probably heard of me because of an object that was visible in the nighttime sky about a decade ago:

That object certainly made my life interesting for a while! But my career is much more than that. In fact, my Ph.D. thesis was actually on the subject of extrasolar planets, which at that time (early 1992) was a theoretical subject. Now, of course, it’s a full-blown observational subject, with over 300 extrasolar planets having been discovered over the past decade, and more being found all the time. I haven’t really been involved in extrasolar planet work since the Hale-Bopp discovery, but I’m in the process of forming a collaboration with the PlanetQuest project, which is oriented towards utilizing students around the world for planet searches.

But, speaking of comets . . .

Two years ago I initiated an educational project at Earthrise called “Countdown to 500 Comets,” which is designed to encourage students around the world to observe the various comets that appear in the sky. (Those who successfully observe ten or more are entitled to receive a special award.) I’d be delighted to have any interested Cosmic Diary readers participate in this project. We actually have a bright comet that’s about ready to appear, Comet Lulin C/2007 N3, which was discovered a year and a half ago by a “Countdown” mentor, Quanzhi Ye in China. I saw Comet Lulin this morning and it’s visible just west of the “head” of Scorpius, and already bright enough to see easily in binoculars. When it’s closest to Earth near the end of February it should be visible to the unaided eye.

So, what about me as a person?

I have two sons, Zachary (age 21) and Tyler (age 16). Zachary is a student at New Mexico State University, and Tyler is a junior at Cloudcroft High School. Both are accomplished musicians — and both are in rock bands that they’ve formed with their respective friends! — and Tyler (who plays the trombone in his high school band) marched with the Band of the Americas in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California on New Year’s Day.

I’m a pretty big guy, and I played offensive and defensive lineman for my high school football team, and threw the discus for my high school track team. I run approximately 13 kilometers per week (at this high elevation, too) and pump weights twice a week. I’ve entered a couple of competitive events over the years but mainly I just work out to try to stay in shape.

I’m a big music-lover, and while I like almost all genres of music (including international and world music), I’m pretty much a rock ‘n roller at heart. My list of favorite musical acts is way too long to list here, but among them are Bruce Springsteen, U2, Rush, Metallica, Evanescence, Coldplay and (going back a ways) Johnny Cash, the Moody Blues — as well as lesser-known acts (for example, the Irish band Hothouse Flowers). I’m a big fan of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and got to see them in concert a few weeks ago. I might mention that I went with Zachary a few years ago to a performance of the OzzFest — 14 hours of heavy metal music!

For a while recently I had a gig on a local radio station, but that’s not happening right now. There’s a chance I may be able to revive that sometime soon, although this may be in a web-based format as opposed to a traditional radio station.

And one more thing (for now), I’m a member of our local theatrical troupe, the Cloudcroft Light Opera Company. I’ve been in several performances, including three plays last summer when I played (in all three) — the villain! Here is me in one of my villain costumes:

It looks like I will probably be in at least one play this coming summer.

That should probably be about it for now — but there will be a lot more, that I will share when appropriate. This is probably going to be a very “interesting” year for me personally, as there are some significant changes in my personal life (and perhaps professional life as well) coming up. Some changes may be good, some perhaps not so good — but that’s life, and that’s what we’re all here to share.

Until next time,

Alan