Tuesday's Transit of Venus

On Tuesday, something happened that won't happen again until December 2117.  From our viewpoint here on Earth, the planet Venus crossed directly in front of the Sun, blocking out some of its light and causing a baby eclipse.  This event is called a transit (as in "Venus transited in front of the Sun").  A group of us took a few telescopes to the roof of the nearby parking garage and took advantage of a perfectly-timed break in the clouds to observe the event (well, part of it anyway -- it lasted several hours and ended long after the Sun had set for us in Atlanta). 

Both of the pictures below were taken with my cell phone.  The first is an image of the Sun projected by some mirrors onto a piece of paper where it could be safely viewed.  The second took some careful alignment of my phone camera lens through the eyepiece of a small telescope with a solar filter.  I'm very pleased with how both turned out (although they're certainly not as detailed as this photo or this one).  

Other than the Sun itself, Venus is quite obvious in both photos.  Sunspots are easily visible in the first photo (as well as a few thin wispy clouds that got in the way; they look like faint fingerprints or blotches).  And if you look around the edge of the Sun in the second photo, you can see several solar flares and prominences.  Each one is caused by ionized gases trapped in the magnetic field of the Sun and is approximately the size of the whole planet Earth.

Isn't astronomy fun?

Scotland Photos

I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything (a whole month, really???)  So I'll start with a different castle this time.  This is Blair castle on the edge of the Scottish highlands.  My grandmother's name was Blair before she married my grandfather, so I've decided (with no genealogical proof whatsoever) that this castle is part of my heritage.  We toured the inside, but no photos were allowed (browse here if you're interested).  Blair castle is home to the last private army in all of Europe (well, the last legal one anyway).  It was originally formed to fight off the highlanders and keep them from heading South to attack the townsfolk, but continues to exist to this day.

We stopped at Blair castle on the way to Inverness to visit Loch Ness.  I was really hoping to tour the grounds (they had ponies!  and gardens!) but when we finished touring the inside of the castle it was pouring rain.  So we got back in the car and drove on instead.

We took a boat cruise on Loch Ness and even though it was foggy and drizzly, the landscape was absolutely gorgeous.  And perfectly mysterious for our boat cruise and Nessie watching.

No signs of Nessie from the dock when we set off on the boat.

Our boat cruise included admission tickets to wander around Urquhart castle, which was blown up in 1692 to keep it from falling into the hands of the Jacobites.  While the highlands were gorgeous, the history was extremely gruesome.

And, just so you don't think it was rainy and dreary the whole time, here's a beautiful sunset from the cottage in the fishing village of Crail where my colleague and his wife have their weekend home:

And here's a nice panorama showing some of the medieval buildings of St. Andrews (where we spent most of our time because I was working with my colleague at the university there).

Incidentally, the beach in the foreground was used in the filming of Chariots of Fire.

Maybe it won't be a whole month before my next post!  We can always hope...

Scotland, here we come!

It's been a mad rush around here to get stuff done before leaving the country again. I had a giant, 47-page proposal that I submitted to the National Science Foundation on Wednesday. And many additional things to work on to get ready for this trip. There hasn't been much time for sewing, although I do have one small knitting project for which I need photos. And now, James and I head for the airport in only 3 hours to spend the next 2.5 weeks in Scotland!

Last time I was there (2 years ago, when the above photo of Edinburgh castle was taken), I was there by myself and James had just arrived in Afghanistan. Many things have changed since then, and I'm very glad he'll be coming with me this time! I will be working most of the trip, but I won't be working such long hours as I have been lately and we have some time planned for fun too.

More fun pictures soon! Hooray for Scotland!

More travels

After Copenhagen, I spent a few days at Caltech for a science team meeting. There is a series of ponds near the reflecting pool on campus, and a whole herd of turtles live in the ponds. They would follow the sunshine around to the different rocks in the ponds throughout the day.

I also spent a few days in Baltimore for a workshop after my trip to Caltech. No fun pictures from that trip, alas, but I'm finally home and staying put for a while, and it sure feels good!

More Copenhagen

It's been two weeks since I got back to the US from my trip to Denmark, but I've been so busy I haven't had time to go through my pictures and post the ones I took during the second half of my visit until today.


I managed to weasel my way into a sightseeing cruise that was planned for a small conference going on at the Center at the same time as my visit. Well, by "weasel" I mean I said "yes" when asked if I would like to go too. :P Here I am enjoying myself immensely in the sunshine after a hard day of work.

Behind the boats and buildings in this shot, you can see the steeple of "my" church in the background.

And here's the Little Mermaid from a different vantage point than my earlier photos.

The picturesque Copenhagen Opera House.

I love these classic fishing boats with the wooden cabins!

And this yacht, the Vive La Vie, was just too ostentatious to pass up. That bronze statue to the left is apparently a replica of the David. Both in front of a converted warehouse in the Copenhagen harbor. What a strange mishmash!

You can see the shadow of my friend, Marianne, in this pic. Copenhagen is so colorful, and the architecture is eye candy, especially for us poor Americans.

I think the dreamy background of this pic is kind of fun. Yes, it seems sunny and I'm wearing my trench coat, but the weather was so fickle during my trip that I had to be prepared for rain, wind, lightning, and hail (!) in addition to sunshine, so the trench coat was probably one of my best investments this spring because it proved to be very useful on this trip.

Marianne and I visited Tivoli after work one evening. I didn't remember the video function on my camera until later, otherwise I would have grabbed some videos of the pantomime. I wasn't quite sure what was going on -- either a mail-order wife business, a matchmaker, or a man blatantly selling women to prospective customers. I decided to giggle at the players rather than spend too much time trying to figure out the plot and being offended. The costumes were fun and some of the actors/dancers were really fun to watch because they were so exaggerated in their emotions and movements.

The flowers were blooming and the bright colors of the rides made it a pleasure just to walk around and look at everything.

There was even a bit of wildlife at Tivoli. I didn't even notice that I'd caught a chipmunk in this shot with the peacock until today!

Even the restaurants were photogenic.

We made sure to visit in the evening so we could enjoy the lights. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out the best setting on my camera (it's still fairly new), but managed to get some good shots.

Where else but an amusement park can you go from the Middle East to China by walking a few hundred feet?

I really enjoyed my trip to Copenhagen. I got some useful work done and was able to spend some time catching up with some dear friends and collaborators, while exploring a beautiful city with a fascinating history. I'm already making plans to go back!

Copenhagen

I'm enjoying my visit to Copenhagen, land of Hans Christian Anderson (that's the Little Mermaid statue in the harbor above) and Niels Bohr and Tycho Brahe. Since I'm here for work, I haven't done that much sightseeing, but I did get out and explore a bit this weekend. Can't be all work and no play!

I'm not staying in a hotel but in an apartment that was rented for visitors over the summer. It's much nicer (more space!) and there's a full kitchen so I can cook for myself if I'm so inclined. And it just feels more homey. Here's the building I'm living in during my trip:

It's in a very cute area of town, right along the canals. This is the view from the front of the apartment:

I see tour boats going by every so often with tourists and a guide speaking through a megaphone. It's a bit amusing, and makes me feel more like a resident than a tourist myself.

On Saturday, I spent the morning figuring out the public transportation so I could go find a fabric store and buy my one souvenir -- some fun cotton to make a skirt to remind me of Denmark. Mission accomplished, I met up with a friend and her family at the Little Mermaid statue and we wandered around a park and headed out to the beach. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining and it was pleasantly warm. Everything is blooming here right now, and the lilacs in the park smelled wonderful.


At the beach, there were even a few crazy people out swimming in the ocean. I put my feet in and promptly jumped back onto the sand because it was so cold! It reminded me of the water temperature in Glacier National Park in Montana. Lots and lots of boats were out and about, which would have been a pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

Today, I wandered around my neighborhood and just took it easy. There's a church nearby that I can see from the windows of "my" apartment and I hear it chime every hour, on the hour. So I wandered over to investigate.

I saw that the tower was open, so I paid to up to the top of the spire, figuring I would get some really good views of the city. I was not disappointed. The spiral on the spire is actually stairs going all the way to the top on the outside, and here you can see the stairs a bit better:

The weather was a bit temperamental today. It stopped raining for a few hours while I was out exploring, but it was really windy!

There's a reason I'm holding onto the railing in this picture!

Here's the view back towards the apartment and canal:

And further down the canal towards the harbor:

Denmark has lots of offshore windmills. I'm sure those mills were generating lots of energy today!

And here's a zoomed-in picture of the old stock exchange building. The spiral roof is the tails of 4 dragons wrapped around the spire. You can see three of the dragons at the base of the spire, the fourth is on the back:

I actually learned about this particular building from a movie - The Prince and Me - with Julia Stiles. Kind of a silly movie, but it's a fun one. And, apparently, educational!

I'm still here for another week, so I'm sure there will be more pictures to come.

Milan, Italy

Apparently it's been a while since I've posted. I had a lot to get done before I left for Italy, and then I was in Italy for almost a week, so I have some catching up to do.

Italy was great! The buildings were beautiful (not even just the "special" buildings), the food was great, and the company was fantastic. Many of my friends and colleagues were at the conference as well, and most of us managed to find rooms at the same hotel, making it easy to go out to dinner and spend time together. The stress I was under to finish up several things before leaving was gone shortly after I left, and I felt so much better after returning.

Sadly, there were no tickets left for the opera at La Scala. It would have been fantastic if we could have gone, especially given the opera they were performing while we were in town:

But we did get to tour the opera house and that was amazing in itself. You could just imagine the women in their opera gowns with their opera glasses, spying on the comings and goings in the boxes across the theater from their own.

By far, the vast majority of my photos feature Il Duomo, the cathedral.



I had just gotten a new pocket-sized camera before leaving, and I'm still amazed at the level of detail it was able to capture:


I can't even imagine how many people it took to carve all that marble...

Other fun shots of Milan include this arch:

And the medieval castle of the ruling family, where Leonardo da Vinci worked for many years:

A statue of the man himself:

The best thing I saw during the entire trip was da Vinci's masterpiece, The Last Supper. I was traveling with two colleagues from my institution, and the three of us took a tour of Milan the afternoon we arrived. The tour was the only way to see the painting since the viewing slots were sold out and the number of people allowed to view the painting each day is strictly limited. The dining room at the monastery where the painting resides is now encased in a humidity-controlled room to slow down its deterioration as much as possible. It was truly amazing, but no pictures are allowed, so I can't share my experience here other than to say it was the highlight of my trip, and if you find yourself planning to go to Milan, make reservations to see the painting as far in advance as you possibly can.

Just to prove that I was behind the camera, here's a shot of me spinning on my heel on the Torino Bull for good luck:


And here's the bull himself, with the mark of many tourists left behind:The particular part of his anatomy that is now worn away through the spinning of countless heels apparently has to do with the original meaning of the spinning, which was to ensure a safe pregnancy. Luckily, since I'm not pregnant and not planning on it any time soon, the meaning has now changed to just generic good luck. :)

That's probably enough photos for now. I have some catching up to do with other posts too, so I should be posting fairly often in the near future.