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[The pages of Astronomical Weirdness] [Vaughns Astronomy Pages] [Azrael the Cat] [Vaughns Frontier and Elite Pages] [The Gazeteer] [Contact Me] [About the Sword of Orion BBS] [My List of Links] [About Me] [Some of my writing] [Vaughns Webcam] [The Magentometer Page] [Make an Appalachian Dulcimer] [My Music Page]
Well where has the year gone! Not that I'm too sad as we're well in the first flush of summer (or the last flush of spring?)
Jupiter is shining bright but low in the northern skies at the moment, it's current opposition a bit of a dog for me as it's just skating above the tops of the trees.
November also brings the launch of the latest rover to be sent to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory. Nicknamed "Curiosity" it should provide long term observations of the surface and has as one of it's mission objectives, the goal of determining if life could have lived or survived on the surface. Exciting :-)
I'm also in the throes of building a new telescope; an 8" long focus reflector. So far things are looking ok. I'll post pictures as I go.
When I used to work in mental health there was a line of thinking that some days, if things were particulalry bad, then it probably was a full moon (or near enough). Usually there was no correlation, but occasionally it was close enough to make you think "Ooo!"
However I'd bet anything that there really was no connection at all. That if I'd done a proper study, I'd have found no correlation. People are good at selectively remembering, and that's just it.
So it is with the "Moon Man" Ken Ring. His prediction of a grand cataclysm came to nought and scared a great many people who, for whatever reason, have no means to judge the truth of what he says. His mixture of fact and bunkum clouds any genuine attempt to come to an understanding, and as a result of his grandstanding, he's had to go into hiding and people have resorted to death threats. Hopefully he's learned his lesson.
Well I've had a bit of a revamp here. I've updated the pages about the 8" reflecting telescope and the 3" portable refractor. I've also added a new page about some testing equipment for telescopes.
Vaughn
This site last revised October 2011
