Posts Made By: Linton Rohr

Well... I can't say I'm that surprised, but apparently most of my neighbors think
that California is heading in the right direction. 8O
http://www.latimes.com/
Oh well... let California be the poster child
for what a more liberal America could become.
Me? I'm quite confident that I'm heading in the right direction...
OUT of California!
Linton

Gee, why didn't I think of that? 8)
Brilliant!
Linton

http://nz.news.yahoo.com:80/a/-/world/8400845/spanish-woman-claims-ownership-of-the-sun/

After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner -- a woman from Spain's soggy region of Galicia says she's registered the star at a local notary public as being her property.

Angeles Duran, 49, told the online edition of daily El Mundo on Friday she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our Solar System.

There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added.

"There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first."

The document issued by the notary public declares Duran to be the "owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometres".

Duran, who lives in the town of Salvaterra do Mino, said she now wants to slap a fee on everyone who uses the Sun and give half of the proceeds to the Spanish government and 20 per cent to the nation's pension fund.

She would dedicate another 10 per cent to research, another 10 per cent to ending world hunger -- and would keep the remaining 10 per cent herself.

"It is time to start doing things the right way. If there is an idea for how to generate income and improve the economy and people's well-being, why not do it?" she asked.

This sounds very exciting...

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_M10-167_Astrobiology.html

Stay tuned...
Linton

Well, in lieu of the old IDA forum, I guess I'll post this here.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2010-12-29-light-pollution_N.htm?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29
The most encouraging light pollution article I've seen in a long time.
And in a very prominent publication.
Dark sky restoration!
Linton

This is pretty cool....
Linton

In an unexpected reversal of fortune, NASA's NanoSail-D spacecraft has unfurled a gleaming sheet of space-age fabric 650 km above Earth, becoming the first-ever solar sail to circle our planet.

"We're solar sailing!" says NanoSail-D principal investigator Dean Alhorn of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. "This is a momentous achievement."

full story at: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/24jan_solarsail/

No matter what happens next, NanoSail-D has already made history: It has demonstrated an elegant and inexpensive method for deploying sails and become the first sail to orbit Earth. Eventually, the team will diagnose the sail’s reluctance to leave FASTSAT—"and then we'll be batting a thousand," says Alhorn.

Took a day off from working on our new house in southern Utah,
to drive up to Hogan Pass and Fish Lake and enjoy the seasonal beauty.
This is high up on the mountain, east of the lake.
Linton

Season's Greetings!

Had to share this fantastic shot of Comet Lovejoy taken by Australian photographer Colin Legg from near Perth:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=105827&d=1324

A nice Christmas comet for Southern Hemisphere observers!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Linton

No big shock here, but an interesting read, none the less...

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53423254-78/space-debris-kessler-orbit.html.csp

I'll go clean it up. Space janitor.

Linton

Celestron founder dies at age 89

Tom Johnson founded the telescope company in 1960 and revolutionized the hobby with the Celestron 8.
By Karri Ferron — Published: March 13, 2012
Tom-Johnson
Tom Johnson, founder of Celestron, died March 13, 2012, at the age of 89.
Photo by Courtesy Celestron

The astronomy community lost a great innovator today. Thomas J. Johnson, founder of Celestron, passed away at 5 a.m. PST.

Johnson, an electronics engineer, first created Celestron as a division of his aerospace electronics firm, Valor Electronics. Finding no suitable telescope for his two young sons, he decided to build an instrument from scratch. Starting with this 1960 6-inch reflector, Johnson eventually moved on to bigger and more sophisticated designs, and his new company was soon offering Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes in 4- to 22-inch models.

Johnson’s biggest challenge with Celestron telescopes was to find a way to efficiently produce the Schmidt corrector plate used in the top-of-the-line catadioptric telescopes (hybrid of a reflector and a refractor). With his designers in 1970, the founder began making a telescope that took amateur astronomy by storm: the Celestron 8. This instrument revolutionized the hobby by bringing compact, affordable telescopes to the marketplace and led to more adaptations, making Johnson’s company a leader in the industry. He sold Celestron in 1980.

In a statement released this afternoon, Joe Lupica, Celestron president and CEO, said of Johnson:


Tom’s innovative, pioneering spirit created a revolutionary method of mass producing an affordable Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope design, which allowed millions of amateur astronomers to pursue their passion for astronomy. Other notable achievements include a 1978 David Richardson Medal from the Optical Society of America, a 1993 Bruce Blair Medal from the Western Amateur Astronomers, and a 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Small Telescope & Astronomical Society.

Our hearts go out Tom’s wife and family and to all who were touched by his achievements and innovation.

More details on memorial and funeral arrangements are forthcoming.

http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2012/03/Celestron%20founder%20dies%20at%20age%2089.aspx

Yeah... I know... kind of late for New Year's Day photos, but...
I have a lot of catching up to do.
I spent all of 2011 working on our new house in southern Utah.
Didn't get to spend much time enjoying the surroundings.
But we finished up just before Christmas (not August, as I'd expected ;^), so...
with the milder-than-usual winter weather, we went down to Capitol Reef N.P.
Great way to ring in the New Year!
Linton

Here's a gnarly old juniper along the trail on the way up...