Starship Asterisk*

by **apodman** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:00 pm

neufer wrote:
apodman wrote:I rounded to the nearest degree.
Well, that's no fun.

Which prime meridian are you closest to?

My meridian is 0° 0' 43.4" west of the Capitol.

My meridian is 0° 1' 6.26" east of the White House.

So the Capitol wins.

Note that I'm advertising more digits of resolution here than I actually have. The .01-arc-second longitude resolution for the White House is less than a foot. I have no such resolution at my own location and can't vouch for the third-party address converter I used, so I use the term "my meridian" more loosely than the quoted digits suggest.

See, I didn't round very much at all to get down to an even 77°.

I also rounded barely more than an arc-minute to get down to 39°N.

77° and 39° are close enough for my everyday purposes, and I get sloppier yet to save a few keystrokes. When I visit one of my favorite links (Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day from the folks at the previously mentioned US Naval Observatory), I just use the default (District of Columbia: 77.0°W, 38.9°N) and click once to get my sunrise and sunset. It takes at least 2 minutes between the time the Sun touches the horizon and the time it totally disappears, so why ask for greater accuracy when I don't even know which part of the sunset the quoted time represents.

neufer (quoting Wiki) wrote:Many western states have borders that are meridians of "longitude west of Washington", that is, west of the legal 1850 meridian through the Old Naval Observatory [77°3'2.3"W].

My education continues.

by **neufer** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:01 am

apodman wrote:
neufer wrote:Takoma Park, huh?
Somewhere in the unincorporated sprawl of Silver Spring, actually, about three feet outside your favorite Beltway. I rounded to the nearest degree to keep my nerd factor reasonable.

Well, that's no fun!!

Which prime meridian are you closest to?

1. through the Capitol: 77°0'21.9"W
2. through the White House: 77°2'11.56"W
3. through the old Naval Observatory: 77°3'2.3"W
4. through the new Naval Observatory: 77°4'1.16"W
--------------------------------------------
<<Many western states have borders that are meridians of "longitude west of Washington", that is, west of the legal 1850 meridian through the Old Naval Observatory [77°3'2.3"W]. However, their present boundaries follow the subsequently surveyed boundary, even when inaccurately marked a few miles (kilometers) east or west of the meridian in the statute.

Other western states have meridians relative to Greenwich (Alaska, California, Oklahoma, Texas) or relative to a river or lake (Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Washington).>>
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_meridian
--------------------------------------------

by **apodman** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:13 am

neufer wrote:Takoma Park, huh?

Somewhere in the unincorporated sprawl of Silver Spring, actually, about three feet outside your favorite Beltway. I rounded to the nearest degree to keep my nerd factor reasonable.

by **neufer** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:04 am

apodman wrote:And in Hamlet Act II, scene II, Lord Polonius said to Hamlet's mother:

"since brevity is the soul of wit ...
I will be brief: your noble son is mad"

Referring to the scene neufer provided, this looks like "the pot calling the kettle black". I'm reminded that they told me long ago never to argue with a crazy person, because an observer might not be able to discern who is the crazy one.

Takoma Park, huh?

I have a daughter who lives in Takoma Park; she'll tell you I'm not mad (much).

by **apodman** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 1:00 am

And in Hamlet Act II, scene II, Lord Polonius said to Hamlet's mother:

"since brevity is the soul of wit ...
I will be brief: your noble son is mad"

Referring to the scene neufer provided, this looks like "the pot calling the kettle black". I'm reminded that they told me long ago never to argue with a crazy person, because an observer might not be able to discern who is the crazy one.

by **neufer** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:15 pm

orin stepanek wrote:http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nebulae/ic1805.html

The nebula on the left reminds me of a fetus.

Indeed...shades of 2001.

orin stepanek wrote:The Heart Nebula strikingly looks like a human heart.

Another organ also comes to mind (but that group doesn't spam Asterisk as much as it used to).

orin stepanek wrote:There is a lot of room for the imagination when looking an the wonderful nebulae that APOD continues to bring to us.

. Hamlet > Act III, scene II
.
HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
.
LORD POLONIUS: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
.
HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel.
.
LORD POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel.
.
HAMLET: Or like a whale?
.
LORD POLONIUS: Very like a whale.

by **orin stepanek** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:52 pm

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nebulae/ic1805.html

The nebula on the left reminds me of a fetus. The Heart Nebula strikingly looks like a human heart. There is a lot of room for the imagination when looking an the wonderful nebulae that APOD continues to bring to us.

Orin

by **neufer** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 1:07 am

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080726.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060922.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040916.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041208.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040917.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061003.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050810.html

<<"Heart and Soul" is a popular song, with music by Hoagy Carmichael and lyrics by Frank Loesser, published in 1938. The tune is very easy to play on a piano and commonly played by two people side by side. The film American Graffiti features the song being played on the Wolfman Jack Show.>>

Starship Asterisk*

Heart & Soul & Microquasar (APOD 26 Jul 2008)

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Heart & Soul & Microquasar (APOD 26 Jul 2008)