Thursday, January 08, 2009

2009 International Year of Astronomy





















These are 2 photos taken New Years evening about 7pm, looking SW, with my little Samsung Digimax digital camera. The picture on the left shows the crescent moon, and the picture on the right shows the moon (not sure what happened to the crescent, probably fuzziness because I changed the setting on the camera between the two shots.)But changing the setting also allowed Venus to show up in the picture. Anyway, one of my New Year's goals is to learn more about Astronomy.

So I noted with interest a couple of things: 1. That 2009 has been named the International Year of Astronomy. and 2. The International Year of Astronomy Reading Challenge 2009.

Your mission:

Read one book from each of the categories of: History;Astronomers, Cosmology; Astrophysics, and Sci-Fi, and complete the two "extra-vehicular activities" described below.

EVA 1: Do some stargazing with a field guide and blog about it.

EVA 2: Visit your local planetarium or observatory and blog about it also.

I accept the challenge. I've been wanting to read Dava Sobel's Galileos' Daughter so that will be my selection from History and Astronomers. I bought Dava Sobel's The Planets last year but didn't finish it, so that will be my selection from Cosmology/Astrophysics. I'll have to investigate the Sci-Fi options but I'm thinking one of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy novels.

I'm looking forward to EVA 2. I haven't been to the Griffith Park Observatory since it reopened after renovations several years ago. I've been planning to take a trip there for a while so I'll report back when the assignment is completed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I look forward to your report! :)