A found several definitions in Ambrose Bierce's
The Devil's Dictionary that relate to astronomy and related sciences.
- Berenice's Hair
- n. A constellation (Coma Berenices) named in honor of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.
Her locks an ancient lady gave
Her loving husband's life to save;
And men -- they honored so the dame --
Upon some stars bestowed her name.
But to our modern married fair,
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
No stellar recognition's given.
There are not stars enough in heaven.
- Day
- n. A period of twenty-four hours, most misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper – the former devoted to sins of business, the later consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity overlap.
- Lunarian
- n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lunican, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.
- Magnitude
- n. Size. Magnitude, being purely relative, nothing is large and nothing small. If everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it would be larger that they had been. To an understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the microscopist. For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be a small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life-fluid (luminiferous ether) of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another.
- Molecule
- n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of precipitation of matter from either – whose existence is proved by the condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscule and the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.
- Newtonian
- adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe, invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
- Observatory
- n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
- Past
- n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other, bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of tomorrow. They are one – the knowledge and the dream.
- Telescope
- n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Lucky it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
- Year
- n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
- Yesterday
- n. The ifancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.
But yesterday I should have thought me blest
To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
Of middle life and look adown the bleak
And unfamiliar foreslope to the West.
Where solemn shadows all the land invest
And silly voices, half-remembered, speak
Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
To stay the shadow on the dial’s face
At manhood’s noonmark! Now, in God His name
I chide aloud the little interspace
Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
Would know the dream and vision ne’er again.
Baruch Arnegriff
- Zenith
- n. A point in the heavens directly overhead to a standing man or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or in a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though from this view of the matter there was once a considerable dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were called Horizontalists heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a several human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among fides defuncti.
- Zeus
- n. The chief of Grecian gods, abored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, God, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance into the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work of Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names.
| Observing Location | PKR |
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| Observational Period | 1500-1515 EDT |
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| Atmospheric Conditions |
| Cloud Cover | Clear |
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| Temperature | 75° F |
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| Wind | Calm |
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| Humidity | Low |
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| Barometric Pressure | 30.17" Hg
Falling |
|---|
| Feels Like | Cool |
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Around noon it was perfectly clear with a beautiful blue sky. By 1400 EDT it looked like a front was passing through with mares tails lowering into a stripe of stratus. Now it is clear again. But it feels cool.
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| Instruments | Brunton 8x21 compact binocular w/Welco gold shade 14 welder's filter - Charlie |
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| Observing Party | Charlie Ridgway
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| Target | Sunspots |
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| Constellation | Leo |
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| Category | Solar |
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Time
yyyymmdd.hhmm | 20080820.1500 EDT |
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| Comments |
Distance
Light Time | 1.01 AU
8m 25s |
|---|
| Angular Size | 31' 40.2" |
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| Altitude | 51.5° |
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Heliographic Latitude
(B0) | 6.90° |
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Heliographic Longitude
(L0) | 127.35° |
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Parallactic Angle
(P) | 17.99° |
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Carrington rotation number
(CR) | 2073 |
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Nothing Seen
| | Groups | Spots | R |
|---|
| North | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|---|
| South | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|---|
| Total | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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| R = (Groups * 10) + Spots) |
|
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