12 August 2014

So tonight I was on the Google search page and they had a Google Doodle there celebrating the peak of activity tonight of the Perseid meteor shower, which is rained out around here. So that got me thinking that there were probably some more interesting, and by that I mean quality rather than quantity since I find the audio on this Doodle to by annoying, astronomy-related Doodles out there so I decided to search for them. The first one that came up in a Google search was one for the meteorite that recently caused damage in Russia. Apparently the meteor is approaching the Google and the second G gets out of the way to let it pass. But it was quickly removed after the reports came in of injuries in the area around where it hit. So I wasn't able to get that one. But I did find a age with all of the previous Doodles on it and copied all of the ones I thought might be related. Unfortunately Google doesn't provide any background information on the doodles on that page so I am going to have to search Wikipedia to get some basic information on some of these people and events. S this is a project that will have to be back-filled over time. I am listing the doodles by day of the year rather than in chronological or reverse chronological order.

	Date Posted	Commemorates
	4Jan2010	367th anniversary of Sir Isaac Newton's birth
	15Jan2004	Spirit Lands on Mars
	21Jan2004	Lunar New Year 2004 - Korea
	24Jan2001	Lunar New Year 2001 - China
	31Jan2003 31Jan2006	Lunar New Year 2003 - Korean Lunar New Year 2006
	6Feb2008	Lunar New Year 2008 - China Lunar New Year 2008 - Korea
	8Feb2011	Anniversary of Jules Verne's birth
	9Feb2011	Lunar New Year 2011 - China Lunar New Year 2011 - Korea
	10Feb13	Chinese New Year 2013 Lunar New Year 2013 - Korea Lunar New Year 2013 - VietNam
	14Feb2010	Lunar New Year 2010
	18Feb2013	812th anniversary of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's Birth
	19Feb2013	540th anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus' Birth
	22Feb2012	155th anniversary of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's Birth
	28Feb2004	Leap Day 2004
	11Mar2013	61st anniversary of Douglas Adams' Birth
	13Mar2005	151st anniversary of Percival Lowell's birth
	14Mar2014	Pi Day
	29Mar2005	152nd anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's birth
	1Apr2012	13th Anniversary of the 4-unit VLT telescope - Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun
	6Apr2008	5th birthday of Astro Boy 80th anniversary of Osamu Tezuka
	11Apr2013	Yuri Gagarin's Birthday
	12Apr2011	50th anniversary of the First Man in Space
	14Apr2005	553rd anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's birth
	16Apr2008	50th anniversary of the Atomium
	24Apr2010	Hubble Space Telescope's 20th anniversary
	1May2000 2May2000 3May2000 4May2000 5May2000	Google Aliens - 1-5
	13May2003	124th anniversary of Albert Einstein's birth
	15May2011	120th anniversary of Mikhail Bulgakov's birth
	16May2008	Invention of the first LASER
	20May2011	User submitted Doodle
	21May2012	Japanese Annular Eclipse
	23May2008	100th anniversary of the birth of Hélène Boucher
	26May2008	Parametron Compute
	4Jun2008	First Hot Air Balloon Flight
	7Jun2004	Transit of Venus 2004
	9Jun2012	200th anniversary of Johann Gottfried Galle's Birth
	13Jun2010	Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa Returns
	15Jun2011	Total Lunar Eclipse
	20Jun	Ilan Ramon's 60th Birthday
	21June2012	115th anniversary of Yuri Kondratyuk's birth
	22Jun2010	100th anniversary of Konrad Zuse's Birth
	23Jun2012	100th anniversary of Alan Turing'sBirth
	10Jul2009	Anniversary of Nikola Tesla's Birth
	2Jul2011	137th anniversary of Pedro Paulet's Birth
	7Jul????	Tanabata
	8Jul2013	Roswell's 66th anniversary
	9Jul2014	World Cup 2014 #59
	12July20__	115th anniversary of Amelia Earhart's Birth
	20Jul2005 20Jul2009	Anniversary of Lunar Landing 40thAnniversary of Lunar Landing
	23Jul2009	Eclipse 2009
	29Jul2008	50th anniversary of NASA
	1Aug2013	195th anniversary of Maria Mitchell's Birth
	2Aug????	Qixi Festival-Chilseok
	9Aug2013	100th anniversary of Wilbur Norman Christiansen's birth
	12Aug2014 12Aug2009	Perseid Meteor /shower 2009 Perseids 2014
	13Aug2014	th anniversary of the birth of Angstrom
	17Aug11	410th anniversary of Pierre de Fermat's birth
	19Aug2010	Anniversary of Belka and Strelka space flight
	23Aug11	Anniversary of Nazik Al Malaika's birth
	25Aug2009	400th Anniversary of Galileo's Telescope
	4Sep2012	Anniversary of Al-Biruni's Birth
	10Sep2008	Large Hadron Collider
	12Sep2008	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2008
	21Sep2010	115th anniversary of Juan de la Cierva's Birth
	14Sep2008	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2008 - Vietnam Korean Thanksgiving 2008
	17Sep2005	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2005
	18Sep2013	194th anniversary of Léon Foucault's Birth
	19Sep2013	Mid Autumn Festival 2013
	21Sep2006	Rosh Hashanah 2006
	22Sep2010	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2010
	25Sep2007	Moon Festival - Mid-Autumn Festival 2007
	25Sep2011	130th anniversary of Lu Xun's Birth
	30Sep2012	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2012
	4Oct2004	Lunar X Prize
	6Oct2006	Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival 2006
	7Oct2012	127th anniversary of Niels Bohr's birth
	30Oct07	Sputnik - 50th anniversary
	31Oct2011	Parkes Observatory's 50th Anniversary In the Australian out back, this is one of the tracking stations for the Apollo Moon missions and is featured in the movie The Dish
	8Nov2010	Discovery of X-rays 355th anniversary of Edmond Halley's birth
	12Nov2013	Anniversary of the 1st use of the Canadarm in space
	12Nov2013	Discovery of water on the Moon
	18Nov2011	224th anniversary of Louis Daguerre's birth Including this is a bit oof a reach but I am getting into analogue photography again. And if we didn't have photography we wouldn't have pictures of men on the Moon.
	19Nov2011	224th anniversary of Louis Daguerre's birth
	11Dec2009	Qian Xuesen's Birthday
	13Dec2013	146th anniversary of Kristian Birkeland's birth
	14Dec2013	467th anniversary of Tycho Brahe's birth
	16Dec2003	100th Anniversary of Flight
	17Dec2009	Discovery of the Aztec Sun Stone
	21Dec2012	End of the Mayan calendar
	22Dec2012	120th anniversary of Herman Potočnik's birth
	27Dec2013	442nd Johannes Kepler's birth

10 August 2014

I reactivated Top of the Lawn tonight.

Passers by traffic was light as were dog walkers. I had a few people stop to ask questions but not many.

I observed Alberio and the Coathanger. It looked clear but I was having trouble locating Alberio so suspect it was a bit murky. The new lights were also a problem. The Coathanger looked nice but is really too big to be appreciated in the Mini Mak. I think it would look good in the Dobsonian with the 2" Q70 eyepiece. I looked at Saturn and Mars because they were there. With one passer by I compared Mars and Antares which are fairly close in the sky and both orange but one larger and obviously round and the other a point source.

When the Moon came up I checked to make sure the Black Cat in the Moon was still there and he was. There must be a puddle of milk in Pitatus that is keeping him there. I roamed the Moon for a good while identifying a lot of even small features that I would have thought would need some shadow to make them visible but maybe the ones I saw were young, high relief features.

The clouds started to fill it around 2330 so I headed home.

9 August 2014

It was clear today so I decided to go over to Bryant park to observe the nearly full Moon. Perigee is tomorrow at 1407 Local and the full Sturgeon/Green Corn/Red/Dog Days/Grain Moon occurs at 1410 local. This will be the largest full Moon of the calendar year.

The first thing I noticed was a black cat right above Tycho.

Moon Atlas 3D graphic

Moon Atlas 3D graphic

I have been staring at the Moon for 15 years or so and this is the first time I have seen the Black Cat in the Moon. S/he must have just walked over from the back side. I searched Google and there is no mention of him on the first page of results. His two pointed ears go on either side of Davy (the left ear, as viewed from Earth, is not as visible in the photographs as it was in the eyepiece but projects upward between Davy B and Kundt). His eyes are Alpetragius B and Lassell H and Lassell C/G/K/M complex are his nose. His long thin neck passes west of Lassell E. His body is between Nicolet and the Straight Wall. His legs are a subtle darkening of his body beginning west of Birt and ending in two feet visible just east of Pitatus. Thebit P and Thebit form his tail.

annotated Virtual Moon Atlas graphic

LunarMap HD graphic

He doesn't show up on the map but when you look at the moon and the satellite images that were used in the Moon Atlas 3D chart he is plane as day.

I tried making some pictures of the Moon over the Empire State building with my tablet but it was not cooperating. This is the only one that was reasonably sharp.

This image was made with my PHD digital camera and massaged a bit in Adobe Lightroom.