It’s too early to be remotely certain, but Hurricane Sandy has the potential to become a big f***in’ deal for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, transitioning into an epic storm of historic proportions — not a major hurricane per se, but a monster warm-core/cold-core hybrid, possibly a “subtropical hurricane” (a category which isn’t even supposed to exist) — and slamming the… Read more »
Again, for coverage of T.S. Isaac, check out my Pajamas Media “Weather Nerd” blog, and also follow me on Twitter. Forget Tampa and the RNC — that’s a sideshow. This storm is looking increasingly scary for New Orleans, though there’s still a great deal of uncertainty. Here’s what one computer model predicted Saturday night: Yikes!! But again, that’s just one… Read more »
It’s way too early to be certain of where Tropical Storm Isaac will go, but Republican National Convention organizers have to be pretty nervous right now. The official NHC forecast has Isaac, by then a Category 1 hurricane, making a beeline for Tampa on the first day of the RNC (next Monday), and the most recent run of the GFS… Read more »
My Flickr gallery of the Transit of Venus (and of my drive up into the mountains & back) is finally online. Here are a few pictures that I haven’t posted on the blog before: The spot in Carbondale, in the front yard of St. Vincent’s Church, where the Three Rivers Astronomy Club folks set up to watch the transit. A… Read more »
I don’t have my promised Flickr gallery of the Transit of Venus online just yet, but here’s a 3-minute video of portions of the transit. The first 2 minutes of footage are sped up between 4x and 20x and set to pertinent music; the final minute is normal speed, with chit-chat and a round of applause as Venus and the… Read more »
Yesterday was I day I’d been literally counting down to for 6 1/2 years, or 2,935 days — and it totally lived up to the hype. My first and last viewing of a Transit of Venus was simply awesome, and well worth the drive to Carbondale. (Now, only 1,902 days until the next big event! Heh.) Anyway, after returning home… Read more »
The Transit of Venus is just hours away (it starts at 4:05 PM MDT and goes until sunset, which is around 8pm), and while I didn’t take that flight to Tucson, I have decided to drive three hours west, into the Rocky Mountains, to find a better viewing location. Actually, I’ve already found it: a field near St. Vincent’s Church… Read more »
Above: Video of the Transit of Venus taken by my dad in Connecticut in 2004. Long-time readers might vaguely recall that, eight years ago, I considered flying from Phoenix (where I was living at the time) to Chicago, for just a single day, to view the Transit of Venus. I ultimately decided against it — instead shipping my video camera,… Read more »
Wow! The solar eclipse over Denver was awesome! Above, a photo that Becky took of me holding 10-month-old Loyabelle in one arm and, in the other, raised above my head, a 13-year-old piece of welder’s glass that made it possible to show the Sun in otherwise normally-exposed pictures. It worked amazingly well. (See also here, here, here and here.) Below,… Read more »
I wrote last night that the only solar eclipse I’ve ever seen was on May 10, 1994, when I caught a brief, unsafe, naked-eye glimpse of the partially eclipsed sun, perhaps 40% or 50% covered, looking out a bus window in Virginia during a school trip. But I belatedly realized that’s not right: I also saw, from the road in… Read more »