Ipod Astronomy: Augmented Reality Meets Stargazing

Star Walk is one of the planetarium apps I use on a regular basis that has transformed my stargazing. Has Apple placed us on the threshold of a revolution in mobile computing?

When it comes to new gizmos, I am neither a luddite nor a gadget head. I don’t have to have the newest thing. But neither am I afraid of them. I don’t eschew old technology. I love my old 1948 Smith Corona typewriter, though I’m not writing this essay on that particular machine. I love all of it, actually, though I do wish they’d make Ipods like they used to make typewriters, that is, to last. And perhaps with a bit more art-deco flair. But while I may love typewriter and ipod equally, I’m also a cautious adopter of technology. I have a deeply-held, seldom-voiced suspicion that we might, as a species, be a little more cautious in our adoption of new technology, at least until we have a bit more thoroughly sussed out the effects of it on our minds, bodies and communities.  Read the full post »

Light, the Universe and Everything: The City Dark (Punkastronomy Film Review)

The City Dark, a new documentary by Ian Cheney has the deceptively modest goal of exploring just one tiny aspect of “human progress”—the use of artificial light to conquer the night. Ostensibly The City Dark is about light pollution, that is, light spilling into places we don’t want or intend it to go: the night sky, natural animal habitat, our very bedrooms What the film actually achieves is much greater than its initial grasp, as The City Dark paints a provocative portrait of a species caught up in a difficult coming of age, at once realizing our tiny place in a huge universe while growing ever more self-absorbed and intoxicated with our own power to re-engineer our reality.  Read the full post »

Aresforming: The fine art of mucking up a wet planet

If you are a Mars-head like I am, you spend a lot of time thinking about terraforming Ares (the greek name for Mars). That is, making a pretty cold, thin atmosphere into a thicker, balmier one and planting a bunch of palm trees and laying some shuffleboard courts down and then just waiting for the first shuttles carrying retirees from Phoenix. Lots of science fiction careers have been staked on realistic supposition about how such a process would enfold. For my money, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy is the best. But I’m in Utah, not on Mars (though sometimes I wonder) and so I’m really interested in Aresforming…how can we make Utah more like Mars?  Read the full post »

Astronomy and Clafoutis

One of my big goals for being an “Astro VIP” for the Park Service this summer was to do as much public outreach as I could. Well, I can safely stand in front of that “Mission Accomplished” banner without fear of later historical revisionism. Astronomy outreach is a mixed skill set that involves simultaneously talking (which for me, with Italian genes, implies considerable flapping of the extremities) and manipulating a sensitive optical instrument so that an entire heterogenous group of 10-50, pint size to double-wide, has a chance to view whatever it is I’m talking about. It’s a bit of a trick. The upshot of this particular kind of teaching, and this should make most professional teachers jealous, is that my students for the most part Read the full post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 32 other followers