Full Up

The rest of my week, that is.  I'm set for jobs for the rest of the week and most of next week also. THAT is the way for a year as a sub to be.  I much prefer this to years past when I've been up early in the morning and not gotten a job.  Now I get to pick and choose.

I subbed at a middle school and then at an alternative school today.  The teacher has a split shift.  What i liked was it gave me a chance to have lunch out.  Something I don't usually get.  Admittedly, it was only a Subway sandwich, but it was sustenance that I did not have to cart around in my bag all day.

I have to bight the bullet and try to get up in the next few mornings to see if I can get a clean shot at Comet ISON.  It is in the constellation Leo right now...speeding through it, really.  If you can identify Mars it's supposed to be nearby.  I am not certain whether it is naked eye stuff yet, but many astronomers remain hopeful...as do I.

I have a weird history of fascination with the stars.  I was a dreamer when i was in school...still am, really, but it's something I can control now...well, I kinda have to.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah.  I liked space and remember all to keenly the excitement I felt every time one of the Voyagers would come near one of the outer planets.  i still have newspaper clippings from when they sailed by Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus...no, not yours.  I followed the, what seemed to me, endless journeys of craft like Magellan and eagerly awaited Cassini and several other of the probes from the late 80s and 1990s.  I bought astronomy magazines on a semi-regular basis just so i knew what I was looking at.  When Comet Hyakutake shown in the skies I tried to take photos, but it seems that during my college days some of my film got lost and never developed.

I had my dad's 30X telescope for the longest time, then they bought me a 120X telescope for Christmas and I was extremely happy, though i had no idea what I was doing, I was very enthusiastic.  I now know what I probably should have had was a larger objective lens than I had, but, as a kid, more power is more better.  So I missed out on ever observing low light enigmas like nebulae, but at least I got a good look at Saturn and Jupiter's moons.  How many kids today go out and do that?

I eventually inherited my Grandfather's homemade 6 inch reflector, which has, with time, been relegated to an attic somewhere, and I am not even sure where all the parts are.  As a steward of my grandfather's great work and achievement, I was not worthy.  My mother will still remind me, if I ask, how he lovingly ground the glass himself and had it silvered and built the damned thing.  Clearly, Grandpa had a lot more storage room than I do...and I have a lot of crap in storage...but, enough of that.

I remember trying to witness the long awaited crash of a comet into Jupiter.  Of course, I did not have the internet, nor know how to use it to great effect that year, so I was not aware that the event took place BEHIND Jupiter and out of my view, still, I tried.  I've never been one to let lack of know-how and basic reason to get in the way of setting myself up for failure.

I have watched as Hubble made breathtaking pictures and as astronomers have used various forms of interferometry to discern the orbit of extra solar planets.  I have seen the pictures beamed back by the Huygens probe of Titan's surface, with its liquid methane rivers and lakes.  I continue to foolow the progress of the Voyagers and Pioneer 10.  This is a great time to be alive, but, like my Grandfather who turned his eyes skyward, I won't live nearly long enough to see all I want.

This year, there are at least two comets.  I took a few pictures of Comet Panstarrs.  Now, I am gunning for bigger game.  ISON is expected to be brighter that PANSTARRS by some margin.  It remains to be seen whether it is naked-eye visible in daylight as some had expected, and it doesn't help that the majority of the close pass will take place in our cloudy season.  Still, I am hopeful.  So, in the morning, before the family awakes, I will brave the cold temperatures hoping that clouds do not bar my way.  I suspect they will, but I will look out the window, anyway.