New West Network

My Page: Irwin Horowitz

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>

6degrees AstroBlog

The pre-dawn sky is beautiful this time of year.

Recently, I looked outside my window towards the eastern horizon and noticed an extremely bright object in the pre-dawn sky. I thought it might be an airplane, but after watching it for a minute or two, I noted that it didn't move like an airplane would.

Could it be the first visible supernova in the northern hemisphere in over 400 years? I pondered as my level of excitement slowly increased. This object was much brighter than the star Sirius, the brightest star visible in the nighttime sky, which I could see to the south of this object. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

As promised last month, I will be talking about next weekend’s Idaho Star Party™ in this column.

Star parties are gatherings of amateur astronomers where we go and experience the awesome majesty of the night sky. Typically, they take place far from city lights and over a weekend evening when moonlight does not interfere with that view. This way, we can best observe some truly stunning objects in our universe. These objects range from planets to star clusters to gaseous nebulae to galaxies. All are generally on the menu when astronomers gather at these events.

Most communities in our country have a local astronomy club or society. The members will organize star parties for their own enjoyment and occasionally for public involvement. Many such groups also organize larger gatherings where amateurs come from far away to enjoy the spectacle of a dark, clear sky. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

2007 has been an interesting year for Idaho residents. We have had some amazing highs and some tragic and despicable lows and there are still four more months to go. I’d like to ask readers what they consider to be the three best things to happen here in Idaho so far this year as well as the three worst things. A list of things that is unique to Idaho and which the entire state has shared in. My lists (in no particular order) would include the following. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

I want to remind my regular readers that there will be a total lunar eclipse visible tomorrow morning. The initial partial eclipse phase will begin just before 3 a.m. MDT (2 a.m. PDT), with totality commencing about one hour later. The total phase will last about 90 minutes, ending shortly before 5:30 a.m. MDT (4:30 a.m. PDT). The final partial phase will end about one hour later. The Moon should be visible for at least part of this time across the entire intermountain west, low in the south or southwestern sky.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow. This can only occur at full moon, when the Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon. It doesn’t occur every month because most of the time, the Moon passes either above or below this shadow. However, about twice each year, it will pass either partially or fully through the shadow, producing a lunar eclipse. The last one occurred on 03 Mar of this year and the next one will be 20 Feb 2008. That one will be visible in the early evening hours here, as the full moon rises in the east. While it will be more accessible here in terms of the time of day, the weather in February is more problematic for ensuring good viewing. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

Just a few minutes ago, the space shuttle Endeavour streaked over Hurricane Dean and the western Caribbean to a flawless landing at 12:32 p.m. EDT at the Shuttle Landing Facility located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This marks the conclusion of a highly successful mission to the International Space Station and was the first flight of an Educator-Astronaut, Idaho's Barbara Morgan.

During the mission, a concern for NASA engineers was the damage caused to the shuttle's heat shield during launch two weeks ago. A gouge several inches deep was ripped out by a piece of foam insulation falling off of the external fuel tank and striking the vehicle during its ascent. Memories of the Columbia tragedy from a few years ago conjured up concerns of a similar fate befalling this mission. However, after extensively surveying and analyzing the damage while docked to the station, NASA engineers decided not to undertake risky repairs on orbit. It remains to be seen in the coming months what is the full extent of that damage and how it may impact the schedule of future shuttle flights.
[more]

6degrees AstroBlog

As many of my readers know, I am an Independent Ecopreneur for a new startup company called Citizenre. This company plans to market solar photovoltaic systems to homeowners nationwide using a contracted rental model similar to what is used by the cell phone and satellite television industries. Rather than assuming the upfront capital investment, our customers will only be asked for an affordable security deposit just prior to their installation and to pay a monthly fee based on their rates and the amount of electricity their system produces. Contracts can be chosen from a 1-year, 5-year or 25-year term, with their rate locked in and guaranteed for the entire length.

Yesterday, the company announced some of the details regarding the composition of its financial and legal teams. This is the first in a series of press releases that will be forthcoming over the next few months culminating with the announcement of the location of the manufacturing facility and the identities of the financial institutions providing the necessary funding for this venture. The highlights of today’s announcement are that Ronald S. Borod and Jonathan C. Black of Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP are serving as special counsel to Citizenre and are assisting in securing the major funding for the manufacturing facility. Also, Douglas R. Grossinger and Mark Lundquist of Structured Growth Partners will assist in raising capital and in structuring power purchase agreements for the company. Lastly, Anthony Dixon will serve as a senior advisor to the company’s finance team. He has most recently served as Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Debt Capital Markets group for Citigroup in London. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

This afternoon, 18 Idaho school students had the rare opportunity to ask questions to astronauts aboard the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavour. Located at the Discovery Center of Idaho in downtown Boise, Idaho Space Days culminated with a day-long event for these students, their parents and teachers and the community in general.

I had the distinct pleasure of addressing these students earlier in the day, encouraging them to embrace the spirit of discovery and exploration embodied by Barbara Morgan and her fellow astronauts, and to bring that spirit back with them when they returned to their hometowns later this week. I implored them to infuse that enthusiasm in their family and friends, and to keep working towards a future that embraces that spirit. [more]

Opinion

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The above inscription, located on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, is a testament to the essence of our national identity. We who were born here are all descendents of peoples who came to this land from a foreign shore. For decades, it greeted those who left behind all that they knew to start a new, hopefully better life here in the United States.

Today, it seems as though a certain segment of our society would like to include the following disclaimer to those magical words:

“Unless your skin is brown,
You speak a foreign language,
You pray to some other god or gods, or
You use goods and services I’m paying for!” [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off from launch complex 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center at 2236 GMT (6:36 p.m. EDT) this evening. Normally, this would barely rate two column inches at the bottom of page twelve in the local paper, but this mission is graced by the presence of Idaho’s Educator-Astronaut, Barbara Morgan. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am thrilled to see a renewed level of interest and coverage in our space shuttle program. I also believe that Mrs. Morgan has been a wonderful ambassador for space and science teaching even before her selection for the teacher-in-space program back in 1985. I simply wish that this level of nationwide enthusiasm would be maintained beyond the eventual return of the Endeavour in a few weeks. Unfortunately, history and experience strongly suggest it will not.

This mission, with its crew of seven brave astronauts (can anyone name another crew member besides Barbara?), will dock with the International Space Station on Friday afternoon. It will be there for the next seven days. During that time, they will deliver and assemble a new piece to the station’s truss (the structural “backbone”), replace a failed gyroscope and resupply the station with consumables and new scientific experiments. [more]

6degrees AstroBlog

Each year around August 12th, the Earth passes through a swarm of debris left in the wake of the passage of a comet known as Swift-Tuttle. As these tiny particles streak through our upper atmosphere, they give rise to the annual Perseid meteor shower. The name of the shower implies that the meteors appear to originate from the constellation of Perseus (this location is known as the radiant), located in the northeastern sky in the early morning hours at this time of year.

Meteor showers are best viewed under dark skies when there is no moonlight to interfere, and this year the Perseids will occur around the time of New Moon. In addition, they are better observed after local midnight...
[more]

<< Newer articles <<    Author Home     >> Older articles >>