Hey Tilt

“Hey Mark are you coming up to the TC3 cookoff this year? Would love to see you.
Barbara”

“Hey yourself!

I was thinking of a chocolate mousse recipe... All I'm going to need is a wire whisk and a forearm like Popeye the Sailor Man, LOL

If it's as foggy as it was the last time I'll need a GPS, too! <G>”

“PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Mister Rogers now has an asteroid named in his honor.

"Misterrogers," formerly known as No. 26858, honors Fred Rogers, creator and host of public television's "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Rogers died February 27 at age 74.

"I doubt that there are many who have not been touched in some way by the life and work of Fred Rogers," said John G. Radzilowicz, director of the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium & Observatory at the Carnegie Science Center, which made the announcement Thursday.

The science center worked with Family Communications Inc., the production company Rogers founded, to produce a planetarium show for preschoolers called "The Sky Above Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." The show now plays at 15 planetariums across the country.

"Misterrogers" can be found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and is about 218 million miles from the sun, which it takes about 31/2 years to orbit.

It was discovered in 1993 by E.F. Helin at the Palomar Observatory in California.

The International Astronomical Union names comets, asteroids and surface features such as moon craters after individuals.

The honors cannot be bought, and they are based on merits judged by the astronomers.”

“Nope! LOL

I didn't have anything to do with the naming of Zappafrank, either.”

“That is so cool, Tilt. Somebody up there likes Frank!!!!

BTW, I got a telescope recently for a very cheap price from one of our lawyers here. I never owned one, so I wasn't really sure if it was any good or not. I went up on the roof last night and checked out the crescent (the moon is not far from new moon stage) and it looked fantastic. I was able to zero in on mucho craters on the surface and saw where the light started to disapppear into the dark side...Man, this is cool. I think I have a new addiction...”

“He's hooked.
He's hooked.
His brain is cooked.

LOL


Ah, yes... the terminator... (not to be confused with the so-called actor with the Austrian accent!!)... the division between night and day. Pretty Neat-O how it lights up the edges of those craters, Hmmmm?

Do you have a light pollution filter on that thing? I hear they're a big help when it comes to city viewing.”

“No, I don't and I'm pretty green at this. It seems to me to be a basic TASCO scope. It has four different lens attachments. One is 2.3x or 2.7x (don't remember). One is 2.5x. It also has the 90 degree short attachment and the small staright lens. No filters though. Any tips on what accessories I can buy for it will be appreciated, bro!

Oh, and you are right about the edges of those craters! So freakin' cool!!”

“The second one was a typo 2.5X = 1.5X”

“I'm glad to help if I can, but I think Griz and a couple of other folks are more knowledgable about telescopes.

I'm more of a minimalist... binoculars and (as we say down this way) nekkid-eye Astronomy, <G>”

“Thanx, Tilt. If I have any questions as I go, I will post them. If you can help, great! If not maybe someone else wil chime in.

Hey, I picked up "Franceso Zappa" on vinyl yesterday for a buck at a sidewalk sale. I think that makes 47 FZ collections on vinyl alone...”

“Weirdness!

LOL”

“Cheepnis!

:)”

“uncle! LOL”

“Uncle Meat! Lol”

“Gee Mark you know the cookoff is the same weekend you were here before...do ya think that could be a sign:)”

“hmmmmmmm. I don't think they make a foglight attachment for this headlight, LOL... I better start checking out those GPS units For Real.


And it's the weekend of the Georgia-Tennessee game, Again! (jeeeez, I thought I was outnumbered LAST Time)

I'll have to remember to slap those UGA magnets all over the Ford again. Maybe they'll bring better luck this time, <GRIN>!


I just figured it out. You guys wear all that orange so folks can see you coming through the fog, right?”

“When Bear Bryant died, his wife decided she had had enough of championship football, so she wanted to move somewhere where there wasn't any. She moved to Tennessee.”

“Very funny!!!

Please don't help Mark....

Gee Mark I can make sure we put lots of UT signs on your car while we are in the backcountry.....:)
Barbara”

“uh oh.”

“Whats up with Mars this month?

I heard it will be the closest to the Earth until 2287 or something like that?”

“oh great! that's all i need, one more thing to stress me out.....thanks alot adventurist....i would have never known....”

“Yep! The closest in thousands of years, they say... but just by a little bit, <G>

There's some good stuff at the Sky & Telescope site.

Recent 'Martian' links on TrailTalk, LOL


Too bad about the Perseids and the Moon this year, <GRRRRRRRRRRRR>”

“i heard the bush adminstration wants to drill for oil with haliburten on mars....”

“I heard that Bush wants to test our long-range missles on Mars as it passes by.



Stratagery”

“he's gonna blow those perseids away!”

“I've been waiting for a clear night here in NY to take the telescope up on the roof so I can view Mars. They say that the end of this week should be clear finally. It's getting closer to the 28th, so it will be rising in the sky and peaking earlier as the date approaches...”

“Telescopes have come a long way since I first got mine. I had a Tasco for the longest time. It wasn't terrible expensive or powerful. And it only had one lense piece out of 4 or 5 a pieces that work the best. I was never able to get those magnification tubes and stronger eye pieces to work. Spindly legs, and gritty gears but it worked.

Saturn looked like the CBS symbol and I was able to see 4 of the larger Sat.'s around Jupiter. It really worked best on the moon.

The nephew has it now,, hope he is enjoying looking at the heavens as much as I did with it.

Thanks for the Mars update, I'll hafta look into that.”

“An article, too long to cut & past...
Stopping critters Whitemarsh Twsp style ”

“"Ah... the Mystery of the 'Twsp" is sol-ved," as Clousseau might say.


"The township allowed Anhorn to retire in July with full benefits. But seven of his accusers - fellow officers - were slapped with letters of reprimand for not coming forward sooner."

(That's about par for the course ---)



"Critters"????

good grief.”

“You must read Fingerprints of the Gods. Many, many references to astrology and pre-historic cultures.”

“I don't know that one... I remember Chariots of the Gods from years ago. Some of that paleoastronomy stuff is pretty wicked... and some of it is like full goose bozo, LOL”

“The premise of the book is that there was a dominant culture in the world prior to mainstream historic calculations (egyptians, sumarians, incans, etc.). This is theorized through common wordly myths (i.e. - biblical floods, descriptions of gods), and based on the common guidlines that the ancient culture left through mapping of the stars and the earth's relevance in our place in the universe.

Good stuff, and after you read it, I'd like to hear your take on the accuracy of the astrological aspects of the theory.”

“To tie this into a backpacking related forum.... when you are hiking, and looking around the trail before you, you never know when you'll find something extremely interesting, and of historical significance. Check out articles on "archelogical" discoveries... most happen by accident, by hikers who catch something out of the corner of thier eye.”

“Chariots of the Gods was written by this whacko ex-NASA guy who I think lived here in Huntsville. His book was given a kind of "credence" by the fact that he used to work for NASA, kinda like that guy who did the "Face on Mars" crap a few years ago.

I'm pretty sure I read "Chariots of the Gods" but I can't remember all the crap in it. I read a lot of stuff like that when I was in my early teens. I think it had something in it about some Aztec women having sex with a Tapir, and that was somehow tied into the reason we call people with old money "blue-bloods". I kid you not.

An Amazon search reveals that the book is still available, as well as this book, an apparent debunking of "Chariots of the Gods". Alas, the debunker's task is a tough one. Van Daniken's tripe is still in print, and the debunking is long, long out of print.”

“That's the beautiful thing about history. Back it up with facts, and it becomes history! I don't know about this "chariots of the gods" book, but from what I've studied, and read throughout my last 10 years, this "Fingerprints of the Gods" book has made a radical arguement for it's premise. It will surely be debunked by most religious gruops, but what do they base thier facts on anyway?”

“Yep! I think there are aboriginal pictograms which look like explosions that date to the supernova of 1054 that formed the Crab Nebula. Ya never know -- lots can happen over millions of years.

WOW --- today's Astro Pic o' the Day kicks some serious butt! Man, that one's just about killer enough to get its own thread.”

“Full Moon on Friday Oct 10.

On Saturday night, moonrise (98% full) should occur about an hour after sunset.

Yowza!”

“Thanks for that one, Tilt. It is now my "wallpaper."”

“I clicked on it and got the HUGE one....

Now Saturn is completely covering my screen. It looks like it's about to land on me.”

“ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday he was embarrassed by the Georgia Department of Education proposal to eliminate the word "evolution" from the state's curriculum.

"As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students," Carter said in a written statement.

Cox explained the reasoning at a news conference on Thursday and in a statement posted on the Department of Education Web site, saying that the concepts of evolution would remain in the curriculum.

"The unfortunate truth is that 'evolution' has become a controversial buzzword that could prevent some from reading the proposed biology curriculum," Cox said in her statement.

She added: "We don't want the public or our students to get stuck on a word when the curriculum actually includes the most widely accepted theories for biology. Ironically, people have become upset about the exclusion of the word again, without having read the document."

But Carter said dropping the word would leave Georgia's high school graduates "with a serious handicap as they enter college or private life where freedom of speech will be permitted."

Carter also predicted ridicule for the state, along with discredit on Georgia's university system.

"The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe," Carter said. "There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy.”

“I predict Carter is right,

Georgia is one dumbass state.”

“Tilt, did you watch the West Wing last night? In the episode Josh blasted NASA. After the meeting an exec with NASA dropped by his office and told him why what they do means so much. She then told him they want to go to Mars. His repsonse had to do with switching meters and feet. She told him she'd pick him up at 8 and would show him what the fuss was about and that you couldn't make decisions about NASA unless you had seen the stuff they dealt with. He expected a planetarium. He got a trip to the country and a view through what looked like about a 10" SCT goto scope. He fussed that his shoes were being ruined in the mud and she countered that he needed to experience what 9 year old across the country experience when they first look through a scope. They showed images through the viewfinder of Saturn, Mars, and the Orion Nebula. The images were doctored pretty good, but it got the point across.

All in all it was a good episode. Did I mention that they also had detected a nuclear test blast, had planes on the way to Iran and then found out the Israeli's had done the test?”

“Josh wound up supporting NASA because he got a hummer. The edited that part out.”

“Actually, he did find a scope on his door step the next day.

I need to get my scope out and see Saturn while it's still at full "Tilt".”

“The scope was the nice parting gift after he scored witht he NASA chick.”

“Pretty much, but he didn't score.”

“Well, did he score or not? All of the TT'ers can't be held in suspense any longer.”

“He didn't, but they did sort of cliffhang the episode. I think she'll be back in episodes to come. I can't believe you two lefties don't watch WW. I call myself middle of the ground to slightly right and I love it.”

“Well I'd be writing the check now if she .....”

“He definately scored. He was a pi$$ed off over worked White House Staffer who gave NASA hell and told them there would never be any priorities in the Adminstration to help them.

Then he goes out at night with the NASA chick to "watch the stars", then they cut to commercial, then he is back in the office dreaming of the day manned missions go to mars.


Now, ladies and gentlemen, you tell me. Doesn't it certainly appear that he scored with the NASA chick and they edited that part out?”