All Time Top Ten [Uncertain Principles]

A little while back, somebody on the Hold Steady fan message board put out a request for people’s all-time Top Ten songs. This is a really hard question, but a fun one, so of course I couldn’t resist. And since the overlap between there and here is pretty minimal, I’ll recycle the message I sent for a quick and easy pop-culture blog post to ring out 2014 (links are to YouTube videos).

————

Hard to rank-order these, because it’s mostly a list of songs that have been personally significant to me at some point, so this is basically reverse-chronological autobiographical order. Which is also why it’s such an odd mix of stuff.

1) The Mountain Goats, “This Year.” Song number three off John’s Nth CD… Played a lot when I was up for tenure, and when I became department chair, and right at the moment, too…

2) The Hold Steady, “How a Resurrection Really Feels.” I bought the album because I heard “Hoodrat” on the radio, but this is the song that convinced me they were genius.

3) The Weakerthans, “Reconstruction Site.” Fantastic imagery, catchy tune. I can never write about aesthetics without getting “Beauty’s just another word I’m never certain how to spell” stuck in my head.

4) The Afghan Whigs, “Lost in the Supermarket.” Off an album of Clash covers (obviously); got this off Napster when that was a thing. Kate loves it, and I surprised her with it at our wedding (found the CD in a cut-out bin, slipped it to the DJ).

5) Bob Dylan, “Mississippi.” (Live version because that’s all I could find on YouTube…) Album track off “Love and Theft,” which he had previously let Sheryl Crow record. Kate and I were doing the long-distance thing my first year as faculty, while she finished law school. Resonated really well for me.

6) The Old 97’s, “Big Brown Eyes.” I had a beat-up CD boombox in my lab that would only play a handful of discs, and “Too Far to Care” was one. Held up remarkably well.

7) Sam Cooke, “Bring It on Home to Me.” Spent three months living in Japan as a grad student, and listened to this a lot. Not quite sure why I latched onto that specifically, but there you go.

8) The Rolling Stones, “Beast of Burden.” I do a great sing-along version of this after about five hours behind the wheel. Had it on one of my essential driving mix tapes.

9) Sugar, “Hoover Dam.” Copper Blue is one of the most perfect albums ever, this is the best sing-along song off it.

10) Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here.” Because reasons.

That’s what I’ve got this morning. Skews a bit more mellow than it might at some other points; I could easily come up with ten much louder tracks that would be equally great. And ten quieter ones, for that matter. Ask me again in a month, and I’d be amazed if the lists overlapped by more than four songs.

from ScienceBlogs http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2014/12/27/all-time-top-ten/

A little while back, somebody on the Hold Steady fan message board put out a request for people’s all-time Top Ten songs. This is a really hard question, but a fun one, so of course I couldn’t resist. And since the overlap between there and here is pretty minimal, I’ll recycle the message I sent for a quick and easy pop-culture blog post to ring out 2014 (links are to YouTube videos).

————

Hard to rank-order these, because it’s mostly a list of songs that have been personally significant to me at some point, so this is basically reverse-chronological autobiographical order. Which is also why it’s such an odd mix of stuff.

1) The Mountain Goats, “This Year.” Song number three off John’s Nth CD… Played a lot when I was up for tenure, and when I became department chair, and right at the moment, too…

2) The Hold Steady, “How a Resurrection Really Feels.” I bought the album because I heard “Hoodrat” on the radio, but this is the song that convinced me they were genius.

3) The Weakerthans, “Reconstruction Site.” Fantastic imagery, catchy tune. I can never write about aesthetics without getting “Beauty’s just another word I’m never certain how to spell” stuck in my head.

4) The Afghan Whigs, “Lost in the Supermarket.” Off an album of Clash covers (obviously); got this off Napster when that was a thing. Kate loves it, and I surprised her with it at our wedding (found the CD in a cut-out bin, slipped it to the DJ).

5) Bob Dylan, “Mississippi.” (Live version because that’s all I could find on YouTube…) Album track off “Love and Theft,” which he had previously let Sheryl Crow record. Kate and I were doing the long-distance thing my first year as faculty, while she finished law school. Resonated really well for me.

6) The Old 97’s, “Big Brown Eyes.” I had a beat-up CD boombox in my lab that would only play a handful of discs, and “Too Far to Care” was one. Held up remarkably well.

7) Sam Cooke, “Bring It on Home to Me.” Spent three months living in Japan as a grad student, and listened to this a lot. Not quite sure why I latched onto that specifically, but there you go.

8) The Rolling Stones, “Beast of Burden.” I do a great sing-along version of this after about five hours behind the wheel. Had it on one of my essential driving mix tapes.

9) Sugar, “Hoover Dam.” Copper Blue is one of the most perfect albums ever, this is the best sing-along song off it.

10) Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here.” Because reasons.

That’s what I’ve got this morning. Skews a bit more mellow than it might at some other points; I could easily come up with ten much louder tracks that would be equally great. And ten quieter ones, for that matter. Ask me again in a month, and I’d be amazed if the lists overlapped by more than four songs.

from ScienceBlogs http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2014/12/27/all-time-top-ten/

How many stars can you see on a clear, moonless night?

Suppose you had a clear, moonless night. How many stars could you see with the eye alone?

There’s really no definitive answer to this question. No one has counted all the stars in the night sky, and astronomers use different numbers as theoretical estimates.

Considering all the stars visible in all directions around Earth, the upper end on the estimates seems to be about 10,000 visible stars. Other estimates place the number of stars visible to the eye alone – surrounding the entire Earth – at more like 5,000. At any given time, half of Earth is in daylight. So only half the estimated number – say, between 5,000 and 2,500 stars – would be visible from Earth’s night side.

Plus, another fraction of those visible stars would be lost in the haze all around your horizon.

Stars over Mount Bethel in the Arapaho National Forest in Colorado. View larger. via EarthSky friend Daniel McVey. See more of Daniel’s photos here.

Why can’t astronomers agree on the number of visible stars? It’s because we don’t all see the sky in the same way. Even under ideal conditions, there’s a fair amount of variation between how well people can see the stars – depending on things like the strength of your vision – and your age. As you get older, for example, your eyes become much less sensitive to faint light.

You also have to take into account the brightness of your night sky. Even on a moonless night, the glow of lights from Earth’s surface brightens the sky.

Still – far from city lights – under absolutely perfect conditions of darkness and sky clarity – a young to middle-aged person with normal vision should be able to see thousands of stars.

‘A nice west Texas sky from Mt. Locke, in the Davis mountains near the McDonald Observatory … Even from this remote location, you can see the light coming from Fort Davis on the bottom of the image.’ by EarthSky Facebook friend Sergio Garcia Rill

Visit the International Dark-sky Association

What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/space/how-many-stars-could-you-see-on-a-clear-moonless-night

Suppose you had a clear, moonless night. How many stars could you see with the eye alone?

There’s really no definitive answer to this question. No one has counted all the stars in the night sky, and astronomers use different numbers as theoretical estimates.

Considering all the stars visible in all directions around Earth, the upper end on the estimates seems to be about 10,000 visible stars. Other estimates place the number of stars visible to the eye alone – surrounding the entire Earth – at more like 5,000. At any given time, half of Earth is in daylight. So only half the estimated number – say, between 5,000 and 2,500 stars – would be visible from Earth’s night side.

Plus, another fraction of those visible stars would be lost in the haze all around your horizon.

Stars over Mount Bethel in the Arapaho National Forest in Colorado. View larger. via EarthSky friend Daniel McVey. See more of Daniel’s photos here.

Why can’t astronomers agree on the number of visible stars? It’s because we don’t all see the sky in the same way. Even under ideal conditions, there’s a fair amount of variation between how well people can see the stars – depending on things like the strength of your vision – and your age. As you get older, for example, your eyes become much less sensitive to faint light.

You also have to take into account the brightness of your night sky. Even on a moonless night, the glow of lights from Earth’s surface brightens the sky.

Still – far from city lights – under absolutely perfect conditions of darkness and sky clarity – a young to middle-aged person with normal vision should be able to see thousands of stars.

‘A nice west Texas sky from Mt. Locke, in the Davis mountains near the McDonald Observatory … Even from this remote location, you can see the light coming from Fort Davis on the bottom of the image.’ by EarthSky Facebook friend Sergio Garcia Rill

Visit the International Dark-sky Association

What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/space/how-many-stars-could-you-see-on-a-clear-moonless-night

January 2015 Open Thread [Deltoid]

Let’s skip straight to January.

from ScienceBlogs http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2014/12/27/january-2015-open-thread/

Let’s skip straight to January.

from ScienceBlogs http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2014/12/27/january-2015-open-thread/

The Racetrack, Death Valley National Park

View larger. | Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, as captured by Cat Connor. Visit Cat Connor’s website.

Cat Connor captured this beautiful image of a sliding (or sailing or slithering) stone at Death Valley’s famous Racetrack Playa on Christmas Day – December 25, 2014. These stones are known to leave tracks in the desert floor. They clearly do move, but, until recently, no one knew what caused their movement. Want to know? Click here to find out and see a video of the sliding stones in motion.

What causes Death Valley’s sliding stones to move?

Sliding stone tracks in the Death Valley desert floor, via the journal PLOS ONE.

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/todays-image/the-racetrack-death-valley-national-park

View larger. | Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, as captured by Cat Connor. Visit Cat Connor’s website.

Cat Connor captured this beautiful image of a sliding (or sailing or slithering) stone at Death Valley’s famous Racetrack Playa on Christmas Day – December 25, 2014. These stones are known to leave tracks in the desert floor. They clearly do move, but, until recently, no one knew what caused their movement. Want to know? Click here to find out and see a video of the sliding stones in motion.

What causes Death Valley’s sliding stones to move?

Sliding stone tracks in the Death Valley desert floor, via the journal PLOS ONE.

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/todays-image/the-racetrack-death-valley-national-park

Analemma 2014, from Hong Kong

View larger. | Analemma and solar terms, 2014, from Hong Kong. Copyright Matthew Chin. Used with permission.

The figure-8 shaped curve is called an analemma. It’s a photo of the sun, taken every day at the same time, in this case 7:30 a.m. local time in Hong Kong. Matthew Chin created this analemma in 2014. He also add the Chinese solar terms, which comprise a calendar of 24 periods and climate, set up to govern agriculture in ancient China and referred to in China even now. Matthew wrote:

Due to cloudy or rainy days, the image may be taken before / after the solar term day and are marked +/- nd(ays).

That year’s two equinoxes on March 21 (0° longitude) and September 23 (180° longitude) correspond to the mid-points but not the cross-over point, on the curve.

While summer solstice on June 21 (90° longitude) and winter solstice on December 22 (270° longitude) are located at the top-left and bottom-right on the curve respectively.

The solar term days are listed as below (based on Hong Kong Time) for year 2014 by Hong Kong Observatory.

Click here for solar terms in English from Hong Kong Observatory

Click here for solar terms in Chinese from Hong Kong Observatory

Read more about analemmas.

Thank you, Matthew!

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/todays-image/analemma-and-chinese-solar-terms-2014

View larger. | Analemma and solar terms, 2014, from Hong Kong. Copyright Matthew Chin. Used with permission.

The figure-8 shaped curve is called an analemma. It’s a photo of the sun, taken every day at the same time, in this case 7:30 a.m. local time in Hong Kong. Matthew Chin created this analemma in 2014. He also add the Chinese solar terms, which comprise a calendar of 24 periods and climate, set up to govern agriculture in ancient China and referred to in China even now. Matthew wrote:

Due to cloudy or rainy days, the image may be taken before / after the solar term day and are marked +/- nd(ays).

That year’s two equinoxes on March 21 (0° longitude) and September 23 (180° longitude) correspond to the mid-points but not the cross-over point, on the curve.

While summer solstice on June 21 (90° longitude) and winter solstice on December 22 (270° longitude) are located at the top-left and bottom-right on the curve respectively.

The solar term days are listed as below (based on Hong Kong Time) for year 2014 by Hong Kong Observatory.

Click here for solar terms in English from Hong Kong Observatory

Click here for solar terms in Chinese from Hong Kong Observatory

Read more about analemmas.

Thank you, Matthew!

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/todays-image/analemma-and-chinese-solar-terms-2014

See brightest star Sirius at midnight on New Year’s Eve

Sirius in the constellation Canis Major – the legendary Dog Star – should be called the New Year’s star. This star – the brightest one in our sky – celebrates the birth of 2015 and every new year by reaching its highest point in the sky around the stroke of midnight. That’s the case this year, and every year.

How can you find Sirius? It’s easy because this star is the brightest one we see from Earth. Its name means sparkling or scorching. In late 2013 and early 2014, only the planet Jupiter outshines Sirius in the evening sky. You won’t confuse them. At mid-northern latitudes, Sirius rises in the southeast at around 7 to 8 p.m. tonight. Jupiter is up at nightfall, farther to the north than Sirius on the sky’s dome, and brighter than this star.

The three stars of Orion’s Belt always point to the sky’s brightest star, Sirius. This photo comes from EarthSky Facebook friend Susan Jensen in Odessa, Washington. Thank you, Susan!

If you’re not sure, look for the prominent Belt stars of the constellation Orion, as shown on today’s chart. Orion’s Belt always points to Sirius.

So Sirius is highest in the sky at midnight every New Year’s. Astronomers call this a midnight culmination of Sirius. As the New Year rings in, Sirius is at its highest.

By midnight, by the way, we mean the middle of the night – midway between sunset and sunrise. Like the sun, the stars rise in the east and travel westward across the sky. When the sun or any star is in the eastern half of the sky, it’s climbing upward. When the sun or any star is in the western sky, it’s descending downward. Midway between rising and setting, the sun or any star reaches its highest point in the sky.

So Sirius will reach its highest point in the sky at midnight New Year’s Day, at the birth of the New Year. Because the stars rise and set two hours earlier with each passing month, Sirius will be highest up for the night around 10 p.m. local time on February 1.

Look for Sirius – at midnight culmination – highest in the sky around midnight every New Year’s Eve!

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/space/star-sirius-torchbearer-of-the-new-year

Sirius in the constellation Canis Major – the legendary Dog Star – should be called the New Year’s star. This star – the brightest one in our sky – celebrates the birth of 2015 and every new year by reaching its highest point in the sky around the stroke of midnight. That’s the case this year, and every year.

How can you find Sirius? It’s easy because this star is the brightest one we see from Earth. Its name means sparkling or scorching. In late 2013 and early 2014, only the planet Jupiter outshines Sirius in the evening sky. You won’t confuse them. At mid-northern latitudes, Sirius rises in the southeast at around 7 to 8 p.m. tonight. Jupiter is up at nightfall, farther to the north than Sirius on the sky’s dome, and brighter than this star.

The three stars of Orion’s Belt always point to the sky’s brightest star, Sirius. This photo comes from EarthSky Facebook friend Susan Jensen in Odessa, Washington. Thank you, Susan!

If you’re not sure, look for the prominent Belt stars of the constellation Orion, as shown on today’s chart. Orion’s Belt always points to Sirius.

So Sirius is highest in the sky at midnight every New Year’s. Astronomers call this a midnight culmination of Sirius. As the New Year rings in, Sirius is at its highest.

By midnight, by the way, we mean the middle of the night – midway between sunset and sunrise. Like the sun, the stars rise in the east and travel westward across the sky. When the sun or any star is in the eastern half of the sky, it’s climbing upward. When the sun or any star is in the western sky, it’s descending downward. Midway between rising and setting, the sun or any star reaches its highest point in the sky.

So Sirius will reach its highest point in the sky at midnight New Year’s Day, at the birth of the New Year. Because the stars rise and set two hours earlier with each passing month, Sirius will be highest up for the night around 10 p.m. local time on February 1.

Look for Sirius – at midnight culmination – highest in the sky around midnight every New Year’s Eve!

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/space/star-sirius-torchbearer-of-the-new-year

See Summer Triangle in west on winter evenings

Tonight, look in the west shortly after sunset to find a famous asterism – a noticeable pattern of stars, not a constellation – known to us in the Northern Hemisphere as the Summer Triangle. Good chance that you’ll be able to see these three brilliant stars, despite tonight’s moonlit glare.

Summer Triangle in northern winter? Sure. It’s called the summer triangle, because – for us in the Northern Hemisphere – summer is the season in which these stars soar overhead.

The Triangle consists of three bright stars in three different constellations. They are Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp, Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan, and Altair in the constellation Aquila the Eagle.

Still, if you look for this pattern this month, you’ll find that, around the time of the winter solstice and the New Year, the Summer Triangle is descending in the west in early evening. It’s getting closer each evening to disappearing into the sunset glare.

How long into winter will you be able to see the Summer Triangle in your evening sky?

Do you love stargazing? Order your EarthSky Planisphere today!

Never miss another full moon. Order your 2015 EarthSky Lunar Calendar today!

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/tonight/see-the-summer-triangle-in-winter

Tonight, look in the west shortly after sunset to find a famous asterism – a noticeable pattern of stars, not a constellation – known to us in the Northern Hemisphere as the Summer Triangle. Good chance that you’ll be able to see these three brilliant stars, despite tonight’s moonlit glare.

Summer Triangle in northern winter? Sure. It’s called the summer triangle, because – for us in the Northern Hemisphere – summer is the season in which these stars soar overhead.

The Triangle consists of three bright stars in three different constellations. They are Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp, Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan, and Altair in the constellation Aquila the Eagle.

Still, if you look for this pattern this month, you’ll find that, around the time of the winter solstice and the New Year, the Summer Triangle is descending in the west in early evening. It’s getting closer each evening to disappearing into the sunset glare.

How long into winter will you be able to see the Summer Triangle in your evening sky?

Do you love stargazing? Order your EarthSky Planisphere today!

Never miss another full moon. Order your 2015 EarthSky Lunar Calendar today!

from EarthSky http://earthsky.org/tonight/see-the-summer-triangle-in-winter