As you’ve probably heard by now, Japan experienced a massive magnitude 8.9 earthquake a few hours ago, which has led to tsunami warnings and watches for the west coasts of North, Central and South America and the Hawaiian islands. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre is an excellent source of information about this. You can read the bulletin issued at 1431Z here.

Japan is unfortunately well-versed in dealing with massive earthquakes. Prior to this morning’s quake, the Kobe earthquake in January 1995 was the biggest one to hit in recent history, with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale. It resulted in more than 6,400 deaths and cost about ten trillion yen in damage, which was about 2.5% of Japan’s GDP at the time, or just over $100 billion US dollars.

This morning’s quake was about 100 times as powerful as the Kobe quake. And I just saw on Twitter that Japan was just hit by a 7m (23′) tsunami. The extent of the damage is staggering.

Google’s Person Finder service is up and running at http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com. Family members of Canadians in Japan can call DFAIT at 613-943-1055, or toll free within Canada at 1-800-387-3124, or visit http://www.voyage.gc.ca/contact/menu-eng.asp.

Yesterday, I posted a short video I took of the ISS passing over Ottawa this past Tuesday evening, so I thought I’d post a copy of long exposure photos that I took.

I used my digital Canon Rebel on a tripod that I sat on the roof of my SUV. Generally, I had the ISO set to 1600, stopped the lens down to about f/20 and manually selected a 30 second exposure. The autofocus was turned off and I manually set the focus to ~infinity and confirmed it the stars were in focus with some test shots. I have a small wireless remote that I used to trigger the shutter. To avoid condensation problems, I set things up about half an hour before the pass to allow the camera to cool down.

(more…)

I just looked at the Franktown weather radar and cringed when I saw all the colours. Judging by the aviation forecast, the next 24 hours are going to suck. (I apologize for using a highly technical meteorological term, but one must be precise about these things.)

TAF CYOW 091738Z 0918/1018 09015KT P6SM OVC100
FM092100 09015KT P6SM OVC080 TEMPO 0921/0923 11/2SM -SN VV012
FM092300 09015KT 3/4SM -SN VV007 TEMPO 0923/1004 11/2SM -SN VV012
FM100400 09015KT 1/2SM SN VV005 TEMPO 1004/1015 1SM -SN VV010
FM101500 09015KT 4SM -RA BR OVC010
RMK NXT FCST BY 092100Z=

Continuous snow starting anytime after 4pm Ottawa time and carrying on until 10am tomorrow morning when it’s supposed to switch to rain. I can hardly wait.

The City of Ottawa sent out an email this morning advising of an overnight parking restriction from 01:00 to 07:00 because more than 7 cm of snow are forecast to fall. You can sign up for these notifications on their website.

I headed out Tuesday evening to watch the space shuttle and International Space Station pass overhead. Both of them appeared on schedule and I was able to capture them in some long exposure photos.

About a minute before the ISS disappeared from view I grabbed my Canon SD850IS and captured a short video of the pass. I’m quite happy with the results and have posted the video to YouTube. It’s probably best viewed in full screen mode.

I’ve crunched some more precise numbers for this evening’s ISS and STS-133 passes. The times are in UTC, so you need to subtract 5 hours for Eastern Standard time. (Click here to download them in a text file.)

Ottawa-To-ISS
Time (UTCG)                Azimuth (deg)    Elevation (deg)    Range (km)
-----------------------    -------------    ---------------    -----------
9 Mar 2011 00:20:38.123              292                  0    2159.492211
9 Mar 2011 00:21:38.000              287                  4    1765.477591
9 Mar 2011 00:22:38.000              280                  9    1389.558028
9 Mar 2011 00:23:38.000              267                 15    1055.451478
9 Mar 2011 00:24:38.000              244                 22     818.373598
9 Mar 2011 00:25:38.000              209                 24     774.603489
9 Mar 2011 00:26:38.000              180                 18     951.326850
9 Mar 2011 00:27:38.000              164                 11    1258.305207
9 Mar 2011 00:28:38.000              156                  6    1622.294953
9 Mar 2011 00:29:38.000              150                  1    2011.420073
9 Mar 2011 00:29:58.922              149                  0    2150.274764

Ottawa-To-STS-133
Time (UTCG)                Azimuth (deg)    Elevation (deg)     Range (km)
-----------------------    -------------    ---------------    -----------
9 Mar 2011 00:20:05.553              292                  0    2159.008371
9 Mar 2011 00:21:05.000              287                  4    1767.294751
9 Mar 2011 00:22:05.000              280                  9    1390.441394
9 Mar 2011 00:23:05.000              268                 15    1054.707599
9 Mar 2011 00:24:05.000              244                 23     814.906252
9 Mar 2011 00:25:05.000              209                 24     768.231806
9 Mar 2011 00:26:05.000              180                 18     943.899552
9 Mar 2011 00:27:05.000              164                 11    1250.970718
9 Mar 2011 00:28:05.000              155                  6    1615.247805
9 Mar 2011 00:29:05.000              150                  1    2004.620053
9 Mar 2011 00:29:27.464              149                  0    2153.829615

(more…)

The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Discovery will be passing over Ottawa the next couple of days and, weather-permitting, there should be a couple of opportunities to see them as they pass overhead.

You won’t need any fancy equipment to view them. They’ll look like a pair of bright dots, one chasing the other across the sky. According to the Heavens Above website, there are three passes between now and Thursday evening that should be visible from Ottawa.
(more…)

The author of the YOURLS WordPress to Twitter Plugin has released an update. Presumably, version 1.4.9 will address the brokenness I wrote about a couple of days ago that happened when WordPress 3.1 was released.

If you implemented the solution I wrote about, you should probably upgrade to version 1.4.9.