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Archive for March 2017

A few photos from the WGS-9 launch this evening

March 18, 2017 @ 20:57 By: gordon Category: Astronomy, Photography

I arrived in Jupiter, Florida earlier today. This evening, there was a launch of a military communications satellite, known as WGS-9, from the Kennedy Space Center. My parents and I headed out onto the balcony in front of the place they’re renting to see if we could see it.

Happily, we could…

For those wondering about the technical details of the photos: Canon 70D, Tamron SP 500mm, 1/160s, f/8, ISO 12800.

Springing forward

March 10, 2017 @ 19:00 By: gordon Category: Astronomy, Current affairs, General

Early Sunday morning, at 2AM, we move our clocks forward an hour in a futile attempt to save energy. As I’ve mentioned in previous years’ versions of this post, daylight save time hasn’t been shown to actually save energy.

Instead of saving energy, there will be an increase in accidents because people are discombobulated by the change in their sleep pattern. As an added “bonus”, there’s a 10% increase the likelihood that you’ll experience a heart attack during the days immediately following the time change. Is it worth it? Not in my opinion. (more…)