Back from vacation

We had an amazing time in Cape Canaveral Florida, a whirlwind one week tour. Not much time to relax, we mostly went and saw the amazing stuff there. We spent a lot of time at Kennedy space center, where we saw the shuttle Atlantis and shuttle Endeavor on the launch pads. Then the next day we saw Atlantis launch. We saw a great deal of wildlife, including alligators, armadillos, turtles and manatees as we explored the wildlife refuge of Merritt Island. We spent time relaxing on the beach, visited Gatorland in Orlando, as well as spent a day at Universal Studios. There we rode some amzing roller coasters, most notably The Hulk (0-40mph in 2 seconds), the Dueling dragons ( a twin suspended coaster with head-on courses) and the Revenge of the Mummy (indoor space mountain-esque thiller, complete with much fire). We saw the new Star Trek movie at the IMAX in Kennedy space center, saw a dinner magic-comedy show and hunted for souvenirs. Great weather (except a couple of evening thunder storms), and no bugs whatsoever. Everything went off like clockwork, and it was altogether an amazing experience. I was so disappointed to come back to Abbotsford!!

STS-125 info
Shuttle on CBC
Leonas video of the launch:


Nasa's footage of the launch:


STS-125 Landing
Gatorland webcam
Dueling Dragons

Cape Canaveral Beach Cam
Shuttle viewing info

lulin in the beehive

Spotted comet Lulin again today, sighting number three. It was just below the Behive Cluster in Cancer. It seems to be getting smaller/fainter, but then the moon was also moving towards it and was starting to drown things out. Anyhow, that was quite a bit of movement over the last couple of days.

Comet Lulin

Yesterday I got a glimpse of comet Lulin. It is only visible for a week or so as it travels past earth. Although it's not at it's brightest, it was the first night with a break in the clouds in the right area of the sky. It appeared as a faint smudge near Leo. I needed binoculars, and even with those, I had to let my eyes adjust before I could get a decent observation.

This evening I took another look. It had moved about a field width of the binoculars. It was clearer this evening. I thought I may have glimpsed the tail, but I couldn't be sure. I had to look out the corner of my eye to see it well, as the sides of the eye have more black and white receptors which are more sensitive to faint objects, whereas the center of the eye has color receptors that tend to hide the fainter objects. It was interesting to see how the comet had moved such a distance. It gives one a sense of how fast this object is moving.

This was I think my fifth comet that I've seen. 3 of the comets I have seen were visible with the naked eye. Although this one required binoculars, I believe it would have been visible to the unaided eye last week.

For more info, see: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090225.html

Joined a triathlon group that trains casually on friday nights. They do a 20 minute timed swim, 20ks on the stationary bike and a 5k run on the indoor track at ARC. Basically a sprint triathlon distance with breaks in between. Also, managing to make it to masters swim once a week. Just got the bike serviced, so it should be ready for riding when the weather improves.