Another Broadcast For Slooh

The image at the top of this entry shows some of the asteroid’s movement through the sky. We captured this with Slooh’s telescope in Chile. You’re seeing an object the size of an aircraft carrier from millions of miles away!

I hosted another broadcast this morning PDT for Slooh.com. Near Earth Asteroid 2014 HQ124 won’t hit Earth, but it will be in the neighborhood the next few days. That’s good reason for us to go live.

The image at the top of this entry shows some of the asteroid’s movement through the sky. We captured this with Slooh’s telescope in Chile. You’re seeing an object the size of an aircraft carrier from millions of miles away!

After the broadcast I stopped to ponder our own technological achievement. We had participants on from the East and West Coast, plus England and Australia. We used images taken in Australia and Chile.

We had the right experts and pictures with lots of insight, coordinated in Hartford, CT where our producer/director sits.

We’re about to make a huge technological leap which should bring up the quality of our transmissions greatly. Noticeable change.

It’s all pretty exciting and, for me, nerdy fun.

Now It Can Be Told: My Stuff For Slooh

As some of you may know, I’ve been doing some work for slooh.com. Slooh is an astronomy community. Its three telescopes are available to the members. Two of the scopes are in the Canary Islands. One is in Chile. Each is in a superb location to clearly view the nighttime sky.

My job is to produce videos and host webcasts for Slooh.

Sequence 01.Still003

As some of you may know, I’ve been doing some work for slooh.com. Slooh is an astronomy community. Its three telescopes are available to the members. Two of the scopes are in the Canary Islands. One is in Chile. Each is in a superb location to clearly view the nighttime sky.

My job is to produce videos and host webcasts for Slooh. We’ve got one coming up Friday at 6p EDT/3p PDT about Comet 209P/Linear. It’s the object responsible for what could be an amazing meteor shower Friday night.

Slooh has also just announced a partnership with NASA in their Grand Asteroid Challenge. I produced a 2 1/2 minute video for that (below).

Screenshot-2014-05-16-19.59.36If you would have stopped me when I got into broadcasting and told me I’d be able to edit something like this without leaving my home office I’d have thought you nuts! These capabilities are beyond amazing.

I designed this PC specifically for editing It’s equal to the task. I couldn’t be happier.

I’m pretty happy with how the video came out too.

Tonight’s Webcast

There’s a very good opportunity with more ‘show biz appeal’ coming up on May 24. We’ll be plowing through the debris field of a comet, 209p/LINEAR. A meteor shower–possibly a meteor storm!

It’s safe. The comet itself won’t be nearby. Meteors from showers never hit the Earth’s surface. They streak across the sky as they vaporize in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.

slooh_square_logoI’ve become involved with slooh.com a company that owns telescopes on the Canary Islands and in Chile and rents time to amateurs interested in using great equipment. It’s all Internet driven.

They also do webcasts whenever celestial conditions warrant. I host.

Tonight we were on for the Saturn opposition. The Sun,Earth and Saturn are aligned. Saturn is its photographically prettiest.

If you think of this as a sports broadcast, my color man was Bob Berman, an astronomer who lives in New York City’s northern exurbs. I asked questions and tried to keep the show on track.

Some of slooh’s webcasts have been viewed over a million times. Many in the high hundreds of thousands. The audience varies dependent on the excitement of the event. Tonight wasn’t a barn burner. We did show Saturn live through the Canary Islands scope.

There’s a very good opportunity with more ‘show biz appeal’ coming up on May 24. We’ll be plowing through the debris field of a comet, 209p/LINEAR. A meteor shower–possibly a meteor storm!

It’s safe. The comet itself won’t be nearby. Meteors from showers never hit the Earth’s surface. They streak across the sky as they vaporize in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.

I’ll be on for that. We should have lots of images to show.

These Are Killer Plums

20130319_233926-w1280-h1280There is a plum with speckles available at the supermarket right now. The label says “Black Plum.” They’re from Chile.

This particular plum is available briefly, then gone.

The Black Plum is the fruit against which all others should be judged. Simultaneously sweet and overpoweringly sour, the plum’s meat is firm and flavorful.

Seriously, these are killer plums.

The World’s Finest Plum!

I know what you’re saying. “Geoff, isn’t this a little nuts to go over a piece of fruit?

One day last week Helaine opened the refrigerator door and asked me to look. They’re back! The world’s finest plum fruit is back in season. I am ecstatic!

I know what you’re saying. “Geoff, isn’t this a little nuts to go over a piece of fruit?”

No!

The plum I’m talking about comes from Chile. It is deeply plum colored with golden speckles. The skin is supple and crisp as you bite in. The fruit is at once sweet and tangy. It is juicy, but not overly so. The pit is easily eaten around and always remains in one piece.

I’m sure there’s a name. All varieties have names. If you know it please tell me.

It’s probably been bred to taste, look and ship as it does. That takes away a little of the fun because you’d like to think this was Mother Nature’s treat–her way of making up for this damned winter.

These plums don’t last long. Get yours or take your chances. With these plums I buy in bulk!

Update: I got an email from Paula who thinks she’s found the fruit!

I think I found the name of your plum. I did a little research after reading your blog and I think it is a Santa Rosa variety. I’ve copied the write up directly from here.

Santa Rosa Plums — grown by Oscar Carrillo in CA. These plums have a purplish-crimson skin with the light freckling that is characteristic of all Rosa type plums. The flesh is tart and red at the pit, radiating into sweet yellow flesh near the skin.

I Did Some Good Crying Tuesday Night

I did some good crying Tuesday night. I was crying for the San Jose miners as they emerged from the Fenix rescue capsule and onto the surface of the Chilean desert near Copiapo.

I did some good crying Tuesday night. I was crying for the San Jose miners as they emerged from the Fenix rescue capsule and onto the surface of the Chilean desert near Copiapo. It was a scene charged with emotion in a country drawn closer by this averted national tragedy. President Sebastian Pinera of Chile was beaming as he hugged each man.

Has there ever been a rescue like this before? I’m not talking about getting miners out, but the intense live international coverage. There were cameras above and below ground. The coverage was live to every corner of the Earth.

A CNN reporter made it clear though he was hundreds of feet from the rescue site we at home got the much better view.

Tonight’s rescue was the antithesis of the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. There nothing went right. Here everything did.

Of course unlike the BP explosion these men survived in a manner fit (and probably destined) for a movie. In Chile it was conveniently possible to ‘pause’ the danger while a rescue was fashioned.

Short of the first miner emerging the best TV moment of the night came when NBC’s Kerry Sanders interviewed one miner’s nervous wife. He deftly moved back-and-forth between English and Spanish translating both his questions and her answers. Her emotions were never lost. It was masterfully simple yet powerful television&#185

The first four miners are out. The plan was to bring the four healthiest men out first. Now come the more difficult extractions. The order shifts to least healthy.

The was a worldwide effort. Technology and strategy poured into Chile. Scientists from NASA helped devise the escape capsule and a Pennsylvania company provided the multifunctional drill bit that brought the miners out long before the earlier Christmas prediction.

It’s tough to look away. It feels good to feel good.

&#185 – I don’t know him, but I dropped Kerry a note complimenting his work and quickly received a reply. There’s neither running water nor any of the comforts of home, but there’s Internet tonight in Copiapo!

Spotted Plums

I really wish I knew what they are called… these spotted plums. They show up at the supermarket once a year, flown in from Chile.

They are the best!

As much as one can have a favorite fruit, mine is plums. There are so many varieties from red to deep purple, each with its own distinctive taste. These spotted ones have very juicy sweet fruit, but it’s the sour tang next to the sweetness that makes them just right.

I am somewhat strange in my taste in fruit. I like them hard – hard peaches, hard plums, barely ripe bananas.

It’s possible, before the advent of air shipping fruit from thousands of miles away, that this variety wasn’t even available here in the states. As it is they will be here and gone in a matter weeks. I’ll miss them.