Schierer Space

Rachel is in the extremely photogenic prop-up-and-look-around phase. Here are some pics.

I seem to be settling into a biweekly cycle of photo updates. That seems to be the threshold where I just can’t bear to leave all those images unlabeled and unprocessed.

So, for here is your reward for staying tuned.

First 4th of July:
K’s folks came out for the weekend. Grammy helped Nate decorate the big red wagon for the Teddy Bear Parade.

Rachel was decked out too.

We both ran in races on the 4th. K finished the 5k in 35:01 and was quite happy with that. I ran the 10 mile in 1:26:29. Considering the heat, that wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as last year. I felt pretty horrible down the last two miles, but finished without walking so it’s hard to complain.

After a quick party stop I played with the Cazenovia Community Band during the parade. We didn’t ride/march/move we just added ambiance by playing marches in the village park.^[1]

FInally, that night we took Nate up to Stone Quarry hill to watch the fireworks and catch some fireflies.

After it was all over, we watched the phoenix^[2] rise from the flames.

1. Including Hogan’s Heroes March in what must have been a 6th grade arrangement. Oom-pah Oom-pah… [↩]
2. Or perhaps pterosaur. [↩]

I admit I’m somewhat annoyed that someone else thought of this first.

Our premiere performance^[1] will be Tomorrow (Thursday), 7:30pm at the pavilion at Lakeland Park in Caz. We have great instrumentation and hopefully my chops will recover by tomorrows performance. Despite the release below, we probably won’t actually start playing until 7:30, but generally the lawn is pretty filled up by then. Keep your fingers crossed for no rain (or at least for it to be cleared out by then).

Official press release:

CAZENOVIA — The Greater Cazenovia Area Chamber of Commerce (GCACC) is presenting its 14th season of summer concerts in the park. The 2010 Oneida Savings Bank Summer Concert Series begins Thursday, June 24 in Cazenovia’s Lakeland Park featuring the Cazenovia Community Band from 7-9 p.m. This popular summer series will run each Thursday evening through Aug. 19 with the exception of a special holiday concert on July 4th, featuring three bands, followed by the community fireworks.

A rain date has been set for June 25 at Eastern Hills Bible Church in Manlius. The band will also perform at the July 4th parade in Cazenovia. Under the direction of Marv Arnold, the band will present a selection of favorites, marches and show tunes including John Williams in Concert (music from Star Wars, Jaws, etc.), Percy Grainger’s “Irish Tune and Shepherd’s Hey,” Sousa’s “King Cotton” and Delibes’ “March and Procession of Bacchus.”

All concerts are free and open to the public. Bring a blanket or lawn chair and enjoy a relaxing summer evening and concert by Cazenovia Lake.

1. There was previously a Madison County / Community Band, which sort-of disbanded, but this is officially a new entity. [↩]

As found on USGS Latest Earthquakes page.

USGS notice.

Edit: USGS updated the report.

Magnitude 5.0
Date-Time

* Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 17:41:42 UTC
* Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 01:41:42 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 45.862°N, 75.457°W
Depth 18 km (11.2 miles) set by location program
Region ONTARIO-QUEBEC BORDER REGION, CANADA
Distances

* 38 km (24 miles) N (356°) from Cumberland, Ontario, Canada
* 44 km (28 miles) NNE (21°) from Gatineau, Qu?bec, Canada
* 51 km (32 miles) NNE (26°) from Hull, Qu?bec, Canada
* 53 km (33 miles) NNE (21°) from OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 2.3 km (1.4 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters NST=283, Nph=283, Dmin=148.6 km, Rmss=0.91 sec, Gp= 25°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=8
Source

* USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID us2010xwa7

Magnitude 5.5
Date-Time

* Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 17:41:41 UTC
* Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 01:41:41 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 45.866°N, 75.457°W
Depth 15.7 km (9.8 miles) set by location program
Region ONTARIO-QUEBEC BORDER REGION, CANADA
Distances

* 39 km (24 miles) N (356°) from Cumberland, Ontario, Canada
* 45 km (28 miles) NNE (21°) from Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
* 52 km (32 miles) NNE (26°) from Hull, Quebec, Canada
* 53 km (33 miles) NNE (21°) from OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 2.3 km (1.4 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters NST=283, Nph=283, Dmin=149 km, Rmss=0.91 sec, Gp= 25°,
M-type=body wave magnitude (Mb), Version=7
Source

* USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID us2010xwa7

About fifteen minutes ago, we experienced what definitely seemed to be an earthquake. This real-time data from Millersville, PA seems to confirm this:

The other night R once again caused me to be awake at 2AM. It was pretty clear, so I again went comet hunting. My loss of sleep is your gain.

This time I was better prepared. I mounted the camera on the telescope and hand guided some shots. The camera was set up with the 70-200mm f/2.8 and the 1.8x teleconverter. These are full frame shots post stacking (9×10 second exposures at ISO 3200) and level adjustment. The big bright blob is the massively overexposed Capella shining through the horizon haze. Capella was barely above the local horizon thanks to Stone Quarry Hill. I forgot to note how many of the exposures were actually used, some were tossed because my guiding was poor. My guess is 5-7 of the images were ultimately stacked.

At one point a cloud obstructed the view, so I swung the telescope up a bit and took a look at the Andromeda Galaxy. I took about 14 shots and kept 7: so 7×10 second exposure. I have to confess I’m rather happy with how this shot turned out. You can see the small satellite galaxy clearly and the dust lanes are visible, exposing the spiral.

I’m getting the hang of the stacking software, and I figured out why my saturation was getting wrecked. I’ll be doing my level adjustments in Photoshop from now on. I’m certainly not going to win any prizes for either of these shots, but the M31 represents a personal best on this target… and only about a minute worth of total exposure time. With a bit more tracking practice… a reticle for my eyepiece… an actual sidereal drive… a telescope I can actually shoot through…

Mmmm…. upgrades.

The astute observer of this web space may also have noticed that I uploaded a whole pile of images from the last several weeks. (month?)

There is a trip to the Zoo on Nate’s birthday set:

There is a Memorial Day set:

And some other just family update pics:

As always, you can see these and more by going to the latest updates link.