We are often afraid of the storms in life, or we find them an annoyance at best, but our universe exists as a balance between polar opposites in every dimension. Without suffering, there can be no joy. Without darkness, there can be no light. Without rain, there can be no rainbows.
Endure the suffering, embrace the darkness (for there live the stars), and learn to dance in the rain.
Filed under Photography, Weather
‘Cause I’m going to watch the Home Run Derby, that’s why.
Remember, “I’ve only got two speeds and if you don’t like this one, you’re going to hate the other!”
Filed under Astronomy, Distracted Driving, Entertainment, Juicy Chunks, Los Angeles, Space, Weather
After gushing qualifiers and spewing cautionary modifiers all over everyone’s parade yesterday, it looks like last night’s “Best Meteor Shower Of 2014!” was almost a complete bust, not just for me but for most people.
I was mildly surprised to see that the pictures didn’t 100% suck. You can in the 11:26 PM Tweet that I was expecting a total failure on the photos, but a few actually are usable. (Remember what I said about taking a LOT of pictures and bracketing your exposure times from way way low to way way high?)
This grey-white hazy look is pretty close to what I was seeing with the naked eye, although the picture shows about four times as many stars as I could see without using the binoculars. The Big Dipper is right in the center to center top of the photo, “facing” right. This was an unguided 45 second exposure with the lens set at 18 mm. With that combination there’s very little trailing to be seen.
For contrast, here’s a picture taken March 12, 2013 from a very dark sky location in Arizona. This is an unguided 30-second exposure, also with the lens set at 18mm. Orion can be seen at the upper center, the Orion Nebula in the “sword” clearly visible. (Remember, you can click on the picture to get a full-sized version.) Not only can you see a couple of orders of magnitude more stars in an exposure that’s only 2/3 as long,you also see an almost completely flat black background.
Final count on the night was:
On the good side, it was quiet and peaceful (except for the bunnies or racoons or coyotes or feral cats or skunks or opossums in the bushes near where I was sitting) and the mockingbirds sounded wonderful!
Allow me to be the 3,279th person to use some variant on that “heads up” headline for tonight’s meteor shower.
This one’s been getting a lot of press, which is often a bad sign given the mainstream media’s track record of being clueless, hyperbolic, and totally inaccurate when it comes to science in general and astronomy in particular. If you’re in North America, you’ll probably see something in the paper today, on the local news tonight, or online about “This Year’s Best Meteor Shower!!”
Maybe.
First, the buzzkill, with lots of qualifiers emphasized.
There is a meteor shower predicted to peak tonight, and the timing’s good for most North American observers. If you want to stay up a bit (or get up early) and have a clear sky, you might get a show.
The thing is, meteor showers are almost as bad as comets when it comes to predicting how they’ll manifest. On top of that you’ve got the media’s obsession with blowing everything out of proportion. On top of that you’ve got the general misunderstanding by the public of what they should expect to see.
So the amateur astronomical community puts out the word that this may be the best shower of the year. It may be, but that’s mainly because most of the other big, bright, and predictable meteor showers will be occurring at or near the full moon, so you’ll see only the very brightest of the meteors. Everything else will be washed out by the bright moonlight. The astronomical observing community knows that it’s a crap shoot to begin with and “best” is relative. It’s possible that someone in a clear, dark sky could see close to 100 meteors an hour. But it will probably be less than that, and if you’re in a city where the dim meteors are washed out by streetlights, you might see only ten or fifteen an hour. Maybe.
Then the local news gets the story, doesn’t read the astronomical news bulletins completely, doesn’t understand the qualifiers, and doesn’t pay any attention to the actual facts or details. The headlines for folks in New York or Miami or Los Angeles ends up being something along the lines of “Go Outside After Dark, Look North, And See 100 Meteors An Hour, It Will Be Spectacular!”
Then the general public, many of whom have never seen a meteor but most of whom have seen lots of movies (remember the endings of “Independence Day”, “Deep Impact,” and “Gravity?”) go out with bad information and worse expectations. And one more time, the opinion of Joe and Jane Public is that scientists don’t really have a clue and they’ve cried wolf one more time.
Now for what I hope is an upbeat and accurate description of what we know for tonight.
This meteor shower is a fairly unknown one and comes from a periodic comet first discovered in 2004. Earth’s orbit only is in the right position to intersect the estimated position of the orbiting dust cloud that trails along behind the comet every few years. The dust clouds we’ll be passing through tonight were left behind in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, but we don’t know how big they are or exactly where they are or how dense they are.
If the estimates are correct, there could be a shower of from 100 to 400 meteors an hour, if you’re someplace with a clear, dark sky. If you’re in a city or if it’s hazy, you might see a fraction of that.
The best news is that, like a total lunar eclipse, you don’t need any equipment at all to see the show. Get a lawn chair or a comfy spot on a blanket, face due north, give it a few minutes to let your eyes become dark adapted, relax and see how many meteors you see.
The prime viewing time is estimated to be between 2 AM and 4 AM in the Eastern time zone, 11 PM to 1 AM in the Pacific time zone. You could see meteors before that, you might see them after that, but that’s an estimate for when the peak will be.
If you want to try to take pictures, get a camera that can be set on “Bulb” to stay open as long as you hold the shutter open, and mount it on a tripod. Set the lens for as wide a field as you can, open up the lens to its lowest f-stop, turn the autofocus off, and set the focus to infinity. Point it north and if you start seeing meteors, start taking pictures. If you’re in a dark, clear sky you can probably go for exposures of three or four minutes. If you’re in the city, maybe two minutes tops. With longer exposures in the city, the light pollution will start to “fog” the image. Even in a dark sky, longer digital exposures will start to get corrupted by “noise” unless you’re cooling the camera. (That’s waaaaaay beyond the level of this discussion — some other time.)
Of course, what have we learned over and over with digital photography? Digital is cheap, take LOTS of pictures! So, as you did with the lunar eclipse and comets, take a lot of pictures and bracket your exposures. Start at maybe five or ten seconds, build up to twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a minute, and so on. It’s going to be a game of chance no matter what you do, so play the game as many times as you can to increase your odds.
If it works and you get some pictures, please feel free to share them here, I would love to post them for you.
Unless it’s cloudy, think about going out and taking a peek for at least a half-hour or so, even if it’s not during those “peak” hours. With luck it’s a nice night, you can find a comfy spot, put on some bug spray, and just chill for a bit watching the skies. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the show will be spectacular (but don’t bet the house on it) and you’ll get to say that you saw it.
Clear skies and good luck!
We’ve finally got a change in the weather coming in, an expected forty degree (F) drop between last Wednesday and next Wednesday. There’s a cut-off low headed down the coast from the northwest to bring us this change. At its forefront at sunset tonight there were layers of high, wispy, icy clouds.
With all of the fires south of here, which are fortunately dying down and getting under control with the cooler weather and calmer winds, there are health warnings all over SoCal about air quality hazards. One of the few good things from these fires is that we can get some spectacular sunsets, caused by the smoke and particulates in the atmosphere.
Between the wispy clouds and the smoke, I was hoping for a spectacular sunset.
Didn’t happen.
The smoke is generally blowing out to sea to the west of San Diego, while from our house we’re watching the sun set way over Ventura and Santa Barbara, 200 miles to the north of where the bulk of the smoke is. So, no joy on the pinks and oranges and reds. I hope the folks in Sandy Ago got a colorful sunset, even if I didn’t.
But while I was waiting, I could see that conditions above 30,000 feet must have been cold and calm, perfect for the formation of contrails from jets at cruising altitude. That part of the sky is a regular jetway for the jumbo jets heading from the Pacific Northwest down to Mexico and South America.
Several contrails looked hours old, having spread out quite a bit, but still keeping their straight line forms, almost parallel but not quite. Others were much thinner, just ten or fifteen minutes old. And like beads on a string, separated by five minutes and fifty miles or so, jets just passing by now were drawing new, razor sharp lines. All on a background of lacy, wispy swirls of clouds in a darkening sky.
It was lovely.
Filed under Flying, Los Angeles, Photography, Weather
Call it fate, if you will.
Normally I’m at the CAF hanger in Camarillo until about 3:00 or 3:15. Today I decided to leave early since I had a check to drop off, a deposit to make at the bank, and a stack of mail to go out.
Just before 2:00 I came out of the bank and went to my car. A woman had just parked in the space next to my driver’s side, a big, white, brand-new (no plates) luxury SUV. As I walked to my car I could see that she was talking to someone in the car. As I got to my car I could see two kids in the back seat of the SUV, an infant in a full-sized car seat and a toddler in one of the forward-facing toddler style car seats. The woman was closing the driver’s door and walking toward the bank.
I didn’t have time to think, I just said, politely, “Excuse me, ma’m? You need to take your kids in with you.”
She stopped, looked at me, and said, “What?”
“Your kids. It’s extremely dangerous to leave them in the car when it’s this hot. You need to take them in with you.”
It finally dawned on her what I was saying. “Mind your own business,” and she turned back toward the bank.
Now I raised my voice, just a bit, no longer convinced that being polite and respectful was as useful a strategy as I had hoped. “Ma’m, I’m making it my business, sorry. You’re endangering the lives of your children.” I pointed at the time and temperature sign on the corner which said it was 105F. “You can’t leave your kids in the car like this.”
Now she was getting pissed, apparently not used to total strangers calling her on her behavior when she was being an idiot. She didn’t even stop, but yelled back over her shoulder, “Fuck you!”
I wanted to make really sure she heard me. I yelled. “STOP! If you go into that bank I will immediately call 9-1-1 and I will start breaking out the windows on your car to rescue your children.”
Now she stopped, storming back to get into my face. “Go fuck yourself! Who the hell do you think you are?”
I ignored the question. “It will be over 130 degrees in that car in less than five minutes.” OK, so I didn’t know the exact figures, but it was close enough for government work. Someone can correct me on the exact numbers later. “Your children will be unconscious, and they’ll be dead in less than ten.”
“I’m just going into the fucking bank! I’ll be out in five minutes!”
I knew that I had been in there closer to ten. “Simple choice, ma’m. Take your kids or I call the police.” I pulled out my phone, half expecting her to punch me.
She didn’t. She went around to the driver side on her car, opened the door, took the kids out, glaring at me the whole time. I just stood there watching. I was pretty sure if I got into my car and drove off, she would leave the kids.
As she slammed the door on her SUV and walked toward the bank with the kids in tow, she was furious. She yelled at me, “You’re a fucking asshole!”
“Yes, I am. I’m the fucking asshole who just saved the lives of your kids. When they graduate college you can remember this and thank me, assuming you don’t manage to kill them someplace else before then when I’m not around to stop you.” Okay, that last bit was a cheap shot, but she had earned it.
She flipped me the bird, but kept walking. It was apparently too hot to stand out there arguing, even though… Oh, never mind.
I waited until she was in the bank, then got in my car and left.
That was seventy-five minutes ago. The adrenaline shakes should stop soon.
Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Moral Outrage, Paul, Weather
Anyone who’s lived any length of time in Southern California knows that there’s a semi-official “brush fire season” from about late July through late October. This is true of many other places in the western United States (Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado all come to mind), but here in SoCal we have a LOT of houses and businesses that get in the middle of those brush fires, while many of those other places have a few houses and a lot of timber.
This year the wildfires have arrived early. It’s only early May, yet there are nine different fires burning in San Diego County and a couple more in Los Angeles County. Flip through the fifty or so pictures in that link if you want to see what Hell On Earth looks like SoCal style.
A big part of the problem is drought. California’s in an extended, extreme drought condition. Past droughts have resulted from multiple years where the rainfall amounts have been below average – but there was still rainfall. This drought has been caused by multiple years where the rainfall has been drastically below normal and many places have gotten no rain at all in two or three years or more.
Then the temperatures rise and rise a lot, much earlier in the year than they have in the past. Here in SoCal the two terms you hear repeated every year at this time are “May Grey” and “June Gloom.” Normally we’re getting a marine layer for weeks at a time, which at least keeps the humidity up a bit and will occasionally thicken enough to give you some drizzle or light rain. Not this year. The last two days have been at or above triple digits, and tomorrow’s going to be even hotter. Along with that heat we’re getting single-digit humidity (remember the crack about how “it’s a dry heat?”) and the Santa Ana winds blowing at 30 to 40 mph with gusts to 70+ mph.
Some idiot flicks a cigarette butt out of their car window…
Someone’s clearing weeds and their lawnmower blade hits a rock and sparks…
Someone’s car dies and they pull off to the side of the road, into the knee high, bone dry grass, which comes in contact with the almost red hot brakes, exhaust, and catalytic converter on the underside of their car…
…and eight hour later you have 20,000 people evacuated, 5,000 acres burned, and 100 houses gone up in smoke.
And it’s only the second week of May and it’s only going to get drier and hotter all through June, July, August, and all the way to Christmas and maybe into 2015.
One of these years it’s just going be a year-round thing, with triple digits, howling winds, constant fires, and no water.
This has been the driest and hottest year in recorded history, going back to when records first started being kept in San Francisco prior to the Civil War.
It’s almost like…like…like the climate is changing…
No, wait, that can’t be. Marco Rubio said that we’ve got it all wrong, and as a Florida lawyer he obviously knows far, far more than the 99% of climate scientists and weather researchers who…
Sorry, that’s a rant (or fifty) for another day (or fifty). (FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!)
Please keep an eye on the SoCal fire situation, today and tomorrow and the rest of the year. The people evacuating tomorrow might be you, or someone you know. Like, me.
I don’t think Marco Rubio’s going to be able to change that.
Filed under Disasters, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Weather
It was a long day out at Camarillo Airport, but at the end of the day there was the most marvelous pink, puffy sunset.
To the east, a cotton candy sky over the CAF’s C-46, “China Doll”
To the west, a couple of our aircraft under restoration as the sun sets. I particularly love the dark purple shadow stretching back from the clouds at the upper center.
Filed under CAF, Flying, Photography, Weather
…written on something I can’t show you yet. But it’s good, I like it, the writer’s group I’m in likes it. Maybe soon.
Meanwhile, have a nice picture of the fog rolling through the hills of Encino.
Filed under Photography, Weather, Writing
I’ve recently written about how Los Angeles residents respond to rain (badly) and cold (not much better), so let’s talk about a much more common weather affliction — wind.
For those unfamiliar with the Los Angeles area, we have a thing here called “Santa Ana Winds“. The short version is that high pressure builds up to our northeast, which causes winds from that direction. But those winds get funneled through a whole slew of mountain passes. They get compressed, speed up, and then vent out into the valleys blowing a gale. It’s not uncommon for there to be sustained thirty to forty knot winds with gusts to seventy or eighty. And better yet, it can go on like that for days.
In the summer, when it’s already pushing 90F or higher, the Santa Anas will heat things up even more (adiabatic heating), dry things out even more, and take any tiny spark out in the mountains or desert and turn it into a 10,000 acre brush fire. The folks who fight wildfires hate the Santa Anas.
In the winter, when it gets unseasonably cold and the temperatures drop down close to freezing at night and only into the low 50’s during the day (like it has been for the last week), the Santa Anas can blow, but they don’t bring any relief from the cold. I don’t know why, it seems they would, but they don’t. Ask Fritz Coleman or Doctor George. What they do is take the wind chill down into the teens at night, which makes the cold all the worse.
Houses in Los Angeles aren’t built like houses in a normal city where you actually have four seasons. Houses here are built to stay cool, because 90% of the year it’s hot, or at least warm. We have almost no insulation at all, and while we typically have great air-conditioning, our furnaces are almost an afterthought.
When it gets cold and the Santa Anas blow, it’s like living in one of those ice castles in Finland or China.
We also get most of the other wind related problems that are simply associated with forty knot sustained winds with gusts to eighty knots. Semis and campers get blown off the road. Trees come down. Power goes out. Roofs lose shingles. Patio furniture ends up in the pool or in the neighbor’s yard.
It also makes it hard to sleep, at least for me. We have several orange trees in the back yard and the oranges are just getting big and ripe and tasty. One of these trees is right on the other side of our bedroom wall. When the Santa Anas start blowing in the middle of the night, I find out about it with dozens of oranges bashing and smashing into the wall for hours.
I’ve also gotten to fly in these winds. It’s…exciting. At Whiteman in Pacoima where I normally fly, the usual runway is Runway 12 (pointing southeast). When the Santa Anas blow you switch around (always take off and land into the wind) so you’re on Runway 30. Not only do you get to deal with the wind and some nasty turbulence, but you’re also getting a sight picture and traffic pattern that you see only every now and then. If you’ve never flown pattern work in a Cessna 172 when the Santa Anas are blowing, you’ve missed a real “E Ticket” ride.
Finally, as with everything else in Los Angeles, our local news can blow everything out of proportion at the drop of a hat. When we get 0.2″ of rain, we’re on “STORM WATCH 2013”! When the Santa Anas blow, you’ll get a news van taking pictures and doing live shots from every downed tree in the county. The bigger, the better. If lanes are blocked or a car gets crushed, you’ll have seven or eight news vans.
The weather patterns are shifting again. By Thursday we’re supposed to be back to “Sunny & 75” for a few days. The Chamber of Commerce will taunt everyone in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago who have a foot of snow and sub-zero temperatures. The Rose Parade committee will get back to building floats and putting up grandstands for our annual New Year’s Day taunt advertising parade and football game. The surfers will get back to surfing and the snowboarders will get back to snowboarding.
And we’ll all start waiting for the next “natural disaster” — the one that’s just known as “weather” in the rest of the world.
Filed under Los Angeles, Weather
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 