embedded in the floating world
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nmazca.blog embedded in the floating world |
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In an instant, I figured that this was what had brought on my 12-hour-plus headache, although it could have just as easily been the moon entering new phase, or the fact that I spent the two hours before I went to bed finishing Pornstar in an odd position, with inadequate light, while the Woodstock documentary was playing in the background. [I wonder how I ended up with a headache, with all of that conflicting stimulus.] On Saturday morning I reassembled the scope, which had been propped up (in two pieces) behind the door. I had to readhere the viewing prism, wind tape around the hood over the objective lens, and unearth one of the mounting screws. And I still needed to replace the screws for the piece that the mount connected to. But I packed it all up and headed toward The Ave, which I thought would be a good place (on a fine day) to conduct some public outreach. Ah, to live in the Age of the Sniper... when people look three times at someone carrying a long black, rifle-ish thing down the street in midday: Once to see what it is, a second time to make sure it really isn't a rifle, and a third perhaps to wonder "Why is he carrying a telescope at 1 in the afternoon?" I found the screws I needed (and had a copy key made; didn't mention that the previous night's headache subsided just before I found myself without house keys). I finished tightening things up in front of the Pelican, and then made my way over I-5. A gentleman asked what I was going to look at when I reached the other side of the overpass. I told him about the latest news, how I'd taken a quick glance with eclipse shades that morning, and then decided to set up the 'scope for people to peer through. I handed him one of the mangled eclipse shades that I've been carting around since '99 or 2000. He peeped the two big groups, and then in response to a question, I dropped some welterweight science on him. We parted ways at Roosevelt. I bought my second York Peppermint Patty^ of the day (the first was eaten at Durn Good Grocery), mailed off some documentss, and then set up shop just up from the Hells Cargo ATM on the corner. It was about a quarter after 2. I hadn't even put the eyepiece in when someone (the inevitable wiseguy) came up wanting to know if I was looking at comets or coeds. Who still says "coed," anyway? I told him about the sunspots, and this got the attention of three students who were walking by (a "coed" among them). This other guy was still making corny jokes and this almost made the other trio walk off, but I just ignored it and offered everyone a look. The seeing (hopefully the only technical term I'll use) was alright; with pronounced but intermittent heat ripples. It was good for midafternoon with the sun so relatively low to the horizon. The larger group had five major spots in a U shape. The other group was more of a jumble. There was a third, smaller object just coming over the limb. (see Johannes' pic from 24 Oct here -- http://panther-observatory.com/sun.htm#31) Somehow, the sight of the phenomena quieted the wise guy down... until he saw a woman with a dog a few feet away, and that provided him an entry point for more jokes. I stood by, asking passers by "Care to see some some sunspots?" I'll always be amused (bemused) by the people who say no. I think it has to do in part with the obvious safety concern*; a magnified projection of the sun's light can burn through the retina in a second. That's it! You're blind. But of course I had a Type 2+ aluminized mylar filter from Thousand Oaks Optical snugly fitted over the objective, so no worries. To those who were tentative, or who asked, I'd explain that the filter blocked out 99.99% of the visible light (which is the truth) and that it was perfectly safe. This got one dad to turn back around and take a look with his daughter and her friend. Two middle-age couples thought it was so funny when one of the women scolded me: "You'll go blind if you look at the sun!" "Not if I have a filter on," is what I said as they went cackling up the block. Whatever I said next got one guy to stop. He took a look while his buddy heckled him for being "Isaac Newton," and then he thanked me and went off to (presumably) make a date with some beers. Who else? There was the gentleman from the north of England, maybe Scotland, who walked up and asked if I was looking at coronal mass ejections. Without missing a beat, I said no, not without a hydrogen-alpha filter... and as he bent down to look into the eyepiece, he casually handed over the black textbook in his hand: "Moons and Planets." Ah yes... He asked if I knew about the MUF... "No, I'm not familiar with that..." The Maximum Usable Frequency, he explained, is an effect that coincides with the excitation of particles in the ionosphere. Shortwave signals bounce off the ionosphere back to earth. When this atmosperic layer is energized by solar currents, SW signals can be strengthened. I could pick up French and Slavic broadcasts in New Mexico back in '99. The geomagnetic storm that hit Friday morning gave the ionosphere more energy, but apparently not enough to get good, remote broadcast reception, this man explained. He then mentioned being in Munich on 11 Aug 99, sleeping on the floor of the railway station with a thousand other people who wanted to see the total solar eclipse. Unfortunately, totality blocked by clouds for those critical few minutes... pretty much the same thing that happened where I was, in a cornfield in France. Ah, but still; I cherish these random intersections with eclipse chasers... Anyhow, I probably interacted with and enabled 20 people? 30? The last (before the LaRouche campaigner who I listened to for half an hour**, while the sun descended behind the Safeco building) was a middle-aged woman who was so excited to get a look. Right now, I can't remember... oh, no, it was the analogy that she made about what a sunspot is -- the question many people asked. I typically call them vents from which prominences and CMEs have erupted. Their relatively cooler temperature after this discharge makes them appear dark (for some reason) on the solar surface. This last woman posited that instead of being a vent for outpouring/emission, perhaps they're fissures that are stretching over/coalescing to reintegrate the surface. I was fascinated by that idea, and I mentioned the stretched and striated appearance of sunspots in high-magnification photos. And so the sun had descended, I'd been approached again about coming to a LaRouche meeting, and I felt chilled and hungry. The older gentleman who'd been on the corner the whole time with a picket sign that read "Iraq will never accept a tolerance of democracy"(?) and "Bush's Imminent WMD Lies" was getting into protracted shouting matches with people on their way back from the Husky game. The streetside star party was over, and it was time for chai. ^ When I bought a third at 12:30 a.m., after several hours of computer work, I realized that they had been the only food I'd had all day. * One very amusing interaction had been with a guy who walked up with a bright beaming smile, asking if it was safe to look. He kidded me: "I mean, I'd figure it was cool, but who knows, maybe you're the cruelest guy in the world, blinding a few people for fun." I doubled over laughing. "You know, maybe you're the Devil, takin' a few hours to mess with people; "Sure it's safe... I'm just on Earth for a little bit, so check it out." ** The LaRouche thing has been developing since last summer. That's a story for another time. The last couple of people who've talked to me have been really sincere (in contrast to the guys who were completely condescending; "what're you afraid of? are you just gonna be a sheep like the rest of these people?"); and what they say about the underpinnings of a return to classical humanism sounds like a good approach. But there's this reaction I have to hearing them all say "LaRouche says this" and "He says that," and the idea that a logical, economic, intellectual approach is going to be the thing to set things straight... and I'm standing there thinking about cosmic serpents and molecular consciousness. Still, the way they're talking, a reality not unlike the one Octavia Butler created in Parable of the Sower is imminent... and I see basic and dangerous truth between the two. Oh, one other sungazer suggested that I check out what he was reading: Modern Jihad by Loretta Napoleoni. Seeing sunspots from the street |
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