Bogieblog

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS  has been on the NH news since last weekend, with the newsies saying that we should have good visibility. Last weekend it was supposed to be visible to the naked eye in the western sky.

Last weekend I had clouds in what I consider the west from my house. I couldn't find it for anything. I didn't think much of it since it was supposed to be low on the horizon and there were banks of clouds right there. Of course the rest of the sky was totally clear.

During the week, the comet was to get higher in the sky - and dimmer. I dutifully went out each evening between 7 and 7:30, but with no luck. Even with binoculars I couldn't find it. Then, on the local TV channel's "ULocal" FB page, I started seeing tips on how to find it. The first tip was to use a compass app and find 273* west. I downloaded an app and found that I was WAY off from what my assumption of west is.

I consider the front of the house to face west. I knew the house was a few ticks off from the cardinal points, but boy, was I in for a big surprise. The house actually faces 306* NW so 273* west, is actually a few ticks counterclockwise to what I consider the SW corner of the house.

And naturally, that is the worst viewing direction (except the back of the house). 273W is right between the new house beside me and the very tall house across the street from it. The house across the street always has a spotlight on until late night. The house beside me is better, with a motion detection light over the garage doors (that face my house). Unfortunately that motion detection picks up every car headlight that passes by (regardless of direction of travel) and stays on for 60 seconds. At that time of day, cars go by at least every 30-90 seconds, the light is constantly on.

I tried to see the comet from (what I have been calling) the south side of the house. But that wasn't working for me. I tried a bunch of different spots around my house and finally found that if I stood at the NW corner of my house, I could just see the comet thru binoculars. It was very dim - although fighting the light from the street lamp across from my house did not help. Anyway, I present to you the ONLY picture that came out where the comet is visible.

What's that? You can't see it? Well, neither could I until I lightened, cropped and zoomed in. The comet is the light smudge, in the center, to the right of the star.

 

Eclipse 2024

Monday, April 8, NH was in the path of the total eclipse. Unfortunately, my area is not in the path of totality, but I was at 95-96% range. A gajillion people from both NH and other parts of the USA headed up to the northern part of the state to view this celestial event, but I was not one of them. (source for graphic below)

Fortunately, the event was scheduled to occur shortly before 3:30pm, and the skies were for the most part clear (for a change - sun has been hard to come by since last year). I logged off work a little early and sat in front of the shed to view the event - using appropriate solar glasses of course.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to study how to get my phone or camera to capture the eclipse. After taking a couple of pics that just showed a big red/yellow disk, I decided to just give up and watch the show.

Even at the relatively little light we experienced at the greatest coverage of the sun, it was still quite bright out. Shadows were still crisp and no wildlife showed signs of calling it a night. Part of that may be because it was literally still lighter than the heavily overcast skies we have experienced regularly.

My solar array did show a cool progression. The moon started sliding over the sun at about 2:30, and had completely passed the sun about 4:30. Production is recorded in 15 minute intervals:

 

Compared to an overcast day, on 4/10/2024, which at times gave the same low input of 0.3kwh as the fullest part of the eclipse my area experienced.

All-in-all, cool to see.

Boosted

Last Sunday I made the trek up to Concord, to a state run site to get my J&J booster. No particular reason, my work does not require it, just decided to do it (and no, I don't care if anyone else is immunized, much less boosted).

When I requested the J&J booster, the staff mentioned that it is recommended to get one of the other shots as a booster. In fact, the paperwork I had to fill out never allowed for the possibility that the person had taken the J&J vaccine as the original shot. It told me I had to have "both" shots in order to get a booster and questions were worded in such a matter that I had to answer "no" to them, even though it should have been yes in order to satisfy the intent (I scribbled explanations beside those answers). Anyway, I said, "No thank you" to getting one of the other vaccines as a booster. I did well with the first J&J shot, so want to stay with what I know. I'm not convinced that the mRNA tech is the way to go and the J&J uses older tech that is used for such things as flu shots, so I am just more comfortable with it.

Still, the J&J is not "proven" as safe, but then all the shots are still basically in trials. This can be shown by the fact that the CDC contacts me daily to see how I am feeling and if there are any side effects, just as they did with the first shot. I have never had the CDC interested in any other shots I've taken. I don't mind so much that I am basically a guinea pig, but it would be nice if they stated that up front so the general public fully understands that.

And, just because it bugs me after constantly hearing "the vast majority of hospitalizations happen in unvaccinated people", here is a little tidbit that I heard on the local news the other day.

So if you take the fully vaccinated (which now means boosted - and who knows if it includes those that only use J&J because no one talks about it) and add in the partially vaccinated (which could mean 1 or two shots of the big two, or maybe 1 or possibly boosted with J&J shots), that equals 39.2% - which is not so far off from the 44.9% of unvaccinated persons to warrant a "vast majority" ruling. If you insist on keeping the full versus partial separated, those stats seem to indicated that you are better off as partially vaccinated as opposed to being fully vaccinated. And then there is that 16% of unknowns - that could include people who have had the J&J if people are as confused as I was on how to classify the J&J.

If anyone is interested, here is the state run Dashboard on vaccinations. It loads extremely slowly, which is standard for PowerBI reports (I hate them - we use them a lot at work and it is not uncommon to wait up to 5 minutes to have one load).

Aptitude

From 123 Aptitude Test, Thanks to Cop Car's post.

The only surprise for the Personality Type was that I scored so high in Artistic.

You know, when I was younger, I wanted to be veterinarian. After dog grooming for a while, I understood that working with animals is only fun on my off time - I don't want to do that for my day job. Here are my results from the test - and I must say that it is probably pretty good.

 

Still Here

Still alive and well. Just nothing going on to write about.

Try Ripley's Journey with the latest SpaceX launch from Space.com or from Space Flight Now 

Or the Iditarod is starting and here is an article about one of the dogs from 7 different teams.

Names

Thanks to Cop Car, I have found a completely useless, but fascinating theory on my name. If I use my former married name, I am the only person in the US with that name. And, there are only 164 people with that last name at all. I must know at least 20% of those people. I will admit that the spelling is a non-common variation and if I put in an alternate spelling, the instances rise.

However, what I do find funny (and perhaps accurate) is that according to the graphic, there are 1 or fewer. If I was the only person with that name on Dec 31, 2014 as of Jan 1, 2015, no one has it.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Now that I have gone back to my maiden name, it seems there are 188 people that would respond if it was called over the loudspeaker.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Of course this is non-scientific, not claimed to be accurate, and just uses statistics to estimate those numbers, so this means absolutely nothing except I had something to post.

Couple of Wild Bird Pics

Taken by my cheap, old digital camera on Sunday during the bird counts

Purple Finch - distinction from house finch is the bars on the chest of females and the red on the back of males with the notched tail.

Male Downey Woodpecker

Some sort of Sparrow - I want to say it is a chipping sparrow, but there is not enough info for me to say it definitely so (had a bunch of these)

Record Year for Birds

This winter, both the NH Audubon Society Winter Bird Survey, and the Cornell / Audubon Back Yard Bird Count were on the same weekend. This pleased me as I had a record number of species to report (for me) and I could use that for both counts. There were also sparrows that I wasn't confident of the identification, and some I couldn't even guess or find in a book to my satisfaction. Without further ado, here is my list for this year:

• Blue Jay - 2
• Crow - 2
• Goldfinch - 16
• Chickadee - 2
• Cardinal - 3 (1M & 2F
• Purple Finch - 12 (Cornell tells me that is an unusually high number, but I am positive they were purple, not house finches)
• WB Nuthatch - 1 (too bad I didn't see both of them that are usually around)
• Pine Siskin - 4
• Junco - 2 (a really low number as far as I am concerned)
• Starling - 1 (first one I have seen in NH and was thumbing thru my bird book when I looked up saw the bird on the railing, looked down and I was on that page in the book - funny how that worked out)
• Tufted Titmouse - 2 (usually have 3)
• Downey Woodpecker -1 male
• Mourning Dove - 4
• Pileated Woodpecker - 1 (seen pounding on a dead tree in the empty lot/swamp next door. Was super excited to see it!)
• Sparrows of indeterminate species - around 20

I reported today on the Cornell BYBC site, and will mail in my list to the NH Audubon on Monday

5 Facts

There are several "facts" that we learned in school. Some of them are just not so. Some of them I knew (hey, knowing just a bit about computer peripherals helped me out). Some, I got partially correct (hey, people have blood and blood contains iron). Go take a look-see for yourself.

H/T to the Weekend Pundit for this little bit of entertainment,

NH Home of the Mini Earthquake

One of the few times I didn't feel/hear/realize that there was a quake when I was awake. Heck, minor quakes have waken me up before. In my defence, that was when I was at the other house sleeping in the basement. Also, I live in town now, so more heavy traffic. Don't think twice when I hear what sounds like big trucks coming down RT 149, unlike the quiet road I previously lived on.

US National Earthquake Event Center

 

WMUR TV New Article