My New "Cheap Astronomy" Blog

I started a "Cheap Astronomy" Blog and will be posting new astronomy related content on that blog! Have fun!

No Consensus

Or as the IPCC puts it:

No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.

A Robust Debate

Steve McIntyre is smoking hot again:

The IPCC assessment has also been compromised by gatekeeping by fellow-traveler journal editors, who have routinely rejected skeptic articles on the discrepancy between models and observations or pointing out the weaknesses of articles now relied upon by IPCC. Despite exposure of these practices in Climategate, little has changed. Had the skeptic articles been published (as they ought to have been), the resulting debate would have been more robust and IPCC would have had more to draw on its present assessment dilemma. As it is, IPCC is surely in a well-earned quandary.

"You Won't Believe That Mind Blowing Must See Video about how NASA confirmed they faked Moon-Landing UFO alien Monuments!"

If the title of a video contains any of the following (or variations thereof), I'm pretty sure I don't want to see the video:

• "You won't believe…"
• "Mind blowing"
• "Must see video"
• "NASA" and any of the following: "hides", "confirms", "secret", "alien", "UFO", "monument", "faked", "photo", "reality" or "evidence"

If these fools insists to upload such spam (and they DO spam the world with it), then it is my right to filter out such spam – and may you die of easily preventable deaths.

There are very very few exceptions (I'm looking at you, Vsauce), but in general: I don't want to see such dreck.

(And as a bonus point: I avoid anything with Michio Kaku in it…)

[Update 2013-10-28] XKCD along the similar line.

"Left" or "Right", the MSM lies

A lesson from WUWT to not trust MSM, regardless of political affiliation (slightly edited by me for clarity):

From: Jeff Goodell
To: Anthony Watts
Subject: Rolling Stone inquiry

Hi Anthony

I’m a writer for Rolling Stone, working on piece about upcoming IPCC report. I’m checking in with a few people to get their views on how they think it will be received. Thoughts?

Thanks

Jeff

Anthony's reply:

From: Anthony Watts
To: Jeff Goodell

My view is that AR5 is going to stillborn, mainly because it is already outdated by new science that won’t be included.

There have been 19 separate peer reviewed papers published in climate sensitivity to CO2 by 42 scientists since January 1, 2012 all describing a lower climate sensitivity.

There have been recent revelations in journals (Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie Nature 2013 and de Freitas &McLean, 2013 International Journal of Geosciences) that demonstrate ENSO (El Niño) in the Pacific is responsible for the 15 plus years of global warming slowdown known as “the pause”. These two papers strongly suggest natural variability is still the dominant climate control.

Then there is the lack of reality matching what the climate models tell us, such as this leaked graph from an AR5 draft:

Original from AR5 draft: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.png

Annotated version: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc-ar5draft-fig-1-4.gif

All this while global CO2 emissions have been growing steadily. The lack of temperature match to models, “the pause”, combined with these new ENSO findings tell us that global warming has gone from a planetary crisis to a minor problem in a Banana Republic where only a few vocal science rebels are arguing for immediate intervention.

The costs of mitigating the perceived problem are also staggering compared to the benefit, as the 50:1 project demonstrates:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0

best regards,

Anthony Watts

And what did Jeff Goodell write?

But, of course, this is nothing new. In 2007, when the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report, it was also nearly certain that human activity was heating up the planet, with grave consequences for our future well-being. And six years before that, when the IPCC released its Third Assessment, scientists were pretty certain about it too. But phrases like “high confidence” in warming do not, to the unscientific ear, inspire high confidence in the report’s finding, since they imply the existence of doubt, no matter how slight. And in the climate wars, “Doubt is what deniers thrive on and exploit,” says Bob Watson, who was head of the IPCC from 1997 to 2002. The final report has not even been released yet, and already prominent bloggers in the denial-sphere, like Anthony Watts, are calling it “stillborn.“

Rightfully, Anthony is a bit pissed:

What is most galling, is that Goodell asked me for my opinion prior the release of the IPCC AR5 report, then chastises me in his article for giving it. Whatta guy.

On "Runaway Greenhouse" Climate

From a comment I left on another blog:

One stumbles upon this term sometimes, but what does it actually mean for an planetary body to be "in an RG [runaway greenhouse] state"?

Considering that the influx of energy is (more or less) stable, any process that lowers the outflux of energy will only raise temperature up to a point, when a new equilibrium is reached (as increased temperature leads to increased outflux). To get an true runaway climate, one would need to lower the outflux to zero, something that is only possible at absolute zero – a state that will be quickly left behind in the case of influx of energy.

I can only assume that by saying "runaway" scientists actually mean "reaching a higher equilibrium temperature". So to me the term "runaway greenhouse" is nonsensical, sensationalistic, misleading and anti-scientific, and this reflects badly on any scientists using such terms uncritically.

George W. Obama

Dear Mr President – STOP

Dear Mr. President
the world has gone astray
Brothers are dying
they won't live to see today
Was it all worth it
you had to lie to get your way
Bloods thicker than water
what a price we had to pay

I can no longer see an difference from Mr. Obama to Mr. Bush

An Ancient Meteorite Impact Crater in Saint-Laurent-la-Vernède?

Now I might be seeing things that are not actually there (an old human trait, I take it), but to my (untrained) eye it looks like there might have been (during our geologic past) an meteoroid impact at an oblique angle in the area where today lies Saint-Laurent-la-Vernède (44°06′21″N 4°27′31″E, in the south of France, department Gard):

The French township of Saint-Laurent-la-Vernède lies in an depression, the elongated green ring of forests constitutes an ridge, and the fields around that again form an depression. The ring has an very coarsely approximated length of something over 7 km (heading 280 degrees) and a width of 1.5 km. The western end of the ridge is more rounded than the eastern end, and there in the west is a hill of sorts around the town of La Bruguière. The larger green forest are part of some local hills, framing the entire area (except to the east-south-east). Forests and fields do not exactly follow hills and depressions, but give a good indication of the topology in that area.

Now I am no expert in these matters, and there might have been other geologic forces creating this, like for example glaciers and long gone streams shaping some geologic fault. But damn, wouldn't that be cool, if this were the result of an meteorite impact?

In the south-east, the D166 road (44°05'50.33" N, 4°30'52.30" E) were the small river "La Tave" pierces through the ridge to drain to the east towards the Rhone. Some strata are visible in Google's Streetview. What could a geologist find around here?

Surely there should be geologic reports about that region? Alas, my search engine skills are not good enough to find something… When, a couple of years ago, I stumbled in Google Earth upon the old river valley of the Donau ("Urdonau") in the "Wellheimer Trockental" between Rennertshofen and Dollnstein, I was at least able to find sites about this. But here? I found nothing in the internet about this geologic formation.

Cheap Astronomy – Ancient Wisdom

A man can't stand, he can't fight. A man can't breathe, he can't fight. A man can't see, he can't fight.
-- The Karate Kid, Part III

In the matter of hand-to-hand combat (in which I have no experience, thankfully) one needs three things according to ancient wisdom:

• Being able to stand
• Being able to breathe
• Being able to see

Or maybe not ancient wisdom, this is at least according to the motion picture "The Karate Kid, Part III", which I have not seen seen (and can furthermore not vouch to its authoritativeness on the matter of hand-to-hand combat).

But it reminded me of basically three areas you need to do visual astronomy (to paint a very simplified picture):

• Optics, seeing and eyes, to be able to see
• Some sort of mount, for stability
• And "usability"

Well, the first point should be plain and obvious: if you can't see, you can't do astronomy. While the area of optical quality of the telescope is most accessible to objective measurement, it is not something that can be put into one number. There is too many things to know beyond aperture and f-ratio: MTF, contrast, stray light reduction, field of view (or rather field of view free of mechanical vignetting), chromatic aberration, spheric aberration, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, distoration, RMS wavefront error, Strehl ratio, and so on. (And that is not accounting for tolerances and errors during production…) But at least one can try to get a measured idea of what to expect from a scope.

Another point not on the radar for beginners: To be able to see is more than just the quality of "optical tube assembly" (and more than the combination of OTA with eyepieces). Unfortunately this is a topic of its own.

The second point is usually overlooked as well by inexperience beginners (and exploited by the industry sell them undersized mounts): One is using high magnifications and any shaking caused by a mount will make it hard (if not impossible) to use an astronomical telescope. There is the measure of maximum telescope weight supported by an mount, but (beyond the question of how this is measured) this is not a simple number or measurement: A long telescope will put more strain on a mount than a short telescope with the same weight. Person A is more tolerant to shaking than person B. And so on. But it stands: The more stable a mount, the more enjoyable a view through a scope.

And while the third point seems simple (to the point of being a tautology), it is the hardest to grasp: If an telescope setup lacks usability, it is not usable. If you can't find things in the night sky with it, what good is a telescope? What good is a telescope and mount, if it is so heavy that you rather leave it at home than drag it with you? What good are high magnifications if the focuser shifting is so bad that you can't actually reach focus?

Now if it were just "Good, But Expensive Astronomy" I'm after, I would recommend the best setup that money can buy (and there are some out there).  Some of these question can be solved by throwing money at them. But only up to a point.

If you want to do astronomy, you have to invest time, acquire knowledge and skills – just like any other hobby, just like a craft or a sport. Sure you can have fun just "dabbling" in astronomy, but for me the fun in is improving, advancing, progressing.



And for me it is "Cheap Astronomy" I'm after, or rather affordable astronomy, with a good ratio of cost to optical quality, stability and usability. With some some measured modifications. Investing time to save money and gain knowledge.

More to follow.