Space is Big Christmas Tree with many Ornaments - A Look at Comet 46P/Wirtanen

I always love the Holidays at the end of the year - Christmas, New Years and everything that goes with it.  One of my favorite times during this season is decorating our Christmas Tree.  So often I think of space as a big Christmas tree decorated with the heavenly bodies.   The stars are the lights and then there are all kinds of fancy ornaments like nebula, planets, galaxies and comets.  The planets come in all kinds of colors and patterns:  Mars is red, Earth is Blue, Saturn has rings and Pluto even has a big heart on it.  The galaxies are majestic ornaments of differnet sizes and shapes scattered everywhere.  And then there are the comets in billion year old orbits showing their own brillance and shedding tails like tinsel.

Right now Comet 46P/Wiranen has been lighting up the sky although you need a telescope or binoculars to get a good look.   This comet is not really showing a great tail, but it has a huge green coma surronding it's nucleus which is amazing for something that is only 1.4 km wide.  The comet was closest to the Earth in mid-December, but I did not get out to photgraph it until December 22nd when I had a night of clear skies.   This was taken in a light polluted suburb and with a full moon, so the data is not the greatest.  I also struggled a little processing this one and will try to put that tuturial in a new post later.

For now, I just wanted to share this green ornament making its appearance near Earth and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Photo details:
Scope:  SV90
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mount:  Celestron AVX
Exposure:  110 x 30 seconds
Processing Software:  PixInsight

More Comet 42P/Wiranen Details

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46P/Wirtanen

Travel to St. Lucia: An HDR photo tour

My wife and I recently got to take a trip to St. Lucia, kid free!!  Some huge thanks to my dad and mother-in-law for making that happen!  As we planned a trip, I really did not know much about St.Lucia except that it was an island and it looked pretty.  However I was excited to have the opportunity to explore it in more depth.  So for those of you looking for a travel destination I hope this helps convince you that is this island is worth visiting!  I enjoy photography, so I tied to have some fun with HDR (high dynamic range) pictures of of St. Lucia travels, so this is a tour of the island HDR style.

The island is located about 3 hours from Miami by plane.  Here is a map to get your bearings.

We have been to large resorts like Sandals in and we wanted to try something a little smaller and intimate this time.  We decided on Calabash Cove Resort and Spa Hotel.    This small resort only had 4-5 other couples the entire time we were there, so you really got to know the staff and meet some really awesome people while hanging out at the pool bar.  I even met a weather meteorologist for the local TV station in Mississippi.  We went in October which is the rainy season and technically still in hurricane season.  The islands are a little south so while hurricane can hit, it is more rare than some of the other islands.  As for the rainy season, it did rain while we where there.  One day it rained all day while the other days had showers, but it never bothered us.  There is less tourism on the island during the rainy season, so I actually preferred this time. 

When you fly into St. Lucia you will  land in the south of the island while our resort and many others are located to the north of the island.  We had a driver pick us up and it was about an hour and half drive.   We came in at night so did not get to see so much, but most of the island is a rain forest and you will first hear how alive it is.  Tree frogs and insects sang the entire way to the resort.

You will see the airport at the bottom and our resort location in the northwest side of the island.

Calabash Cove was at Rodney Bay and the view was amazing.  Since we were in a bay the water was so smooth!   And of course they were parts of the ocean that are turquoise blue!  We had a view of rainbows and sunsets almost every day from our hotel.

The landscaping on the resort was beautiful !    Here were just some of beautiful flowers right at our rooms.

St. Lucia has a crazy history.  The French were the first European settlers, but the British later took control of the island.  However over the years they two countries fought each other for the island FOURTEEN times with the each gaining control seven times.  So the island has a mix of both cultures.  For instance,  St. Lucians drive on left like the British, English is the official language, but the St. Lucians also speak Creole-French.

We mostly stayed on the resort and ate great food, drank great drinks, kayaked in the Caribbean and relaxed.   Although one day we did go out and try to take in a little of the island.

Our trip involved taking a trip down the West Side of the island.  The first stop was through Castries, the capital of St. Lucia.     Here is overlook of the city.  This is also where cruise ships dock for a day and we saw 1 of those small cities dock while we where there.

Our resort was located near that tiny round island in the distance in the middle of the bay.  We tried to kayak to it from our hotel but did not quite make it.  :)

We took a quick stop overlooking Marigot Bay which is where Dr. Doolittle was filmed.  There was a rainbow that I thought we were going to be able to touch because it was so close to us.

As we continued to travel South, we passed many banana plantations.  Banana are one of St Lucia's main exports.  The island switched to from sugarcane to banana although St. Lucia still has its own brands of rum.  If you want St. Lucian rum you can find a lot of it.   Our driver said give Bounty to your mother-in-law and buy Admiral Rodney for yourself.

In my opinion the real jewel of St Lucia is the Pitons.  Since St. Lucia is a volcanic island there are some fun volcanic formations.  The Pitons were a volcano vent that was plugged with magma.  The soil around the plug eroded away leaving these steep magma mountains.  There are two of them on the island called Gros Piton and Petit Piton.  You can hike up them, but we did not have enough time.  It is a very steep climb and takes about 2.5 hours to get to the top.

A beautiful view of Soufriere and both Pitons!

Nestled below the Pitons is the city of Soufriere.  The name means Sulfur in the air.  I love that name!  The name is quite literal as you will see in a bit.

As you get near the Pitons there is a botanical garden to visit.  Besides some beautiful plants, you will find a waterfall called the Diamond Falls.   This garden estate also has mineral water baths you can bathe in if you wish.

Diamond falls - here was a long exposure with small aperture.

Bird of Paradise - My favorite flower!

The water running through the gardens is gray from the volcanic minerals.

And finally we saw the "drive in volcano" near Soufriere.    The first thing you will notice is the smell of sulfur.   The best thing about this area is the heated baths you can take a dip after giving yourself a mud bath.  The locals say the mud bath take 15 years away from appearance.   I don't buy that, but it was a very cool experience.  If you go to St. Lucia the mud bath is not to be missed.

Smell that sulfur!   It is strong!

The water feels so good!!

So if you are looking for a Caribbean island to visit, St. Lucia should be at the top of your list.

The Public Necessity of PLAY!

Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of how much local companies give back to their communities. Usually products and new technologies make the big headlines. However in the background, companies like the one I work for are giving back to the communities they share space with.  BASF is a sponsor for the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh, NC and from this connection I was able to attend a recent luncheon. This luncheon was called the Marbles Big Idea Forum and the topic was on PLAY.

Here we are ready to learn about PLAY.

             

The topic of play is a perfect one to learn about at a museum devoted to letting kids have fun. My family has a yearly membership, so I can say with confidence that adults can have plenty of fun too in this museum. Yet sometimes we forget the importance of play and the talk we were about to listen to enphasized why play is so important no matter our age. Dr. Stuart Brown who is the founder of the National Institute for Play and even wrote a book on play gave the inspirational talk. This was a talk that I wish everyone could see, so I wanted to distill it down into a few points that I took away.

Humans (and animals) all are built to play.

It is interesting to know that we all have the wiring to play with each other even across species. Play is like a universal language. We of course play as humans and we have all seen kids on a playground having a great time. Animals are the same way as there is nothing cuter that watching two kittens play together.   We also play across species as humans play with animals very fequently. Who is getting the most enjoyment out using a laser pointer to play with a cat. The cat or the human? Even animals can play across species.  Dr. Brown shared a story about a polar bear encountering a sled dogs. He was a photographer for National Geographic and took pictures of the entire encounter. While the polar bear originally looked as though it was the predator looking for food, the dog went into a playful position. What happened next is amazing.




https://www.flickr.com/photos/c_a_bray/2069630876


The concept of a bear and dog playing together in the wild seem so unrealistic that I found the question of its validity on snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/unusual-encounter/

You can also watch a description of the photos on youtube.

The other thing that caused a lot of reflection for me is that not only are we build to play, but we play throughout our lives. I loved the analogy of a lab and a wolf and their play habits compared with a human’s play habits. A wolf pup and a lab pup play very similarly with lots of rough housing and nipping tails. The wolf grows up and it is nothing but business and survival. The lab grows up and still plays ball till the day it dies.  Humans are the same as the lab. We play as kids, but as we grow up we still play and have the capacity to play till the day we die. I remember my older grandparents being some of the funnest people I played with as a kid.  I wonder if “we are all still kids at heart” came from this truth.

This concept of retaining juvenile features into adulthood is called neoteny. There is a great word of the day!

Humans and animals all play in different ways.


There is an amazing amount of research that has been done on play! Dr. Stuart breaks play into 7 types. All of this info and the pictues to help visulize the play types is taken straight from the National Institute of Play. If you find it interesting there is much more there! http://www.nifplay.org/science/pattern-play/


Attunement Play



Body Play and Movement



Object Play



Social Play



Imaginative and Pretend Play




Storytelling-Narrative Play




Creative Play




One note was that we sometimes see children being rough during social play. Just like anything this can get out of hand, but many times it may be stopped prematurely. However if two kids are pinning each other down but both smiling, this is a positive mode of play.

What is your play style? I thnk objects is mine. I love playing sports which use balls. I also still have fun playing with some legos when I get a chance! And if there are objects in business meeting, I will instinctivly grab it to play with.


There are consequences when we do not play


Play is fun, but what happens when we don’t play. Is play deprivation real? Dr. Stuart led an interesting career in he studied play along with murderers. He mentioned this very quickly in in his seminar, but I found an interview that delves into this topic further. The entire read is really good. http://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/1-4-interview-importance-ofplay-stuart-brown.pdf


Here Is just one excerpt from that article.




Surely these are extreme cases of what happens when someone is deprived of play their entire lives. However it can affect all of us. Here was one slide from the talk that summarizes the effect play deprivation can have on all of us including absence of empathy, rigidity, Interpersonal conflict, joylessness, addictions, diminished curiosity, and workaholism.

The summary of this seminar is quite easy to distill. We are meant to play and we all have our preferences on how we play. When we do not play it can have serious consequences to ourselves, to those around us and even society. I really buy into all of this. When we play we become engaged in a way that is non-threatening. Worries go away and we connect with those we are playing with. Applying the learnings is much more difficult. Someone at our lunch even asked how can you bring play into such serious business environment. The answer is that you still can, but you have to make an effort to do this and it needs to be supported within the company. The value it creates is sometimes hard to explain when effencicy and bottom line are goals. Yet I always believe that when employees are happy they are much more productive. I think something I will think about more is what is the play style of those around me instead of thinking that my style is the only one.

Dr. Stuart started off by saying Marbles kids museum is the Fort Knox of Raleigh. At first I did not truly understand what he was saying, but now I do. That museum will weather all the changes of future progress and still be standing in the end like just like a well built fort. It will still be standing because it is a human necessity to ensure play is encouraged so that we will all benefit.

Cub Scouts Fun: Popcorn Bag Tower Competition

I have been in scouts for a long time.  Those years have included my time as a cubscout, a boyscout, a parent, an assistant den leadear, and a den leader.    My time in scouts has inspired me to teach kids along with my own two boys what scouts taught me.  There are so many great ideals embedded within this program as well as the fact it gets my kids outdoors to take in the beauty of our Earth.  The one things that remains constant is that scouts relies on volunteers and when needs arise I have been happy to help where I can.  So this was the first year I have put on the Cubmaster hat.

Now if there are other Cubmasters out there, I am guessing you felt as lost as I did when trying to understand what we are supposed to do.   Yeah the 3 hours!! of online training might have helped a tiny bit (at least for my style of learning) and the retiring scoutmaster was and still is an unbelievable mentor.  So once I jumped in and also learned more from the den leaders, the assistant cubmaster, and others who have been in scouts the role started to become a little more comfortable.

One of the roles of the Cubmaster is to lead the Pack meeting.  The Pack meeting is where everyone from the entire pack gets together once a month.   During this meeting, our Pack 200 of 40-60 boys, their parents and all the scout leaders get together in the gymnasium of the First United Methodist Church in Cary, NC.   Here is where we celebrates achievements together across our dens which have boys in the age range of 1st to 5th grade.

I think the Pack meeting is one of the biggest challenges of being a Cubmaster because it is not always easy to hold the attention of this many boys across that age gap.   I have to say the scouting program is full of resources and they even have plans for each pack meeting of the year.  I personally do not always find every plans to fit my personal style, but there are definately pieces of them that I find useful. 

This link is a library of all the plans.  Even if you are not into scouts, but work with kids then you may find some nuggets here:  https://www.scouting.org/programs/cub-scouts/pack-meeting-resources/pack-meeting-plans/

There are also lots of resources on the web from other packs since these meetings have been going on for years and years across the country.  Since I am grabbing information from so many people and resources, I wanted to give back a little and share too.

The last pack meeting I ran was the kickoff meeting for the year.  It is also a tough one because it is a time we share information for our one and only fundraiser of popcorn sales.  So how do you couple popcorn selling information with some fun for the boys?  The answer was having a compitition between the dens to see who could build the tallest tower out of theater popcorn bags.  For this activity you only needed two supplies

1.  Popcorn bags - 25 per den of 5-8 boys
2.  One roll of  yellow masking tape for each den - Represents the butter for your popcorn


I found the popcorn bags on amazon:   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I0A9GV0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The objective is to use the bags and tape in anyway you want to build a self standing tower.  The only rule was the tower had to start on the ground, had to be stand by itself, and only the bags and tape could be used.  We gave the dens 15 minutes to work on the activity before seeing which den had the highest tower.

This activity turned out pretty well.  I was not sure how it would turn out but the kids, the den leaders and some of the parents really got into it.  If you ever need a popcorn theme activity or if you just need to have a fun teambuilding activity try this one out.

Enjoy!

STEM Outreach with BASF: Exploring Chemistry - Clean Water and pH

It has been a busy summer, but I finally got back into a classroom to have fun doing science with middle schoolers.  It has only been a few weeks since I transitioned from Bayer to my new employer BASF as part of a large divestement.   Yet in that small amount of time, it did not take long at all to see that BASF is also a strong agvocate in our community.   As a large BASF group we all took half a day to head over to East Wake Middle School in North Carolina to meet a bunch of 8th graders.

Game faces were on as a bunch of enthusiastic folks from BASF wore their green shirts with pride.

Some of have been doing outreach together for a long time so you gotta take advantage of selfie moments.

Once we loaded up it was a short trip to East Wake to meet the students.  We split up into groups and headed to our classes where my team ended up meeting Ms. Shores class.   What a great opportunity it was to take some time out of our busy day and work with students and to work closely with my BASF colleagues Courtney, Paulette, Casey, and Yasmin.  This is an account of my expereince with one class, but there were similar stories going on across many other classroms with other teams.

We first had to safety up.  And we would not look like scientists without our lab coat, glasses, and gloves!

Our first experiment was on pH.   We used red cabbage juice as a pH indicator which I have shown before in a previous post.  If you are interested in more details on pH experiments here is the link:  https://atransgenicworld.blogspot.com/2017/02/science-for-kids-ph-fun.html

The last time I used cabbage juice as a visual indicator of pH I just used some powder extract you can buy on amazon.    The organizers of our group went an extra mile and actually made the cabbage juice indicator the night before.   So if you want to make you own, here are the instructions.  Instructions are courtesy of BASF materials.

After explaining a little about pH we tired all kinds of stuff to see if it was acidic or basic.

Next up we talked about water and they all agreed clean water is super important.   We showed that water can have different types of contaminants.  Soil, sand, and dirt make water dirty, but so do other contaminants like  heavy metals or other chemicals.   We had a tube of water with sand and used food coloring to show other contaminants.   This dirty water definitely needed cleaning up.  First it went through just a regular filter and everyone's hypothesis that the filter would just catch the sand was correct.  The water no longer had dirt in it but it was still colored from the food coloring. 

First we added the water to just a paper filter.

The next thing we learned was that activated charcoal is a material that can help clean up water.  Everyone had their dirty water with dirt and food coloring to try and clean up again.  They put it through a paper filter again, but this time it also passed through some activated charcoal that we had added to the top of the filter.   I heard a few gasps when the water really did come out clear and clean as oppsed to dirty and red from the food coloring.

Lastly we just had a chance to talk.  Each of us from BASF joined 4-5 students and had about 10 minutes to just talk.  Of course the topic of video games did come up and most of them did indeed play Fortnite.  Maybe I gained a little more respect when they learned I like to play Fortnite too.   But I also heard such ambition and drive from this group.  One young lady wanted to be a Youtuber.  When I asked how many subscribers she had, she reported it was over 1000!!  I told her I barely get 5 likes on my instagram pictures!   They are so talented!  There were two that wanted to be marine biologists, 2 who wanted be a doctor, a couple that wanted to soccer players, one that wanted to be a lawyer, and other aspirations  And of course some who did not know which is OK too.   I did not even know what I was going to be and more importantly really like until I got my second job after college. 

Whatg a great day.   Thanks to the teachers, to the school, and to BASF for organizing this day.  I encourage all of you to pour your knowledge and passion on a subject into this generation whenever you get the chance.  They listen, they question and they fill you with hope for our future.