Solstice 2022

 It is the Solstice. Blessed be!

Skyward December 2022

 From Dr. David Levy, Our Guest Blogger.  My Constantine's Memory be Eternal:

Photo is forthcoming. We're having tech difficulties, or as I call it, Tekno fun.

Skyward

December 2022

 David H. Levy

As I get older and older, the list of people who depart gets longer and increases with a greater frequency.  But now I find myself writing, for the third month in a row, about the loss of someone who meant a lot to me and without whom I do not know how I will continue my own journey through the night sky.   

Constantine Papacosmas introduced himself to me the first night I entered the old observatory of the Montreal Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.  The young observer had just completed a truly fabulous 8-inch reflector which we used once or twice.  At that time he was brilliant, creative and inspiring.    Within a few years we had become great friends and we spent a lot of time together. One afternoon while walking down a hill to my junior high school classes, a car passed me, then slammed on its brakes about 300 meters away.  Putting the car in reverse, the driver screeched backward until it reached me.  “Hello David!”  It was Constantine.

You might have read a few months ago the story of how I got my own 8-inch reflector, Pegasus.  It was a loaner scope.  By the time David returned from college, Constantine suggested that my parents buy me the telescope.  We gathered in our living room and my parents listened carefully as Constantine  explained why they should make such an expensive purchase for me, and not for any of my siblings.  He correctly    persuaded them that I was never about to lose my passion for the night sky.  By the end of that day my parents agreed to buy the telescope for $400, (which would, in 2022, amount to $3761).  More important than that, that afternoon gave Dad a chance to form a genuine bond with Constantine that he never forgot.

In 1978, while resting in our home, Dad walked in and inquired how Constantine was doing.  I had had a mild falling out with him, but I simply replied we hadn’t been in touch for a while.  Dad had something to say about that. “You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of close friends you have had since your youth.  You just cannot afford to lose those precious friends.”  The minute he left the room I telephoned Constantine and we picked up where we had left off.

By 1984, my Dad was dying from Alzheimer’s disease.  He could barely recognize Mom, let alone me.  But he remembered Constantine.  The two began talking.

“Constantine, do you know what is happening to me?”

“Yes, I am sorry but I am afraid I do know.”

“Constantine, I can’t live like this.  I wish…. I wish I were dead.”  Constantine told me that story many years later.  

Those of us who knew the older Constantine may not appreciate the skill, the intelligence, the humor, and the talent of the younger amateur astronomer. But they remembered him well enough to present him the Centre’s highest medal for excellence, the Charles Good award.     His clock that I received shortly before his death now tells Montreal time.  It is the Constaclock.

Farewell, Constantine, and thank you for enriching my nights under the stars.

Online Literary Magazine for CM 220, CM 107 Classes and Friends of KU: Veterans Day

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Onguard Security Safety Tips

 

S

On Guard

 

We at On Guard continue to serve all your security needs, both home and commercial.  As we plunge 40 degrees tomorrow to the 30s, here are some quick safety tips for you, just ahead of the Holidays!

 

• If you haven’t gone through your Halloween candy, do it now, and toss anything suspicious.  Remember when we used to get ours X-rayed? It isn’t a bad idea.
• If you need to go away from home, consider leaving out a hose, a few flower pots, a wreath on the door, anything to make the property looked lived in.  Tell a trusted neighbor or family where you will be, but don’t advertise it generally.  Post on social media after your return.
• Stop your mail, or have someone get it for you.
• Stop the paper.
• If it snows, and  you shovel, take breaks, do it slowly, sweep it or get a snow thrower.
• Consider security systems or cameras like those Onguard provides.  We offer the best rates, small business ethics, attentive maintenance, friendly service, and more.
• Be vigilant of your surroundings wherever you are.
• Check lights and decorations to make sure they are safe to use.
• Don’t leave keys in your car.
• Watch bags and purses.
• Don’t leave house keys hidden outside.
• Don’t flash large rolls of money in public places.
• Have safe and happy holidays from us at On Guard Security!!

American Doll and Toy Museum: This is Halloween!

American Doll and Toy Museum: This is Halloween!:  Enjoy!

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: American Doll and Toy Museum: Teaching a Class on...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: American Doll and Toy Museum: Teaching a Class on...: American Doll and Toy Museum: Teaching a Class on Barbie :     Below is the catalog page some of you asked for re my course on Barbie.   ...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Fall

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Fall:  Happy First Day Of Fall!!!!!

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Fall

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Fall:  Happy First Day Of Fall!!!!!

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: American Doll and Toy Museum: September is for Co...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: American Doll and Toy Museum: September is for Co...: American Doll and Toy Museum: September is for Collectors; Why Collect Dolls? :   Today, the first of September, used to be the kick off of...

Our guest blogger, Dr. David Levy October Skyward

 With prayers and healing for Wendee Levy.

SSkyward

 

  October  2022

An obituary for Donald Edward Machholz

 

 

Dear Don,

 

You left us far too soon, my friend.    From your home in California and later in Arizona, you lived quietly and well, with a passion for stargazing that dominated your life. 

 

As the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “I am like a slip of comet,/ Scarce worth discovery.”  He wrote his poem in 1864 but it might have been composed with you in mind.  You were born on October 7, 1952, in Portsmouth, Virginia.  I first heard of you during the 1970s, when you were popularizing a program to observe all (or almost all) the Messier objects in the sky, in a single night.  I did not take the idea seriously for a long time.  I have seen all the Messier objects, but I found them over a relaxing period of five years, from Messier 45 (The Pleiades  star cluster) during the summer of 1962, to the distant and ethereal galaxy Messier 83, in the spring of 1987.   Your idea was to learn the sky far more thoroughly than I did, and catch all the clusters,  clouds of gas and dust, and distant galaxies that Charles Messier carefully recorded.    (Messier himself was an 18^th century hunter of comets, but he is known more for his catalogue.) 

 

Thank you for inspiring me.  By the mid-1980s, I was more proficient in observing than I was in earlier decades.  One clear night in the early spring of 1983,  I successfully observed all but one of the Messier objects. Messier 30 was the only one I missed that night.

 

By that time, Don, you were already famous.  In 1978, after some 1700 hours of searching, you discovered your first comet using your simple telescope.  (You never gave up, did you?) I thought of your success on that beautiful quiet night.  In 1985, on the final night of the Riverside Telescope Maker’s Conference that year,  you discovered a second comet after another 1700 hours. You used a beautiful 10-inch cardboard and glass telescope for that second comet.(You really never gave up, did you.)    Luck began to go your way after that.  Your third comet arrived in 1986.    You used a pair of 29 x 130 binoculars for that one.  Right in between the passages of your second and third comets, Comet Halley, the most important and famous comet of them all, rounded the Sun on February 9, 1986.  I like to think that as the great Halley’s comet made its pass through the inner solar system, it was guarded by these two other comets discovered by you.

 

Don, you never ever quit.  No one would have criticized you if you had.  Instead, you spent the remaining years of your life searching the sky.  You spent almost nine thousand hours over the course of your life comet hunting.  Through it all, you never lost your passion for watching the sky.   You and I share that one important aspect, Don.  As many comets as you and I might have  found,  it was the search that was so important, for “in no better way,” as Leslie Peltier wrote, “can we come face to face, night after night, with such a wealth of riches as old Croesus never dreamed of.”

 

 

In recent years the professional astronomers have taken over comet discoveries.   But still you kept on searching.   Despite their great big telescopes, you kept going, always searching, with a series of small telescopes.    You found two new comets in 1994, one of which broke apart into several pieces.

 

By the start of the new millennium,  amateur astronomers had pretty much given up.  Visual comet hunting, was passé.  No more.  Only not for you.    You discovered not one, not two, but three comets since the year 2004 and as of August 2022, you were the leading discoverer of comets by visual means in the world.

 

Don, I wish I had known you better.   I do know I shall miss you, and our friendship which has evolved over the years, very much.  I conclude this letter, this obituary, with the end of the Hopkins poem:

 

“But then her tether calls her.  She falls off,

And as she dwindles sheds her smock of gold…

So I go out.  My little sweet is done.

I have drawn heat from this contagious sun,

To not ungentle death now forth I run.

 

 

Rest in peace my friend.

 

David H. Levy

 

Flowers and Fall

 Lately, I've watched a lot of TV shows on flowers and gardening, picking up tips here and there.  I bought cemetery flowers, gerbera daisies, died pink, and blue, some white.  I am not a master gardener, but o parents our plants, trees, flowers, shrubs, even a few weeds, mean a lot.  My grandfather loved flowers; my parents bought his house and I grew up there.  We have many plants still that he is responsible for; some of our lilies of the valley (the rest were a gift from my mom's friend Doris), white violets, honey suckle, peonies, lilacs.  The wild violets show up in April, but we sometimes get a new crop in October.

We had rose bushes for may years, and I occasionally planted radishes, which flowered, zinnias, and coral belles that come up.  We had a locust tree my uncle transplanted from our ravine and a Russian olive tree.  My grandparents planted evergreens that have withstood the test of time, and a red bud bush once graced our back yard.  Another grew in front.  My mother's favorite was a hibiscus bush with purple flowers. I loved our snowball hydrangeas and pansies.

Occasionally, we had mulberry bushes.  There are some at our museum, and I had a taste of them this year for the first time since I was eight.  The birds love them, as they love the wild cherries that grow on trees in my parents' ravine.

In our beloved California house, there were topiaries, roses all year, and birds of paradise. No matter where we lived, we made May baskets when I was small, and brought fresh flowers to our teachers

In the fall collecting leaves was a favorite pastime, as well as planting tulip bulbs.  I've planted and harvested my own gourds and pumpkins, and have holly bushes which are my pride and joy.  

Every spring, I scatter wild flower seeds; this year, I planted cosmos with success.  Even as I plant annuals like my black petunias and Dracula flowers, I look for my perennials to return.  While I'm not an expert, I pick up tips here and there, some from Dr. Tweet, who was my mentor in all things and who loved plants, some from my mother who had a begonia forever, and who had a Christmas cactus at school named Freddie, some from my piano teacher who has a real talent and can make anything grow.

With the chill of all in the air, I think about Christmas plants but also fall with its colors and fallen leaves.  Around late July, when cattails bloom and sumac begins to turn red, I'm happy because autumn is coming.

You don't have to be a master gardener; there is satisfaction in making bouquets of Queen Anne's Lace and your  own, and in planting a few seeds and watching  them take root.  They are all beautiful Taking photos of my flowers,  making fairy gardens, tending to my pot gardens which sometime involve tomatoes and vegetables, all these are important.  They are enjoyable things to do, and stress relievers.

I also have memories of gardening with my mother and raking leaves with my Dad. Happy fall, happy planting, harvest, happy spring when it comes, happy bees that buzz around the flowers.

After Midsummer

There is something very poignant about this time of summer.  Things are wild with growth, and glow in their glory.  There will be another resurgence like this around October/November, when it will warm up, and the flowers left will have an earthly glow, just before they die in the first frost.  About now, my psyche declares it fall.  All  my sweet memories come rushing back, even as the leaves fall to the ground in a graceful suicide.

Here are some photos of my modest garden and our plants, native to the yard if not our area.

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: Skyward by our guest blogger, Dr. David Levy

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Life in Bloom

 https://www.pbs.org/show/j-schwankes-life-in-bloom/   - Link to a terrific show on PBS; J. Schwanke's Life in Bloom.

It's all about recycling flowers and flower containers, and other wonderful things.  For anyone who loves flowers and flower arranging and needs some inspiration, this is your show!!

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American Doll and Toy Museum: Our History - American Doll and Toy Museum:   American Doll and Toy Museum was established in 2019.   We moved to our permanent location in 2020.   We opened to the public in 2021. ...

Skyward June 2022 From Dr. David Levy, our Guest Blogger

 

 Skyward

 

Wendee took this picture of the start of the lunar eclipse as the

Moon was rising over a young saguaro cactus plant in our backyard.

Photograph via iPhone by Wendee Wallach-Levy.

David H. Levy
Jarnac Observatory.
National sharing the Sky Foundation.
Ad amorem nocte caelum.
Ego diligo in nocte caelum.
Dona nobis pacem.

June 2022

 

Nothing in the night sky quite beats a total eclipse of the Moon.  Other than a shooting star, eclipses prove to all who watch them that the sky is a changing place.  During the several hours of a lunar eclipse, we can actually watch as the Moon slowly orbits the Earth, and as it passes through the shadow of the Earth we can enjoy its changing illumination.

 

Last Sunday evening, May 15, 2022, there was a total eclipse of the Moon.  It was perfectly timed for observers throughout most of North America.  On the east coast, the eclipse began in mid-evening.   For those of us who live in Arizona, in the great American southwest, the eclipse began just as the Moon was rising, and it ended late in the hours of the evening.

 

As the Moon marched its way eastward, the penumbral shadow manifested itself as a shading, slowly dimming the Moon’s light as it spread across.  Gradually the eastward facing limb, or edge, of the Moon grew darker and darker.  About 90 minutes into the event, the full and profound darkness of the umbra, the central shadow of the Earth, struck the Moon’s leading edge.  Over the next hour or so the Moon lost much of its light.

 

Seeing an eclipse of the Moon is not the same as experiencing it.  To do that, you need also to notice the sky.  At Moonrise the sky was very bright, with moonlight swamping everything except the brighter stars.  But as the eclipse progressed that night, the sky began to darken gradually, then more obviously as fainter stars appeared, and finally, from a dark site, the Milky Way could be seen.  On a personal note, one of the variable stars I observe, TV Corvi (Clyde Tombaugh’s star), cannot be viewed through a telescope when the Moon is near its full phase.  But on this night the darkened Moon let the sky get so dark that I easily got a reading of the field of that star.  It was yet another aspect of the magic.

 

 

The other part of experiencing the eclipse, a completely unexpected part of it, is to learn just how dark the Moon gets during the total phase.  There is a scale, the Danjon scale, which ranges from L= 4, where the eclipsed Moon is so bright that you barely notice that there is an eclipse going on at all, all the way down to L=0, during which the Moon is barely visible.  If the Earth has suffered a serious volcanic eruption in the months preceding an eclipse,  the volcanic dust still remaining high in the Earth’s atmosphere can seriously darken the shadow.  I saw one such eclipse on the morning of December 30, 1963.  Thanks to the eruption in February 1963 of Indonesia’s Mount Agung volcano, at mid-totality the Moon simply disappeared.  Observing from a rural site, my friend Constantine Papacosmas said that the eclipsed Moon was no brighter than a 5^th magnitude star.

 

A few months ago, Mt Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, a gigantic undersea volcano about 60 miles north of Tongatapu, Tonga’s main island. and it spewed lots of dust into the upper stratosphere.    For this reason, I estimated  this eclipsed Moon’s luminosity as L = 1.5.  It was the darkest eclipse I have seen since 1963, and Wendee and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in our observatory watching the wonderful spectacle.

 

We get to do this all over again in November when a second total eclipse of the Moon will be visible from the Americas.  (Because the Moon must pass directly through the Earth’s shadow to be eclipsed, these events can happen only at full Moon.  May the sky be clear with the Moon as inviting as it always is.  Then you will have another chance to watch the sky in motion, and to watch the world move along not with the trivia and rush of the daily news, but with the slow and solemn, long term march of cosmic time.

 

 

American Doll and Toy Museum: Astronomy Night at the Museum

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Earth Day Images 2022

 Plant, let the bees sleep in your yards (don't rake, yet) harvest, feed the birds!