Posts Made By: Daryl Crowley

I dropped the author of Parallax, Alan Hirshfeld, an e-mail on how much I enjoyed Parallax and he took the time to reply directly. He said he is working a new book on the life of Michael Faraday to be released in 2005.

Ed - I picked up a copy of Longitude, as soon as I fishish my current book I will give it a read.

Daryl

Well pardon my ignorance. I assumed it must be something like that. But a forum on astrophysics would be cool.

Daryl

Mike,

I live about 90 miles south of Traverse City on Lake Michigan. A lot of light pollution right around Traverse City but you might try up on Mission Peninsula or up past Suttons Bay on the West side of West Bay. That would give you a pretty good shot at the Sagittarius area.

Keep an eye on the wind, the beach sand can permeate everything and it’s not something you want invading your telescope.

The observatory Hugh mentioned is a possibility but Michigan, wonderful state that it is, is comprised mostly of those that have little appreciation for astronomy, science, jazz, or anything else unless it is highly commercialized for the masses. This is a Top-40, what’s trendy kind of state. Too bad too, because it is a beautiful state when you can get away from the masses;-)

Daryl

John,

Yes it does suck the way things are turning out. But I can see the employer’s side too. The cost of providing healthcare to employees is astronomical. It raises the cost of products by a significant factor. The more we pay for products the less we can afford insurance. It is a vicious cycle. Add to that the fact that some people take advantage of the system. I have seen pregnant women take a job with enough time to get benefits, take off six weeks for the baby and then quit. I'm not picking on women so don't send me nasty replies, but it is just one of a number of examples that combined with the high costs for employers makes them seek ways to avoid the cost.

We need to put more money into funding Medicare and Medicaid. That would bring the price of services down significantly for everyone else. While it seems reasonable that employers pick up the tab, it also seems hard on them when they are trying to provide a product, and they have this huge cost on top of materials and wages.

There is no easy answer but if we could stop spending money of smart bombs and F22s there would be more money for healthcare. I know we need a strong military, its just a shame that we NEED it. The whole world is pretty screwed up on priorities.

While there are some unscrupulous people adding to the problem, it would still be a problem without them. Healthcare is expensive and somewhere along the line someone is taking a beating until all the parties from the patient to the government decide that it should be a priority and that ALL parties have an equal stake.

Daryl

M57 is quite easy if you look in the right spot. You can see it with binoculars of 10x or more.

M101 is much easier with binoculars than it is with a telescope. Look in the right spot with binoculars and stare until you see just a FAINT smoke cloud. That's it. With the telescope do the same thing with the lowest power you have.

M101 also requires a dark night with no Moon. It's a tough one but once you know what to expect you can see it regularly. It is very faint but large. You will see the same kind of thing with M33 in another month, although it is a little easier than M101.

Check out M63 which is just a short hop from M57.

I've been into astronomy since I was 5 years old. But I got my first real telescope 2 years ago at age 50. Welcome to the club!



Daryl

Not sure why everyone thinks that the most endearing quality of a president should be eloquent speech.

I find Bush's rural language skills kind of refreshing. I would like to see a president just say something like: "I'm plumb mad and I'm going to kick some terrorist ass!"

I wonder how many on this forum would speak as well as they write if they found themselves on TV in front of the whole world. And if they "mangled a salable" would it make them any less intelligent?

Daryl

Is this a juvenile bird? We have Gray Jays in abundance in the U.P. of Michigan but they are bigger and the grays and blacks are more pronounced. Or are they different out west?

Daryl

No problem my girls were smart enough for that. One is 21 and the other is 15. They had the solar filter on and they were using a welders glass over the finder. They just couldn't get it focused so they kept backing it out until it disengauged. Thanks for the concern, but for the most part thsese are mature intelligent girls.

Daryl

Yes, there are some good points about living in Michigan. Now if you could just get about half the population to leave, then it would really start to be special. Beautiful state, way too many people. The U.P. is not too bad but it gets worse every year. Glad you enjoyed "our" stars.

Daryl

I understand where you are coming from but like it or not corporations are what built this country and they still drive the economy. If we eliminate the corporation influence then politics will be driven by people that think corporations are purely evil and that is not true. This country can't make it on mom and pop operations. We need corporations to be sucessful so that we can all be sucessful as a nation. Most of us are employed by corporations and losing all our manufacturing processes to other countries will leave as as a service oriented country. It's hard to support a nation this large by doing each other's laundry.

You're right we need some balance amd control of corporate responsibility but we need our corporations to be sucessful and profitable. Let's not throw out our future with the corporate bath water.

Daryl