Orion in the Infrared and Millimeter
This composite image of the Orion A Giant Molecular Cloud star-forming complex shows infrared emission from the WISE and MSX missions in 4 micron (red), 12 micron (blue), and 22 micron (green) emission with Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey 1.1mm emission overlaid in yellow/orange. The Orion A region is frequently featured in astronomical images:
but its tail tends to be ignored. This quiescent region is the source of the next generation of stars, although the relatively small mass concentrations imply that no massive stars like the bright Theta 1C that powers the Orion Nebula will form. The infrared colors show all sorts of stars including protostars. The infrared can pierce through the dust and find young stars still forming. The green and blue bands also see diffuse clouds of dust being illuminated by the central stars of the Orion nebula. The yellow 1.1 mm dust emission shows the coldest dust that is shielded from external radiation. These cold clumps contain enough mass to form new stars...
Outreach Observing
Some notes for this Friday... the ISS will rise at about 10:55 on Friday, July 18th, and 9:43 on Saturday, July 19th. Jupiter will be in the sky, but Venus and Mercury will not. Jupiter will rise in the Southeast
Denver, CO 2008/07/16 10:15 pm Sunrise/set: 05:46 am / 08:26 pmPredicted passes for: ISS daylight-saving time enabled Local Duration Date Time (min) Approach Max. elevation Departure------------------------------------------------------------------------2008/07/17 02:57 am <1 10° above N 10° above N 10° above NNE2008/07/17 04:30 am 5 12° above NNW 31° above NE 10° above E 2008/07/17 10:30 pm <1 13° above WSW 15° above WSW 15° above WSW2008/07/18 03:19 am 4 10° above NNW 16° above NNE 10° above ENE2008/07/18 04:54 am 5 15° above NW 78° above W 10° above SE 2008/07/18 09:19 pm 5 13° above SSW 29° above SE 11° above ENE2008/07/18 10:55 pm 4 17° above WNW 25° above NNW 10° above NNE2008/07/19 03:42 am 5 13° above NNW 32° above NNE 12° above E 2008/07/19 05:18 am 4 16° above W 22° above SW 11° above S 2008/07/19 09:43 pm 5 19° above WSW 71° above N 10° above NE
Outreach this past weekend
I did the thing at Vail, Starry Nights, and it went well.
P Cygni
P Cygni is a neglected LBV. You search for Eta Carinae on google and get hundreds of epic images of the fella, but nothing of P Cyg! Not even my Fe II image, which is now reproduced here:
Parallactic Angle
So it turns out parallactic angle and field rotation are essentially the same thing. While working on the data pipeline for the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey, I've needed to deal with this. The parallactic angle is dependent on the alt/az, and therefore the time, of the observation. So using an RA/Dec in J2000 coordinates to get alt/az isn't going to work, because my observations weren't in 2000.0.... my best hope is that the PA in the NCDF files is actually the correct parallactic angle. YARGH!
Photo Contest
Photos featured in an article
My photos, article by Jeff Marlow: http://www.atmagazine.co.uk/content/view/853/94/
PHP and CGI working in the same directory
While it's not possible to get CGI and PHP to work within the same file, you can get .html and .htm files to use cgi/php scripts alternately in the same directory with the following .htaccess file:
RemoveHandler .htmlAddType text/html .htmAddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php .html AddHandler server-parsed .htm .html
If anyone can prove the previous statement false, please do! I spent hours googling and hacking to try to get php and cgi to work within the same file. Also, the way the above file is parsed makes no sense to me. It is inverted from how I would have thought it should work.
Port vs Fink
Port failed to install: adam-macbook ~$ sudo port install py25-matplotlib---> Building py25-hashlib with target build---> Staging py25-hashlib into destroot---> Installing py25-hashlib 2.5.2_0---> Activating py25-hashlib 2.5.2_0---> Cleaning py25-hashlib---> Fetching py25-zlib---> Verifying checksum(s) for py25-zlib---> Extracting py25-zlib---> Configuring py25-zlib---> Building py25-zlib with target build---> Staging py25-zlib into destroot---> Installing py25-zlib 2.5.2_0---> Activating py25-zlib 2.5.2_0---> Cleaning py25-zlib---> Fetching py25-setuptools---> Attempting to fetch setuptools-0.6c8.tar.gz from http://cheeseshop.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/---> Verifying checksum(s) for py25-setuptools---> Extracting py25-setuptools---> Applying patches to py25-setuptools---> Configuring py25-setuptools---> Building py25-setuptools with target build---> Staging py25-setuptools into destroot---> Installing py25-setuptools 0.6c8_2---> Activating py25-setuptools 0.6c8_2---> Cleaning py25-setuptools---> Fetching py25-tz---> Attempting to fetch pytz-2007k.tar.bz2 from http://cheeseshop.python.org/packages/source/p/pytz/---> Verifying checksum(s) for py25-tz---> Extracting py25-tz---> Configuring py25-tz---> Building py25-tz with target build---> Staging py25-tz into destroot---> Installing py25-tz 2007k_0---> Activating py25-tz 2007k_0---> Cleaning py25-tz---> Fetching py25-dateutil---> Attempting to fetch python-dateutil-1.4.1.tar.gz from http://labix.org/download/python-dateutil---> Verifying checksum(s) for py25-dateutil---> Extracting py25-dateutil---> Configuring py25-dateutil---> Building py25-dateutil with target build---> Staging py25-dateutil into destroot---> Installing py25-dateutil 1.4.1_0---> Activating py25-dateutil 1.4.1_0---> Cleaning py25-dateutil---> Fetching fftw-3---> Attempting to fetch fftw-3.1.3.tar.gz from http://www.fftw.org/---> Verifying checksum(s) for fftw-3---> Extracting fftw-3---> Configuring fftw-3---> Building fftw-3 with target all---> Staging fftw-3 into destroot---> Installing fftw-3 3.1.3_0---> Activating fftw-3 3.1.3_0---> Cleaning fftw-3---> Fetching py25-nose---> Attempting to fetch nose-0.10.4.tar.gz from http://somethingaboutorange.com/mrl/projects/nose/---> Verifying checksum(s) for py25-nose---> Extracting py25-nose---> Configuring py25-nose---> Building py25-nose with target build---> Staging py25-nose into destroot---> Installing py25-nose 0.10.4_0---> Activating py25-nose 0.10.4_0---> Cleaning py25-nose---> Fetching py25-numpy---> Attempting to fetch numpy-1.2.0.tar.gz from http://downloads.sourceforge.net/numpy---> Verifying checksum(s) for py25-numpy---> Extracting py25-numpy---> Applying patches to py25-numpy---> Configuring py25-numpy---> Building py25-numpy with target buildError: Target org.macports.build returned: shell command " cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0" && /opt/local/bin/python2.5 setup.py build " returned error 1Command output: setup_package() File "setup.py", line 89, in setup_package configuration=configuration ) File "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0/numpy/distutils/core.py", line 184, in setup return old_setup(**new_attr) File "/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/core.py", line 151, in setup dist.run_commands() File "/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/dist.py", line 974, in run_commands self.run_command(cmd) File "/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/dist.py", line 994, in run_command cmd_obj.run() File "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0/numpy/distutils/command/build.py", line 37, in run old_build.run(self) File "/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/command/build.py", line 112, in run self.run_command(cmd_name) File "/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/cmd.py", line 333, in run_command self.distribution.run_command(command) File "/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/dist.py", line 994, in run_command cmd_obj.run() File "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0/numpy/distutils/command/build_src.py", line 130, in run self.build_sources() File "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0/numpy/distutils/command/build_src.py", line 147, in build_sources self.build_extension_sources(ext) File "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0/numpy/distutils/command/build_src.py", line 250, in build_extension_sources sources = self.generate_sources(sources, ext) File "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_python_py25-numpy/work/numpy-1.2.0/numpy/distutils/command/build_src.py", line 307, in generate_sources source = func(extension, build_dir) File "numpy/core/setup.py", line 87, in generate_config_h raise SystemError,"Failed to test configuration. "\SystemError: Failed to test configuration. See previous error messages for more information.Error: The following dependencies failed to build: py25-numpy py25-tkinter tcl tkError: Status 1 encountered during processing. I don't want to deal with it so I'm just using Fink.