One of the many joys I get out of life is being able to get away from all the horrible politics of my day job and get a nice clear dark night to look at the stars.  Very relaxing.  Something that is actually fun.  A nice hobby where I feel I can go out and there is no competition, no stress of deadlines or watching your back for someone trying to sabatoge you. About a decade ago my thing was music, played guitar and got decent at it (was in the Army and had a lot of time for it), but now time is too short to think about it and I don't have the desire - maybe again some day if the inspiration strikes.   But now-a-days my thing is getting out and looking at the stars.   I always had a fascination with them, but it's an expensive hobby that sucks you in so I couldn't really afford it before - you need to count on dropping at least $500 to get started by the time you buy a decent starter scope and good eyepieces (they never come with good ones from everything I've heard - at least the lower end models).  Now that I'm minus one car payment and no longer have to buy formula (very expensive!) and have quit smoking (very expensive!) I have money to spend on the discretionary items.

This past winter I got a little 4.5" Newtonian which has served me quite well and some good eye pieces (that's where you'll initially drop a lot of cash, but a good EP makes all the difference).  Problem though is that light pollution makes finding some of the cooler things in the sky hard here in the suburbs.   I have a friend who lives in a place where you can see really well, but it's almost an hour drive on winding back roads on a good night - not fun to do at 1:00 am.   So recently I found a spot just as good that was much closer on the parkway.  I was able to catch a good glimpse, or as good as you're going to get in a 4.5", of M51 and M3.  M51 is a spiral galaxy that almost looks like it's feeding (or be fed from) another smaller spiral galaxy; Google the 'pretty' picture if you're interested, but for me they're just two cotton balls loosely connected - but still cool to see with your own eyes.   Light pollution here you can't really see at all.

Last night my in-laws were down and my father in-law brought his telescope that he really hadn't used yet to look at stars (he had gotton as a retirement gift); a nice little 70mm refractor, but good enough to see Saturn and its rings in (which is in a prime location right now - straight above you almost, a little south around 11:00 EST, just may be a couple degrees below the belly of Leo if you know your constellations - look for a yellowish star).  I also tried to show them M51 but it's too elusive to see in suburban skies, and only with averted vision am I able to make it out.   But on the cool side I showed them M3 (a global cluster) which does 'okay' in suburbia, and then was finally able to track down M13 which is a 'cooler' GC.  I think my father in-law was really happy to be able to use his telescope for something other than bird watching.

Interestingly enough I was unable to find M13 the previous night in 'better' skies where the sight would've been much cooler.  I've found that I've gotten so use to light pollution that when you throw me in an environment where my limiting magnitude goes from 4.2 on an exceptional night (average here I'd say is probably 3.1) to mid 5's or even 6's that all those stars makes it REALLY hard to find the 'road signs' your use to using as your 'start points'.   And that is what made it so hard for me to find M13; I made out Bootes and the Corona Borealis, and I knew where Hercules was suppose to be, but I just couldn't find the trapezoid that made up his body in order to find M13 - there were too many stars!

So I know this post has absolutely nothing to do with programming or computers of any sort, it's cool geeky stuff that some of you might find pleasurable, and if so clear skies to you!  Not to mention it's a blog for Brian not a 'Brian's programming diary' which would be utterly mind numbing.