Oct 30 2007
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Treat or treat
So tomorrow is Halloween, and that means the usual tradition at the BA household:
- Panicky buying whatever candy is left at the local store, usually inedible waxy chocolate coins and Mary Janes;
- Panicky carving of pumpkins, panicky dumping of elaborate plans this year of really carving the Face of Boe and instead hoping to just get triangular eyes and a mouth where the teeth don’t break off;
- Panicky last-minute selection of a costume for The Little Astronomer as well as for me when I give out candy, which means a panicky rummaging-through of the closet and coming up empty;
- Decidedly non-panicky decision to haul out the ol’ ’scope and show the kids the sky.
That last one is my favorite Halloween tradition. I still give out candy, but I do it from my driveway, where I have the telescope set up. Some years are better than others; when Jupiter or Saturn is up you’re gold. But this year, we have, of course, Comet Holmes, which showed up right on time to make this the splashiest Halloween treat we’ve had in a long, long time.
If you have a telescope — or even binoculars you can mount on a tripod — then why not give the kids coming around something they’ll remember for years to come? Show them an erupting comet!
You give out MaryJane to kids on Halloween?
Colorado’s gettin’ too liberal for me.
Actually my most memorable trick o treating was when we went to a neighbor’s house and he had a telescope set up. I think he showed us a planet - maybe Saturn? I was very impressed with the giant telescope though. Good tradition.
My kids will be trick or treating tonight. In my part of the country, the myths of Halloween conflict too strongly with the myths of Mayor McJesus and the Sky Father. Therefore, no trick or treating on mid-week church night. So it goes.
What a cool idea! Thanks! Now hopefully we don’t get the rain/snow and wind that’s predicted so we can see something other than the neighbors house.
Panicky Pumpkin’ carver make gods of All Hallows Eve angry…
Say hi to Square Eye missing tooth…Muhahaaaa!!!!!
I’ve never had a telescope for Halloween before. In your experience, is it better to stick to one thing that you’re showing, or d’you have a couple of different things that you go back and forth between? I have an 8″ dob, so I’ll have to keep moving it around regardless of what I do.
If you recommend something to show along with my new Holmesboy, what do you recommend this year? And can it be seen from an urbanish downtown? I have decent horizons everywhere except north/northwest.
Thanks!
>> Panicky last-minute selection of a costume for The Little Astronomer as well as for me when I give out candy, which means a panicky rummaging-through of the closet and coming up empty
Slavic-collar trenchcoat + fuzzy ushankya + bad accent == stereotypical Soviet spy. That’s what I’m going to do.
That Halloween stuff sounds pretty scary - making an event out of letting your kids take candy from strangers. All things considered, I’m glad I live in Australia, where few people trick-or-treat.
Having said that, I sent my kids to daycare this morning in a clown suit (he looked just like Pagliacci when he cried) and a cat suit (an actual cat-type thing - not the Seven of Nine type thing).
This year we shelled out $3 for a “pumpkin carving kit”. Best $3 I’ve ever spent, pleasantly surprised how much easier it was to use than the usual knives from the kitchen drawer. The included patterns helped, too.
Thanks for the idea on the telescope, I’ll have to do that next year when I’ve retrieved the scope from storage.
Hey, I like Mary Janes, not to mention that they make a cool demo in my Earth Science classes. Squeeze them in a clamp, and they deform, whack ‘em with a hammer, and they shatter. Shows how a solid can flow for plate tectonics.
That’s a cool idea Phil! I’ve never seen anyone haul out their scope before heh. But if you live in a cloud resistant area (I do) and you have a house (I don’t) that would be awesome.
For pumpkin designs, check out these from the London Metro paper: http://tinyurl.com/yv4zb8
The innards of the pumpkins makes an excellent soup and the seeds can be roasted with a bit of oil and salt in the oven for a great snack.
Don’t waste the soup and seeds on the Halloween monsters though, they only want candy.
Please excuse the language but what a bloody good idea! (See, clergy do swear after all - although with four kids, what parent doesn’t?)
Halloween isn’t quite as big in the UK as it is in the US. I don’t have a problem with it (although some of my more “precious” co-workers do) - I just wish it weren’t another way to fleece everybody (along with Christmas, Valentines, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s day etc.)
But show them some science while they are holding you hostage for candy - brilliant!
Seriously.
I hope you have clear skies to make this a truly excellent halloween.
…why not give the kids coming around something they’ll remember for years to come? Show them an erupting comet!
Tried that one year, ended up doing eighteen months. Stupid midget vice cops…
For a different take on pumpkin carving, skip the whole hollowed-out deal and just engrave into the skin. Far more control, no parts to break off, and they tend to last longer. The paler flesh underlying the rind works quite well to set off your design, but it helps if you have a “flat” blade to shave larger areas.
If you’re stumped for costume ideas, you can do what Robert Schaeffer did at a convention and go as an MIB. Hold up a penlight vertically and ask the kids to pay attention “right here,” see how many go for it. If you’re creative, you can get the flash unit from a disposable camera (most of the photo labs will be able to provide one) and trick it out to really work. Kinda. Easy to shock the beejebus out of yourself if you short that capacitor, though, so mind the exposed circuit board.
Might be able to - I finally saw the comet tonight with my binoculars (Yay!!) and I can direct anyone to where it is by saying “Behind the streetlight” (Booo!)
I hope this gets a little brighter - I was glad no one on the street asked me what I was looking at because it was so dim on the busy street I live next to I’d never be able to point a novice to it with binoculars.
How about carving the Face on Mars on to a pumpkin?
I’m British so have generally never had much to do with Halloween and trick or treat (ignoring the obligatory scallies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scally) trying to extort money). I’m glad to see that someone using what, to me, is a rather trivial event to educate and inspire young minds with science.
Youse folks in furren countries don’t know the 1/2 of it — around here, some houses have as much Halloween decoration as Xmas — purple Italian lights, tombstones in the yards, skeletons the ever-popular witch-flown-into-the-tree, etc, etc,
Hey — maybe the LA can go as a comet? White dress and a long flowing veil….
Too bad the Witch Head Nebula in Eridanus isn’t really visible without a time exposer. It is appropriate!
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Witch_Head_Nebula.jpg
I have NEVER been able to do the telescope thing. In Florida, my condo complex never got trick or treaters. In Wisconsin, they always did trick or treating on a Sunday afternoon (and it was cloudy EVERY year so no solar!) I don’t get anyone at my complex in Tucson now either!
I FINALLY saw Comet Holmes last night through 20×80 binocs….spectacular!
Hmm . . . I wonder if “Mary Janes” are a regional thing, since I had never encountered them prior to reading the above remarks and then looking them up on-line.
BaldApe: I use Silly Puttyâ„¢ in class for that purpose. After demonstrating how it will stretch when pulled slowly but break when pulled quickly, I’d mold it into a tall roughly cylindrical lump and set it on the table at the front of the room and let them watch it flatten under its own weight as I went on lecturing. However, there was the one night when rather than flattening into a puddle it drooped over the edge to the accompaniment of embarrassed giggles from the class . . . not helped by it being the default light pinkish color that Silly Puttyâ„¢ comes in . . .
Speaking of Comet Holmes, Watson, the Astronomy Picture of the day:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
for Oct. 30 shows a ‘time lapse’ of the growth.
J/P=?
Try these alternate Doctor Who pumpkin designs:
http://community.livejournal.com/yeah_that_way/4185.html
(not mine, not my page, but may be doing a Rose pumpkin tomorrow)
I’ve been taking my scope down to the end of the driveway for the past 3 or 4 Halloweens, and it’s a hoot ‘n’ a half! We’ll have a bowl of candy nearby, but the kids are usually so stoked by the view that they forget about it entirely (”Ya mean we get candy, TOO?!”)
Clear Sky Clock is giving us two 5’s and a 4 for tomorrow night. Too bad this year’s festivities will be hampered by the Daylight Savings Time offset. If I have a shot at it, I can usually pick off Jupiter prior to twilight, but it’s probably going to be well west of the narrow corridor of view I have. Holmes will be available most of the night, but probably 50% of the traffic will have already passed by the time it gets dark enough to locate. That earlier hour of darkness would’ve helped. But it’ll be fun, nonetheless!
I once chaperoned my sister to Stephen King’s house on Halloween. There was line to wait in and the author looked a bit haggard. There wasn’t much to see; I think I would rather have seen a ten-inch Newtonian showing Saturn and Titan.
I have a problem with trick or treat
1) It is technically demanding with menaces
2) The elderly are frightened by hoards of kids descending on them after dark
3) How do I know that the little band of Trick or Treaters are not trying to find out who is in and who is out, with a view to kicking in the door and grabbing what they can. As I have to go out tonight, it looks like I will have to drag the laptop with me, just to keep it safe should this fear be realised.
Wow, I thought we were the only ones who did the telescope on Halloween! It’s a tradition in my family: Dad brings out the telescope, sets it up in the front yard, and kids don’t get candy until they look through it. It’s fun hearing them come up the driveway: “Last year I saw Saturn…I wonder what it’ll be this year…”
I hope the sky clears enough for you to do that! It’s rather typical in Colorado for Halloween to be snowy.
I was surprised last year when I had my scope out by the fact that it was the tough, cool teenagers who were most impressed by the sight of the moon in a telescope. This year, I think it’ll be M111 - the Cloud Nebula.
I wish I had thought of the Face of Bo before I carved this years boring pumpkin.
Phil, why not carve the Face on Mars instead? That ought to be easier than Boe. And maybe that can help with the childern educatin’.
I once saw plans for a Cylon pumpkin…complete with a schematic for the mouth lights! Very cool.
Phil, this is one of the reasons you are my Hero. All of your work bringing rationality to the masses is wonderful. But this.. wow. Its a beautiful night here in Oregon, and I will drag my little scope out and show as many kids the comet as I can. As a bonus, its visible from our front porch.
Man, that was fun. I think I have a new Halloween tradition. Never got Holmes due to haze, but I was able to chase Jupiter until about 8:30 before I lost it in the trees. I think the parents and older kids liked it just as much as the little ones. Thanks for the great idea.
Telescope has been out all night, it’s very clear, and I’ve been having a damned fine time showing off Holmes to the neighborhood. As an added bonus - an Iridium flare as I had folks looking up in the sky.
“What was THAT?!?”
“An Iridium flare”
“A what???” - starting a long explanation, but everyone left a little more knowledgeable, and convinced that their neighbor is every bit as eccentric as they believed.
[…] took inspiration from the Bad Astronomer’s Halloween plans and set up my telescope right in the front yard. The viewing sucked, what with all the front lights […]
Now that trick or treat is over,
In Mexico Nov. 3 it will be the day of the dead, a better holiday than Holloween because they will be sincerely honoring their dead relatives, Which I think is great. But since I’m not hispanic I truely want to celebrate a dead theory — the Big Bang. Not long gone (actually presently revered) but very soon to be forgotten, I hope. It must be replaced!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
forrest underscore forrest at netzero dot net.