Blogs / Bad Astronomy

I used to work on the education and public outreach effort for Swift, one of NASA’s most successful missions. One of the projects we started up was a regular newsletter that would keep folks up-to-date with news about the satellite, the science it did, and the team that keeps it going.

The new issue is out, and has an article by Neil Gehrels, the Principal Investigator of Swift, a report on the very first hardware glitch the mission had (after 991 days of operation in space!), and an essay about the education effort by Educator Ambassador Janet Moore.

The issue also features lovely artwork by Aurore Simonnet, though none of my own purple prose. But then, I’ve been a bit busy lately…
You can subscribe to the newsletter as well, and get updates when new issues come out.

I just sent the draft of my manuscript for Death from the Skies! to my editor.

PHEW!

This is a major step, of course. For one thing, it fulfills my contractual obligation of getting the book to the publishing house by November 12.
But it’s nowhere near the end! Once my editor looks it over and edits it, I’ll have to revise it. You may be shocked, shocked, to learn it’s too long. A lot of precious words will have to be savagely curtailed. I’ll have to add technical edits as I get those from my posse of advisors. That’s no big deal (assuming my science isn’t totally screwed up). My first book had a single technical editor (my old friend Mark Voit) who did a great job checking up on my science. But this new book covers a vast amount of territory in some detail, so we needed a different tech editor for each chapter. They’ve been a tremendous help, and I am indebted to them all.

Even when the writing is all done, there are the matters of illustrations, photos, captions, cover art, planning my speech when I get the Pulitzer, and so on. It’s a long road ahead.

But the first few steps have been taken. Now I can start getting ready for my trip to DC tomorrow, working on updating the blog, starting up an idea or two I have for new sites, getting my home life in order (geez, you should see my office; I haven’t really unpacked since we moved in June), spending some actual time with the Little Astronomer, and tinkering around with an idea for my third book.

Y’know, relaxing stuff.

My old bud Dan Durda tipped me off to this very cool image from the Earth Science Picture of the Day site:

It shows the location of all the total solar eclipses over the past two millennia! That’s petty nifty. As you can see, some places got more than others (where the trails are brighter white). Chicago seems to have been blessed, as has central southern Canada. It’s interesting; there is very roughly one solar eclipse per year. The shadow of the Moon on the ground is relatively narrow, so even after so many eclipses the Earth isn’t completely covered.

You may notice there are more eclipses in the north than the south. According to ESPOD, that’s because there have been more eclipses during the (northern) summer months. During that time, the Earth is farther from the Sun, making the Sun appear smaller, so it’s easier for the Moon to cover it up. Since that’s northern summer, days are longer too so there is a higher chance of actually seeing an eclipse in the northern hemisphere (something ESPOD forgot to mention :-)).

The next total solar eclipse will be on August 1, 2008. But you’d better dress warmly: the track is way up north, crossing Canada, Greenland, and Asia.

I am leaving this weekend for Washington DC (or "Warshington", for those in the know) to attend the annual meeting of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I’ll be railing against theocracy, getting trained to talk to Congressmen, and blogging the whole thing.

But I also want to meet you. No, not you, the other one… there… yeah, you.

PZ Myers will be there as well, and so we’re having a meetup: come to the Senator Sports Bar at the Holiday Inn Capitol Hill at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 10 (tomorrow!), and hang with us. We have no real plans except to chat with the Pharyngulistas and BABloggees, though other bloggers will be there as well if, by then, they don’t want to kill us or aren’t horribly disappointed that we don’t actually stride the Earth like vengeful gods.