Fire! (cont'd)

Yesterday I wrote about a fire that started south of us, near Tecate. We were concerned at the time because of the prediction of Santa Ana winds, which could conceivably blow the fire our way.

On the map at right you can see where our home is (in the gren circle) and you can see where the fire is (the red and orange shapes). Where the fire burned yesterday or earlier, and is no longer burning, is shown in the black shaded areas. The photo is oriented normally (e.g., North is straight up), so you can see that the fire is burning toward the west, and not toward us. As I write these words, the winds at our house are from the northwest at 4 MPH, gusting to 10 MPH — almost the exact opposite of a Santa Ana, and exactly what we need to push that fire away from us. At the risk of jinxing us, I'll call that good news.

On the other hand, it's 90 degrees (F) and 3% relative humidity. It wouldn't take much for our part of the world to burn...

If you're curious about how I got this nice picture...it came from a website that is a cooperative project of NASA and the CDF, providing an online tool to create maps of past and current fires using all sorts of data, including the WF-HMS and MODIS satellite data used to generate the map you're looking at. The satellite data is updated four times a day; each of those circles represents a 1 km diameter "pixel" of thermal image data.

As usual, click on the photo for a larger view...

The Good China

Claudia Rosett has a new column up at the OpinionJournal, aptly titled The Good China. In it, she contrasts the United Nations — that bastion of incompetence — with Taiwan, using some observations of their relative organizational competencies:

... But as a symbol of the difference between the aging behemoth that is the U.N., and the lively democracy that is Taiwan, the contrast between the two renovation projects could hardly be more apt. While the U.N. reserves one of five permanent seats on its Security Council for the despotic "People's Republic" of China, plays along with the nuclear bomb program of the Islamic "Republic" of Iran and routinely clears its schedule to entertain the opinions of Fidel Castro's Cuba, the U.N. does not even offer Taiwan observer status, let alone a seat.

Taiwan, meanwhile, has been a world leader in embodying the ideals of the U.N.'s own charter--meant to promote peace, freedom and prosperity. Since the late 1980s, the Chinese government in Taipei has gone from martial law to free-wheeling elections, as the 23 million people on Taiwan have created China's first full democracy. In recent decades, they have also leapt from deep poverty to the ranks of the world's wealthier polities. The usual U.N. databases do not include Taiwan, but according to the CIA World Factbook, Taiwan's per capita income these days is about $25,000--which in U.N. rankings would place it in the neighborhood of such highly developed nations as Italy and New Zealand, with almost 20 times the per capita income of Red China.

Taiwan has achieved this despite being evicted from the U.N. in the 1970s, to be replaced by the communist government. For Taiwan, there has been no place at the perennial U.N. conferencing on "sustainable development." Taiwan was cut out of the U.N. picture years before the U.N. began its drumbeat for global taxation to support U.N. "millennium development goals." And lo! Taiwan has blossomed beyond the wildest dreams of the U.N. aidocrats who, bereft of the defunct Oil for Food program, now hope to lavish yet more attention, and earn themselves many more U.N. per diems, in Africa. It's enough to suggest the real secret of success might be to ignore the U.N....

Hah! Love that last sentence in my excerpt!

Go read the whole thing.

Fire!

The California Department of Forestry (CDF) fire-fighting planes are flying right over hour house on their missions to and from the Border 50 fire. I took this photo just a few minutes ago. As I write this, the CDF is reporting 0% containment, and not even an estimate for containment. Today is the first day of a projected two-to=three day Santa Ana wind condition, so even though this is some distance from our home (about 10 miles), we can't dismiss it.

Click on the photo for a larger view.

FEMA Anger

But perhaps not in the manner you're thinking. Check out this report from FEMA member Jodi Witte:

Dear Friends and Family,

I just got home from 15 days in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. I am tired, and I am emotional. But mostly I am angry. I am angry at the news - the TV stations, the newspapers - for what I view is a grosslymisrepresented placement of blame. For those of you who know me, you know I work for FEMA as an "intermittent employee" of a disaster response team. My team, called VMAT or Veterinary Medical Assistance Team, is partof the response branch of FEMA known as the National Disaster Medical System.

Let me tell you how "awful" FEMA's response was from someone who was there on the front lines working for FEMA.

President Bush declared a state of emergency prior to Katrina's landfall due to its strength and location. This is not normally done before a hurricane makes landfall. Damn good work by George W in my honest opinion. This opened the door for our federal teams to pre-deploy assets in nearby locations so that we were ready when Katrina did hit. I wascontacted by FEMA before the hurricane hit, asking for my availability and to place me on alert. Many teams were moved into the region including 2 VMAT teams. My team was mobilized immediately after landfall and I arrived in the area before New Orleans had completely filled with water,before we even realized how bad it was truly going to be. FEMA responded immediately and with unprecedented numbers of responders. There were DMAT teams inside the Super Dome before the levee broke. Never before had so many FEMA teams and personnel been sent into a disaster.

One thing you must understand, the DMAT, VMAT, and DMORT teams that make up the National Disaster Medical System are NOT "first responders". Our job is to supplement overwhelmed communities if needed. The initial responsibility lies with the state. If they become overwhelmed in the aftermath of a disaster where their local hospitals, medical, veterinaryand mortuary assets cannot handle the magnitude of the disaster, we come in and augment their resources. It takes 24 to 48 hours to mobilize the federal assets in normal circumstances. We come from every state in the US, leaving our jobs and families behind at the drop of a hat to helpwhere ever it is needed. Our cache of equipment and medical supplies must either be moved from our home base or from the federal warehouses in Maryland by truck or plane. This takes time. But we were there before Katrina hit and many more arrived immediately after even before knowing the full scope of this disaster.

So why is FEMA being blamed? I'm not exactly sure. I really am not. Yes, FEMA was overwhelmed. God sakes how could it not be? This hurricane has been the largest natural disaster the US has had on record. Nothing can compare. We train and train for almost anything. We try to be ready. But no one was ready for how bad this truly was. I am sure there were some bad decisions made high up, of that I cannot deny. It was a logistical nightmare to get the teams placed and the supplies sent in. Some stuff arrived too late. But, seeing how hard the FEMA employees worked to help the people and animals of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama it makesme angry and very, very sad to hear us put down so bad on TV and in the news.

One day, just a couple days after New Orleans was under water, I was stationed in the New Orleans airport. This is where I was the first week. The airport was where all the buses and helicopters that were rescuing people from the city brought them first. They came in the thousands to the airport and went through lines holding their last bit ofpossessions, which included a small amount of clothing or keepsakes and often times their pets. Yes, they got to bring their pets with them on the buses and helicopters. I know because I was there. I saw them. They came in and were triaged by FEMA medical personnel. Minor injuries or illnesses were treated with the utmost care and love by FEMA DMAT teams and then they took their place in line through concourse C to board planes to shelters where they could receive follow up medical treatment. The very ill weremoved into the D concourse area for more thorough medical care and support in a true MASH hospital set up right there inside the airport. I walked through this area frequently and watched as DMAT members held the critically and gravely ill peoples' hands, cared for them, helped them in so many ways trying to save their lives and to comfort those who could not be saved.

I walked through feces, urine, blood and vomit covering the floor of the airport. I watched custodians working tirelessly to clean up the floor even though it was soiled again as soon it was cleaned. People were handed water and food as soon as they arrived. Those who were well, movedthrough an endless line to concourse B to board both commercial and military planes going to shelters in other states. I walked the lines of concourse B, C, and D as did other members of my VMAT team to provide any needed veterinary care to the pets who were evacuated with theirfamilies. We cared for stray animals that arrived at the airport too. See, the coast guard and military helicopters were picking up stray animals if they had room when they would rescue people from the city. FEMA personnel did everything possible to comfort and care for the peopleof New Orleans. I know because I was one of them, and I did everything I could for them, and I saw with my own eyes what the others were also doing.

This is a photo on the FEMA website. What you don't see here is that this little dog is sitting below the hospital gurney of his master who was critically ill inside one of the DMAT MASH tents. I walked through this medical tent to check on the dog with a couple other members of my VMAT team. The nurse had given the dog a dish of water and was feeding himsome crackers. We promised the man we would bring back some food for his dog. He was very thankful as he laid there with IVs going. I returned a few minutes later with one other member of my team, bringing a Ziploc bag of dog food. When we arrived they were moving him to a different stretcher because he needed to be medivac'ed out on a helicopter formore intense medical care. The helicopter pilot told us he cannot take the dog unless its in a crate. I stepped up to talk to the very ill man. I asked him if he would let me care for his dog while he went to the hospital. He grabbed my hand and had tears in his eyes as he begged me to help him take his dog with him because it was all he had left in the world. There was nothing else. I looked into this man's eyes as he cried. He was a middle aged white man with cuts and scrapes all over him. His face was puffy and feverish with infection. I then looked at the DMAT nurse and the Coast Guard pilot. Both looked back at me with very graveexpressions and each asked me to please find a crate for the dog so he can go with the man. My teammate and I both knew right then that this man may not make it and we had to make sure he got to spend as much time as possible with his dog. There was no way we were going to make him leave his dogbehind. We took off running and found an empty crate. It was a bit too small for the dog, but would work temporarily. We returned and found the pilot waiting for us with the man. Once we got the dog in the crate and on the stretcher with the man, he again took my hand and thanked us as we cried together. He said "you have no idea what you have done for me and I will never forget it" Then he was wheeled away toward the waiting helicopter.

So, at the end of this day...a 29 hour shift that I spent at the airport, I arrived back at our bunk location - a building on the campus of LSU where we slept on the floor - and I got to see the news on one of the cable networks. I was absolutely outraged at the reports of the lack ofresponse by FEMA. I changed to another cable news network and saw the same thing there. What they don't mention when they talk about FEMA is the people that make up FEMA's response, working countless hours, pouring their very heart and soul into this response despite being slammed andcriticized all over the news.

I cried with sadness and anger at how we are viewed all over the world. I am a FEMA responder who cannot wear my FEMA badge in public in Louisiana because everyone thinks we are so terrible. Do they even yet mention how hard we have worked for the people and animals of Louisiana? No, maybethey never will.

Just yesterday the radio was criticizing the fact that FEMA had so many trucks filled with water and supplies that were just sitting somewhere and was costing $600 per day each to sit and wait. Does anyone realize this is the right thing to do? There is already a tremendous amount of water and supplies in the areas. The reason there are trucks waitingfull of more supplies and water is so they can move at a moments notice to where ever they are needed at any time. Would they rather have the extra supplies sitting in a warehouse where they would have to wait to secure trucks, then load the supplies and water, then move them out? Hell no. They complain about the lack of quick response by FEMA but yet don't get the whole concept that these supplies and water sitting in trucks ready to go is for quick response and now they criticize FEMA readiness without realizing it. The contradictions in the news is ridiculous.

Now 13 days after I first saw the news reporting how awful FEMA is, I still remain proud to be a member of FEMA, and I am proud of the work I did in New Orleans and I am proud to work for the federal government headed up by a strong and brave president. It was not easy, and things may not have gone perfectly, but we did and continue to do amazing workthere even if no one knows it because they will only look at what went wrong instead of so much that went right.

Jodi Witte

Veterinary Technician/Logistics Officer VMAT-1, Veterinary Medical Assistance Team
FEMA Response Branch US Department of Homeland Security

There are lots of hoaxes running around on the Internet, so before I posted this I did a little research on the web. It appears to me to be a legitimate story, written by a real person. In fact, here's some information about that person (Jodi Witte) that you might be interested in: Jodi Beck Witte is a veterinary technician and weapons of mass destruction specialist for a FEMA disaster response team and manages an animal health website. You can also email Jodi directly.

Lookin' Good!

Reading Big Lizards (a highly recommended activity) this morning, I discovered a new poll on Schwartzenegger's five initiatives that has much more encouraging results than anything I've seen heretofore. Dafydd (how the heck do you pronounce that, anyway?) tells the tale of a new SurveyUSA poll that shows all five propositions in the "win" column, several of them so far in the win that even the undecideds plus an outcome at the worst side of the margin of error wouldn't change the results.

That's more like it!

Prior to seeing this poll results, most of the news I've read about the propositions was along these lines (excerpted from the September 5 Sacremento Bee):

Two of the three initiatives Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed to fix California government are losing badly and a third is trending in the same direction - toward defeat, according to a new Field Poll.

A fourth initiative aimed at the financial heart of Schwarzenegger's union-funded political opposition continues to hold a substantial lead, although a huge bankroll of labor-generated campaign cash poses a threat to the measure.

Which I found pretty depressing; willing sheep to the slaughter and all that.

I'm feeling much better after reading Dafydd's post and the poll results he pointed to. Dafydd thinks the differences in the poll results can be explained by poor poll construction:

This is truly excellent news. Previous polls had shown the measures limping towards defeat, but in each case with very large "undecided" respondents. I almost blogged about this earlier, but I wasn't sure how to explain it: the problem in the earlier polls were lengthy, hard-to-parse questions and no explanation of any of the measures. I was certain that most people's reaction was "huh? I don't get it," and that was artificially lowering the Yes vote.

Well, Dafydd may well be right about this. I'm no expert on polling, but it's obvious that how a poll question is worded can influence the results. For example, one could ask about proposition 74 like this (as the CTA's ads are doing):

Do you support proposition 74, which allows administrators to dismiss teachers for no reason at all, without consulting with parents?

Or like this:

Do you support proposition 74, which allows administrators to dismiss poor teachers instead of forcing schools to keep bad teachers no matter what they do (tenure)?

I'm pretty sure those two questions would get different results in a poll!

Whatever the reasons for the differences between this new SurveyUSA poll and the earlier polls, this is very hopeful news (assuming, of course, that the new poll is more accurate). It put a smile on my face for the morning!

Lunar Librations II

After my last post on lunar librations, my dissatisfied friend was still dissatisfied. He said:

Okay so my intuition failed me wrt to the major component of lunar librations, but the pictures should still be different since the close one is below the equator and the far one is above it...

My friend is assuming that apogee and perigee correspond with the points at which the moon is furthest from the ecliptic. I had a vague memory that such was not the case, but I couldn't remember the details. A little Googling research today got the answers.

It turns out that the moon's apogee and perigee are not always the place where the moon is the furthest from the ecliptic. There are two phenomena that determine this. One is called "nutation", which is the rotation of the moon's "node line" around the Earth (the node line is an imaginary line drawn between the two points in the moon's orbit where it crosses the ecliptic). The moon's nutation period is 18.60 years, direction to the west. The other phenomenon is the rotation of the "line of Apsides" (the line between the moon's perigee and apogee); it rotates in the opposite direction, once every 8.85 years (reference, more info).

If (big if!) I'm juggling all these phenomena correctly, then the apogee and perigee move with respect to the points at which the moon is the furthest from the ecliptic on a cycle of 18.60 - 8.85 years; in other words, every 9.75 years. So ... once each 9.75 years, my friend's assumption would be correct; in between he'd be wrong to some degree. One interesting consequence of this is that every 9.75 years the maximum longitudinal libration would be coincident with the maximum latitudinal libration. I was unable to confirm this on the web (when the line of Apsides was coincident with the node line).

In the course of researching this, I came across an article that talks about another consequence of lunar librations; one that I had not considered.

Imagine you're an astronaut, and you're standing on the lunar surface. If you ignore librations, the earth is always at the same place in the sky, as a consequence of the moon always "turning the same face" toward the earth. But ... factor in librations, and you get an odd result: the earth, seen from the moon's surface, moves about in a little "box" in the sky. Seen from the lunar surface, the earth appears to be about 2 degrees wide. The box it moves around in is about 15 degrees wide in longitude, and 13 degrees wide in latitude. That's a fairly large motion, one that would be quite evident to a naked-eye observer. From what I know (now!) about the librations, that must be a very complex motion in that box. And to my surprise, I was able to find (on the web) a computed path, illustrated, and that's the picture you see above right.

As usual, click on the picture for a larger view.

Quote for the day

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.

   General William Tecumseh Sherman

Alika

Alika is one of our cats — our newest cat, as a matter of fact. You can read all about him, and be subjected to more cat pictures than any human should have to endure.

As usual, click on the picture for a larger view.

Pampas Grass

We have a couple of pampas grass plants in our front yard that are blooming right now. The picture at right shows the flowerhead of one against our beautiful blue southern California sky. I took a few photos of them this morning, and did a little research to find out about these beautiful plants; there were some surprises there! You can read about it at my pampas blogging page.

As usual, click on the photo for a larger view.

Mopey

You can count my wife and I amongst those with very strong attachments (some say unreasonably so) to their four-footed friends. In our case, that's two dogs (soon to be three, we hope) and eight cats. As their life span is so much less than ours, of course over the years we have lost some of those friends. More than is comfortable to remember. This has just happened to Dr. Bob and his family over at The Doctor Is In; they have just lost Smokey, their friend and companion of 14 years. Dr. Bob has posted an eloquent and touching ode to their friend and family member, displaying a talent for such things that I wish I could muster at such at time. Reading his post, you get a real sense of Smokey — and of just how much he meant to the family. One sample:

Mopey — as we always called him — was a special cat in so many ways. Possessed of the laid-back disposition so common to Persian cats, he spent the better part of his life sleeping on his back, and virtually all of the remaining hours looking for food. His culinary tastes were eclectic, to say the least — he loved vegetables, especially green beans, chickpeas, and broccoli. His few athletic moments were in such pursuit, stretched to full length to get at the butter dish on the top cabinet shelf, or trying to open the cabinet latch to get at his cat food, just out of reach. Unlike many cats who self-regulate their eating, Mopey was positively Bacchanalian in his dining habits — watching him eat was like witnessing a Roman orgy. Thus engorged, he would stagger over the to furnace intake vent, where he would loudly meow, the echo amplifying his voice as he envisioned himself the great hunter on the plains of Serengeti, roaring his satisfaction at the kill to impress the pride. Then he would stagger off to sleep in some bizarre configuration, spine twisted, legs in the air.

Dr. Bob's parting words put me in mind of my own thoughts and emotions on those occasions when we've lost one of our own animals, though Dr. Bob expresses it much better than I've ever been able to:

But we will hear it no more, and the loss brings tears to the eyes and a tightness to the throat. He was a friend, a companion, a member of the family, a source of many laughs and the particular aggravations which domestic animals seem uniquely able to inflict on their keepers. Our animals are our friends, God-given gifts to entertain us and foster our most affectionate and protective impulses. They are a blessing — but a blessing which departs all too quickly, their candles extinguished to remind us of our own mortality and the power of love and loss.

We love you, Mopey, and will miss you greatly. May your feline heaven bring you endless meals and long naps in the sun.

Amen to that, and our heartfelt sympathy to Dr. Bob and his family...

Dry!

The chart at right shows the temperature (°F on the left scale, red line) and relative humidity (% on the right scale, green line). For the past four days we've been below 20% relative humidity — much of the time below 10%!

This is extraordinarily dry even for the chapparal country, and it's been quite prolonged as well. Yesterday the wind was from the northeast for much of the day, indicating a Santa Ana condition, though the winds weren't high as they usually are in a Santa Ana.

This is a litle worrisome, as conditions like this are enablers for wildfires. There's one going on right now 150 miles north of us, and much the same weather conditions apply there. The longer the dry air continues, the longer the brush and botanical detritus has to dehydrate — and the drier that fuel gets, the more dangerous the conditions. When the fuel gets very dry — like it was before the Cedar Fires two years ago — then even the smallest spark can turn into a hard-to-stop fire. And because Lawson Valley hasn't burned for over 30 years, we have a lot of fuel on our hillsides.

Just today I ran across a map of San Diego County that was color-coded to show when each area had last burned. Lawson Valley is colored to indicate "1961-1970" — and if that's right, we've got 35 - 45 years of chapparal growth on our hillsides. Yikes!

Ponder Power

Jimmy Valentine is the Producer of the Roger Hedgecock Show (the only radio talk show you'll find me listening to regularly), where he's described this way:

Jimmy writes the Flash Fax daily, hangs around the Team Hedgecock office when he is not outside smoking. He barely graduated from high school and has no degree whatsoever. But for an old guy he's a little cute and often quite playful. He is mostly harmless and unproductive...he yearns for a permanent position in gummint where the wage and pension is great and the workload is light.

The "Flash Fax" mentioned above is an appoximately daily email that Jimmy writes. It's always interesting, often informative and insightful, sometimes inspiring, and occasionally hurt-your-belly funny. An example from today's edition illustrates at least some of the preceding claims:

THE POWER OF THE PONDER… not sure exactly where I picked up the power, most likely in Texas. We did several TV shows via satellite out in the Big Bend area back in the mid-80s and that area tends to be kinda mystic. I think it just come on me. I am not sure it’s a gift but it does strike often and just automatically re-sorts all the stuff in my head so that it makes better sense. A lot of dots connect in sudden fashion. I guess it’s like defragging your computer. And it seems to thrive out here in Dehesa Valley for some reason.

The Ponder can strike near anytime but it mostly happens during shaving in the morning or after the first Jack of an evening. Mind is wandering and suddenly “pop,” you set to pondering. You can’t turn it on and off, it happens.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that bankruptcy is the best and fastest way for SD City to resolve it’s financial crisis. I can’t vote there but the Ponder doesn’t abide by jurisdiction.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that it will be a good thing if Katrina victims sue local, state and federal gummints for not protecting them and demanding a 911 fund. And win. Cause we fire folks left over from the 2003 Wildfire Debacle are trying to class act a suit against the numbskulls that couldn’t quit the fire up in Ramona. So far court is saying you can’t sue the gummint. The Ponder sez that Jesse Jackson and his group will lead a court suit and a judge will bark when told to by Jesse and the gang. That’ll set court precedent and pave our way.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that if you are in favor of abortion then you are in favor of killing children and that is how it should be stated. Not, “I’m pro-choice,” but “I’m for killing kids.” And folks who have had abortions ought to be up front about it and proclaim, “I killed my baby,” and be proud in public.

It’s the Ponder that tells me that if you are opposed to big gas guzzling vehicles, you should ride the trolley, ride a bike to work or walk. And if you do drive you had better have 18 other folks in the car with you.

We’ve noted the Ponder many times in the flash over the years. The above examples are likely lousy but I hadda face the Ponder today and let it know that I know it exists…and that I ain’t scared of it……. tho I am awed. it’s a good power, tho sometimes I kinda wish I was able to see thru womens clothing instead.

I subscribe to quite a few email newsletters; this is one of them that I look forward to every day.

I've never met Jimmy Valentine, but he's nearly a neighbor of mine. He lives in Dehesa Valley, which is one ridge away from Lawson Valley, where my home is. Unlike me, Jimmy lost his home in the Cedar Fire of 2003 — we were just one ridge away from the same fate.

You can (and should!) subscribe to the FlashFax yourself (scroll all the way down), or you can peruse the FlashFax archives. Personally, I think Jimmy would make a great blogger; maybe we can talk him into it one of these fine days...

Priceless!

An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.

He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. "I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

Priceless!

Produce Blogging

The photo at right is not (I'm sad to say) one of mine. It's one of Rick Lee's photos, from his blog "On Location with Rick Lee". As he puts it in his blog's "About" section:

A commercial photographer in a small market. I love my work and I love the people I work with. How cool is that?

It's very cool. And what a pleasure for the rest of us, even those who (like me) can't help but be jealous of his talent for making memorable images of everyday things. His blog is on my "daily read" list just for the sheer pleasure of it.

APOD

APOD brings us...

Clouds of glowing hydrogen gas mingle ominously with dark dust lanes in this close-up of IC 1396, an active star forming region some 2,000 light years away in the constellation Cepheus. In this and other similar emission nebulae, energetic ultraviolet light from a hot young star strips electrons from the surrounding hydrogen atoms. As the electrons and atoms recombine they emit longer wavelength, lower energy light in a well known characteristic pattern of bright spectral lines. At visible wavelengths, the strongest emission line in this pattern is in the red part of the spectrum and is known as "Hydrogen-alpha" or just H-alpha. Part of IPHAS, a survey of H-alpha emission in our Milky Way Galaxy, this image spans about 20 light-years and highlights bright, dense regions within IC 1396, likely sites where massive new stars are born.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Hyperion

The Cassini-Huygens probe (which I've posted about many times) flew close by Hyperion a few days ago, producing the photo at right. As the mission web site says:

This stunning false-color view of Saturn's moon Hyperion reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon's surface. Differences in color could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. The view was obtained during Cassini's close flyby on Sept. 26, 2005.

Hyperion has a notably reddish tint when viewed in natural color. The red color was toned down in this false-color view, and the other hues were enhanced, in order to make more subtle color variations across Hyperion's surface more apparent.

Images taken using infrared, green and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create this view. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 62,000 kilometers (38,500 miles) from Hyperion and at a Sun-Hyperion-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees. The image scale is 362 meters (1,200 feet) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Check out the mission's web site, and also the imaging team's web site — both are full of interesting photos and information. As usual, click on the photo for a larger view...

Cute Animals

A friend sent these by email — a nice collection of incredibly cute animal pictures; 16 of them along the same lines as the sample you see here. You'll need a dose of insulin after viewing these!

Cheer

Reading one of James Lileks' columns, I discovered that he has a website he calls the "Institute of Official Cheer" that is, in fact, cheering to peruse. I particularly enjoyed the Gallery of Regrettable Food. From the Institute's page:

Here's where you can learn all about the Institute, its mission and its history. Not required reading to enjoy the Institute's fine products, but when you've burned through everything else, this might make a little more sense.

Don't miss it!

Rhma

A few weeks ago, Michael Yon first wrote about Rhma, a little Iraqi girl with a serious health problem. Later, he wrote about the help Rhma was receiving from many people — including a bunch of American soldiers — to get her back to the U.S. for the medical care she needed, but that their efforts were being thwarted by glitches and bureaucracy. Today he writes of some success breaking through the problems:

I wrote about it, knowing that if Americans knew that Rhma was stuck in Jordan, our good people would not let that stand. Once again, the good and generous nature of average Americans glimmered the moment they found the problem. People all over the United States took it upon themselves to call their congressmen and senators, many of whom interceded on behalf of a sick little girl who had faith that Americans would take care of her.

A nice story for a Thursday morning. And thank you, Michael Yon, for the fine job you're doing. I wish we had more like you...

Estonian Bogs

The photo at right is of a bog in Estonia, taken with a digital camera dangling below a kite. It's been entered in a contest on visualization in science:

With its intricate patterns within patterns and striking colors, the winning photograph bears a distinct resemblance to a fractal. But scale back — to about 150 meters above the ground — and the sinuous landforms of Estonia's Männikjärve bog begin to reveal themselves.

In the peat bogs of east-central and southwestern Estonia, autumn works a change in the color scheme: Cotton grass turns gold, hardwoods in surrounding forests turn orange and red, and pine trees remain silvery green. The bog water, in sharp contrast, stays an acidic brown. Geologist James Aber of Emporia State University in Kansas recognized the potential beauty of the landscape when he was collaborating with Estonian colleagues to study the glacial geomorphology and geotectonics of the region. But to capture it, he knew he'd need to get off the ground--or at least, his camera would.

The contest entry is here, and more on do-it-yourself aerial photography from kites is here. I'd like to try this myself, though I'm a little worried about how well the camera would survive!

From Boing Boing.