Tuesday March 20th, 2012. The first day of spring with temperature at home hitting 29 deg C. In reality they probably did not hit quite that high as the outdoor temperature sensor is not completed shielded from the sun… at least not until the maple tree has enough leaves. Some day soon, when there is some more spare time, we’ll put up a light shield for it so it will always be in shade.

In other news Jupiter and Venus are still spreading apart as Jupiter makes a dive towards the sun and venus is still getting farther away until March 27th when it hits greatest east elongation of 46 degrees away from the Sun.

Last of the two hour observing session last night is Orion, our favourite.

This morning a series of thunderstorms started rolling through the area, starting around 03:30 or so. We had many close by lightning strikes and at least two power outages. One was accompanied by a loud noise somewhere in the house and that knocked out the network to the observatory. Another kinda of browned out over a few seconds, went out and then slowly came back up again. Cool.

But this is about last night, before the storm when we still had clear skies.

Last Monday evening, 2011 October 24th, we experienced our first really good aurora display in many many years… maybe 7?

The allsky camera has been up for many years now but for the most part
it was solar minimum, not a lot of solar activity, CMEs or aurora.
Monday night however was quite special… the first aurora in some time,
but one big and bright enough to really put on a show, and to be
recorded on the allsky camera.

You can see it here: images are 90 seconds exposure each and the aurora
dance around a lot in the beginning of the nights run,

http://www.starlightcascade.ca/concam/gif/today20111025.gif

52 mb animated .gif

There is also a shorter, smaller one (32mb) with a few hours of cloud in the middle removed.

http://www.starlightcascade.ca/concam/gif/aurora-20111024.gif
32mb animated .gif

The plexi dome will be washed down with some RAIN-X solution later today, in an effort to get the water drops to roll off faster and better than they do now.

Our radio jove receiver and audio speakers moved from sitting atop a floor shelf to being hung up on the wall, more out of the way, less chance of cables getting pulled on and unplugged, and easier access to the speakers to listen to the live sounds.
We also tended to get winter snows drifting in and this will get the whole assembly up out of the snowbank
Maybe we will add a little flap over the front in case any blowing rain gets in.

Updated 2011 Aug 09: Looks like the system as a whole is working great! Here are a couple of events in the last day:
2011 Aug 08 16:00-17:00 UT
and
2011 Aug 08 18:00-19:00 UT

Kingston suffered through a severe rainfall on Friday July 29th, 2011 and here is an image of the event at the Hospital

The shear amount of rain (77-100mm) in four hours give or take overwhelmed the city’s infrastructure and caused a lot of flooding near the lake (downhill from the rest of the city).

Kim captured this thin crescent moon during sunrise on a Thursday morning, July 28th, 2011, two days before new moon.

GLOBE at Night: encourages citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of the night sky. During 2 weeks of moonless evenings, children and adults match the appearance of a constellation (Leo in the northern hemisphere and Crux or Leo in the southern hemisphere) with 7 star charts of progressively fainter stars found at globeatnight.org. They then submit their choice of star chart on-line with their date, time and location to help create a light pollution map worldwide.

Earth Hour 2011
Go Beyond the HOUR!
Saturday March 26th, 2011 – 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm
The theme of this year’s Earth Hour is “Go Beyond the Hour”. People around the world are being encouraged to conserve energy during the scheduled Earth Hour and to continue doing it throughout the year. Queen’s University plans to participate in this initiative and is asking students, faculty and staff to do the same.

The university remains committed to reducing its overall energy use and we need your help to accomplish this goal. With a few small changes to your daily routine you too can make a difference.
Physical Plant Services will:
v Turn off all non-essential heating systems;
v Turn off most non-essential lights. Exceptions include emergency lights, which are hard wired and for safety and security will not be turned off. A few buildings on campus that are open late or allow 24-hour access, including Stauffer Library and Goodes Hall will also stay lit.
v Monitor power consumption levels before, during and after Earth Hour.

Do your part at work:
v Switch off lights when leaving a room.
v Switch off computers, monitors, printers, scanners, radios and other equipment when they’re not in use, and before a meeting, lunch or end-of-day.
v Use power bars to eliminate phantom loads.
v Enable the energy saving functions on your computer equipment.
v Dress comfortably for the weather and adjust your layers before adjusting the thermostat.

Do your part at home:
v Lower the set point of your thermostat.
v Use low-flow plumbing fixtures.
v Open curtains to allow for maximum sunlight in the winter and close the curtains to keep out the sunlight in the summer.
v Take advantage of energy incentives like the current saveONenergy program.
v Celebrate Earth Hour in downtown Kingston at Springer Market Square for the 4th annual “Kingston Unplugged” concert.

Turn Off Your Lights For Earth Hour
8:30 P.M. TO 9:30 P.M. SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2011
Kingston will participate in Earth Hour in 2011. Between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 26, lights will go off around the world to mark Earth Hour — a global event to acknowledge humanity’s impact on climate change.

This week has been quite a week.
Monday- interviews for my class project at the Mission in Partners Food Bank and the Loving Spoonful.
Wednesday-We saw our first Robin, and we had our Lennox & Addington Horticultural Meeting.
Thursday- St. Patricks Day- dinner at home with homemade Potato Pancakes, Irish Stew and buiscuits. Of course Kilkenny and Guiness beer as the refreshments.
For the weather watchers, a pretty fierce thunder and lightning storm came through
Friday-We went and saw “Paul” and saw our first Heron flying , so spring is here.
Saturday- we are on our way to a get together on planning the Community Garden for the Salvation Army Food Bank this year. I certainly hope there is not as much squash as last year, it was monster squash.

When we come back , there will be some solar observing, moving the cold frames, transplanting the onion starts which are not too happy right now, and prepping the soil for tomatoes for next week, and possibly more lettuce (thanks mice). Get some spinach out of the cold frame, which came through the winter and is growing very well.

It is such a beautiful day , though cool, you just want to get out and do some yard work, just to be outside.

The February meeting of the Lennox and Addington Horticultural Society was last night, Wednesday Feb 16th.
Too bad it conflicted with the new season of Survivor and the finale of the New Computer Overlord Watson vs the humans in Jeopardy!

Our guest speaker Joanne Chamberlain was from Willowbrook Farms CSA. She described their Community Shared Agriculture operation near Bath Ontario, in great detail.

We also chatted about record keeping with the membership, asking them to keep records this year of the last light and heavy frost of the spring and the first light and heavy frost of the fall. I intend to take that info and plot it on a local map to ge a feel for local microclimates.

Our cooperative project with the Napanee District High School and their greenhouse is going ahead again this year.
No known local bus tours are being held for the Peterborough Garden Show or Canada Blooms, as have happened in years past.