Archive for February, 2014

8 results.

Asteroidal occultation Nike and TYC 0642-01123-1

Feb24
by kevin on February 24, 2014 at 09:15 and modified on March 4, 2014. at 06:59
Posted In: astronomy

0304_307_33560_MapOn Monday evening 2014 March 03 the Asteroid Nike (307) will occult the star TYC 0642-01123-1

UT Time: 01:54:05 Tuesday 2014 March 04 (subtract 5 hours for EST)
Location: Areas north of Kingston to Perth Star Magnitude 9.7, max duration 1.7 seconds.

Plugging in the numbers of our location into Stellarium, we get an approximate azimuth of 262 degrees (just a little south of west) and an altitude of approx 20 degrees.

The bad news is that this means we will not be able to use the telescope we had planned on, as the house and trees are in the way.
That means going mobile, which means more power issues, more setup issues, etc.

Updated 2014 March 04
Too &^#*$ cold and windy out. missed the occultation. approx -19C with a wind from the west, coming right up into your face.
Here’s hoping that Regulus on March 20 will be much warmer!

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Seedy Saturdays/Sundays

Feb24
by kevin on February 24, 2014 at 09:04 and modified on February 24, 2014. at 09:04
Posted In: gardening, Heirloom & Heritage Tomatos

SeedySaturday-Ontario-2014smKingston, ON

Kingston Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 206 Concession St
Saturday March 8, 2014 10-3

In Kingston Ontario, the seed exchange tables are located in the very centre, or heart, of the Seedy Saturday space. We count on community members bringing seeds they have grown out in their gardens, because we know those seeds were worth saving in our particular climate and conditions, and that they are already that much better adapted for our community’s enjoyment: the relationship between the human community and that variety has been stewarded! Please label your saved seeds with as much information as possible, including the name and type of vegetable, herb or flower, when it was grown out (date), a brief description, approximate days to maturity, and as much of the story of that variety as you can pass along.
Kingston Seedy Saturday will be offering workshops and speakers: stay tuned to find out what we will offer this year!
Snacks available, lunch prepared by Transition Kingston available by donation. Your entrance donation of $2 supports this event.

Perth, ON
Royal Canadian Legion, 26 Beckwith St. East
Sunday March 2, 2014 10-3
Free admission with many vendors community groups who have information on seeds, sustainability, and gardening. A swap table for seeds and gardening related items as well as draws for items donated by the vendors. Lectures by Maureen Bostock on “Organic Farming in Cuba”, and Ed Lawrence on “Gardening without Pesticides”, food for sale, washrooms and cloakroom available.
Contact: Sarah Mackenzie sarah@hollyhockgrange.ca, 613-284-0578

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Goodbye WinNT4 server

Feb22
by kevin on February 22, 2014 at 17:53 and modified on February 24, 2014. at 09:05
Posted In: tech

winnt4server
Now that it is gone, I can talk about it.
Windows NT4 server came out in 1996 and replaced our novell netware server. actually Nt server 3.51 replaced the netware but then we upgraded it.

Well.. it’s been running ever since acting as a Primary Domain Controller and was just shut down this past week. The hardware that it had to run on was almost just as old.. circa 2001-2003.
It was very finicky in that it could not see a partition bigger than 4gb on its boot drive.
None of the firewalls would work with it. It was a dangerous legacy that was replaced with a modern OS, linux fedora 20 with samba4. the hardware is still pretty old but is reliable.

So far so good, no one has noticed the replacement, in terms of broken or reduced functionality.

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Babylon 5 – Season 1 complete

Feb19
by kevin on February 19, 2014 at 11:34
Posted In: Science Fiction

babylon5

In the 12 days since February 6th, we have managed to polish off the remainder of Season 1, another 22-6 or 16 episodes.
Episodes 18, 19 , 20 and 22 really stand out in darkening the tone of the season and introducing more complexity in the storyline.
Heavily recommended!
Of course, after the great cliffhanger at the end of Season 1, we had to move ahead to watch the first episode of Season 2.
And so it begins…

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Seedy Saturday – Picton

Feb18
by kevin on February 18, 2014 at 12:33 and modified on February 22, 2014. at 13:30
Posted In: gardening

seedy-saturday-2013
Seedy Saturday
at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Picton (Prince Edward County), Ontario

More info at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/506906412664424/?fref=tck

Event Date(s) 22-Feb-14 to 23-Feb-14
Event Time 10:00 to 03:00
Price Free

A lovely community event focused on celebrating and embracing SEEDS!!! Picton’s annual Seedy Saturday keeps growing each year and become more wonderful! Come on out to LEARN, PLAY, and GROW!

The hub of the event is our seed swap table-here you can bring seeds that you’ve grown and trade them for other seed from other gardens. Strike up a conversation with other people at the swap table-no doubt that you will learn something new! (And maybe even acquire a few new seeds for your garden!

There will be great seed vendors,
healthy and tasty food available,
a book table that is run by donation- here you can take gardening books home to learn more about growing,
a small children’s section this year where they can do a seed related craft,
raffle baskets that are always amazing
and of course – the fun- its always free.

The admission is free, and you are free to donate if you wish – All funds collected from the event will be used to further the event, (and if there is any excess it is used to further other seedy efforts-example a donation to seeds of diversity www.seeds.ca)

Come on out and keep it Seedy!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/506906412664424/?fref=tck

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The Kingston Astronomy Club met

Feb14
by kevin on February 14, 2014 at 11:15 and modified on February 14, 2014. at 11:16
Posted In: astronomy

rasckccolorlogo2012oct14-200The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Kingston Centre met last night, Thursday 2014 February 13th in Ellis Hall Room 324 at Queen’s University.
We finally returned to our regular room in Ellis Hall Room 324 by construction occurring over the past year.

Our Guest Speaker: Dr. Bruce Macintosh (Stanford University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California) spoke on
“Pictures of Other Worlds: Directly Imaging Extrasolar Planets”
with the Gemini Telescope (South) (Chile).
Not only are they directly imaging extrasolar planets, they are commissioning a $24 million instrument that can take spectra of the planets, indicating atmospheric composition. Amazing!

Other presentations from:
Brian Hunter: 163 Erigone
Richard Wagner: 163 Erigone
Richard Wiegand: Luna 3
Bruce Elliott: Depot Lakes

The meeting adjourned at 9:20 pm and all in all it was a good meeting with a good turnout of 30 people, many of which we have not seen in some time.

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Two nice Meteors 2014 Feb 06

Feb08
by kevin on February 8, 2014 at 11:00 and modified on February 8, 2014. at 11:01
Posted In: astronomy

ev_20140206_012711a_10a
We have finally had a couple of really nice meteors on the night of Wed/Thur Feb 5/6 2014

The first one at 01:27:11 UT or 20:27:11 EST was a very slow meteor headed right towards
Jupiter (left to right in the image) along with an aircraft blinking light in the lower right of the frame. North is down, East is right.

ev_20140206_095235a_10a
The second one at 09:52:35 UT or 04:52:35 EST was a much faster meteor streaking across a good portion of the sky from right to left.

These are the first two good ones to be imaged in a couple of months.
Talk about cloud cover!

http://starlightcascade.ca/allsky2/specialevents/ev_20140206_012711a_10a.png

http://starlightcascade.ca/allsky2/specialevents/ev_20140206_012711a_10a.png (2MB)


http://starlightcascade.ca/allsky2/specialevents/ev_20140206_012711a_10a.png
http://starlightcascade.ca/allsky2/specialevents/ev_20140206_095235a_10a.avi (2MB)

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Babylon 5 – a classic

Feb06
by kevin on February 6, 2014 at 10:54 and modified on February 6, 2014. at 11:08
Posted In: Science Fiction

babylon5

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5
Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski. The pilot episode was broadcast on February 22, 1993 in the US. The first season premiered in the US on January 26, 1994, and ran for the intended five seasons. Describing it as having “always been conceived as, fundamentally, a five-year story, a novel for television,” Straczynski wrote 92 of the 110 episodes, and served as executive producer, along with Douglas Netter.[2]

—–
Surprisingly enough, it has never been released into syndication.
Partially inspired by actress Claudia Christian’s viewing of the series, http://claudiachristian.net/, we too have started rewatching the series for the first time since it aired live.

S1E01- Midnight on the Firing Line
Pilot – The Gathering
S1E02 – Soul Hunter
S1E03 – Born to the Purple
S1E04 – Infection
S1E05 – The Parliament of Dreams

We are struck with the great job the actors have done in settling into their established? characters so quickly.
Babylon 5 is most famous for its superb epic story arcs. In these first few episodes we have been struck by the large number of plot hints and foreshadowing taking places, with payoffs sometimes well into the future, even seasons away!

The DVD collection quality is so-so but then again, not bad for a 20 year old television show. The initial special effects were good in the day and still mostly stand up. Makeup and costumes saw a huge leap from the pilot and first episode into the next few episodes.

This winter has been ideal to hunker down in the weather (a lot more cold and snow than the last decade) and binge-watch TV series (either new or old) in front of the fire.

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