Printer-friendly versionWelcome to astrofoto.org!
Submitted by Roland Roberts on Sun, 2006-04-23 10:07.
Here you will find the fruits of our hobby. Well, for Maria it is a hobby; for Roland it is closer to an obsession. Still, this is where you will find some of the fruits of that work. In March of 2000, we purchased an 8-inch Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount from Orion Telescopes, the SkyQuest XT8.
Using the telescope was a learning experience, especially since time and responsibilities did not allowed us to get to any star parties or meet members from any clubs in the area for nearly a year. Usenet news on sci.astro.amateur was a lifesaver. Most of the time we were viewing from our 3rd story porch in Queens (in the eastern part of New York City). Views to the west were compromised by massive light pollution from Manhattan and during the coldest months the city generates significant heat that ruins the seeing even as high as 60 degrees above the horizon. Still, there are plenty of things which can be seen with the 8-inch scope, or for that matter, with our 10x50 binoculars.
In October of 2002 we moved to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. We no longer have the 3rd floor porch, but the skies actually seem to be darker. Some of this is because we are near the water which means that in some directions there really is less light pollution. We've also acquired some camera equipment and a several telescopes as Roland has gone on a shopping spree (not really, it just kind of accumulates). At this point we have a couple of smaller scopes includeing a 90mm f/5 refractor, its bigger brother, a Orion 120ST 120mm f/5, and older Tasco 60mm f/11 (or so, not quite sure), and an Orion Apex 127mm. And since the imaging bug bit, I've acquired a Losmandy GM-8 mount with Gemini GOTO and an older "push-to" Mountain Instruments MI-250 mount. Storage is a problem, but having enough scopes for kids activities is not.
Bay Ridge Regional Science Lab Proposal
Submitted by Roland Roberts on Wed, 2010-01-27 00:20.Tonight I attended a community meeting where the main topic of new business was a presentation by Thomas Greene, formerly a teacher at Fort Hamilton High School here in Bay Ridge and now an adjunct professor at Kingsborough Community College, part of the CUNY system.
»
- Roland Roberts's blog
- Login to post comments
- Read more
Physics at Home, Science Projects
Submitted by Roland Roberts on Fri, 2010-01-22 11:31.The American Physical Society has a nice web site called "Physics Central" which has, among other things, a section called Physics@Home. For those of you who put off you science fair projects until the last minute, have a look at some of the things you can try at home. The laser and jello experiment looks not only interesting, but also quite yummy.
»
- Roland Roberts's blog
- Login to post comments
Light Pollution from Digital/Video Billboards
Submitted by Roland Roberts on Wed, 2009-12-23 16:39.This has been one of my pet peeves for a while, and my kids can already point out the things I'm going to whine about as we drive along the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) coming home from Queens. There are several of these video billboards along the road. I have always found it ironic that there are laws dealing with "distracted driving" when the driver does something to distract himself, but nothing about allowing third-parties to deliberately try to distract the driver. I mean, what else does any billboard do but try to draw attention to itself.
»
- Roland Roberts's blog
- Login to post comments
- Read more
Elements of Humanity
Submitted by Roland Roberts on Wed, 2009-12-23 16:33.I first saw the reference to the Elements of Humanity web site in Physics Today although I subscribe to MAKE Magazine who made the site. Elements of Humanity is a set of interviews with 12 scientist and engineers who talk about what inspired them to choose their careers. Some of them are fascinating for teachers, some more so for students, but all of them are well done and help break the stereotype of scientists in white lab coats.
»
- Roland Roberts's blog
- Login to post comments
NALTA: North America Large-area Time-coincidence Arrays
Submitted by Roland Roberts on Sat, 2009-12-12 22:56.Okay, that's a mouthful. I first read about this a month ago and put it on my list of things to look into. What I was hoping for was something that might be applicable for participation by middle school students. NALTA is a cosmic-ray detection experiment which requires fairly simple equipment which is placed on the school roof and is largely (completely?) maintenance free.
»
- Roland Roberts's blog
- Login to post comments
- Read more
WeatherBug Example Exercises
I've been advocating the use of WeatherBug data in normal classroom exercise for a while. I'm not sure that it's caught on, so I decided to start putting together some sample exercises. This section is that, the examples. As example, they are "fully worked" meaning I ask questions and then provide answers. Of course, in many cases, all you have to do to avoid having students just copy my answers is change the date from which I took the data. If I take temperature data from September 30th, then do an exercise for November 1st. Same problems, different data, different an
WeatherBug Exercise 1 (Math): Temperature Statistics: Max, Min, Range, Median, Mean
The process of calculating an average is not hard, but it can be tedious. So, in math class, the children are often given a set of made-up numbers that make the process easier. In this exercise, you don't get a break; we're going to use real data from the WeatherBug at P.S. 102 for December 1, 2009. Here are the hourly temperatures:
