Thursday Coolness: Lunar Transit of the Sun with a Giant Solar Flare

Image courtesy of NASA/SDO

The moon passed between the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory’s cameras and the sun Thursday morning, and the result was this very cool NASA video of what is called a lunar transit. The video is short, but the transit took 2.5 hours, the longest ever recorded. The different colors reflect different filters to show different wavelengths of light. Notice how crisp, to use NASA’s word, the lunar horizon appears. That’s because the moon has no atmosphere to blur the clarity. Don’t miss the mid-level solar flare the sun emitted after the moon passes the center of the image.

On the Web: Learn more about the event

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#ThrowbackThursday: 30 Jan 1944 – USS North Carolina (BB 55) sinks Japanese transport

On January 30, 1944, USS North Carolina (BB 55) sank Japanese transport Eiko Maru off the west coast of Roi.

Also on this date, USS Burns (DD 588) sank Japanese transport Akibasan Maru and guardboat Nichiei Maru off Ujae while SBDs and F6Fs from USS Enterprise (CV 6), USS Yorktown (CV 10), USS Bunker Hill (CV 17) and USS Belleau Wood (CVL 24) attacked Japanese shipping in Marshall Islands and sank auxiliary submarine chasers Cha 18 and Cha 21 and guardboat No.6 Shonan Maru at Kwajalein.

At Mille, Japanese vessels sunk were: Cha 14, Cha 19, Cha 28. Additionally, Japanese cargo vessel Katasura Maru was damaged at Eniwetok and USS Phelps (DD 360) helps sink the vessel.

USS North Carolina (BB-55)
Anchored off the Puget Sound Navy Yard,
Washington, 24 September 1944.
She is painted in what may be a variant of Camouflage Measure 32, Design 18D. U.S. Navy Photograph, NHHC Photo.

USS North Carolina (BB-55). Fires her after 16″/45 guns in June 1941, during her shakedown cruise. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-K-13511 (Color).

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17). At sea while participating in strikes on the Palau Islands, 27 March 1944. She is painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 6A. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-K-1560.

USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24). Underway on 22 December 1943. NHHC Photograph Collection: NH 97269.

USS Yorktown (CV-10). Underway circa mid-1943, possibly during her shakedown cruise in the late spring. Planes on deck include F6F “Hellcat” fighters and SB2C “Helldiver” scout-bombers. Note this carrier’s unique longitudinal black flight deck stripe. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-K-14379 (Color)

USS Enterprise (CV-6). En route to New York to take part in the Navy Day Fleet Review, October 1945. She is steaming in company with a light carrier (CVL) — in the right distance– and another warship. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-K-6576 (Color).

USS Phelps (DD-360). Off the Charleston Navy Yard, South Carolina, about November 1944.
She is painted in camouflage Measure 32, Design 3d. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives, 19-N-73964.

USS Burns (DD 580) , taken from Naval Air Station, Weeksville, 17 July 1943. National Archives photograph: 80-G-76604. Note, on 30 January 1945, Burns sank Japanese guardboat No.2 Hokoku Maru off Ojae.

Guadalcanal Invasion, August 1942. Ordnancemen of Scouting Squadron Six (VS-6) load a 500 pound demolition bomb on an SBD scout bomber on the flight deck of USS Enterprise (CV-6), during the first day of strikes on Guadalcanal and Tulagi, 7 August 1942. Note aircraft’s landing gear and bomb crutch; also bomb cart and hoist. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-10458.

USS Enterprise (CV-6). F6F “Hellcat” fighters taxiing forward on the flight deck, during training exercises, 2 July 1943. Another F6F is in flight overhead, with its landing gear and tail hook extended. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives, 80-G-74510.

USS North Carolina (BB-55)
Photographed during her shakedown cruise, May 1941.
The battleship is framed by an escorting destroyer’s deck, 5″/38 gun barrel and a crewman.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

On the Web:

USS North Carolina

USS Enterprise

USS Bunker Hill

USS Belleau Wood

USS Yorktown

USS Phelps

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#MilitaryMonday: USS Higbee (DD 806) Commissioned – First USN Vessel Named for a Female

On January 27, 1945, the U.S. Navy Destroyer USS Higbee (DD 806), was commissioned. She was the first U.S. Navy combat ship to bear the name of a female member of the Naval service, a USN nurse to boot!.

Also a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, she was decommissioned in 1979 and later sunk as a target in 1986. Note, Higbee was redesignated as (DDR-806) in 1949 but was later resdesignated to her former hull number (DD 806) in 1963.

USS Higbee (DD-806) at sea off the coast of Hawaii, 1974. Higbee was the first U.S. Navy ship named after a woman member of the U.S. Navy. NHHC Photograph Collection, L-file.

Namesake of USS Higbee (DD-806), Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee, (NC) USN. This portrait photograph was taken in uniform during the World War I era. She was the second Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps, from 20 January 1911 to 30 November 1922. National Archives photograph, #80-G-1037198.

Lieutenant Ramona E. Lambert, NC, USNR, poses with the Flag of USS Higbee (DD 806), named for Lenah S. Higbee, the second commandant of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps, taken circa 1945. NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 95034.

On the Web:

Read more about USN Chief Nurse Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee

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Noah’s Ark was round, say researchers

Bryan Patterson's Faithworks

IT was a vast boat that supposedly saved two of each animal and a handful of humans from a catastrophic flood.

But forget all those images of a long vessel with a pointy bow — the original Noah’s Ark, new research suggests, was round.

A recently deciphered 4,000-year-old clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq — reveals striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah. It tells a similar story, complete with detailed instructions for building a giant round vessel known as a coracle — as well as the key instruction that animals should enter “two by two.”

The tablet went on display at the British Museum this week, and soon engineers will follow the ancient instructions to see whether the vessel could actually have sailed.

It’s also the subject of a new book, “The Ark Before Noah,” by Irving Finkel, the museum’s assistant…

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A Tale of Serendipity

A R T L▼R K

On the 28^th of January 1754, in a letter to Horace Mann, eighteenth-century English author Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity in the English language: “I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip [the ancient name for Ceylon, or Sri Lanka]: as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right? Now do you understand Serendipity?” In its current usage, serendipity means a fortuitous discovery, a positive chance happening.

In 1958, American sociologists Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber wrote a very interesting book – shelved for forty years, and only printed in…

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Holocaust Memorial Day: Remember, Honor, Educate, Prevent

It was 69 tears ago today on what we now know as Auschwitz Liberation Day, Holocaust Memorial Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day, when Soviet Troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland.

Here, borrowed from Yad Vashem, is one family’s perspective from Chanukah 1932.

Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, his wife Rachel and their three children: from right to left: Avraham Chaim, Tova and Shulamit, at the train station in Kiel upon leaving Germany, 1933

Artifacts in the Holocaust History Museum

Chanukah Menorah from the Home of Rabbi Akiva & Rachel Posner in Kiel, Germany

A photograph taken in 1932 by Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva Posner, of their candle-lit Chanukah menorah against the backdrop of the Nazi flags flying from the building across from their home in Kiel Germany

On Chanukah 1932, just prior to the elections that would bring Hitler to power, Rachel Posner, wife of Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, took this photo of the family Chanukah menorah from the window ledge of the family home looking out on to the building across the road decorated with Nazi flags.

On the back of the photograph, Rachel Posner wrote in German (translated here):

Chanukah 5692
(1932)
“Death to Judah”
So the flag says
“Judah will live forever”
So the light answers

The back of the photograph of the Posner family’s Chanukah menorah taken in Kiel Germany. On it Rachel Posner has written what translates as:
“Death to Judah”
So the flag says
“Judah will live forever”
So the light answers.

Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, Doctor of Philosophy from Halle-Wittenberg University, served from 1924–1933 as the last Rabbi of the community of Kiel, Germany.

After Rabbi Posner publicized a protest letter in the local press expressing indignation at the posters that had appeared in the city:  “Entrance to Jews Forbidden”, he was summoned by the chairman of the local branch of the Nazi party to participate in a public debate. The event took place under heavy police guard and was reported by the local press.

The Posner family’s Chanukah menorah. Rachel Posner photographed the menorah as it stood on the family’s window ledge in Kiel, Germany against the backdrop of the Nazi flags flying from the building across from their home

When the tension and violence in the city intensified, the Rabbi responded to the pleas of his community to flee with his wife Rachel and their three children and make their way to Eretz Israel. Before their departure, Rabbi Posner was able to convince many of his congregants to leave as well and indeed most managed to leave for Eretz Israel or the United States. The Posner family left Germany in 1933 and arrived in Eretz Israel in 1934.

The Posner family Chanukah menorah displayed in the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem beside the photograph that was taken in the Posner family home in Kiel on their last Chanukah in Germany, 1932

Some eighty years later, Akiva and Rachel Posner’s descendants continue to light Chanukah candles using the same menorah that was brought to Israel from Kiel. On Chanukah 5770 (2009), their great-grandson, Akiva Mansbach, dressed in the uniform of the Israel Defence Forces saluted and read out a poem written in Hebrew in a similar vein to that written by Rachel Posner in 1932.

Translated it reads:
“ In 5692 the Menorah is in exile, it stands in the window
It challenges the party flag that doesn’t yet rule
“Judah die!” it says
And Grandma ‘s rhyme responds
In its own tongue, without despair:
So the flag says, but our candle answers and declares
“Judah will live forever”

In 5770 the menorah stands in the window once again
Facing the flag of the ruling State
The descendant Akiva, named for his great-grandfather
Salutes through the window and lights the menorah
Grandmother, give thanks above and say a prayer
That “the Redeemer will come to Zion” and not delay.

(Loaned by the Posner Family Estate, courtesy of Shulamit Mansbach, Haifa, Israel
Photographer: Rachel Posner)

On the Web: Auschwitz Concentration Camp Emancipation 69 Years Ago

Auschwitz concentration camp – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Auschwitz – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Yad Vashem

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Venus Shines at its Brightest Before Sunrise

The “morning star” dazzles as it climbs high and shines brightly during morning twilight in February and March.

If you head outside any clear February morning, your eyes will be drawn to a blazing light hanging in the southeastern sky. At first you might think it’s a plane coming in for a landing. But this is no object flying low in our atmosphere — it’s the brightest planet in the solar system. Venus appears especially prominent in February because it shines brightest and appears highest in the morning sky.

The brightest planet peaks at magnitude –4.9 in mid-February, when observers under dark skies might see it cast a shadow.

Venus shines at magnitude –4.9 — the brightest it ever gets — from February 8 to 16. (It officially reaches the point of “greatest brilliancy” on the morning of the 15th, but the difference is imperceptible.) This makes it nearly 10 times brighter than the sky’s second-brightest point of light, the planet Jupiter, which dominates the sky from dusk until about the time Venus rises. Venus fades slowly thereafter, dipping only to magnitude –4.8 by the end of February and a few tenths more during March.

Venus also appears highest in the morning sky from mid-northern latitudes during the second half of February. It rises about 2½ hours before the Sun throughout this period and climbs approximately 15° above the southeastern horizon an hour before sunrise. Venus now appears higher and brighter in the morning sky than at any time since 2012. You don’t want to miss this opportunity because it won’t be as high again until it returns to the evening sky in early 2015.

Mercury and Venus achieve greatest elongation within eight days of each other this month, providing nice views for early risers.

The inner planet moves farther from the Sun in March, but it actually drops lower in the sky. You can blame solar system geometry for this apparent contradiction. The ecliptic — the Sun’s apparent path across the sky that the planets follow closely — makes a steeper angle to the eastern horizon before dawn in February than it does in March. So, even though Venus’ elongation from our star grows during March’s first three weeks, that increase translates more into distance along the horizon and less into altitude. At greatest elongation March 22, Venus lies 47° west of the Sun but rises only two hours before our star and appears 10° high an hour before sunrise. It is still a beautiful sight, just not quite as good as in the latter half of February.

Although Venus looks impressive by itself, a nearby crescent Moon can turn the morning vista stunning. The best conjunctions in February occur on the 24th (when the Moon lies to the planet’s upper right) and the 25th (with our satellite to Venus’ lower left). In March, the best view comes on the 27th, when the waning crescent Moon appears to Venus’ upper left.

The morning twilight sky in mid-March holds another planet worth viewing: innermost Mercury. This Sun-hugger reaches greatest elongation from the Sun on the 14th, just eight days before Venus does, when it lies 28° west of our star. It then appears 5° high in the east-northeast 30 minutes before sunrise. Mercury then shines at magnitude 0.1, some 60 times fainter than Venus but still bright enough to see through binoculars against the twilight glow.

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Spring Salad, Mushrooms, and Grape Tomato Pizza with a Spicy White Garlic Sauce

Cooking with a Wallflower

Warm cheesy and slightly garlicky pizza on a French bread crust topped with fresh salad, mushrooms, and grape tomatoes. A quick and easy recipe that is both delicious and relatively healthy for lunch or dinner.

I’ve been craving pizza. Not the typical pepperoni or combo pizza. I wanted one with fresh ingredients; maybe arugula, or farm egg, or butternut squash. But to go to a pizza parlor that specializes in these fresh ingredients means that the pizzas will be relatively expensive. So what better way to satisfy my craving than to make my own? I have most of these ingredients in my kitchen. All I really need is the crust.

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Ravens of Yuba City, California 12/9/2011.

“The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset”: The Exact Minute Claude Monet Created It

Perfection at capturing beauty and solace on the Normandy coast

Researchers have determined the exact minute that Claude Monet painted his famous “The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset” in 1883 by comparing the modern sky in Normandy, France, to the one Monet saw

As an ardent admirer of Claude Monet, I find the fact that Claude Monet painted his classic Étretat: Sunset in 1883 is old news. That he painted it at precisely 4:53 p.m. on Feb. 5 of that year is what’s new — the result of a nifty bit of sleuthing by researchers at Texas State University in San Marcos.

The key to their discovery is the setting sun he captured off the coast of Normandy, France, they explain to the school’s news service.

The team traveled to the same beach, marched up and down armed with reproductions of the painting, and zeroed in on his exact vantage point with topographical measurements. (Turns out, it was a different spot than art historians had thought.)

After that, they used “planetarium software” to compare the modern sky to that of the one that Monet gazed upon, and narrowed down the possible dates that the sun would have been where Monet painted it to five days in February.

Based on tidal charts, Monet’s own letters detailing his activities, and weather data, they concluded that Feb. 5 was the only possible day.

“We were able to determine the month, day, hour, and precise minute — accurate to plus or minus one minute — when Monet was inspired by that beautiful scene,” says a Texas state astronomer and physicist on the team.

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