Mars

As a kid, I had always been obsessed with Mars. Somehow all the adults around me seemed to think Mars was a fine place to go picnic around and if you took a liking then build a house on this lonely planet. So I said I definitely want to be on the spacecraft which goes to Mars. But as I grew up the realities of science hit you and you start wondering why were you surrounded by a bunch of morons who never told you that Mars was a very hot and cold place ; a picnic there could end up in a ghastly way! Well, in some way I am glad they dint tell me all that ( they probably dint know it themselves too well). So I could go on dreaming as long as I wanted to.
There was this book from "World Series", some "amazing or wierd facts", some something like that. And there was this story about an old woman who dreamt of going to Mars all her life and as she died she had left all her money to the future, i.e. to that someone who would be the first to reach Mars. Now that I had read this, I thought I was getting all the signs of doing this mission impossible all by myself :-)
Well, someday somebody with a 100 million dollar suit and 10 years worth training maybe able to step on Mars land and obtain all the money left by the old woman, but I am no more in the running for it, I have resigned!
But I still longingly look up at the wonderful object in the night sky, reddish, starkly different from the stars of the yonder and planets that pale, and wish to look at it through my telescope. Yes! I have still not really seen it through my scope yet!!!
Damn the time which keeps running, and I am not able stop about to watch it!
But when I do see it, hopefully sometime soon, its there in the night sky close to zenith this week ( just waiting for the moon to go away), I will blog again!
(The other connection between the co-author of this blog, me and Mars is the chocolate! I miss that)

Leonids

SO there were supposed to be the Leonids a few days ago. Somehow didn't hear much about it in the news. This year Leonids were supposed to be huge with a meteor rate of nearly 500 meteors per hour for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, at the place where I stay the sky was overcast and it was freezing outside. So I didn't see even a single meteor.

When you talk about Leonids, its imperative to mention temple-tuttle. Tempel-tuttle is a short period comet with a period of 33 years. But its a tiny non-impressive comet that is almost not seen by the naked eye when it enters the inner solar system. But what seems to be interesting is the dust it leaves behind. The dust belt that's left behind by the comet drifts away from the sun and eventually reaches earth's orbit. When earth passes through this best, we see the dust particles as meteors in the sky. Actually its more of dust, icy pebbles and other normal comet material.

One thing that I found very interesting is that scientists have actually observed each dust path that is left behind by the comet. This year's showers were apparently the dust left behind by the comet somewhere in 1533. Now that's some cool astronomy!

An amusing story!

Ok, I wanna tell a story. There is a planet earth.
Its a rock and if you look at the solar system, its really really small compared to Jupiter. So if Jupiter is a huge ball, our earth is a tiny little speck!
And now we look at the Sun. The magnificent, glorious huge humongous ball of fire, and compared to that! our Jupiter is a tiny speck! Haha...
Proceeding, we have our Sun surrounded by milllions and zillions of stars, some bigger or smaller, all kinds! So our Galaxy which holds all these zillions of balls of hydrogen, compared with that! Our dear old Sun is a tiny speck!
These galaxies spread out in the whole huge wide universe, can form HUGE clusters and these cluster can form superclusters and there are millions of galaxies...
"Hmmmmm....uh-uh, Ok now you have me lost me, sorry cant believe it anymore! You are making up stories... !"

That was the reaction some kids had by the end of this story I told them :-)
Well, thats how the universe is! Unbelievable!

Moon and Jupiter

So today, the 29th of September 2009, I saw the moon and Jupiter pretty close to each other. Though the sight of moon and a planet seeming close to each other is something that happens at least 3-4 times a month, this was significant because it was I who saw it. :)

The thing that I observed the most was how much the moon had moved over a day. If im not mistaken, in a day the moon travels about 7 to 8 degrees each day. If you were to look at the moon and forward / rewind the time by 24 hours, you'll have to nearly tilt your head a little bit to get your glance back on the moon.

The sky looks so calm and motionless, yet there are things like our little moon running around in circles like the ball on roulette. No matter what, there's always something amazing to look at in the night sky!

Saturn the 4 parts of the sky

Saturn can now be seen in Leo... Just under the triangular part at the lion's rear end. This is a nice thing to look at. After a few months this will be the only thing worth looking at in the sky if you don't have a 5" reflector. Perhaps even with that. Right now we see lots of stars in the sky because we can see the ring of milky way beyond the stars in Orion. Awesome constellation. After a few months, the sun will enter taurus and then gemini hiding the light of these stars in 'more' light.

I usually split the sky into 4 parts:
The Interesting part: far side of the milky way part with Orion as the outstanding constellation.
The somewhat empty part: The space beyond leo when we're looking at a direction perpendicular to the disk of the milky way (away from andromeda)
The really interesting part: The region beyond the summer triangle (Cygnus, Lyra, Aquilla) in the north extending all the way down to scorpious and saggitarius where we look at the thick of the milky way (right at the center.. wooot)
The hmmm part: the region beyond pegasus and all that where we look at the other direction perpendicular to the disk of the milkyway and oh we see M31 [Must be seen with a 5" reflector]

I saw a shooting star the day before. It had been almost an year since I saw one...

Charms of the sky...

The alignment Jupiter, Venus and Moon had on Dec 1st ! (courtesy APOD, over Los Angeles)

The night sky smiled over across the earth. Indian sky was a better picture with the objects being closer. I felt bad that i don't own an SLR (now thats a gift idea for anyone who wants to buy me one ;-)

Did you see it ?

On the radio...

The big bang happened 14 billion years ago and then 9.5 billions years later the sun was born out of some supernova remnant (a hypothesis) and then Galileo looked up at the sky with his telescope 100 years back (whose anniversary is being celebrated next year, 2009, as International Astronomical Year). I read all that in the science text approximately a decade back and it made as much impression as the everyday newspaper or less.

Some months back I joined an astronomy/astrophysics course just to satisfy my astro-instinct developed over years by pointless star-gazing on romantically lonely nights. Come September, my 24th birthday was blessed providentially with a telescope in my hands. Subsequently, the 127 mm reflector was turned up around 60 deg alt to view the planet Jupiter and its moons (4 of 'em), all in a line next to each other, trudging along in the constant revolution ruled by Kepler's laws. Was it a sight ! It was the most elegant and most emphatic proof of science for me. Like Ellie Arroway says, "I was hooked".

A trip to GauriBidanur Radio Heliograph (GRH) was made as part of the curriculum. Ramesh Sir (IIA) unfolded the electronics behind the radio telescope, an eye for the invisible data from extra-terrestrials (stars and aliens all alike), I was definitely paying attention. A subsequent trip for 3 days followed the former, to dig out more details of the array of antennas.
Here's the GRH over kilometers, with over 192 antennas ...

Cool things in the night sky (with a 5" reflector)

I once had this list of cool things I wanted to look at in the night sky. Made that list somewhere in early 2002... But I never got a chance to make use of that list as I didn't have a telescope then, and now that I have a telescope (a bad one) I don't have the list (As per Murphy's law).

Anyway... Here are somethings I remember:

1. The great nebula [M4..]
The only nebula that can be seen from the naked eye, and much better with a 5" reflector.

2. The pleides
The star cluster can be seen as a huge colection of stars when seen through a telescope. The starts look kinda bluish and very twinkly. ("twinkly" sounds funny)

3. The Haydes
Bunch of dying red giants all scattered apart at the head of Taurus. Aldebran the bright star is not a part of the constellation its somewhere between Earth and the reg stars cluster.

4. The milky way stretch between Sagitarius and Sagitta.
Seen as a nice hazy patch from the neked eye and seen as million specks of far off stars from a telescope. You'll be looking straight at the center of your galazy when you're looking in that direction... Can spot any of them block holes?

5. The milky way stetch parallel to the longer line of Cygnus
Another thick part of the milky way that looks... milky

6. Castor (Gemini)
A binary of binaries ball dancing with each other and another binary orbiting the binary of binaries... (Does it sound like 001010001010100101101101101101001001? )

That's pretty much all that's popping out of my head right now. Another thing I wanted to observe was Mira in Cetus which is an irregular star the cause for its irregularity unknown. Its quite easy to spot in the southern sky with the long and irriting to trace Cetus. (Hmmm... I don't know if the constellation Mira is in is Cetus or Hydra. I'll edit this post if I was wrong). One of the few stars with a thick yellowish tinge. Its not something to see one and be happy about but rather something you keep looking at everyday until you are lucky enough to spot a change in magnitude by yourself. That's what amateur astronomers do. And what do you know... if you were the first person to actually see a change in the magnitude of Mira, you'll ba famous... and it could change anytime now, or in the next few hundred years.

There was another dim star in Scorpius which has a nice tint of green in its twinkle. Looks nice. And also Polaris... a binary of a bright and a dim star with a rather small period of revolution about each other. As polaris is always visible, you could just compare the magniture of it with some neighbouring star everyday...

That all folks... (Remember the looney toons music at this point)

Not funny..

Hey,
I have a very deep feeling that the feelings this blog convey have nothing to do with funny... There are 2 posts, one is an intro to the blog, other on rubiks cube, but no one knows who jackie and katie are, nor who nemo and dory are... plus the rubiks cube can induce an expression on the face similar to the one when dividing 2349764 by 5678 (ref : Friends) but not remotely to do with humour (exception: super geeks). Pluto not being planet is not funny Shishir, people are dying !
Also your name (Stargazzer) is something i want as to be my name, 'cause i recently joined astronomy classes where serious business of stars is discussed on a perfect sunday afternoon... To which the only conclusion can be that "Life is like that", which by the way is a column in Readers Digest, who by the way are struggling to keep up their sales by conducting lottery of all the things, which one of the "Aureliano"s in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "100 years of Solitude" liked about his mistress and left his wife for, who was a prude and did not allow the family of the Buendias to live like animals... Whats actually funny is that we, who are jobless enough to write all this think that it could be funny and print it all under a blog named "Something Funny" !
Funny Huh ?!
:-P

P.S: I have posted the blog in "Verdana" font style, apparently "Times New Roman" is out of date, no matter if its a blog, letter or you resume. Be careful...!

The rubik's puzzle

The Rubik's cube was apparently created by a Hungaian sculptor. He must have been a total genius or absolutely jobless. Anyways, he came up with this puzzle and it became famous in the US in the 1970s. Later it spread all around the world and is still one of the most intreguing puzzles to solve. Nowadays there are several new puzzles that've made their way to day to day talk like sudoko and stuff, but Rubik's cube stll rules.

I recently solved the rubik's cube. I started with a standard 3x3 cube and I hate to admit this but I didn't do it all by myself. By biggest help was Will Smith in "The pursuit of happYness". Great movie. It was not the thing he told about the center not moving but when he tries to solve Christophe's cube. I noticed that he goes about solving the cube layer by layer. The director's must have had a hard time tryng to teach him that. Then when he actually solves it in the car he does the same layer by later thing.

So to brief you on solving this, I'll give an overview of the basic steps you must take to solve the cube.
Note: This will not help you solve it but it'll only guide you towards the solution.

Step 0:
Observe he center pieces. These never move. While solving a cube, try to ensure the cube is oriented the way you want it. For example if the white center piece is at the top and the blue center piece is towards you, keep it that way. This way you'll have a point of reerece.


Step 1:
Make a cross on the top. Suppose you're solvin the white side, make a white cross on the top (assuming you have th white center piec oriented at the top). Here you have to be careful of the color policy.
Color policy: If you are looking at two adjacent sides, say white and blue (according to the center pieces), there will be only once piece in the middle of the edge that will fit here. That is the one with white and blue on adjacent sides.

Step 2:
Once you have the cross on the top, move the corner pieces of the top side color to the place they fit in. Use the color policy here too.

Step 3: Solving the middle layer
For simplicity, just turn the cube around to get the solved first layer at the bottom. Now the solved layer is at the bottom. Identify the pieces that go in the second layer. They will now be either in the second layer (middle layer) or the top layer.
[Complete procedure not shown as Pallavi is still stuck in this layer :) .. and she wants to find the procedure herself]

Step 4: The top cross
Now that you're at the top layer, aligning the cross over here is different from the procedure used for the botton cross. You should now observe that all the pieces that need to be in this layer are already there. You just have to align them properly. If you've solved the two layers properly, you'll start the third face in 4 possible combinations, based on the position of the middle pieces on each top face's edge:

Case 1: No other pieces of the same color
Case 2: One piece of the same color
Case 3: Two pieces of the same color on opposide edges
Case 4: Two pieces of the same color on adjacent edges



You have to use only one move to solve all these thigs, but with varying number of repetitions. (Min 1, Max 3)

The moves are:
1. Move the front face clockwise (The top-front edge's middle piece is right front edge's middle piece
2. Move the right face clock clockwise (The previous peice now aligns with the top center color)
3. Move the top face clockwise (Put the original peice, now oriented back in its place and prepare to get the peice moved to the back in the second step back to its place)
4. Move the right face anticlockwise (Put the peice moved to the back in the second step back in its place)
5. Move the top face antickockwise (Align to put the front edge middle piece back in its place)
6. Move the front face anticlockwise (Bottom face back in its solved state, and the top face in a more solved state)

Now, Here's the most important thing - The same steps can be followed for all the cases I listed above, but you should hold the cube such that the top face looks just as it is shown in the pictures. ie., if you look down on the top side you should see pieces of the same color in one of those formations.

I recently joing a 'Cubing' community and found out that there are 'standard' notation for doing this! The notations are:

F R U R' U' F'

(Hmm... These notations do make things easy. I'll use these from now on instead of the big descriptions)

Now you have a cross at the top, but the cross may not match with the colors on the other edges. Fixing this is the next step. If you started the top face with a cross already, go directly to the next step (duh!).

Aligning the cross properly
Magic of rubik's cube: If you just twist the top face around a little bit, you'll see that there are atleast two pieces that align with the color on the adjacent sides. Based on this there are two cases:

Case 1: Aligning pieces are on opposite sides
Case 2: Aligning pieces are on adjacent sides

For case 1, hold the aligning pieces such that they are at the right and left edges.
Then do the following: R T R' T R T T R' T T
Now your alignment is as described in case 2.
For case 2, hold the aligning pieces suck that they are at the back and right edges.
Then do the following: R T R' T R T T R' T

Ta da!!!

Now for the theory behind this: When you're holding the cube right, just imagine that the back middle piece on the right face is yourworking piece. The moves you'll do will put the solved piece there so that an unsolved piece can be brought back to the right edge's middle place on the top face. You do this twice to get each unsolved piece in its place.

I know its a bit confusing to understand when i say right top middle piece and left back top piece and stuff... But just try to understand. Phrasing those properly is a pain. And Im very lazy to do a proof check. :)

Step 6: Solving the edge pieces
Here's something that's easy to see but hard to explain. Compare the colors on the three sides of each unsolved edge piece. Find a piece whose colors match the color of the three adjacent sides. Suppose the colors on the edge piece were Yellow, Blue and Orange, then it should be Yellow, Blue and Orange center pieces (Remember: center pieces decide the color of the face) adjacent to this corner piece. BUT, the piece need not be oriented properly. Only the three colors must be the same, but colors need not align. (Got it? Hope so...)

Hold the cube such that this piece is at the bottom right corner of the top face.

Now, do this: T R T' L T R' T' L'
(This move is actually fun to do)

The piece that you first started with (bottom left corner on the top face) Is back in its place. Repeat till all the edge piece's color match with the adjacent 3 side's color. If you were able to do this, you're ready for the finale!

MAGIC NUMBER 6

For each unsolved piece that is at the top face's bottom left corner, do this:

R' D' R D

Once it aligns with the colors of the adjacent sides, just turn the top layer to get another unslved piece at the same location of the piece that was just solved. repeat. Don't wory about the other edges and faces.

The R' D' R D will be repeated either 6 or 12 times. And (again...) Ta da!!! the cube is solved!

Just for fun
If you solved the cube, do the R' D' R D 6 times. The cube gets back in its original form.