Bye, Bye ISON!!! Rest In Peace!

Comet ISON is history now! Sadly, ISON didn't survive the Perihelion on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28th).
Please refer my previous post about ISON  here .

Just like thousands of people, I was disappointed by the demise of Comet ISON.  Comets are remnants of the Solar System's formation that  happened 4.5 billion years ago. This is believed to be ISON's  first visit to the Sun and also happened to be the last. ISON went too close to the Sun and has been smoked by our star.

In recent history, ISON has been the most observed comet. It generated a lot of interest among the scientific and amateur astronomy communities. On the day ISON was flying around the Sun (Nov. 28, Perihelion), I was watching the updates on Twitter. NASA had organized a Google+ hangout for ISON updates and around 32,000 interested folks participated from all over the world.


NASA had directed 2 of its Sun studying satellites SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) and SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) to track ISON's journey around the Sun. The following Photo and Video are possible because of these 2 satellites.

Courtesy: spaceweathergallery.com
The yellow circle shows the remnants of ISON.

"Not-to-be-missed", time-lapse video of ISON going around the Sun. Watch it in "full screen" mode.

I am turning my attention to the next Comet coming up - Comet Lovejoy!!! They don't name comets just like they do for the storms :)  Terry LoveJoy, an Amateur Astronomer from Australia discovered this comet and so it has been named after him.

As I always say, on every night, the Universe is putting on an excellent show. All you have to do is look up and enjoy :)

@Night: Chasing ISON !!!

Right from the beginning of this year, there is a lot of hype about Comet ISON. I was patiently waiting for October (when the comet eventually arrives closer to Mars)  for a chance to view and photograph ISON. ISON is approaching the Sun rapidly. It is just travelling at 150,000 miles per hour now and is expected to reach an astonishing ~425,000 miles per hour as it whips around the Sun on November 28th (perihelion).

Since mid-October, at least few times a week, I have been waking up around 4:30. If it turns out to be cloudy, I go right back to sleep.  If not, I step out to the backyard or front yard,  use the star maps and my Binoculars to capture ISON. The problem with doing this from home is the light pollution caused by the street lights.  Now I have started going to couple of dark locations within 30 minutes from home where there is no light pollution.

I was able to take some photos but I really want to lower your expectation. ISON is not very bright yet and barely visible to the naked eye. In these photos,  ISON has a slight greenish tinge and the red arrow points to ISON.

October 16th, Wednesday, 4:30 AM.
On October 16th, Mars(middle), Regulus(right) and ISON aligned up in a straight line.
As I was taking this photo from the backyard, a bright meteor streaked through the sky and
drew a line between Mars and ISON.
I took it as a gift from the Universe for looking up the sky in awe and wonder :) 

November 17th, Sunday, 4:59 AM.
After a month of chasing ISON, I think it is slowly getting brighter.
Through Binoculars, the distinct green tinge was clearly visible.
The star below ISON is Spica.

November 17th, Sunday, 4:59 AM.
This is a cropped close up of the previous photo.

This is a Sun-grazing comet and one of 2 things will happen:
              1) ISON survives the perihelion on Nov. 28th and brightens up.
              2) ISON breaks up due to the gravitational pull of the Sun.

I am hoping for 1).

The famous comet hunter David H. Levy once said: “Comets are like cats: they have tails, and they do precisely what they want.”

If ISON is alive after November 28th, I should be able to watch its return, back to the outer space all the way in to late January, 2014.

My Own Miramar Air Show !

One of the iconic, annual San Diego events is the Miramar Air Show. The Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) is located in Miramar, which is very close to the Qualcomm campus. For the last 6 years, around October 1st week, some time during the afternoon, I step out on the 11th floor balcony of my office building to watch the Miramar Air Show.

Thanks to the US Government shutdown, this year the Miramar Air show was cancelled. Many San Diegans are angry and upset over the cancellation of the Air Show!

I took these photos last year and never posted them. Here is my own Miramar Air Show!!!

Balcony from where I took these photos on October 2012.

C-130 Cargo plane, fondly nicknamed as the "Fat Albert".

Blue Angels (F/A-18 Hornet) flying in very close formation over the beautiful San Diego mountains!

The pyramid is a furniture shopping complex.

These 2 Blue Angels buzzed right over my head !!!

Beautiful Bath !!!

One of the many reasons I enjoy traveling is, invariably I end up learning at least a teeny bit of the history and the culture of the place and the country I visit.  On the short 3 days trip to UK (on the way to India), we spent a day visiting Stonehenge and Bath. I was surprised to know that Bath is a Roman town!!! Built in the 7th century, the Bath Abbey stands majestically at the center of the town. The Abbey has a long history, had been rebuilt few times and displays some very unique architectural features. 

Bath Abbey

The Abbey: Take a closer look. On either side of the entrance, angles climb the Jacob's Ladder!

Angels climbing the Jacob's Ladder. I have heard the phrase Jacob's Ladder many times!
There is a movie by that name, a toy and even a flower.
Though it is a biblical reference, this is the first time I am seeing it built like this.

The Abbey's Nave.

The ceiling of the Bath Abbey is very unique with its fan-like structure. I thought it is for aesthetics but learned that it is an architecture to support heavy ceilings.

 Closeup of the Fan ceiling.

                                    
It was fascinating to learn that Julius Cesar had invaded Britain twice and the Romans had occupied Britain from 43 AD until 410 AD. Once the Romans found out about the natural hot springs in the area, they built a bath house around it. The Bath house building has a museum and many artifacts from the Roman era.

Roman Bath House.

Bath is also the town where the famous author Jane Austen lived. Some of her novels feature Bath and its famous land marks. There is a Jane Austen Center and Museum located within 5 minutes of walking from the Abbey. A bunch of ladies dressed up as Jane Austen characters were crossing the street. As I waved at them with my camera in my hand, they stopped and posed for this shot :)















With the Abbey on one side, the Roman Bath house on the other and surrounded by cafes, restaurants, and shops, the Town Square is the perfect place to take a break, have an ice cream and watch people.

Live music and singing at the Town Square!

The Pulteney Bridge across the Avon river in Bath.

This bridge reminded me of the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge in  Florence, Italy. You can see a photo of the Ponte Vecchio bridge in this post. Just 90 miles west, Bath is a very unique town, steeped in history and provided a refreshing break from the hustle and bustle of London.

@Night: Idyllwild

Idyllwild is a quaint, little mountain town less than 2 hours drive north of San Diego. Located in the San Bernardino National Forest at an elevation of around 6000 feet, Idyllwild offers the perfect getaway for one and all. Idyllwild boasts a nice creek running through the town, many hiking trails, art galleries and excellent restaurants for foodies.

For 2 days during the Labor day weekend, I enjoyed the pristine Idyllwild night skies. There was absolutely no light pollution and millions of stars were winking back at me. For the first time ever, I was able to see the Milky Way with my naked eyes :).

Of course, my camera saw better than me!  Enjoy these photos in full screen mode.

Bridge over the tall Pines!!!
The Summer Triangle, Brocchi's cluster, the Scutum Star Cloud, Messier 24, Delphinus and many other constellations
are visible in this single frame.  When you look at the right side bottom corner of this photo,
you are looking towards the center of our Galaxy.

The "Great Rift" of the milky Way is visible at the center of this shot.

Mysterious Stonehenge !!!

Is it a burial site, a place of worship, a healing site, an astronomy calendar to keep track of the Sun and the Moon or an alien landing site ???  Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, located in Wiltshire county, 90 miles west of London, Stonehenge draws millions of visitors from all over the world, every year. 

The stones in Stonehenge are arranged in 2 concentric circles  and 2 horseshoe shapes. The outermost  circle of stones is usually visible in all the ground level photos. The stones used are called Sarsen stones and Bluestones ranging in height from 13 feet to 24 feet, weighing from 25 tons to 50 tons. The stones are believed to have been transported from quarries 50 to 100 miles away. 

Information Brochure from "English Heritage", an organization which maintains the Stonehenge.

The larger outer circle is made up of  2 stone pillars and a lintel on the top.

Stonehenge has created lot of interest among archaeologists. Surrounding the Stonehenge many burial sites have been unearthed. In addition, Stonehenge is aligned with the exact direction of the Midsummer Sunrise and mid winter Sunset. Here are some funny interpretations of the Stonehenge:

Aliens visiting ???

One theory on how the Stonehenge might have been built :))

We may never learn the actual reason the Stonehenge was built and who built it. How did the builders move 50 ton stones from 100 miles away? With our recent (200 years of) advances in engineering and technology, we tend to think that our ancestors were incapable of building such super structures (like the Stonehenge, Machu Picchu,  the Easter Island statues and many ancient temples in India) and try to come up with theories on how they could have completed such engineering marvels. I think this is a mistake :) I am slowly but surely starting to believe that many cultures around the world were much more advanced in knowledge than we are today!!! 

Inferno !!!

Dan Brown, the master of "Symbolism" has written yet another scorching thriller, "Inferno".

Even though I absolutely enjoy his novels, I had always felt that Dan Brown has a formula:

• use one of the Italian cities as the backdrop for the story
• weave in in a famous Italian artist/painter and his paintings 
• come up with clever symbols and hidden meanings associated with these symbols
• add a villain out to do something really bad 
• throw in a beautiful female character as the heroine 
• of course, the hero, the Harvard Professor, Robert Langdon - who lives in Boston :)
• add some thrilling escapes through secret tunnels

This formula looks very simple and can become boring if repeated many times. Having read his previous bestsellers, "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" (which fit in to the above formula very well), I thought this novel may not be that interesting!!!

Dan Brown has proved me wrong and has cleverly spun a tale that hooks in the reader with plenty of twists and turns. I completed the big-size, 480 pages novel within 4 days. I simply can't put the book down.

The story starts in Florence, Italy and then moves to Venice, the 2 cities we absolutely enjoyed during our 2006 Europe trip.  The fact that we had visited the places and enjoyed the paintings in the story made me personally part of the story. Thanks to Dan Brown, as I was reading the novel, I pulled out the Florence and Venice photos and was referring to them.

In his first book, "The Da Vinci Code", of course, the associated artist was Leonardo Da Vinci. In this book it is the Italian Poet "Dante Alighieri, more famously known as Dante.  In Italian language, "Inferno" means "Hell" and is the first part of a 3 part poem in Dante's work "The Divine Comedy".

Hoping that you would read the book, I am not going to give away the story. Instead, I have included the photos I took in Florence and Venice, of places and paintings that play an important role in this novel.

Florence: "The Duomo", the one place no tourist to Florence would want to miss

Florence: The Duomo, The Tower and the octagon shaped Baptistery where a major breakthrough happens in the novel. 

Florence: The golden doors of the Baptistery. Something unthinkable happens at this door in the novel !!!

Florence: Vasari's fresco, "The Last Judgement" (started painting in 1568), inside the dome of the "The Duomo". 

Florence: The famous painting, "Purgatory, hell and Paradise" in side the Duomo.
Dante, with his poem "The Divine Comedy". His famous description of the hell is on the left side and
the city of Florence is on the right side.

Florence: Palazzo Vecchio (opened in 1299) at Piazza Della Signoria. Action packed part of the novel happens inside.

Florence: The entrance of Palazzo Vecchio  with a replica of Michelangelo's famous
David (of David & Goliath) statue on the left side.

Florence: The Ponte Vecchio bridge with Vasari's Corridor on the top! 

Venice: The Grand Canal

Venice: The historic and beautiful, Rialto bridge (earlier version built in 1181 and the current built in 1591)
over the Grand Canal.

Venice: Basilica at Piazza San Marco.

Venice: Close up view of the Basilica entrance. The horse statues at the top are part of  the symbolic clue in the novel!

Venice: Masks in a mask shop. The novel revolves around Dante's mask!!!

Thanks to Dan Brown, this novel has rekindled my passion and desire to visit Italy, again!!! The novel's climax happens in Istanbul, Turkey, making me wanting to visit Turkey too :))