Near and Far

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team, Veil Nebula, the debris of one of the best-known supernova remnants

TAKING AIM: Exciting news from the Hubble Telescope Facebook feed today. "Always wanted to be an astrophotographer?" it asked.  

Why yes, please!

Fortunately, it's easy to become an astrophotographer for a day. Specifically, on Monday, October 19, when the White House is hosting White House Astronomy Night. Participants need not be in DC or own a telescope to participate. 

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, in collaboration with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, invite the public to use the online MicroObservatory Network to capture space images through a network of telescopes via the Internet.

Per the Hubble post, once people download an image, they can use free image-processing software to enhance and colorize it "just like professional astronomers do."

Afterwards, users can try to find an image of the same space object they've taken and compare it to one taken by one of NASA’s space telescopes. 

More information is available at http://mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu/OWN/news.html

PARKING: While making our rounds today, we happened to drive by a pocket sized park we'd never seen before. Of course we stopped, if just for four minutes. 

It looked so inviting, how could we not stop?!

CJ provides a few more details of our short visit. 

On October 14th, 2015, we went to the Ballard Corners Park, a park that, according to the park's website, is located on two lots between NW 62nd and 63rd streets along the west side of 17 Ave NW.

One particular thing we noticed about this park when we drove by it is the juxtaposition of a chair, sofa, and lamp (all of which are hard and fake) against the outdoor environment of the park. According to the City of Seattle official website, the Ballard Corners Park construction went through three phases. "Phase One" was completed in October of 2008, "Phase Two" was completed in 2009, and "Phase Three" was completed in Fall of 2009. According to the City of Seattle's website, the "living room" art installation, or the one with the couch and lamp, was made during the second phase. According to the website, the art installation was created by Nathan Arnold.

Annabelle weighs in, as well ... 

Ballard Corners Park started construction in 2008. It is dedicated to the corner stores of (old) Ballard. According to a PDF from ballardcornerspark.org, the land was originally a house, and was conceived as land for a park in 1996. There is a small display with two columns that have some history of the area, along with a small counter with spinning stools. The construction of the park was divided into three parts. Part 1 was comprised of constructing the portion of the park inside the sidewalks. Part 2 was creating the sidewalks and the stone furniture in the corner, which was built by Nathan Arnold. Part 3 was the “corner store” where the stools and columns were. The park certainly has an interesting history and it was fun to learn about it. Who knew such a small park could have such a story?

MORE ON MARS:  We're fresh from seeing "The Martian," and today discovered more NASA resources that a great movie tie-in.

For instance, there's the "Mars Survival Kit," a Web page that features Surviving and Thriving on Mars Activities (Grades K-5) . There, young explorers can take a trip to Mars with fun activities that share NASA’s journey to the Red Planet. Mars for Kids, targeted for grades 3-5, has games, crafts and exploration projects; Red Planet Read, Write and Explore incorporates science into elementary school literacy activities); NASA Imagine Mars challenges students to design a sustainable community, considering criteria and constraints in an engineering and design process. A Make Your Own Mars Rover activity encourages people to build their own rover with materials found around most any household (paper tubes, cardboard boxes, chop sticks, craft sticks, foil, and so on). And the Gaining Traction on Mars challenge is about building a better wheel. Check out its promo ...

https://youtu.be/4ug-e4QIPEE