Travelogue

Mercury, seen in silhouette, makes its way across the face of the Sun, with the Washington Monument in the foreground. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

SUN SHOTS: There are plenty of post-transit photos of Mercury making its way across the face of the sun from yesterday's solar event.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was one of those watching. (The Solar Dynamics Observatory views the sun in a variety of wavelengths of light in the extreme ultraviolet.) It's some pretty cool footage. 


Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein

FASCINATING WINDOW: Today we 'had' to watch an hour-long video about a pair of brothers who traveled to Indonesia and the Spice Islands in the 1970s, videography equipment in tow. It was a course requirement for CJ's World History class.

To be honest, if you'd asked me before today what or where the Spice Islands were, you'd have gotten a blank stare as a response. Now, thanks to the British brothers Blair (Lawrence and Lorne), I know a fair amount about the Indonesian archipelago.  

The Blairs traveled in and around Indonesia for 10 years, documenting their adventures along the way. The recordings turned into "The Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey." In the episode we watched today, the brothers lived with members of the Bugis tribe for months. The Blairs' goal was to follow in the footsteps of the 19th century naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace. 

The Blairs' initial excursion would up turning into a two-decade endeavor of documenting the relationships of Spice Island ecology and telling the stories of their peoples. Some of their work would up as an Emmy-nominated BBC/PBS television series, "Ring of Fire."

Shot with 16mm film in high heat and humidity back in the early 1970s, the photo quality of what we watched today is pretty poor by current standards. However, I found myself quickly 'forgiving' that, in exchange for having a vantage point to places and people most of us will never get to see in person.

We found it interesting when reading the credits that financing for the brothers' efforts was provided, in part, by Ringo Starr.

Apparently a digitally remastered DVD was released in 2003. I'd be curious to see what its video quality is like.

Poking around YouTube, I found a one-hour documentary, "Beyond the Ring of Fire." I listened to and sometimes watched about half of it while posting this blog. It's super interesting.


SPACE SNOOPY: I couldn't help but notice, but in the last couple of years, Snoopy (of Peanuts fame) has had a higher profile. He's popping up everywhere, and often these 'wheres' are off planet, like the moon or Mars.

As it turns out, Peanuts and the space program have a long relationship. Back in 1969, the lunar module and command module  for Apollo 10 were named after Snoopy and Charlie Brown. Also in '69, NASA started an annual Silver Snoopy Award given out to employees for "outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success."

There's a new graphic novel about to come out, "Snoopy: A Beagle of Mars." I checked out some of its pages online today. It looks like lots of fun. It comes out Dec. 18. Hopefully we can check out a copy from a local library.

Meanwhile, a brand new series, "Snoopy in Space," is launching on the new Apple TV+. I don't think we'll have Apple TV+ any time soon, so who knows if we'll ever get to see any of it beyond YouTube trailers.