Earthshine, City Aurora and The UFO Show

People I'm loving this camera, in the last 3 months I've taken over 3,000 shots, given me something to do while my scopes are out of commission due to the cold weather, kept me off the street, not like I've ever been on the street, but if I ever was on the street, I'd be off the street now baby. I took the above image of the Moon during it's last crescent phase to show off its Earthshine which is Sunlight reflected off the Earth back onto the Moon's dark phase, to give the Moon an aspen glow.

The interesting thing about the above picture is I wasn't trying to image the aurora, I was trying to image the Genesis 1 satellite that was going to be passing by at that time at that altitude, in fact the aurora wasn't even visible, but after a 30 second exposure at ISO of 3200 the coolest thing happened, the aurora showed up, right over the city, reminds me of how in space shows when a spacecraft attacks another and for an instant the shield of the attacked spacecraft lights up, well we are under attack by all kinds of cosmic rays and the solar wind, and we have our Magnetosphere to protect us and it's lighting up says, hey I'm working.

There was a science fiction show called UFO that ran from 1970-1973, it was set in the 80's and it was basically about aliens trying to capture and kill humans for their body parts, to foil the aliens there was a top secret organization called SHADO, Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation. I just got my DVD megaset in the mail. This show was so cool for so many reasons, especially for someone my age at the time, it had UFOs, aliens, air battles, oh and the Moon girls had purple hair, and English accents. Another thing, I loved the fact that whenever the pilots go off to battle the aliens, they slide down a ramp to get into their spacecraft, very awesome.

I was lucky enough to find on You Tube a video of the 1 minute intro to the show, yep this is the kind of stuff I watch.

Remember to do your part for Earth Hour tonight March 29 8 pm-9 pm, just turn off a light, a computer, tv just for the hour, we as individuals can make a difference to retard the effects of global warming. I'll be out weather permitting to see the difference in the amount of stars I can see as our city will be turning off non-essential lights between 8 pm and 9 pm.

The UFO Hunter's Handbook

Last year for Christmas my wife, Cathy, bought me The UFO Hunter's Handbook as a stocking stuffer. What an excellent find, everything you'd want to know about searching for a UFO in one handbook, and it's small enough to carry discretely in your pocket because you just never know when you might need it.

Our family is made up of two camps, there is my daughter Lindsay and I who believe in aliens, then there is my oldest daughter Amanda and Cathy who think we are alien, I mean aliens. My youngest daughter and I both have the paranormal gene, we both believe in UFO's and ghosts and like watching the same kind of horror and UFO shows, I remember one particular show we were watching, it was about aliens building the pyramids, at one point during the show we turned to each other and we knew, we knew it was true, aliens did build the pyramids, but more importantly, we needed more popcorn.

Anyways back to the book. There is some wild and wacky stuff in this book but there is also some useful pointers as well, for example, I took a picture of one of the chapters called "What To Do If You See a UFO", it states, " take careful enough notes," as you can see they lost something in the translation from the original Arabic scrolls, but they get the point across take lots of notes, for example, did it zoom or did it hover. They say that after going through your notes you may figure out that what you saw was actually a weather balloon or shooting star which would make it an "IFO "or "Identified Flying Object", which is what your not looking for. One of the crazy sections Is called "Up Close And Personal", where it has drawings of green aliens, I mean really, I think I know what an alien looks like, and they're not all green. Another crazy chapter is "Are You-Or Is Someone You Know-An Alien?", I think I would know if I was an alien, but it did bring up one point that made me think, One of the signs that you may be an alien is "Do you sometimes feel as though no one really understands you?" Oh well at least I don't have scaly skin, which was another sign. The book then gets into how you should defend yourself, basically, if your in front of an alien , just say NO, be forceful and stern, if that doesn't work, get a cat, apparently aliens are afraid of cats. The last chapter deals with reporting the incident, they make a point of telling you not to go to the tabloids, and gives the reader the "National UFO Reporting Center" phone number as well as the "Mutual UFO Network" number. The back cover of the handbook doubles as your official UFO hunter's ID card. Over all a good read and something any self respecting UFO hunter should have.

E.T. phone home

Do your part, use your pc for the search for aliens. http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/