Posts Tagged Light Pollution

Reflecting the Stars Splashes Constellations on the Hudson

Posted by on Friday, 2 September, 2011

New York City’s light pollution leaves the stars invisible to the unassisted eye, making the city feel “like living in a low-ceilinged room,” according to artist Jon Morris.

In response, the Brooklyn transplant created Reflecting the Stars, an art installation that re-creates constellations on the surface of the Hudson River. The display, unveiled earlier this week …



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You Can Help Map the World’s Light Pollution [Environment]

Posted by on Wednesday, 23 March, 2011

A Guide To Swap Your Wiper Blades This Summer.

Posted by on Sunday, 20 June, 2010

When navigating the country’s road network it is commonly so unsophisticated to abandon about the wonder of mechanics in which you are moving, take a second to truly absorb the generations of academic discipline that has gone into constructing your vehicle. Just the commonest part of this accordant whole is quite shocking, take for instance your common wiper blades, this component individually has under gone one hundred years of developement to its current point. The United Kingdom is one of the rainiest countries in Europe so it is a great thing too we have this wiper blades science accessible to us, it so crucial it has even made its way into law. Getting pulled over by the police without active wiper blades could get you a huge fine, if you are involved in a traffic accident without good wiper blades your car could be deemed unfit for the road. This could result in prosecution and even jail time in some events even your insurance company could refuse to pay out on the grounds of bad wiper blades so it is vital you replace your wiper blades often.

The thing with this arrangement is that the windscreen wipers is made of a substance called rubber which itself does not go well to water, ultraviolet light or pollution. This issue is accelerated by the fact that windscreen wipers will inevitably meet precisely these kinds of things in its day to day life, the once maleable and flexible rubber windscreen wipers leading apogee become hard and brittle. The cracks which form provide an entry way for water and other liquids to flow inside and chance to destroy the windscreen wipers from the inside out. Temperature is of course another factor important the rate of wear; rubber suffers from susceptibility to both high and low temperature points both during the summer and the winter. This cycle of hot and cold is all at once destructive, in the summer the windscreen wipers becomes too malleable and too flexible, and in the winter the reverse is true the windscreen wipers becomes rigid and rigid, unable to contact the wind screen cogently.

People in the United Kingdom should try and get their replacement replacement wiper blades at once every six month ideally doing some investigating before hand in order to determine which ones are best for your transport. It’s crucial to know the correct size of replacement wiper blades you require before getting them in the garage or online. This usually signifies the length in inches and is usually written in the car’s owners manual, it’s important to check as some cars have different sizes for both the driver and passenger sides of the vehicle. Now should you buy just the rubber refills or the entire equipment, well it’s my suggestion to purchase the whole assembly as this part is usually responsible for that vibration you hear when driving at high speeds. In order to release the rubber replacement wiper blades from its accommodation there should be two tabs to press on the underside releasing the replacement wiper blades from its base. A final note is that you should also arrange you have a clean wind screen as any residue or grease on there could cause problems.


Worldwide Telescope: Using a Telescope – For Novices as well as Amateur Astronomers

Posted by on Tuesday, 4 May, 2010

If you’re a beginner or perhaps amateur astronomer, you may be curious in studying this article. Telescopes can be quite challenging to use if you’re not familiar with what you are carrying out. You should take a moment to look at this info, it should prove to become fairly helpful as you make your foray into astronomy. Check out schmidt cassegrain telescope.

Light Pollution

The very first thing to consider is light pollution. When you live in a large city with a lot of lights, you might have a hard time seeing things through your telescope. This is not usually accurate, because some of our local planets as well as the moon can be seen with the naked eye, an individual only have to know where to look. In the event that there are more rural places for you to travel to without much inconvenience, take into account jumping in the car and taking a brief drive.

Obstructions

When you live in a mountainous location, or even when there are high buildings in your way, this could also keep an individual from viewing objects with your telescope. If mountains are troubling you, think about going for a road to some higher place on the mountain, or to the top if possible.

Comfort

Look for a good, level location to set your telescope up. With the electronic view-finding telescopes of today, having a level setting will help your telescope find objects more effectively. This can furthermore help prevent your telescope from enduring any accidents. Furthermore, bring meals as well as drinks. You may spend several hours exploring the stars, therefore you might as well enjoy. Bring seats as well as music (a tailgate and a automobile stereo system could also work).

Setting Up

Before you leave the house to explore the sky, set your telescope up in your own home. Be sure you understand all the components. Your telescope should have directions with it, and depending on its design, you will have to properly set it up. Make certain all your eye pieces and also lenses are accounted for. In the event that it’s got an electronic view-finder, ensure that it’s got battery.

Finding Objects

Using your user guide, you shouldn’t have any issues setting your telescope up. Now we move on to the fun part.

If your telescope has an automatic view-finder, then you will probably need to calibrate it. Every view-finder could have a different process for calibration (use your own instruction manual, or stick to instructions to complete this). It may request you to manually find a couple of targets in the sky (easy ones, such as the North Star, or a planet). As soon as your telescope is correctly calibrated, you should be on auto-pilot from now on, however you may have to adjust the focus. To change the focus of what you are viewing, you will need to turn the controls that is integrated in to your eyepiece. Get it done gradually as well as methodically.

With regard to telescopes with manual view-finders, you could have a far more difficult time finding certain objects in the sky. In my opinion, manual location is much more fun. You will turn out to be a lot more knowledgeable about constellations and you can even impress your pals by being able to indicate locations of certain constellations using the human eye alone!

That’s just about all you have to to complete. Take your time and do not get disappointed if you are having difficulties. Always keep your owner’s manual nearby. Not all telescopes are alike and you may need to refer to your own guide with regard to help with certain tasks of making use of your telescope.

If you are looking for that perfect telescope for you, take a look at telescope accessories and simply be blown away!


How To Adopt The Exemplar Winscreen Wipers If You Go Off Road.

Posted by on Tuesday, 13 April, 2010

Four wheeled drive vehicles were made to run off road, not be some pretty status symbol for footballers and celebrities, if you are a committed off road champion its high time you considered your choice of wiper blade and other safety features. There are a whole range of things you can review to make your off road adventure all the more careful and put your mind at ease.

Whether you’re doing it for the blitheness or doing it as part of your job it is decisive to consider the bearing of your activities on yourself and those around you. Tyres are one article, consider the depth of tread you will desire for various terrains, for example, if you’re outward bound into choked desert sand or beach dunes you will need agreeable tyres. It’s no different from wearing the appropriate foot wear when going outside.

On a more mundane note, activities such as dragging a trailer or horse box in the muddy fields will require a deeper tread or what is called mud plugging tyres. If you don’t procure some you demonstrably run the risk of becoming bogged down and in need of a tow. This argument is also analogous to your wiper blade, they are also required to your safe driving adventure yet they are all too often abandoned or taken for granted. Your standard replacement wiper blades design is arranged of rubber or some other synthetic blend, it is also defenseless to poor weather conditions and changes of temperature, not ideal for a product aimed to be used in the elements.

When winter sets in the temperature plummets and the rubber chronically becomes fixed and degraded, in even more extreme climates the rubber can actually crack although destroying the entire structure. Other items also come into play ozone, ultra violet light, pollution, chemicals all turn to the demise of the rubber replacement wiper blades. These things will affect the surface of the rubber and compromise its adeptness to cast off water from the windscreen. Water can then creep deep into the wiper blades interior which then freezes and causes untold abuse to the surface.

During the summer months the temperature rise can also take a toll on the rubber replacement wiper blades, bring to mind how hot the surface of a car can get in the UK, and now imagine how hot this will get in other parts of the world. Even more besetting on off road terrains will be the amount of chips thrown up and confined under the wiper, these may include mud, grit, stones, oil and sand, all this detritus will degrade the leading edge of the wipers through ablation. The fact is that rubber alone is not competent of equiping the best quality replacement wiper blades, even top of the range wipers will only provide mainly half a million cycles in total. This figure does not even take into account the aspects considered above where the life span of rubber wiper blade is considerably curtailed. The answer to this problem is to buy replacement wiper blades made from a substance known as silicone.


Video: Refractor telescope from 1934 still in use at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute

Posted by on Sunday, 31 May, 2009

Derrick Pitts, lead astronomer at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, talks about the telescope used in the Bloom Observatory. The 10-inch refractor telescope has been around since 1934, and was built by Carl Zeiss Jena and shipped over from Germany.

Here’s more from the Franklin Institute’s web site:

The original observatory, opened in 1934, had two telescopes. The 10-inch, f/15 refractor, built by Carl Zeiss Jena, employed the latest optical and engineering techniques available in pre-World War II Germany. The 24-inch reflector telescope, manufactured by J.W. Fecker of Pittsburgh, was a convertible Newtonian/Cassegrain instrument with focal ratios of 14.4 and 7, respectively. The reflector was used for deep-sky observations, including the first recovery sighting of Comet Halley in the fall of 1985. City light pollution eventually rendered it ineffective, and the scope was moved to the Institute’s Space Command exhibit.
Bloom Observatory was renovated in 2006. Nationally-recognized telescope mechanic, Christopher Ray, of Ray Museum Studios and a professor of Mechanical Engineering from Swarthmore College, completely rebuilt the Zeiss refractor, upgrading it with modern PC-controlled DC-servo drives to achieve GO-TO pointing accuracy of better than 0.2 arc-seconds on both axes. The upgrade enables visitors to see not only the only the usual, but also thousands of faint objects (down to about magnitude 13)–despite high levels of ambient light pollution.

Joel N Bloom Observatory [FI.edu]