Greetings from Palmia Observatory
(offsite in Ashdad, Israel)
Well, we have made several earlier
posts, primarily of the vacation kind, with just enough touch of astronomy to
allow its inclusion in this post. You can always take a look at those
posts if you are interested. In the November 13 post, I talked about an
epiphany I had regarding how the Einstein equations of general relativity give
more appropriate interpretation for the doppler shift for the expansion of the
universe. This post is just a quick announcement to be sure to look for
the giant moon tonight and this announcement is made possible because
of the difference in our time zones.
Ok, ok, you already knew about it from Sky and Telescope or other
sources, but I couldn't resist trying to take a photo of it with just my
cellphone.
 |
| Supermoon above cruise ship in Ashdad, Israel (Source: Palmia Observatory) |
Ok, ok, it’s just taken with a
cellphone, but you might take this 10 hour "advance" notice into
account for your planning purposes.
By the way, given that we amateur
astronomers rely on catalogs of positions of celestial objects, did you know
that a database of locations of ships on the Earth is also available? We
were out on our cabin veranda this morning and saw this strange looking ship,
"LSS Success". Wondering what type of ship it was, I googled
the name and found a website that tells all about the ship and its current
location. It turns out it is a livestock transport ship.
 |
| Screenshot showing image of LSS Success Courtesy: www.vesselfinder.com |
Surprisingly, when I inspected the
map, the location of our ship, Viking Sea, was shown right there at the next
peer.
 |
| Screen shot showing current location of LSS Success And surprisingly just across the dock is the cruise ship from which the ship was spotted |
So, for ships at sea, that do not
purposely want to be and remain hidden from view, it is possible to find exactly
where they are located. Pretty neat! It's sort of like astronomy
and astrometry.
Until next time,
Resident Astronomer George
Be sure to check out over 300 other blog posts on similar topics
If you are interested in things astronomical or in astrophysics and cosmology
Check out this blog at www.palmiaobservatory.com
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