Mulholland Drive

Note: I originally intended to this to be a film review of David Lynch's Mulholland drive for Netflix, but it was rejected for being too long so I just posted it here. And, it isn't so much a review as a collection of my thoughts about it. It assumes the reader is familiar with the film as I don't bother discussing cast, crew or a summary of the story line.

I first saw Mulholland Drive in the theater back in 2001. At the time I enjoyed its surreal craziness, but I didn't understand it at all. Thankfully my wife is smarter than I am and she explained it to me at dinner afterwards. Then it clicked with me and I had so see it again so we went back the next weekend with friends. This time around the story made much more sense, but it still seemed that there were a number of extraneous scenes that didn't belong and just seemed like filler.

This past weekend, though, we watched it again on DVD and paused the film frequently to talk ourselves through the story. This time everything fell into place and all those "filler" scenes now made sense and we were able to rationalize how pretty much everything fit nicely into Diane's deteriorating delusions. The more I watched it the more I understood the symbolic elements of the dream sequences.

For me, understanding and really appreciating Mulholland Drive was a multi-step process.

The first time through the film it was difficult to even figure out who's story this was, which is complicated because Betty's name changes to Diane part way through. After that it helped that I was familiar with movies like Jacob's Ladder or An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Then it took a bit of time to figure out the two levels of "reality" within the film; which were "real" and which were delusion. And, finally, the film requires a willingness to examine the dream sequences symbolically rather than literally. For me that's the real beauty and genius of Mulholland Drive. The bumbling hitman, the blue box and key, the demented homeless person living behind the diner; these can't be understood by their literal meaning, but only by asking what they mean to Diane. What do they represent to her?

Once I could answer those questions the film was transformed from something chaotic and confusing into something really very beautiful.

Also I have to say that the scene in the Club Silencio is now one of my favorite movie scenes of all time. It is in this scene in which Diane herself realizes what it happening and her moment of clarity combined with the truly haunting singing of Roy Orbison's "Crying" (in Spanish) sends shivers down my spine every time I see it.

It took some patience and effort, but in the end Mulholland Drive became for me a fairly simple plot with a tight narrative and is a very human tale of love and loss; ambition and failure. It doesn't seem like that at first glance, but that's part of the beauty of it. If it was easy to grasp it wouldn't be as meaningful. But, once you do grasp it, the narrative resonates on both an intellectual and very visceral level. It hits you simultaneously deep in your brain and deep in your heart.

More on Jupiter

I couldn't get back to sleep after writing the last entry. I kept wondering if that extra dot I saw when looking at Jupiter really was Neptune. So, I got up and did some more research. It turns out that was I saw was NOT Neptune. They are not yet close enough together to be in the same field of view. Instead, what I was looking at was Mu Capricorni, a 5.0 magnitude star about 90 light years away.

To figure that out I went into my Starry Night software, found Jupiter and backed it up to about 5am this morning. Here's what it gave me after zooming in a bit:
Note that this image is NOT inverted (because Starry Night doesn't give that option, as far as I know). This is pretty much exactly what I saw, so the object above Callisto clearly wasn't Neptune. Too bad.

But, this result begs another question. This morning I clearly saw Io, Europe and Callisto. Where was Ganymede? According to Starry Night I should have seen it there off to one side of Jupiter along with the others. Instead, I saw this:
Io, Europa and Callisto. No Ganymede. This is taken from the Sky & Telescope tool. So, where was Ganymede? This puzzled me until I saw this on the S&T tool:
The times noted are in military time, and also using Greenwich Mean Time, so I have to subtract 5 hours to get my local time. So, early this morning, a few hours before I woke up, Ganymede was visible on one side of Jupiter, then it passed behind Jupiter, then it was visible again on the other side and then it passed into Jupiter's shadow, becoming eclipsed and invisible. At least that's how I interpret the text above. I'm still new at this.

The S&T moon tool accounted for this eclipsing, but the Starry Night software did not. If I had been outside at 4am instead of 5am I would have seen this:
Except, of course, that my image would have been inverted left to right because I'm looking through a refractor.

So, that solves the mysteries of "Was that Neptune?" and "Where's Ganymede?" I guess I'll have to wait a few more weeks until Jupiter and Neptune are visible in the same field of view.

But now, at least, I know where Neptune is. Using Starry Night and zooming out a bit gives you this:
If I get up really early again soon, I can use my wider field eyepieces to find it now. Fortunately the two planets will linger together in the sky for a while because, even though Jupiter moves faster than Neptune, they are going to begin retrograde motion in the coming weeks, increasing the amount of time they will appear near each other.

Ok, curiosity satisfied. Maybe now I can get some more sleep.

sigh... except the kids will be waking up soon. Too bad I have to work tonight. Ugh.

Jupiter (Plus... some new equipment)

Yesterday (Thursday) I had a nice surprise and found that some new equipment that I'd ordered Monday had arrived already.

First off I got to open the new 31mm Baader Hyperion Aspheric eyepiece that I settled on after a few weeks of research. It gives me just under 20x magnification, an exit pupil of 6.2mm and a true field of view of 3.72 degrees (where 1 degree = about the width of 2 full moons). I wanted a wide field eyepiece to get a bit smaller view of the star clusters I've been enjoying and also to double as a finder scope.

Second I opened up the new Green Laser Pointer (GLP). They normally cost $70 to $100 but Astronomics had them on sale for only $30 and I couldn't pass it up. (As of this writing they are still that price, so get 'em while they hot!) Here's a link to a picture showing how the GLP looks when you use it.

The GLP is a very fun and useful tool, especially when you're out viewing with kids or anyone else who is not familiar with the night sky. It is just like a regular laser pointer except that when you point it at the dark night sky you can actually see the laser beam as it shoots off into space. This means you can use it to point at something in space and everyone standing near you can follow the beam of light with their eyes to see what you're pointing at. Did I mention that it is also just fun?

So, I used the new equipment as an excuse to invite my pal John (who doubles as my attorney) over for an evening of stargazing. We looked at Saturn, one or two binaries and the beehive cluster before the durn mosquitoes drove us inside. The 31mm Aspheric did just what I'd hoped it would do. It made it easier to find the beehive and it also gave me a smaller, wider field view of it. Very nice.

But, that's not the point of this post.

This morning my lovely bride had to get up extra early for work (4:30am). This is annoying, but it did give me an excuse to get out of bed to view Jupiter before the sun came up. I've been dying to see Jupiter to see how my 120ST would handle it. After all, seeing Jupiter at a big public star party through a 12" dob last September is the reason I got into astronomy in the first place.

So I got out of bed, went out side and set up my scope kit at about 5am. Jupiter was beautiful. I couldn't see as much detail as I had last year through the big dob, but I could just make out the bands of color and a couple of moons (I couldn't see the big red spot, though). The purple fringing was definitely annoing so I put on the 80mm stop down mask and it made the image much more tolerable.

Off to the right of the image I saw 2 objects which I knew immediately where two of the four Gallilean moons. Off to the right, on the same plain as the right hand objects but much farther away was another object, but I thought it was too far away to be a moon. Almost straight up from that was something else, about the same brightness as the others, but definitely not a moon.

So, after looking for a while I checked out the S&T site and their Jupiter moon tool. After clicking the "inverted" button (to match the view from my refractor's image) this is what came up:
So, I determined that the objects on the right of Jupiter were Io and Europa and one of the left side objects was Callisto. The other object, straight up from Callisto may have been some random star, but I read in a magazine yesterday that Jupiter and Neptune are very close to each other right now. In fact, they may be found in the same field of view (they come closest together by mid-July, if memory serves).

So, the other object may have been Neptune, but I can't say for sure just yet.

I was a bit disappointed that my view of Jupiter wasn't as detailed as what I saw last Fall, but I expected that. I knew that, with the 120ST I was sacrificing planetary detail for portability, but it still made me yearn for more detail.

On the plus side, the 120ST was perfect for getting up early and setting it up quickly in the backyard. I can bring out the scope, tripod and all my accessories out back in one trip and the whole thing takes less than a minute to assemble with no cool-down time.

That part was perfect and I continue to be very pleased with my scope choice. Next year or the year after that I'll start thinking about something bigger to get me both more planetary detail and a wider variety of DSOs. Perhaps a 10" of 12" dob. We'll see. I want a new focuser for the current scope first, and I've already spent more than enough money on telescopery this year as it is.

Castor, Izar, More Saturn

I was out tonight for another nice hour or so of stargazing. I spent some time looking for M67 at the bottom of Cancer, but couldn't find it. So, I then picked my usual starter and spent some time looking at Saturn. I thought I saw another moon again, but only one this time, just to the left of the (inverted) rings. After checking out the Sky and Telescope Saturn Moon tool I determined that it was probably Rhea. I may have been imagining it as I saw it best with averted gaze, but I'm pretty sure it was there.

The other day I read that, as far as multiple star systems go, some are more difficult than others to "split" and a good test of your scope's abilities is the binary star Izar (aka Epsilon Boötis) in the constellation Bootes, which is fairly high high in the sky during the spring. So, after consulting my S&T star chart and figuring out which star that was I gave it a try. I was very pleased to see that I could make out both stars in the Izar system. One of them was definitely bigger and brighter than the other, and the bigger one really outshone the dimmer one. It was much harder to pick out than other binaries I've seen, but it was definitely visible at 140x.

This picture of Izar came from this site. There is some good information there in Izar as well.

I wanted to compare Izar to something reputed to be a bit easier to I pointed the scope at Castor, which is one of the two main stars at the head of Gemini. Castor was much easier to split than Izar. The interesting thing about Castor is that it isn't just a binary system. In fact it is a solar system made up of 3 pairs of binaries, making 6 stars altogether in one system. My scope could only make out 2 stars, though, at 140x.

That's about it, nothing too exciting. I'm still pleased about Izar, though. The 120ST is noted to have some variability in quality. The objective lens is not collimatable, so you're pretty much stuck with what you have. The fact that I could split Izar makes me feel pretty good about the particular scope I have.

Saturn, Beehive Cluster and Algieba

Last night was a beautiful night for stargazing. My wife and I and our two kids gathered in the backyard for a while to find some new things in the sky. This also confirmed that our backyard is superior to the local park because of the lack of tennis court flood lights. Still, the streetlight out front is a bit annoying and I try to set up the scope out of its line of sight.

There are also many large trees in the area, which limit our view of the horizon, but a fairly large chunk of the southern sky is visible stretching from west to east.

The most prominent constellation visible to us right now is Leo. We can still see the heads of Gemini (Pollux and Castor) off to the west as they hang above the no longer visible Orion as well. This meant that our first target (like usual lately) was Saturn, which is cruising through Leo this year and next before it migrates on to Cancer after that.

Saturn was really beautiful, both at 50x and about 140x. The city lights were bright enough that I didn't even need my my stop down mask, which is about the only good thing about the city lights. Now that I've been viewing Saturn for a while, I think I'm getting a bit better at picking out some heretofore unnoticed details. The planet itself is still a bit plain, and the rings are getting closer to edge on, but I did think I saw a couple of moons last night. I saw one of them just above and to the right of the planet itself, and another one above and to the right of the rings. (Given that the image was inverted left to right in my eyepiece.)

Sky and Telescope has an excellent moon tool for Saturn which allows you to enter a date and time and it shows you were each of the moons is when you look at it. It also allows you to invert the image if necessary. Based on it I think the two moons I saw were Titan and Enceladus, although the latter may have been Dione instead.

Next up I set out to find M44, the Beehive Cluster. I had tried to find this one a couple of times but wasn't successful until last night. M44 is in Cancer and is about midway between Gemini and Leo. I knew it was just up and to the right of the middle star in Cancer (Asellus Australis) but before last night I was confused and was looking at the star Procyon instead. (woops!).

So, last night I was able to correctly determine where Cancer was, even though I could only barely see any of its stars with the naked eye. Once I found Asellus Australis finding M44 was easy. It REALLY stood out. The sky all around M44 was pretty devoid of anything interesting, but I was slowly swinging the scope around and, pow, all of a sudden dozens and dozens of stars were visible at 50x using the Ethos. It was very beautiful and took up the entire field of view in the eyepiece. I really need a lower power, wider field eyepiece to really appreciate clusters like this a bit more.

Finally last night I remembered that one of the stars in Leo was a binary system. Algieba, which is one of the central stars in Leo's sickle (2 stars above Regulus, which is at the base of the sickle.)

I had tried to view this binary once before (late on a winter night) but it didn't work out (either due to my inexperience or impatience brought about by the cold). Last night, though, at 140x I was able to clearly resolve the binary pair. Algieba (also known as Gamma Leonis) is about 100 light years away and each of the pair is about double the mass of the sun. I found this picture of Algieba at this site. The view I saw of it looked just like that, although reversed.

This was encouraging because I haven't been sure how well the 120ST would do on binary stars.

All in all it was a good evening of star gazing.

Orion 120ST Telescope Kit

Slowly but surely my telescope kit is taking shape. Last night we walked to a local park to do some star gazing and took the whole thing along in a wagon. Here's what it looks like all packed up.

I bought the case a month or so ago. It was designed for Orion's 110ED scope, but it turns out that my 120ST fits in it quite nicely.
Here's a closeup of the case innards. It has slots for the diagonal, two 2" eyepieces and three 1.25" eyepieces.
And here's what it looks like fully assembled.
The wooden legs are also fairly new. It is an Oberwerk surveyor tripod that I found on sale for 50% off. The legs are longer and more stable than the stock aluminum legs that come with the Voyager mount. I played around with the height for a while before settling on where it is. I raised the legs about 4 inches which allows me to see almost the whole sky from a seated position. Objects too near the horizon still require a standing position, but for the most part I can sit leisurely while stargazing.

The only drawback is that I have to squat down close to the ground in order to find objects with the EZFinder.

There are only a couple of things left to get to complete my portable telescope kit. First, I need a wide field eyepiece. The Ethos lest me see 2.17 degrees of sky at 46X. I'm thinking about a 23mm Axiom which would give me 3.14 degrees at 26x. Alternately, I'm considering jumping all the way to a 31mm or 36mm Hyperion Aspheric, which would broaden the field of view to 3.72 or 4.32 degrees respectively. (A degree is about the width of 2 full moons).

Also, I still want a new focuser. I'm seriously considering getting a Moonlite, but they are a bit pricey so it will involve saving up for it. We'll see. The stock focuser is really annoying, though and does need to be improved somehow.

Anyway, the park last night was a bit disappointing. We set up the scope near second base on one of the local ball fields. This gave us a nice wide swath of sky to view and we got to look at Saturn again. However, there were people playing tennis nearby and the court flood lights were so bright I could read by them a couple of hundred yards away. Very annoying. It turns out that my backyard it a better vewing spot due to the lack of gigantic stadium sized flood lights.

Oh well. We're starting to plan our summer vacations which will be at various dark sky spots around northern Michigan and away from big city lights. I can't wait to see some really wide field views of the summer Milky Way from a very dark site. I'm getting very excited about it.

Saturn

Most of the objects I've been looking at in the night skies are star clusters or nebulae. This hasn't really interested my son Simon very much.

Tonight though, we went out looking at Saturn and the 120ST proved itself on the ringed planet very nicely. First we checked it out at 46x with the 13mm Ethos and then tried again at about 140x with my 4.3mm Antares eyepiece. Both images were very sharp, although focusing at 140x was tough.

Mostly I was pleased to try out the 80mm stop down mask I had built and was very pleased that I saw no color fringing at all with the mask on. It is likely that I would see more color if the sky was darker. I think the light pollution actually helps keep the color down because the object is not as relatively bright as it would be otherwise.

I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't see any planetary detail, though. It was just a white disc with the rings at a very sharp angle. Simon thought it rocked, though. He was jumping up and down. He loves the planets so much that they have actually been elevated to the status of "imaginary friend" (he is 7 years old) and he holds them very dear. It was quite something for him to see the real, live Saturn in the sky with his own eyes.

So, I'm pleased so far with how the 120ST is working on the planets. I'm toying with the idea (some day, not soon) of getting a different sort of telescope just for the planets, but I'm not sure what that one would be yet. Something to think about...

If you're curious, here is a YouTube video that shows that Saturn looks like through a small telescope. The only difference between this video and what I saw tonight is that the image in my scope was totally white, with no yellow / orange tinting. Oh, and the angle of the rings was much sharper as well, and nearly edge on. They will, in fact, be seen edge on from the Earth in early September of this year, before gradually coming to a maximum angle about 18 years from now. (I think it will take 18 years. I pulled that number from memory but will have to verify it to make sure.)

Ghost Stories

The weather has been cold and wet a lot over the past month. I have gotten outside a bit to look at the moon and find one or two more new star clusters, but mostly I've been spending my hobby time playing boardgames.

I've gotten a number of new games lately, topping my game collection over the 100 game count, which is kind of fun. The best new game I've gotten lately is called Ghost Stories. It is one of several cooperative games released in 2008 in which the players team up against the game mechanics rather than against each other. It's a nice change of pace.

In Ghost Stories each player controls a Taoist warrior protecting a Chinese village from an onslaught of mythical Chinese ghosts. It is a bit reminiscent of the 1980's Kurt Russel film "Big Trouble in Little China" and many other silly and similar movies.

In the game a new ghost arrives during each players turn and threatens to "haunt" the 9 village tiles in the center of the board. Once 4 tiles are haunted the players lose. If the players are able to exercise all the ghosts and survive to defeat the big boss ghost at the end of the game, then the players win. Along the way each player is given a special unique power to aid them and each of the 9 village tiles also provides the players with a special unique power if a player moves onto that tile that turn.

There are 2 main characteristics that make Ghost Stories a lot of fun. First, it is very frenetic. The ghosts just keep coming and coming and coming. Each and every turn brings a new sense of panic as the situation threatens to run out of control. Second, the game is very, very hard. I've played about 7 games so far (3 with friends and 4 alone) and I've only won one of my solo games.

The reason that the intense difficulty level makes the game more fun is that it requires a large degree of cooperation among the players. While you play the game it constantly feels like a puzzle that must be solved, but that cannot be solved alone. All four players must act in perfect harmony with very careful planning to see the game through to the end.

All cooperative games require teamwork, but I've never played one that required more teamwork and more group cohesion than Ghost Stories. It's also just a whole lotta fun. I can't wait to play it again!

If you've read this far and are still interested, click here for an interesting video review of the game. (Note: the reviewer has gotten a few of the rules wrong, but it is very informative just the same.)

Another video review can be found here.

Sky Log 2

Last night I braved the cold for two 30 minute sessions at 8pm and again at 1opm so that I could get a good look at Gemini and Leo respectively.

In Gemini I found the M35 star cluster near the feet of the twins. It is about 2,800 light years away and made up of stars that are about 150 million years old. It isn't quite as pretty as M41 (in Canis Major) that I found the last time it was clear out. It was very high in the sky which placed my eyepiece very low to the ground, requiring me to sit or kneel in order to view it comfortably. This wasn't the first time I was discomforted by viewing at the zenith. After a bit of research the last few days I ordered a set of wooden tripod legs which should add stability and add 10"-12" of height. Hopefully this will enable me to sit more comfortably in a chair while viewing.

At 10pm I went back out to try to find Ceres. Ceres is a spherical asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Tomorrow night (2/25/09) it will be closer to the Earth than it will be again for several hundred years. I have read that you can see it in a small telescope so I've been anxious to try. I found a star chart from Sky and Telesope's website showing me where it would be on different days. I tried for about 1/2 hour to find it. Annoyingly, I can't say for sure if I saw it or not. I panned around the sky along Leo's back about where I thought it would be and I saw a lot of things that "might" have been it, but I lack the experience to know for sure.

When I tired of that I tried to see some of the galaxies that are grouped together near Leo's haunches, but I couldn't make out anything at all there. Between the city lights and the smallish size of my scope, I don't think I'll see many galaxies from my backyard.

I can't wait to go camping this summer! We're planning to get away to a campground about 100 miles west of us over Memorial Day weekend this year (also our anniversary). Hopefully dark skies will help considerably. Of course, warm weather will also help considerably. I think this hobby will be a lot more fun when the temperatures are above freezing at night!

Sky Log 1

Last night the sky finally cleared up and I managed to spend about an hour in the cold trying to find new DSOs.

I thought I should use this space to begin recording the things I'm viewing and describe what they are and how I found them. This is for my own benefit, primarily, as writing it down helps to
solidify it in my memory.

Note: most of the facts below are summarized either from Wikipedia or from the excellent book Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis. The images are pulled also from Wikipedia. In general, the pictures always look much cooler than the objects do in real life.

The Moon
There's not much to say about the moon. It was the first thing I pointed my telescope at. It waxing and near full the week I first got outside to view the sky so it drowned out everything else and dominated the sky.


M45, The Pleiades
I've always loved the Pleiades. I've known how to find it for as long as I can remember. My dad showed it to me when I was a boy and, next to Orion, it has been one of my favorite night sky objects. Although it is known as the "7 sisters" I've only ever been able to see 6 stars in the cluster without the telescope. With the telescope, at 46x it was just a bit larger than my field of view and revealed a lot more than just six stars. M45 is an open cluster of young stars. It is about 400 light years away from us and about 8 light years across. They are young stars, only about 50 million years old. In all there are about 200 stars in the cluster. To find the Pleiades, first locate Orion. Up and to the right of Orion is the familiar "V" shape of Taurus. Up and to the right of Taurus is a small, "dipper" shaped cluster of stars which is M45. It looks like it ought to be the Little Dipper, but it isn't. This picture from Wikipedia show you pretty much what you see in a telescope, except that I couldn't see any of that blue fuzziness around the stars. Apparently that is only visible with much larger scopes than mine.

M42, The Orion Nebula
Back in college I took an intro to astronomy course. In it I learned to locate the Orion nebula, but I've never seen it before in the telescope. It is almost straight down from the lower left star in Orion's belt. Even in light polluted skies you can see a bit of fuzziness there. This NASA picture shows the nebula in visible light, but it doesn't look anything like that in my scope. All I saw was a patch of gray. But, I live in a severely light polluted area. I can't wait to see it from a darker site. M42 is a huge area where stars are being born. The gasses are being lit up by the newly formed stars. They're so cute when they're young!


Saturn
I had to use the software "Starry Night" to know where to find Saturn last week. At 140x it was kind of a smeary mess in my scope, but I could see the rings, which are almost edge on this year (and will disappear completely for a time starting in September, 2009). I seriously need a better focuser and more experience. Next time I'll try using my new stop down mask also.

Sigma Orionis
This was the first multiple star system I observed with my telescope. It is, in fact, a 5 star system, but only 4 of the stars are visible in a large telescope. In my scope I could only see 3 of the stars. It is just below and to the right of the star Alnitak, which is the lower left star in Orion's belt. My scope really isn't built for splitting binaries, but I did enjoy trying it out on this one. I forget if I saw it at 46x or at 140x.


The Trapezium
Deep inside the Orion Nebula is a small cluster of young stars which are illuminating the nebula itself. This picture gives an idea of what it looks like, but again, the colors are not really visible. When I observed it last night at 140x I could see 4 stars, but there are apparently several more than can be seen under darker skies with better telescopes. The Orion Nebula and The Trapezium are about 1,500 light years away from us. Here is a bit more information about The Trapezium.


M41
If you follow Orion's belt down and to the left you come to the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. Almost straight south of Sirius is M41, which is a discrete cluster of about 100 stars about 20 light years in diameter and about 2,500 light years away from us. This was an exiting find for me because this was the first thing I found in my telescope that I wasn't already able to find. I had to search it out and "discover" it. In my scope it was most readily found by lining Sirius up about 1/2 way between the center of the view and the right side edge and slowly lowering the scope. I'm very glad I got a tripod with slow motion controls. It would be impossible to make this maneuver without them.

As I was slowing moving downward from Sirius I could see many faint stars in the field of view and I couldn't tell if I was seeing M42 or not. I kept thinking "is that a star cluster?" But, then M41 came into view and, pow, it was unmistakable. In an area of sparse stars it really stood out as a round, spherical looking structure. Very cool.

Next time I go out I want to have a very short list of things to look for, maybe one or two objects, aside from the things I already know where to find. I can't wait for warmer weather so I can spend more time outside, and so that the kids won't mind coming out with me. I'm fantasizing about picnic dinners in the backyard while we all talk, play and stargaze.