50 Years of the F-15

On this date in 1972, the first YF-15A prototype took to the air.  Full article at This Day in Aviation.

Two Weeks of the Webb Space Telescope

Here's a summary of what's been seen so far at Quanta Magazine.

GLASS-13 seems to be the second most distant object ever imaged, at 33.3 billion light years, and was picked up in a relatively quick, almost offhand look.  Imagine what we'll see when the Webb team really gets down to business.  Gratuitous Extra Link: Wikipedia page of most distant astronomical objects.  The current most-distant, HD1, really is a mysterious thing.  I'm sure the Webb will get around to it in due time.

Fish!

Not mine, just an interesting pic from a charter boat's load.  Snapped during a break at trivia night last week.

I have no idea how many were actually fishing, or how close to limiting out this all was.  In any case, it's a heap of fish!

The Universal Reason for Ham Radio

I was talking with a friend over the weekend, grousing about some of our fellow hams who are all-in on internet-linked digital voice modes and getting cranky with those who aren't, when the inevitable statement surfaced: That's Not Real Ham Radio.  (Who said it?  The DRM/Fusion-heads or one of us?  Who cares?  Time for a blog post!)

So, once more, it's time to trot out Bob K0NR's power trio of posts from some time back:

• The Universal Reason  [TLDR: it's To Have Fun Messing Around With Radios]
• Amateur Radio is Not for Talking
• That's Not Real Ham Radio

"You do you."  "Live and let live."  "Do what you wanna / Do what you like."  [10 internet points and a bottle of Old Overholt rye if you can name the song on that last one.]  And yes, if you're doing anything even peripherally related to transmitting or listening on the ham bands and working under related FCC rules, yes, it's real ham radio.  Conversely it may be something I'm just not interested in, so don't push it too hard.

Webb Images in Context

At some level, if you're not an astronomer this stuff all blurs together.  Let's put the new images from the Webb space telescope into some context.  First up, here's a page with straight-up comparisons between Webb and Hubble images.  Scroll down to the one that says "Deep Field" (or "Galaxy Cluster SMACS" – it seems to vary with edits) and click on that, then give it a little while to load.  There's a zoom feature and a slider, and if your computer's OS allows, you can screen-zoom in even more.  Go fiddle around with it for a half-hour or so.  I've probably burned a couple of hours at it, so don't feel bad if your evening suddenly gets short, it'll be worth it.

Next up, here's the Wikipedia page on deep field images.  Briefly, a deep field image is one where you point a telescope at what appears to be a blank spot of blackness between known stars and galaxies, and then accumulate photons for hours, days, or longer.  Then you look at what stacked up and say "oh my goodness."  There's something mesmerizing about deep field images.  The sense of awe feels a lot like like playing in the more exotic corners of math.  Anyway, the Hubble's deepest and the one new Webb image both reach back to about 700 million years after the big bang.  Ultimately, the hope is to get back to the 100-ish million years-after mark, before which there probably won't be anything to see*.  We think.  But we really don't know, and we won't know until we look, and that prospect is damn exciting.

After that, looking for biosignatures in exoplanet atmospheres and a few dozen other amazing tricks should have us all on the edge of our seats for several decades.  And all for less that a quarter of the current bid price on Twitter, which is a whole 'nother level of imponderability.

Let's close out with a graphic summary, shamelessly dragged over from that deep field Wikipedia page:

* Except for microwave background and we already have a lot on that.

The First Four Webb Images – Explained!

Sure, we've been oohing and ahhing over the initial release of pics from the Webb IR Space Telescope, but what to they mean?  I've been digging through j-school fluff all day, trying to find something with a little approachable substance... and of all places, Syfy Wire had the best article by far.

Here's the link, and here's the most spectacular image from there:

That blurry red smudge in the top left?  The light reaching us is from 13.1 billion years back in time, just 0.7 billion years after the Big Bang.  Already, as the second plot shows, heavier elements had been brewed in the hearts of first generation stars and second, maybe third, gen stars had formed up already.  Now that's doing science.

First Webb Deep Field Image Up

More due along tomorrow.  See NASA's site for explanation & zoomable image.

And this is only the start!

Gearing Up for Fall Camping – and Experimentation

Sure, high summer has just begun, but it's not too soon to start getting ready for fall ham camping.  The plan is simple: compare performance of dipole, W3EDP, quasi-random wire, and end-fed half wave antennas.  Here are the respective magic boxes needed to make those last three work:

Here are some thoughts and background on the  matter:

• The reference dipole: MFJ-17754 40/20   A little short on 40m, but close enough.
• Measurements on a 1/4-size W3EDP; will use the 1/2-size (42') for this work.
• Previous thoughts on quasi-random wires.
• A 26 minute video from an incredibly knowledgable fellow on random wires.  Good background.
• A 20 minute on EFHWs by the same fellow.  Looks promising.

Independence Day is over.  Time for some crisp fall weather.  But time, first, patience; two months' worth.

From Georgia It Comes

Beer – a Thing of the Past

Oh man, I'm spoiled.  Mead is where it's at.  Check out the Apalachicola Bee Company.

The Vikings had it right.  Got to put the horns back on my mtb helmet.

ps: Now with picture.

Happy Independence Day!

The speachifying and fireworks were here last night (we're on eastern daylight time), and a good time was had by all.  The mead bar up the street is particularly nice.  Just got done with the downtown cleanup, and it's time to settle in and enjoy a cool drink of water and a look around the web.

As seen from a neighbor's porch.

And hey, look, more good news:

Time to kick back and enjoy.