Found Mark Twain outside Cornelius public library during my first ever bike ride in the state of North Carolina.
Went for a 1.5 mile walk after driving 750 miles through 8 states during the day.
Grilled veggies, cheese, bread and lots of olive oil for dinner tonight. Oh yes, and rosé of course. Enjoying a beautiful cool evening.
Trifid nebula (M20) and Lagoon nebula (M8). Really like how the blue color of the reflection nebulosity in Trifid showed up. This is a stack of only 13 two minute exposures. The exposure time is limited because of the trees in the southern sky. Hope to get a couple more clear nights to add to this.
So much rain and thunder on the way to work this morning. It was hard to see the road. I pulled off the road the road for a few minutes for it to subside before driving on.
The famous “Pillars of creation” captured from my front yard.
It is an area of intense star forming activity at a distance of 7000 light years. Images from Hubble telescope in the 1990s greatly improved our understanding of star formation process.
This nebula is catalogued as M16 and also known as Eagle nebula or Star Queen nebula.
Saw my backyard hummingbird catching an insect this morning. Interesting! I thought they only drank nectar from flowers.
Heading off to orientation trip at college. Traveling all by himself for the first time. We will see him again next week but this is a big step. He won’t be back home for 3 months until Thanksgiving. The boy is becoming independent! 🥰🥹
Fedex has gotten so bad lately. At least half the packages that I receive are either delayed or diverted or not picked up on time or have some other issue with them. On the other hand, UPS has been very reliable with no problems.
I refuse to go near a place where this happens.
Boy, 6, dies after being shot in head by 9-year-old, Florida police say
Had a busy weekend pushing my son to get his stuff together as he packed to leave for college. Finally, he cleaned out his room. Now he will spend the last couple of days at home in a clean room while choosing to live in that pigsty for the last so many years. Can’t understand a teenager’s brain. I guess I was no different when I was his age.
🚴♂️ Saw this blooming Crape myrtle on today’s #bikeride.
🚴♂️ On this morning’s #bikeride , mixed up some old routes to create a new one for today. The weather was fantastic and it was another great day of riding.
Last night, it was one of the best Lyme Land Trust public Astronomy nights at Alan’s observatory. Clear skies, cool temps and very little glow. The Milky Way looked spectacular! There were lot more people (25+) and we split the telescopes out in 2 groups. I was with Scott and Jon in the field away from the big telescope. Jon’s mount kept misbehaving so we only used manual telescopes in our area. We could show a good bunch of targets:
- M4 globular cluster in Scorpius
- M8 Lagoon nebula in Sagittarius
- M13 globular cluster in Hercules
- Double star in Ursa Major
- Alberio in Cygnus
- Saturn
Along with the usual crowd of older folks, there were a few younger people who were interested and asking questions. It was a fun night overall. Hope we get more good nights like this.
Came into work to find that our latest paper is now available online. Congratulations to all my co-authors.
Small molecule branched-chain ketoacid dehydrogenase kinase (BDK) inhibitors with opposing effects on BDK protein levels. - Nature Communications 14, 4812 (2023)
Can’t believe Jerry Garcia was only 53 years old when he died in 1995 on this day. I am the same age now.