A Tampa Vacation: Downtown

I spent the day walking around in Downtown Tampa, FL. There is a walking path along the Hillsborough River including a great stretch of green space at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.  Since I came in winter holiday time the park has a tented public ice skating rink, but that goes away after New Years. I noticed that the waterfront park is family and dog friendly, even has a playground!

The weather was great.  I decided to walk along the river and explore between stopping at various museums in the area.  Across the river I found the Henry B. Plant Park which is a historic park from 1891 which was a part of the Plant Museum.  Not knowing the area or the history of the Plant Museum, I originally thought by its name, like some of you may have as well, that it was going to be some sort of botanical garden.  Turns out it was a hotel called the Tampa Bay Hotel built in the Moorish style as a luxurious stop along the Plant system of railways, steamships and hotels and named for Henry B. Plant. Right now a part of the building it has been preserved as museum to show what life was like at the time it was built, the rest of it is part of University of Tampa.

Tampa Bay Hotel now the Plant Museum and University of Tampa

The Henry B. Plant Park has twisting paths and sculptures among some amazing trees.  IT was the garden for the visitors of the Tampa Bay Hotel. While the University was closed for the holidays and students not around at the time, I could imagine it to be not only a great place to sit under a tree and read a book or to get a few friends together and toss a frisbee.

The picture on the right with the squiggly sculpture is part of the park. The sculpture is in the park and the building on the right side is on the other side of the river but from where I stood they looked the same heights. I thought it looked cool so I took a picture.

While walking around in Plant Park I saw some interesting plants that I have yet to identify but I noticed there were roots that were coming out of the stem. Only other time I saw that was on orchids, however they aren't the only plants that have these types of roots called aerial roots.

The picture here is a closeup of some of the details of the Plant Museum. The top part the looks like a weird cone shape is called a cupola, there are 4 on the top of the Plant Museum and they standout in the skyline because of their unique design.

It was lots of fun to explore the downtown area of Tampa, FL, especially the green spaces along the river.  The architecture was also nice to see along the way. There is only so much one can do in a day.  If you live in a city or visiting one take a look at some of the pockets of green space.  Meet Me Outdoors.

Moon over the Science Center

I was taking a walk the other day along the Baltimore Harbor and noticed the Moon was out.  I got a picture of it over the Maryland Science Center. (It's the bright object over the arching roof of the building.)

On Friday nights, if it is clear out, they open the observatory to the public.  When the Moon is out, and isn't a full moon, they look at the craters. Sometimes, they even aim the telescope at the planet Jupiter when it is visible in the sky. Even in the city you can see some stars in the sky, you just have to have to scan the sky on a clear night.  But if you want to see more stars you will have to leave the city for that. 

Next time you have a clear night or one with few clouds go outside and look up. (If it's winter you might want to grab a jacket, mittens and a hat so you don't freeze.)  Go explore the sky, Meet Me Outdoors.

Seattle, WA

 Seattle is a great walkable city, once you get past the idea of having to climb a few hills to get to places.  You know when people give the "When I was your age..." speech that usually ends with "going to school involved walking up hill both ways." Well I now understand how that could be possible. Going to dinner we went up one really big hill down a small one then up another big hill. So it resulted in being uphill both ways.  Food was well worth it, despite the climb.

Moonset in Seattle

Afterward, we went down to the waterfront to watch the sunset. Being on the West Coast, a sunset happens over the ocean, this is a nice change since one doesn't have to wake up really early to watch a sunrise over on the East Coast.  Since the moon was still relatively new, we also got to see a moonset not long after the sunset. I tried to take a picture of it since it was a nice clear night, but it may be hard to tell. In the picture with the Ferris wheel and ferry, the moon is faintly visible between the two in the sky. The other evening picture has the moon more visible as it sets, with a bird flying nearby. The phase of the moon shown is called a crescent.

Moonset with bird

We were able to catch the International Space Station as it moved across the night sky.  Pretty cool to watch, knowing that there are people up there in space and their spacecraft can be seen as a dot moving across the sky.  And, with my knowledge of the night sky we were able to locate a couple planets and various star pictures, like the big and little dipper.


This morning we decided to go check out the Farmers Market at Pike Place.  Witnessed fish flying over peoples heads, tried some amazing fresh peaches, and walked around seeing all the various stands at the market, tasting random foods along the way.  Since the peaches were just so good we had to go back and buy a few for the road, they made for a great snack on the train ride.

Gum Wall

A hidden feature, but well marketed as a site to see at the market (besides the fish tossing) is the Gum Wall.  As you may have guessed by its name, the Gum Wall is a wall completely covered with gum.  I only took pictures of part of it, because it is rather massive corner filled with gum.  I am sure no other wall has ever been as minty fresh as this one.  Yet I know that many of you reading this might share the same sentiment I have which is of how gross a wall of used chewing gum really is.

After the market we went on the ferry to Bainbridge Island. There we walked along the Waterfront Trail and through the shopping area in the center of town. You can spend a whole afternoon exploring what the island has to offer, unfortunately we had to make it back in time to catch our train to Spokane, WA which is our next quick stop that begins the driving portion of the road trip.

Me on the ferry returning from the island to Seattle

Until next time, Meet Me Outdoors.

Follow Your Curiosity

Early Monday morning around 1am, I stayed up intently watching NASA TV as the newest rover, named Curiosity, land on Mars beginning its 2 year mission.  I remembered that Mars is still visible in the evening sky so when I did the SciCast for the Maryland Science Center I mentioned the mission and where to find Mars this month in the sky.   Listen to the August '12 SciCast to learn more.

Here is the transcript from the SciCast:

Early morning on August 6^th, at 1:31 am Eastern Daylight Time, the newest Mars rover landed safely on the Martian surface.  Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is a large car-sized rover now located inside Gale Crater where it will begin a 2-year mission. The goal of the mission is to assess whether the landing site ever had, or still has, environmental conditions favorable to microbial life. 

To find Mars in the evening sky this month look toward the south western part of the sky and you will see 3 bright objects near the horizon. The star Spica, of the constellation Virgo, is the lowest twinkling bright object. About 3 finger widths above Spica, is the planet Saturn which has a yellow color and will appear as a non-twinkling point of light. Making its way between Saturn and Spica is the planet Mars, which also appears as a non-twinkling pink point of light. 

One way to confirm that you found this threesome is to look for the Big Dipper in the northwest, follow the arch of the handle to the bright red star Archturus then spike down to Spica.  Above Spica are the two planets. At the beginning of the month these 3 will appear as a triangle with Saturn as the top point, Mars on the right and Spica on the left.  On August 13^th and 14^th Mars will have moved in between Saturn and Spica forming a line.  After the 14^th of August, Mars continues to move more to the southwest creating a mirrored version of the triangle from the beginning of the month. 

 

Go outside and look up. What can you find in the night sky? This weekend August 12-13 is the peak for the Perseid Meteor Shower, look to the north eastern sky after midnight to see this event.  Later in the month, the Moon will be near Saturn and Spica on August 21st, and near Mars 22nd.  Spend the next clear night star gazing and enjoy the view, Meet Me Outdoors.

Transit of Venus June 5, 2012 Event

Here are some pictures from the last in a lifetime event. The white circle is the Sun and the little black dot is Venus.  Venus from our perspective is 30 times smaller than the Sun which is why it looks so small. But really the diameter of Venus is slightly smaller than Earth's.  

There were various ways that people were able to safely look at the transit, one of the ways involved placing a funnel on the eyepiece of a telescope with a special screen on the end so the image is projected onto the screen.

Projected image of the beginning of the transit.

The tiny dot is Venus at the 10 o'clock position. The lower half is clouds. 

 I was in charge of the binoculars which were used to project an image onto a paper.  I had to aim the binoculars just right so that we could see the Sun but without looking though the eyepieces because the concentrated light and super brightness of the Sun would have damaged my eyes. 

Me showing a projected view from the binoculars onto my hand.  

 To keep people from trying to look through the eyepieces, I put a box with a hole for the binoculars to fit on and the opposite end was taped a piece of paper where the image is projected. 

Sun/Venus is projected through the box and onto the paper for safe viewing.

Another great view of the transit.  Tiny dot now farther from the edge.

There were hundreds of people who trekked out to the Maryland Science Center to see this last in a lifetime event.  The clouds even parted long enough for us to view.  I hope you got a chance to view some of it. 
Until next time, Meet Me Outdoors.

Looking from a different perspective

The other day I mentioned that I was going to an Observation Night at the Museum of Science in Boston, MA.  What amazed me most beside getting to see some celestial objects like the moon and some planets was seeing the Boston skyline at dusk, just after sunset. Of course my camera is not the best for taking night pictures I still wanted to take a couple to remind me of how cool it was.

Where the red is in the sky is where the sun went down, so the first picture was taken earlier than the second picture because there is more light along the horizon. These were taken from the roof of the Museum of Science's garage.  The tallest building on the left is the John Hancock Tower and the second tallest on the right is The Prudential Center, aka The Pru.  I actually went to the top of The Pru, for someone like me who is afraid of heights it was not so bad as long as I didn't look down. But to see it from this angle at night it was a different experience. The horizon is where the ground meets the sky it is also called a skyline.  What do you see along the horizon where you live? Do you have tall buildings, trees, houses, mountains? Do you live near a lake or ocean where you see the water and sky meet?  

That night I also tried to take a picture of Venus which is the really bright object in the sky in the 3rd picture.  It is much more exciting to see in person than in this picture.  So I do encourage you to go and look for it on your next clear night.  Venus is visible just as the Sun is setting in the western part of the sky.  Some times it is seen right before the Sun rises. This is why Venus is nicknamed "The Morning and The Evening Star," even though it is really a planet not a star.  It is bright enough to be seen in the city, you just have to find a spot to look for it where there are no buildings blocking your view.  There is a simple trick you can use to tell if an object in the sky is a star, a planet or airplane. Light traveling from a star has to travel many light years to get here and comes to our eyes in points of light, as these points of light travel through our atmosphere it bounces around giving it a twinkly appearance.  While light reflected off a planet comes to our eyes as disks of light since they are closer to us than the stars so they do not twinkle. An airplane will be moving faster across the sky and has blinking lights of different colors like green and red.

Go and discover what you see on your horizon.  Compare looking at night versus looking during the day. What changes?  Come along and Meet Me Outdoors.

Observation Nights

Many planetariums, observatories and science centers have what is called an Observation Night.  They pull out their telescopes, a few binoculars and invite the public to join them each week (weather permitting of course) to view some of the unique objects in our nights sky.  I went to one last week at the Museum of Science in Boston (at the observatory on the 5th floor of the garage) and had a blast.  They focused the telescopes on Venus, the Moon, and on Jupiter.  The event was free and open to the public, families of all ages encouraged to come.

If you can't make it out to an observation night, you can have one of your own. Check your local science center or observatory's website to find a map of the night sky and print a copy. (or see Resources page for StarDome sky map maker) Make sure it is the right month, because the constellations and planet positions change depending on what part of the year it is. Once outside with a sky map in hand, your task is to find North so you can orient your map (point it in the right way). To find north, if you don't have a compass, use the stars. Locate the Big Dipper in the sky, seven stars that look like a giant spoon - 3 stars make up the handle 4 make up a the bowl of the spoon - with the two stars on the outer edge of the bowl of the spoon imagine that you are pouring liquid out of the spoon and following it as it spills until it lands on a star. That star is Polaris the North Star, a star that doesn’t move as time goes on because it is located directly above Earth’s axis, the invisible line that Earth rotates around. Now that you found North, hold the sky map so that North is on the bottom. All of the stars on the bottom of the map are in front of you, stars in the middle are above you and the stars at the top are behind you.  Now you are ready to start identifying some stars and constellations.

So are you ready for Observation Night?  I am!  Let's go look at the stars!  Come and meet me outdoors!