Home Made Inclinometer

I made a DIY inclinometer for astronomy. This sometimes is called an “altitude measurer” and can be used to spot how high a model rocket goes.

Mine’s a little Newtonian, and I love it.

I printed out a picture of a protractor, stuck it on a board with tape, and now I can “sight” along the top of the board. That’s right, I can read the angle i am looking at from a string dangling on the side.

That string has a weight on the end. I have a plumb-bob that I like. NICE and heavy.

The string can pendulate, so you can slow it down. When it’s stopped, clamp the string in place along the protractor notches.

And that’ll give’r yer angle.

Here’s the graphic of the protractor. You can scale it and print it out on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. When you attach it to the board, hang it down a bit from the top. Drill out a hole in the wood and slip a string through.

Click on the image to enlarge.

 

See my recent article where I used it: http://realworldnumbers.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/hunting-for-comet-holmes-at-home/

Here’s a link for another inclinometer from Make Magazine, but it just doesn’t look as sexy or as rugged mine.

Hunting for Comet Holmes at Home

Hello Maryland, beautiful state of Constitutional importance, flora and fauna, sea technology and sky lovers… you’re flag is interesting and your clicks are feeding into me on October 26.

I was hunting for Comet Holmes in Ontario tonight. You know the one? Have you heard the news?

This thing apparently exploded a day ago and is reflecting a huge amount of light back to earth. Whereas before you needed a telescope to see it, now you can see it with the naked eye.

From http://cometography.com/pcomets/017p.html

The comet was observed at about magnitude 14.5 since July and had showed signs of a slow fading; however, very early on the morning of October 24, Juan Antonio Henr’quez Santana (Spain) reported that the comet was much brighter than expected.

I grabbed the telescope my buddy left here (THANKS!) to try and find the sucker. Thankfully, the molded rubber eye-peice is the exact size of my cameras lens sheath! It easily held the camera in place by itself while the camera took the picture for 3 seconds without disruption or vibration.

How to Find Holmes 17P

In toronto, wait until about 8pm. The following instructions will guide you on how to find the comet around 8:30pm Toronto time. First, you need to grab a compass, and preferably an inclinometer to tell what angle you are looking up at.

Next you need to locate the constellation Perseus. Pretty much the easiest way to do that is to locate Cassiopeia. This looks like a giant sideways “W”. Look down and a little to the right, and you’ll make out Perseus from there.

Find the brightest star in the Perseus constellation. This is called the “alpha” star, as it is the biggest and the brightest (has the lowest ‘magnitude’). The exact position of this “alpha” star is at direction 51° (Northeast) and altitude 34° (up).

Here’s the diagram from my great program called “Cartes Du Ciel“. It is literally the best program ever produced for amateur and professional astronomers, and kicks all other programs I have ever tried in the pants. It has night mode, can integrate with motorised telescopes and GPS, has extensive international libraries, supports tonnes of languages, and it’s free. GET IT.

Then, you look a little to the left of the alpha star to find the comet.

Information and Resources

You can find some other information about Holmes from:

The wikipedia page about holmes – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17P/Holmes

This is a great page that tells all about the recent comet Holmes explosion and show in pictures how it’s changing. It also describes how the comet was originally found in November 6 1892 by E. Holmes from England.

Spaceweather.com has a great page with photos of Holmes from amateur astronomers. You should sign up for their email alerts! They’re great! If you live in toronto, remember, the Spaceweather.com maps are drawn for people who live at The Equator, so their representation of where the constellations are different than we see the sky here up north.

Heaven’s above has sky charts that are localized for your city. You don’t have to sign in to select your location, but I did so that Newmarket is my default. Unfortunately these guys haven’t re-classified the magnitude of Holmes, so you’ll have to find the constellation Persuis. Update : Heavensabove has just updated their page to now include Comet 17P Holmes.

Geocentric Data
Right Ascension (J2000) 3h 51.6m
Declination (J2000) 50° 15′
Constellation Perseus
Magnitude 2.9
Distance from Earth 1.631 AU

Orbital Data
Distance from Sun 2.446 AU
Perihelion 2.053 AU
(4-May-2007)
Aphelion 5.184 AU
Period 6.88 years
Eccentricity 0.432564
Inclination to ecliptic 19.1°

Snapshots

This is only the small version, the big version is AWESOME, but it’s 4MB. Please email me if you want a copy.

 

 

The numbers of the final moments of the Hindenburg

There’s a SKUNK in my garage… and my BUDDY IS IN THERE TOO!

Here’s the obligatory garbage post for this weekend.

My neighbor Kyle and his buddy Keith were in their garage when they noticed a skunk. Only 1 got out, the other man was left behind as a sacrifice to fight for his own escape. This is how the events unfolded.

Watch the video. Click here.

RRSP vs. Paying Down Debt

A close friend of mine, who is not to be named in this article, is in a bit of a pickle. They recently got a cheque in the mail, and wanted to know what to do with it.They don’t own a house, but somehow have mustered a $20,000.00 debt while buying the “car of their dreams” (and probably a few too many shoes) . They make a modest income, but spend poorly, and want to work on their debt. There’s a lot of articles out there on paying down mortgage vs. paying into RRSP, but, that’s not what we want to explore. A mortgage is a complicated beast in a labyrinth of twists and turns and changes. We just want a very specific question answered:

RRSP vs. Debt Alleviation

If you need to find out about RRSPs in general, first try this article over at the Starving Student Survival Strategies called RRSPs, I’ve got bigger things to worry about. It’s a great page on why you should invest in one, what it is, etc.

For dry technical information on RRSPs, please take a look at these resources:

• Government of Canada
• Wikipedia
• CBC In-Depth Report

Let’s get started.

Here’s a few facts we’ll need to start off with

• The cheque is for $2785.24
• The debt is $20,000.00 on line of credit (exactly how they got a line of credit without owning a house is beyond me).
• The interest on the debt is about 8% per year. Each month, the minimum payment is 3% (this includes the amount outstanding, PLUS monthly interest)
• Invested in an RRSP, the rate of return could probably be about 5%.

OK. We have just about everything we need to build a mathematical case… Read more!

Costa Rica votes, holds Referendum on CAFTA (TLC)

Update, the “Si” position appears to have won the valid referendum. See bottom of article for numbers.

Politics isn’t my thing, usually it’s just numbers. In this case, they’re perfectly intertwined. Considering my wonderful Tica wife is voting on the future of her beautiful country today, I’d say we have a match.

Her sister is back in CR for a week from New Jersey. In fact, thousands of Ticos are flocking back to Costa Rica today. They’ve been doing it all week. They’re coming back in droves to drop a peice of paper into a box. What an incredibly fierce democracy. Here’s insight about the great democracy in Costa Rica.

TLC, Si o No ?

CAFTA, or the Central American Free Trade Agreement, has been on the books now for years. All the Central American countries’ representatives have signed with the United States – save one. Costa Rica is the ONLY country to have a referendum on the subject. Imagine that. A true democracy. How wonderful.

First off, the power granting the United States to offer such an agreement to the Central American nations was granted by a very narrow margin, mostly due to worries about domestic operations suffering at the hands of inexpensive labour and higher quality products emerging from the Central Americas.

On July 27th of 2005, the United States House of Representatives approved the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA in a 217-215 vote.

The text of the massive 400 page agreement can be found at the Trade Compliance Centre on the U.S. government’s web site.

It covers many major topics:

• Investment
• Cross-Border Trade in Services
• Financial Services
• Telecommunications
• Electronic Commerce
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Labor
• Environment

For Costa Rica, the most important issues appear to be Agriculture, Fisheries, and Natural Resources.

Here is a link to the Costa Rica specific Annex.

A minimum of 40 percent of Costa Rica’s 2.6 million voters must participate for Sunday’s vote to be valid.

Local media appears to be extremely biased towards the Yes position, which is understandable considering the latest controversy surrounding US involvement in buying up advertising space, probably at exorbitantly inflated rates, to present the “Si al TLC” position. “The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce (AmCHAM), has invested the astronomical sum of $700,000 into [Costa Rica] to promote the Free Trade Agreement between Costa Rica and the US.”

The proof is in the pudding. Today’s Washington Post article delicately phrases “Costa Rica Urged to OK US Trade Deal“. In a last ditch attempt to scare up a YES vote, the U.S. is telling Ticos “there will be no renegotiating if the vote is no.” Whatever, I’m pretty sure this administration is almost done, and hey.

Ticos! You’ve got a CANADA / COSTA RICA free trade agreement right now! Let’s step up trade between our two countries! Whatever you need, we can get you.
Big business wants TLC, the common people are divided on the issue.

To the Costa Rican people, whatever your position on the issue, I wish you all good luck and a fair and transparent referendum. Canada will be watching.

¡Pura Vida!

Update, 11PM EDT – In figures released by the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones about 8:30 p.m. local time Sunday, the yes vote was 51.7 percent, some 606,985 votes, compared to 48.3 percent of 567,635 for rejection of the treaty.

The tribunal said that the votes represented 73.6 percent of the polling places and that it appeared that 69.8 percent of the electorate, some 1,193,339 persons, voted, enough to make the referendum valid. Some 40 percent was needed.

What makes Lottario a better game than Lotto6/49

Lottario gets no love.

Sure, the 6/49 prizes might look tempting up front, but look a little further down the line, and you come to a neglected little game called Lottario.

In both games, 6 numbers plus a bonus number are chosen for each draw. This makes them very comparable.

Lottario

• Costs only 1 dollar
• 1 dollar will get you 2 sets of numbers (1 you choose, and 1 random)
• Guaranteed minimum $250,000 Jackpot.
• Draws once per week.
• EARLY BIRD jackpot (4 numbers chosen on the Friday before, must have all 4 numbers, like a whole seperate game with your ticket).
  

Lotto 6/49

• Each play costs $2.
• Draws held every Wednesday and Saturday.

The immediately visible benefits of playing Lottario are:

• cheaper
• 2 draws (including the early bird) on each play
• 1 dollar buys you 2 plays for each draw!
• That’s 4 plays for $1

Now, as my brother pointed out in the comments section of my previous article, what’s the comparison of prize? It’s tough to match apples to oranges, but we’ll give it a try using some numbers and various graphs and tables.

 Odds Tables

Lottario

Number of Matches	Win	Odds
6 of 6	44 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 4,072,530.5″
5/6 + Bonus	5.4 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 678,755.25″
5 of 6	19 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 17,862.24″
4 of 6	31.6 % of the Pools Fund	1 in 366.6
3 of 6	$5	1 in 22.53
EARLY BIRD	“$50,000 (share equally)”	“1 in 4,966.75″
	Any prize	1 in 21

Lotto 6/49

Number of Matches	Win	Odds
6 of 6	80.5 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 13,983,816″
5/6 + Bonus	5.75 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 2,330,636″
5 of 6	4.75 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 55,492″
4 of 6	9 % of the Pools Fund	“1 in 1,033″
3 of 6	$10 prize	1 in 57
2/6 + Bonus	$5 prize	1 in 81
	Any prize	1 in 32

 Odds of winning any prize

This one will be easy.

Winner: Lottario, 1 in 21
Loser: Lotto6/49, 1 in 32

Odds of winning a low end prize

Winner: Lotto 6/49, there are 2 different low end prizes ($5 and $10)
Loser : Lottario, only a single low end prize ($5)

Odds of winning medium and high range prizes vs. prize pool

In order to present this data to you, we’re going to have to make up an example minimum prize amount. We know that the published minimum for Lottario is $250,000 , but because the Lotto6/49 can grow over time, the jackpot prize can balloon to as high as $30,000,000 dollars. Because the last prize was won, I see the new jackpot number has been ‘reset’ to $4,000,000 dollars.

As you can see from the charts below, the distribution looks close. A few points I can see in the 3 charts below:

1. The odds-to-payout ratio seems to be a lot closer for 6/49, meaning, worse odds for a slightly elevated payout.
2. The games are designed similarly, they just operate in 2 different planes.
3. If you’re after the jackpot, Lottario may not be for you. Put it all in the 6/49.

What are the odds of this lottery ticket?

Answer: Pretty good and pretty bad.

You see, once in a while I’ll play Lotto6/49. It’s a Canadian game, doesn’t pay like the US lotteries, but I enjoy it. Sometime’s when I’m around a lotto machine, I’ll have an extra $2.00 and lust longingly after whatever jackpot amount they post in front of me. I’ll then turn to the man and say “Quick-pick, 6/49, no encore”.

That’s it. That’s my chance. I’m in, and so far, my odds of winning are way better than a few minutes ago. What was a 0% chance just became a .000000009% chance.

A “Quick-Pick” is a quick ticket that a machine prints. I don’t have to circle my numbers, fill in an examination, or anything. The computer picks 6 random numbers, from 1 to 49, and spits them out on a ticket.

It’s all so easy, and happens within 5 seconds. So I thank the man, he tips his hat, and I walk out to find something to do on a Monday night.

Happy Birthday Sputnik.

I wasn’t there to see, but I’m glad it happened. Today marks the 50th anniversary of Sputnik.

Спутник-1

50 years. This first man-made satellite of the earth. Heck, 50 years before that we were riding horses. 50 years before that we were fighting dinosaurs and dragging women into our cave over our shoulder.

It’s always strange to listen to old broadcasts and hear it called a satellite. Not because of the definition – that’s exactly what it is, but because it’s the only word they could have chosen to describe this thing. There were not yet any spacey-words to describe things in space, and the grab-bag of space dialect contained few other choices. There were no Orbiters, Lunar Modules, Command Modules, or any other further descriptive one-word name you can think of. Only the minds of children reading science fiction were prepared to ingest this new dialect of the space-cowboy, Buck Rogers-type elite – “space jabber”.

My Director recounts a childhood experience that expanded his view of the scope of space. “I just couldn’t beleive the enormity of what I was seeing”. As a child in the depths of an Irish neighborhood, his father took him outside to look. Ireland would have had a spectacular view. He remembers looking up where his father was pointing. Although he knows that the path of the was a parabolic line across the sky, he recounts seeing it zig-zag through the stars – probably an effect by searching and re-acquiring the the bright spot amongst the background of millions of pinpoints in the unpolluted clear sky.

The media chose the only word they had in the armament of the satisfying the public’s thirst for information on the threat from the Soviet Union. A satellite.

That’s the most generic word you can use for anything concerning space. That’s what everything that orbits our earth is. Heck, the moon is a satellite. Technically, even the Shuttle is a satellite.

 

4th of October year 1957
“Soviet handmade satellite of the Earth – First in the world”
USSR Postal Service; price of stamp is 40 kopeek ( like 40 cents).
Thanks to Alexandre B. for Translation

 

Here’s the short-blurb on Sputnik:

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957. The satellite was a sphere 58 cm in diameter and weighed about 83.6 kg. It was launched into an elliptical orbit which took 96 minutes to completely go around. Monitoring of the satellite was done by Amateur radio operators. This was actually very clever, because no space agency at the time had the capability to syncronise world operations. The sound that the radio inside the little sphere spit out was on a frequency that was very accessible by the equipment available to amatuer radio hobbyists (HAM Radio).

Have a listen to the eerie sound of the first radio broadcast from space on 20.007 MHz. CLICK HERE to listen to the recording.

One little known fact about Sputnik, is that nobody really knows what happened to it. There’s a piece of it in a museum, but that wasn’t something that actually flew into outer space. Studies suggest that the spheroid could have survived re-entry after being slowed in it’s decaying orbit by the drag of earth’s atmosphere. Who knows, someone may stumble across it in a feild one day. It could also be in the ocean.

Another interesting thing is that the larger sustainer stage tumbling through space behind the Sputnik satellite remained in orbit for 882 revolutions, and fell on December 2. Corner reflectors installed on the rocket had permitted its accurate tracking with radar. The sustainer stage was a bright object, observed by many people and generally mistaken for the satellite itself, which was only barely visible.

Here is a fantastic link with great pictures about the engineering and schematics of the Sputnik-1 satellite: http://www.mentallandscape.com/S_Sputnik1.htm

Other great sites:

• Sputnik Program Page by NASA
• Video of Sputnik Launch

Attraction to my wife happened in one half a second.

I personally think it was quicker

Here’s an interesting article on exactly that, attraction time when seeing a beautiful member of the opposite sex.

The article is a great intro into an interesting experiment.

http://aldn.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/attraction-studied-at-fsu