Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Looking at Globular Clusters

Globular Clusters in NGC 4490 - Photo: Flickr
Globular clusters are defined as a dense grouping of thousands to millions of stars.  They are comprised of young stars at millions of years old to older stars at billions of years old.  The stars in these clusters are usually very tightly bound together.

They are considered deep sky objects.  They are easily found in the night sky in the hours before midnight in the months of April through September.  They appear in your telescope as concentrated patches of gray mist.  The amazing part is the average distance between any of the given stars is between ¾ to 1 ½ light years.  

The most spectacular of all is the NGC 5139.  You can see it with your naked eye because it is three times the moon's diameter.  There are millions of stars that take up your viewfinder.  It is truly a wondrous sight to behold.  If you live in or around North Carolina close to the latitude of +36 degrees, you will be able to spot it easily in the night sky.

Clusters such as these are very common.  In the Milky Way, there are 150 known clusters.  The Andromeda galaxy could have upwards of 500.  The giant elliptical galaxies, such as M87, have as many as 10,000.  The neat thing is the globular clusters contain some of the first stars that were created when time began.  Their origins are still unclear.  

The major part of these clusters is found near the galactic core.  And another large majority lie on the celestial sky side.  Clusters contain a high density of older stars but they are not great locations for planetary systems.  The orbits of the planets become unstable in the dense clusters. These clusters can be dated by viewing the temperature the coolest white dwarf stars are in the group.  Common results say some of these stars are 12.7 billion years old or older.


Tuesday, January 23, 2018

What to Do With Your Stamp Collection

May Stamp Collection - Photo: Wikimedia
Are you an avid stamp collector who would like to move on?  Whether you have increased in age and are looking to make final arrangements for your most prized possessions or if stamp collecting simply isn’t a hobby that you enjoy anymore, you may be looking for guidance.  Many stamp collectors are surprised to hear how many different options they have when looking for part ways with their stamp collections.

One option that stamp collectors have when looking to pass on their stamp collection, is to literally pass it on.  This is most often done with family members.  If your age and what will happen to your prized possessions after your passing is a concern of yours, you may want to select a family member to pass your stamp collection onto.  Whether you do this now or state in your will your wishes, there are a number of benefits to keeping stamp collections in the family, especially those that are twenty years or older.

In keeping with passing your stamp collection on, you may want to examine close friends or family friends.  This approach is a nice option if you do not feel that a relative would be able to properly care for your stamp collection, expand it, or take pride in it.  If you take great pride in your stamp collection and would like to see it reach new heights, it is wise to select a new owner who would do just that.  This individual would be one who has a love of the past or one who personally enjoys stamp collecting as a hobby.

Another option, when looking to pass your stamp collection on to another, is to sell it.  Depending on the stamps in your collection, this approach may prove to be a profitable one.  Should you decide to sell your stamp collection, it is a wise idea to do the proper amount of research.  Examine collection values, ideal stamp collecting conditions, and so forth.  When selling your stamp collection, consider selling it as a whole set or in individual groups.  If you have stamps of value, your best approach may be to arrange a meeting with a stamp collecting dealer.

Donating is also an option if you are looking to pass on your stamp collection.  Depending on your stamp collection, it may be of great value and not just in the monetary sense.  You may have stamps in your collection that would be valuable to a historical organization or another nonprofit organization.  To assist your local community, inquire locally first and then expand your search to a national level if you do not see the results you were hoping for.  When donating your stamp collection, inquire about its intended use.  Will it be auctioned off for the profits or will it be housed on display?



As highlighted above, you have a number of different options.  As for which option is best for you and your stamp collection, it is important to remember it will vary.  Before deciding what you would like to do with your stamp collection, it is important to think about your decision.  Are you looking to pass on your stamp collection because stamp collecting is no longer an interest of yours or are there more important reasons, such as your health?  This important question should have an impact on your final decision.


Saturday, January 20, 2018

Victorian Architecture

The Carson Mansion - is a Queen Anne Victorian mansion at 143 M Street in Eureka, Northern California
Photo: Wikimedia
In Eureka, California sits one of the most beautiful examples of Victorian Architecture. The Carson Mansion, with its 18 rooms and excess of 16,200 square feet was constructed between 1884 and 1886. The cost of this structure was an incredible $80,000.

It is a mix of every major style of Victorian Architecture and is the most written about, most photographed house in California, possibly the U.S.

Victorian Architecture is known by many other names and can be of various styles. The building period of Victorian Architecture overlaps the reign of Queen Victoria, for whom it was named.

These structures are highly decorated and so aptly nicknamed Gingerbread houses for all of their pieces and gingerbread type scrollwork and ornamentation.

Interestingly enough, in the U.S., Toledo, Ohio is recognized as having one of the largest collections of Victorian homes, East of the Mississippi. Boston is noted in the National Register of Historic Places as having the oldest Victorian neighborhood in the U.S.

But of course, the U.S. isn’t the only place where these intricate creations of Victorian Architecture can be found. Notable Victorian-era cities range from London to Glasgow to Melbourne and to New Orleans.

Typical Victorian Architecture is grand in size, containing many functional rooms and passageways throughout the structure. Most throughout the country are not only fancifully decorated with intricate woodwork throughout, but they are usually known for their grand color schemes, both on the exterior and interior. Large inviting rooms welcome guests into their depths.


Friday, January 19, 2018

Stun Guns

Stun Gun - Photo: Wikimedia
The Stun gun is an effective weapon used to subdue a person by administering an electric shock that disrupts muscle function for a limited amount of time.

While the taser fires projectiles that administer the shock, the stun gun is a handheld weapon that causes a shock in direct contact.

Stun Guns use a temporary high voltage low current electrical charge to stun the body’s muscles and immobilize the recipient.

The recipient feels pain and is momentarily paralyzed. It is also reported that applying the stun gun to more sensitive spots on the body will cause more pain.

Tests show the most effective parts of the body to stun are the upper shoulder, below the rib cage, and the upper hip. The resulting shock causes muscles to twitch uncontrollably, like muscle spasms.

The margin of safety on the use of stun guns depends highly on the overall general health of the person receiving the shock. There is some controversy over the use of the stun guns.

The internal workings are basic and simple, based on either an oscillator, resonant circuit, and set-up transformer or diodecapicator voltage multiplier. This is what causes the continuous, direct, or alternating high-voltage discharge.

They are powered usually on one or two batteries depending on the manufacturer. The power of the output current depends on the recipient resistance, skin type, moisture, clothing, and the battery conditions.

A shock lasting about half a second will cause intense pain and muscle contractions, which startle most people. Two to three seconds will often cause the target to become dazed and drop to the ground, and over three seconds will usually completely disorientate and drop an attacker for several seconds.


Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Ashby Castle

A view through the trees of Ashby de la Zouch castle - Photo: Wikimedia
Ashby-de-la-Zouche takes its name from the Zouche family whose line died out in 1399.  In 1464, Ashby was one of the estates granted to William, Lord Hastings, as a reward for his services to Edward IV.  Hastings held the office of Lord Chamberlain and, in 1474, he obtained a license to crenelate his houses at Ashby and Kirby Muxloe.

During the Civil War, Henry Hastings strengthened the castle with earthen redoubts and turned it into the chief center of Royalist resistance in the county.  The garrison endured over a year of siege before surrendering on honorable terms in February 1646.  The Hastings Tower was slighted by order of Parliament, but the rest of the castle remained habitable into the eighteenth century.  It is now all ruined.

Before Lord Hastings, there was only a manor house here, though it was a fine one in keeping with the status of the Zouches.  Hastings made the older buildings the core of his mansion.  They form a range centered upon a late Norman hall, flanked by the solar and a buttery and pantry wing.  In the fourteenth century, the massive kitchen was added to the complex. Lord Hastings modernized these buildings and extended the range with the addition of a fine chapel in the prevailing Perpendicular style.



Following the license to crenelate, he built a curtain around the manor house and raised the mighty square tower, which is named after him.  The curtain cannot have been a very formidable obstacle - only a portion survives-but the Hastings Tower is still impressive.  It is one of the best examples of a late medieval tower house, providing its owner with a dignified but secure residence.  It stands detached from the manorial buildings, facing them across the courtyard.  The tower is built in very fine ashlar masonry.



Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Life of Leonardo da Vinci

Nacio:Vinci, Toscana, 1452 MuriĂł: Amboise, Turena, 1519 - Photo: Wikimedia
Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, cartographer, engineer, scientist and inventor in the 15th century. Yet, despite his genius, he referred to himself as "senza lettere" (the illiterate, the man without letters).  For good reason: until late in life, he was unable to read, or write, Latin, the language used by virtually all other Renaissance intellectuals, the lingua franca, akin to English today. Nor was he acquainted with mathematics until he was 30.

Leonardo was born out of wedlock but was raised by his real father, a wealthy Florentine notary. He served at least ten years (1466-1476) as Garzone (apprentice) to Andrea del Verrocchio and painted details in Verrocchio's canvasses. Only in 1478, when he was 26, did he become independent. 

He was not off to an auspicious start. He never executed his first commission (an altarpiece in the chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio della Signoria, Florence's town hall). His first large paintings were left unfinished ("The Adoration of the Magi" and "Saint Jerome", both 1481).

Most of the sketches and studies for Leonardo's works of art and engineering are found on his shopping lists, personal notes, and personal expenditure ledgers.

No one was allowed to enter Leonardo's den, where he kept, as Giorgio Vasari in "Lives of the Artists", describes: "a number of green and other kinds of lizards, crickets, serpents, butterflies, locusts, hats, and various strange creatures of this nature". 

Leonardo's clients were often dissatisfied with his glacial pace, lack of professional discipline, and inability to conclude his assignments. He was frequently involved in litigation. The Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception sued him when he failed to produce the Virgin on the Rocks, an altarpiece they commissioned from him in 1483. The court proceedings lasted 10 years. The head of Jesus in "The Last Supper" was left blank because Leonardo did not dare to paint a human model, nor did he trust his imagination sufficiently. Leonardo worked four years on the Mona Lisa but never completed it, either. He carried it with him wherever he went.

Leonardo's terra cotta model for a colossal bronze sculpture of the father of his benefactor and employer, Ludovico Sforza, was used for target practice by invading French soldiers in 1499. The metal which was supposed to go into this work of art was molded into cannon balls.

Leonardo was a member of the commission which deliberated where to place Michelangelo's magnificent statue of David. His cartographic work was so ahead of its time, that the express highway from Florence to the sea - built in the 20th century - follows precisely the route of a canal he envisioned. His scientific investigations - in anatomy, hydraulics, mechanics, ornithology, botany - are considered valuable to this very day. Bill Gates owns some his notebooks containing scientific data and observations (known as the Codex Hammer).



But Leonardo's loyalties were fickle. He switched sides to the conquering French and in 1506 returned to Milan to work for its French governor, Charles D'Amboise. Later, he became court painter for King Louis XII of France who, at the time, resided in Milan. In 1516, he relocated to France, to serve King Francis I and there he died.

Leonardo summed up the lessons of his art in a series of missives to his students, probably in Milan. These were later (1542) collected by his close associate, Francesco Melzi, as "A Treatise on Painting" and published in print (1651, 1817).




Monday, January 15, 2018

Walt Disney: A Short Bio

Walt Disney 1937 - Photo: Wikimedia
Born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois to parents Elias Disney and mother Flora Call Disney Walter E. Disney was the best thing that happened to show business in the last century. Walt's family moved to Marceline, Missouri after his birth where he was brought up on a farm. Drawing caught his imagination ever since he was seven years old and he sold his sketches to his neighbors. The family moved to Chicago again where Disney concentrated both on Drawing and Photography in his high school. He also attended the Academy of Fine Arts at night. 

Walt was also attracted to the beauty of nature as he grew up and he began to love and appreciate it. Though his father was particularly opposed to his plans her mother and elder brother Roy encouraged him to pursue his dreams. Disney even tried to get into military service but was rejected because he was only 16 years of age and thus was underage to join military. But he joined Red Cross where he was sent to France and he spent a year there driving an ambulance. 

After returning from France he pursued a career in commercial art and even started a small company called Laugh-O-Grams which went bankrupt soon. This prompted him to go to Hollywood. It is said he had only one suitcase and $20 with him when he went to Hollywood. His elder brother Roy was living in California, he pooled in $250 and they borrowed another $500 and constructed a camera stand. It didn't take a long wait before they received an order from New York to make the first Alice Comedy and they started producing cartoons in the rear of a real estate office in Hollywood.  After successfully making Alice Comedies Walt became a famous figure in Hollywood. 

Walt married one of his employees Lillian Bounds and they had two daughters. The cartoon film Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 and his talents were exposed to the world in a silent cartoon called Plane Crazy. The year coincided with the introduction of sound in movies just before the release of the cartoon. The cartoon character Mickey made its screen debut in Steamboat Willie which was the world's first fully synchronized sound cartoon. The cartoon premiered at the Colony Theater in New York on Nov. 18, 1928. 

Walt was never content with his work and his quest for excellence made him introduce Technicolor in cartoons in 1932. He used multiplane camera technique in 1937. On December 21, 1937, Walt released the first full length animated musical film called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" made at a whopping cost of $1.5 million. The animated film is still regarded as one of the rare feats of the motion picture industry.

Walt had a studio in Burbank constructed which was ready in 1940 and the employee count went up to 1,000 which comprised of artists, animators, story men, and technicians. Disney used to combine live action with the cartoon medium in 1945 in the musical "The Three Caballeros". Walt went to make many award-winning cartoon films such as "True Life Adventure" series, "The Living Desert" and many more. Disneyland was launched in 1955 with a capital of $17 million and the investment increased by 10 fold within a few years. Walt turned to social causes in 1965 and directed a film on Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow to improve the quality of urban life in America. But Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966, leaving many achievements and unfulfilled dreams behind him.



Walt Disney envisioned and had directed to purchase about forty-three square miles of land, double the size of Manhattan Island in central Florida. It took about fifty months to complete the planning and construction of the Walt Disney World which was eventually opened to the public on October 1, 1971. Walk Disney was truly a pioneer and visionary of many modern days' technologies. No wonder why he has received more than 950 honors and 48 Oscar awards and 7 Emmy awards. Truly this man stands out for his outstanding contribution to the improvement of the art of cartoon making.