October 2011
Blogging Day Off
Taking the day off from posting. Enjoy this picture of The Damsel enjoying the view near our new home.
The Other Road
We walked up the hill to our neighbor’s house to check on it (he’s out of town) a couple of days ago. While we were up there, I took a picture looking down at the next road over. A couple of saguaros, a mesquite tree with a wagon wheel and a cholla make nice landscape at the entrance of another neighbor’s house. Casandro Wash is in the background. Click on the image to enlarge.
Four Moons of Saturn
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is a spectacular view of four of the moons of Saturn and a partial view of the rings. Image and the explanation below courtesy of APOD and NASA. You may need to click on the image to enlarge it to original size to see the fourth moon “Pan.”
Explanation: A fourth moon is visible on the above image if you look hard enough. First — and farthest in the background — is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and one of the larger moons in the Solar System. The dark feature across the top of this perpetually cloudy world is the north polar hood. The next most obvious moon is bright Dione, visible in the foreground, complete with craters and long ice cliffs. Jutting in from the left are several of Saturn’s expansive rings, including Saturn’s A ring featuring the dark Encke Gap. On the far right, just outside the rings, is Pandora, a moon only 80-kilometers across that helps shepherd Saturn’s F ring. The fourth moon? If you look closely in the Encke Gap you’ll find a speck that is actually Pan. Although one of Saturn’s smallest moons at 35-kilometers across, Pan is massive enough to help keep the Encke gap relatively free of ring particles.
One Year Ago Today
One year ago the house looked like this. Mouse over the image to see our home today.