Comments on: White House Star Party

By: Vikram

Vikram — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:22:28 +0000

Obama the antichrist!!!!! I thought that Bush was Christ himself!!!

By: adastragrl

adastragrl — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:31:14 +0000

@Alan in the US

Clearly not if the pres didn’t see it! But really, to start with the double double? pretty esoteric… why not Jupiter?

@onefish
Saturn?? Are you sure? It wasn’t visible from DC at that time… maybe Jupiter…

By: Video from the White House star party | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:31:18 +0000

[...] video from the White House star party held the other night makes me smile. A [...]

By: The Ill Tempered Klavier

The Ill Tempered Klavier — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:00:04 +0000

I remember reading not too long ago that, knowing full well that even the most innocent comment he made was likely to be picked up and given a ridiculous political spin, Lincoln developed the habit of saying things like “Please let me be silent.” in casual situations.

By: David D.

David D. — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:06:30 +0000

#53–
“Unfortunate that a nice outreach promoting astronomy was used as a vehicle to promote even more political clatter.
(Sigh)”

Kinda like this blog post, eh?

By: Levi in NY

Levi in NY — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:59:12 +0000

The White House YouTube channel has a half-hour video up about the star party, featuring astronaut Sally Ride advocating for science (yay!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASLjEgx_Pjs

By: Alan in the US

Alan in the US — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:46:13 +0000

@adastragrl,

Modern computerized altazimuth telescopes track well, even at high powers.

Clear skies, Alan

By: Als Obama Epsilon Lyrae erblickte: Star Party vor dem Weißen Haus « Skyweek Zwei Punkt Null

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:07:58 +0000

[...] MSNBC, Space Politics, Space Fellowship und The Space Writer. Auch lustig: die Kommentare unter diesem Vorbericht [...]

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:53:44 +0000

36. Flying sardines Says:

@ 30. John Paradox Says:

Neocons: President Barack HUSSEIN Obama kept middle schoolers up late on a school night to indoctrinate them into the *geocentric* theory… and it’s only a theory. …

Er .. don’t you mean heliocentric there?

d’oh
/homer

Geeze, just because I’ve had a few days (about three running over the last week) when I couldn’t sleep for over thirty (30) hours, you have to go and point out that I completely got it backwards. Censorship!!

/Glenn Beck

J/P=?

By: MadDoc

MadDoc — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:28:20 +0000

I am normally apolitical and do not often comment on these sort of things, but I was unlucky enough to catch a Fox News blurb this morning that showed footage of the President looking through a telescope and saying (in reference to what he was looking at) “…that’s far away”. The news commentator, Doug Luzader, then added “…just like the health care plan”.
Unfortunate that a nice outreach promoting astronomy was used as a vehicle to promote even more political clatter.
(Sigh)

By: Nemo

Nemo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:24:43 +0000

Lewis, I support manned missions to the Moon, but I don’t pretend it’s for scientific reasons. For science, look to the unmanned program. Humans have been to the Moon; unmanned probes have made it all the way to freaking Neptune, and at a fraction of the cost.

By: Lewis

Lewis — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:37:23 +0000

Now, if we can just get Washington to give more money for Science! (And by that I mean for NASA and by NASA I mean to help build the next flight system and by building the next flight system I mean for going to the Moon! Yeah I’m biased! )

As far as Bush being the worst president ever, you can believe that if you want. It’s subjective. That’s not what this blog is about. So lets get over it and move on.

By: pumpkinpie

pumpkinpie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:19:52 +0000

I don’t understand why people complain so much about the lack of dark skies in DC. (Ok, well I do as an astronomy teacher–it’s too bad there is so much we can’t see.) But in regard to this event–should they not have bothered setting up telescopes because they could only see the Moon and Jupter? Many of these attendees will not ever get a chance to venture far enough from DC to see a true dark sky and/or would never have thought to try. This may end up inspiring them to do so, become activists for reducing light pollution, going into a STEM field, and the list goes on.

By: Van Rijn

Van Rijn — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:43:38 +0000

Now if we can just get him to care about basic math and accounting.

I tease, but, seriously… the “Wow, a pro-science President” effect wore off a while ago for anyone who actually pays attention. And I have to agree with some of the more cynical posts here- most likely a dog and pony show put on for entirely pragmatic reasons.

Are the D.C. skies dark at all? Anything good visible now? I’ve been out of the hobby a while. I used to know in my head everything that was visible at any moment.

So much better than the last President who will go down as America’s worst ever.

I don’t know… I despised Bush, but in discussing it with some friends who are pretty good amateur historians (and one who used to teach history in her day), I’m thinking he’ll be considered somewhat less than average. I know that sounds like a crazy claim, but, well, it’s far too much to go into here. We’ll see.

By: onefish

onefish — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:44:38 +0000

My son was there. He had a fabulous time and got to shake the President’s hand. It had a big impact on him, he was still excited this morning. The kids did get hands-on time with a telescope, and my son was excited with the portable planetariums since he’s only seen the “hard shell” versions. I think it sounds like a great event and a very strong message, what possible reason could one give for not encouraging learning and exploration. Oh, and he got to see Saturn through a nice rig.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:27:18 +0000

This is pretty cool that the president would do such a thing.

By: Navneeth

Navneeth — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:53:40 +0000

There’s a video at the IYA website with footage from the event
http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/updates/507/

By: winkyeah

winkyeah — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:44:07 +0000

This was a cool event that should spark interest in star parties and observation of the night sky. I’m a Republican and a Conservative and I’m happy he took the time for such an event. I don’t agree with him on much, but I do agree with him that we need to nurture our children to know and love science of all kinds.

Yet, as usual, Phil can’t leave his philosophical wang in his pants. I would love, absolutely LOVE to read a post from Phil in which he doesn’t infuse his philosophical/ideological opinion.

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:42:40 +0000

We at CAS and UVa had a “tie-in” event at McCormick Observatory (it was the usual 1st Wednesday of the month CAS monthly meeting anyway). We didn’t advertise the event, though, as there isn’t much parking room up there (as Phil can attest).

Here is the OSTP’s blog, where you can get more info on the event:
http://blog.ostp.gov/

We had Dr. Kelsey Johnson of the NRAO and UVa talking about galactic categories (in a talk titled “From There to Here and Here to There, Funny Things Are Everywhere”) and her Red Hill Elementary School Astronomy Club. We’ll be doing an outreach event at the school in a week.

Afterward we had a look at Jupiter in the 26″ Clark refractor. Life is good!

By: Ian D

Ian D — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:02:56 +0000

That’s cool. I was in D.C. the other weekend… I’m sure they’ll have fun looking at the only visible object, they better hurry though, it is waning.

By: pumpkinpie

pumpkinpie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:57:12 +0000

I was “at” this star party. Three planetariums in Minnesota remotely joined the presentations in one of the portable planetariums. Dr. Carter Emmart of the Hayden Planetarium led tours of the universe, and students in our audiences listened, watched, and asked questions. It wasn’t just a video feed; everything he did in that dome showed up on ours!

By: Amy F.

Amy F. — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:33:04 +0000

@Rocketboy The Naval Observatory was a backup site. I think they just wanted the pomp of doing it at the White House.

And to those who are wondering, yes, even with the awful light pollution, we can do stargazing in the Nation’s Capital.

By: adastragrl

adastragrl — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:00:38 +0000

So long as you stick to bright objects like Jupiter, double stars and clusters, you can actually see quite a bit. And last night was very clear although a bit breezy (bad seeing). Trying to show faint fuzzies for the first time is not the way to start a general public program… even starting with the Double Double (through that 8″ sct) was a bad idea… To see it with that scope you need a hi power eyepiece and really good tracking… the telescope was setup alt-az… I would have started with Jupiter…

By: Rocketboy

Rocketboy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:18:57 +0000

You would think that something would have been done at the Naval Observatory, but that’s just me I guess.

By: TW

TW — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:47:31 +0000

[i]And may I say? It’s so so cool to finally have a President who respects science. Yay![/i]

Once again you fall for the dog and pony show.

Ill wait for results, instead of speeches, or having kids on the lawn, before I say he respects science.

So far he has done little that is different from his predecessor…other than be a better orator at the teleprompter.