Bad Astronomy » Video Blog

Hubble’s Hotties

Phil Plait — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:00:16 +0000

For the past few months I’ve been doing a series of short astronomy videos with producer/director Tom Lucas. Unlike my own videos I do in my house, these are professionally made, and I’ve been very happy with the past few.

Yesterday the sixth episode was posted, called "Hubble’s Hotties". It’s a Top Ten List of Hubble images, except it’s only really the Top Six. Sorry, but there’s only so much you can squeeze into five minutes!

It’s also available in high-res (click the link under the video on the YouTube page).

We filmed this at the Denver Museum of Science & Nature, and I’m grateful for the use of their facility. And I’ll be back there on the 11th of December to give a talk about asteroid impacts and my book, Death from the Skies! It’s a great place, and I hope some of you can join me there.

dot astronomy talk

Phil Plait — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:20:59 +0000

A little while back I participated in the "dot astronomy" conference; a new meeting designed to promote online astronomy. It was held in Cardiff, and oh, Doctor, how I wish I could have attended in person! But instead I skyped into the meeting and gave my 20 minute presentation on being an all-powerful blogger, capable of crushing worlds beneath me.

Or I just talked about how to set up a blog, and how it will soon dominate your life. The sound quality isn’t the best, but I think you can make out what I say. And I only ran 6 minutes long (including Q&A) so that’s pretty good, too. There are lots of other talks online (including Pamela Gay’s and Emily Lakdawalla’s), so you can spend lots of time learning about what astronomy you can do indoors and ethernetted.

Sadly, the resolution is too low to see how carefully I placed my copy of Death from the Skies! behind me. It’s just an orange blur. Sigh. What’s that? You’d like to see it better? Why, I’m glad you asked!

My thanks to Robert Simpson for getting this all set up and being patient with me.

High Roller

Phil Plait — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:30:36 +0000

Wanna see the coolest video set to music from a webcam attached to the very first privately owned company rocket that made it into orbit that you’ll see… well, ever?*

Yes. Yes, you do.

Space X took the webcam video from their successful launch of the Falcon-1 rocket and set it to music. The result is made of awesome. The editing is a thing of wonder.

Hint: turn up your speakers.

And yes, you want the high-def version.

Now to go find me some Crystal Method disks…

Tip o’ the heat shield to my anonymous mole at Space X.

This is the same phrase I used to submit this to Fark, and it got greenlit! W00t!

But baby it’s cold outside

Phil Plait — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:22:28 +0000

I have always wanted to travel to Antarctica. Such beauty, such alien landscapes! I’ve had my taste of cold weather, too; I live in Colorado, after all, and have lived in Michigan.

But somehow, this video makes me less eager to head on down.

http://view.break.com/487339 – Watch more free videos

Sure, if I ever went, I’d want a flamethrower to make sure I could ward off any shape-shifting aliens trying to take over the bodies of my co-workers. But I wouldn’t have thought I’d need it just to stay warm.

MESSENGER of the Gods

Phil Plait — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:05:49 +0000

We’re in a bit of a lull with Mercury right now; the MESSENGER probe passed it a few months ago, and it’ll be a little while before it makes pass #2. In the meantime, though, you can watch a video I made about the planet and the probe for SpaceRip, part of the high-res video series I’ve been doing with professional director/producer Tom Lucas.

For American viewers, it’s also up on Hulu, and it’s available through Joost as well. I think this is the best one we’ve done so far. We filmed it at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in their Gates Planetarium. If you happen to be in the Denver area, drop by and show them some love; they’re good folks.

The other videos in the series so far are Saturn: Lord of the Rings, Black Hole Death Rays, The Changing Face of Mars, and Cookbook of Galactic Cannibalism.

Video of NASA rocket failure

Phil Plait — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:09:39 +0000

Via Universe Today comes word that a video of a NASA rocket launch that went very, very awry is now on YouTube:

Yikes. Go to UT to get the details!

Shuttle launch from an airplane?

Phil Plait — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:06:20 +0000

This is possibly a Delta launch, and not a Shuttle launch. Either way, very cool. Thanks to commenter Paolo below.

BABloggee Greg Smith pointed me toward this amateur video showing a Space Shuttle launch from an airplane window (note: mild NSFW language in the vid)!

I have to say, this looks real to me. Hard to say if it’s a Shuttle or some other rocket, but the footage itself appears legit. Normally NASA restricts the airspace around a launch, but judging from the video it looks like the airplane was 50 or more miles away from the launch site. The rocket veers away from the camera, indicating the plane was west of the launch, so that hangs together as well. Sadly, the video ends before the solid rocket boosters separate from the Shuttle (which happens roughly two minutes into the flight); that would be very telling, and I have to admit it’s weird the video doesn’t go for longer. The problem with videos like this is the lack of any real info on the hosting sites! If anyone finds more, please leave a note in the comments below.

I have seen some weird stuff from airplanes, and I ...

Comic Con: My panel on science and scifi

Phil Plait — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:30:36 +0000

The reason I went to Comic Con was because the Hive Overmind (Discover Magazine) sponsored a panel discussion about the Science of Science Fiction, and invited me to be on it. They paid for my junket, which was very cool of them, and of course buys my loyalty for at least a week or two.

The panel was a lot of fun. They recorded it, and it’s now live:

The audience seemed to enjoy the discussion, and we got a lot of great questions. The panelists were me, Kevin Grazier (science advisor for Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, and The Zula Patrol), and Jaime Paglia (Executive Producer of Eureka). The moderator was Stephen Cass, who contributes to the Science Not Fiction blog at DM.

io9 has comments on the panel (more about them later), and it’s also up at the official Eureka writers’ blog, Eureka Unscripted.

After the panel, DM took us all out to dinner (Kevin had to leave early, which is too bad; we’ve been friends a while and I would’ve liked to have hung out more). Jaime went, as well as Eureka writer Eric Wallace and his wife Wendy (coproducer ...

Comic Con: Mahalo!

Phil Plait — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:44:14 +0000

A while back I wrote about the human-driven search engine called Mahalo.

Mahalo has a daily vidcast they do, and they’re here at Comic Con. Well, I was looking for Wil Wheaton to ask him about Manga (long story) and when I found him he was being interviewed by Mahalo. When he was done, he instantly told them they needed to interview me, because that’s just how super-awesome Wil is. So Leah D’Emilio, the host, talked to me about Bad Astronomy and Death from the Skies!

Spreading the love, after we were done I sent them to JSto. Push it forward, folks.

What are the Lagrange points?

Phil Plait — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:00:47 +0000

In my live video chat session Saturday, I was asked about the Lagrange points, places of gravitational stability. I decided I needed props for this (yes, the return of the Squishy Brain of Science and the Mintie of Science!), and it works even better with pictures, so I created a video for it.

You can learn more details about the Lagrange points at the Montana University site. The Lagrange point images (and the WMAP picture) come from the WMAP website. The JWST picture is from the (duh) JWST site. The portrait of Lagrange is from Wikipedia. Everything else is pure me, baby.

My Comic Con panel: LIVE

Phil Plait — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:38:56 +0000

I am streaming my Comic Con panel right here, right now.

Live .TV show provided by Ustream

Interview with Steven Moffat… live?

Phil Plait — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:00:53 +0000

Update: We’re in the interview area waiting for them to show up. I still don’t know if I’ll be live streaming or not, so stay tuned! But I might simply have to tape it and edit it for later.

I’m off to ComiCon! I’ll be arriving around 1-ish, but I have to hit the ground running. My schedule has changed…

Here’s the deal: Steven Moffat (the new show runner for Doctor Who) as well as Julie Gardner (DW Producer) and Naoko Mori (Toshiko on Torchwood) will be doing interviews today, Wednesday, at ComiCon. I’ve signed up for this, and evidently there are too many journalists to do individual interviews, so they’re putting us at tables to do round-robins. Moffat is from 4:00 – 4:30, and Mori and Gardner are from 4:30 – 5:00; all times are Pacific time (add seven hours for UT).

So I get to ask all three of them questions, and I’m still brewing that in my head (suggestions are welcome; leave them in the comments!).

But what I’m going to try to do is do this live, streaming on my UStream channel. That means that if you tune in you can watch it live!

However, many things have ...

Can I see more stars from space?

Phil Plait — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:14:32 +0000

In the live video chat over the weekend, I was asked a GREAT question: can you see more stars from a high altitude, like say from an airplane? This is a common question, and it makes the assumption that the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs starlight; so if you go up high enough you’ll see lots more stars.

Turns out, not so much. Here’s why:

If you’re curious, the image I put in the video from Hubble is reproduced below, but you really need to go take a look at the high-res version. It’s not color, but it’s still very cool.

Also, the beautiful image of Orion is from J P Stanley’s Flickr set (reproduced under Creative Commons licensing, so if you like his picture go show him some love on Flickr).

Live video chat Saturday (today!) at 15:00 Mountain Time

Phil Plait — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:53:43 +0000

YALVC (yet another live video chat) is going down today at 15:00 Mountain time (21:00 UT). All you need to do is click play (the little curly arrow at the bottom left) in the embedded video player below. But! Just listening to me talk may be confusing (and has been determined by the AMA to cause vertigo, the vapors, and, in some people, swooning), so I encourage you to go to my UStream video page so you can participate in the chat. Once there, you can change your name by typing "/nick Steven Moffat" (or whatever) so you can be listed with an actual name. If you prefer to use mIRC or Colloquy or whatever, then the server is chat1.ustream.tv and the room is #bad-astronomy.

Live .TV show provided by Ustream

Live chat SATURDAY at 3:00 Mountain

Phil Plait — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:26:00 +0000

Quick note: this week’s live chat will be tomorrow, SATURDAY, July 19 at 3:00 Mountain time (21:00 UT). I have to do some stuff Sunday, and won’t be here at the usual time, so I’ve moved it up a day.

I’ll have a new post up an hour or two beforehand with the video feed embedded and all that as usual. See you there!

HOLY FRAK! Moon transits Earth!

Phil Plait — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:19:32 +0000

Regular readers know I am deeply impressed with astronomical imagery, and I tend to be a little over-the-top on occasion when describing it.

However, having said that, let me be very clear: the following is just about the coolest thing I have ever seen.

First, the setup. The Deep Impact spacecraft was the one that smacked a chunk of copper into a comet so that we could see what materials were below the surface. After the impact, the spacecraft kept going (with the mission renamed EPOXI), and it’s being used to do all sorts of interesting observations.

In late May, 2008, it turned its cameras back to Earth and observed us over the course of a several hours. During this time, from EPOXI’s point of view, the Moon passed directly in front of the Earth! The images were put together (by my old boss, Don Lindler!) into, well, one of the most astonishing animations I have ever watched. Ever.

Now below is the same view, but this time the "red" you see is actually infrared; note that land masses which are warm, appear really red since they are emitting lots of ...

What is the nearest star to Earth that can go supernova?

Phil Plait — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:30:32 +0000

This is a common question: what is the nearest star to the Earth that can explode as a supernova? Most people say Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in Orion, but there are several stars that are closer.

In the video below I answered this question as part of my weekly live video chat.

If you have an astronomy question you want answered, tune in to the live chat, which I usually do on Sundays at 15:00 Mountain time (21:00 UT). I might make a video of your Q&A!

Some notes: the image of Spica is used under the Creative Commons license, and is from fdecomite’s Flickr set. The awesome white dwarf illustration is from my friend the artist David Hardy (and PPARC), who gave me permission to use that in my book, so hopefully he won’t mind if I plug him here.

How do you pronounce kilometer?

Phil Plait — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:37:27 +0000

When I was in Canada, it was really cool to see everyone using the metric system. But what made me a little nuts was how everyone pronounced the word kilometer. Is it kil-AW-meter or KILL-o-meter?

I make my case for the latter in the video below. If you disagree with me, then I can state quite objectively and maturely that you are wrong wrong wrong.

When I was giving my first talk in Canada I actually mentioned this, and got a lot of applause from right-thinking people. The others were strangely (ominously?) silent. Perhaps they were tuning up their kill-o-meters.

Note: in the video I use the spelling decameter. I have seen it as dekameter as well, and in some dictionaries it says decameter is the old way to spell it. Well, maybe. I still like it, so I used it. If I can rant about pronunciation, I can rant about spelling, too.

Live chat Sunday (today!) at 3:00 Mountain Time

Phil Plait — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:32:48 +0000

I’ll be holding a live video chat right here on this very blog post at 15:00 Mountain time (21:00 UT). All you need to do is go down to the embedded video player below and click play (the little curly arrow at the bottom left). As usual, I encourage y’all to go to my UStream video page so you can participate in the chat room. You can change your name by typing "/nick Davros" (or whatever) so you can be listed with an actual name, and not an anonymous one. If you have some chat software you prefer to use (like mIRC or Colloquy) then the server is chat1.ustream.tv and the room is #bad-astronomy.

Oh — I’m going to see a movie in a few minutes as a I write this (WALL-E if you care) and I expect to be back in plenty of time to start the chat. If I’m not, don’t panic; I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Live .TV show provided by Ustream

Live chat Sunday at 3:00 Mountain Time

Phil Plait — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:29:57 +0000

I’ll be doing another live video chat on Sunday at 15:00 Mountain Time (21:00 UT). I’ll have it all set up an hour or two before hand with a new post, so I’ll just leave you with the countdown clock for now:

Saturn, Lord of the Rings

Phil Plait — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:42:36 +0000

To the unaided eye, Saturn doesn’t look like much. It appears to be just another "star" — brighter than most, but still just starlike. In fact, you can see for yourself: over the next few days, go outside right after sunset and look west. You’ll see two of these "stars" very close together. One is Mars, the other Saturn. It’s hard to tell which is which: from a few hundred million kilometers away, Saturn’s signature rings are invisible with just your eye.

That’s too bad. Saturn’s ring system is magnificent, and amazing. But if we can’t go to Saturn to see the rings, the least I can do is bring the rings here to you.

And so I present the fourth in the series of short astronomy videos I’ve been making with director Tom Lucas. Saturn, Lord of the Rings is now up in high-definition goodness on Hulu.com (if you’re in the US), and we’ve also simulposted it on YouTube. I’ve even embedded it here, like Pandora and Prometheus in the F Ring:

This one was fun to make. We filmed it at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science — which is also the place ...

Magnetic Movie

Phil Plait — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:53:02 +0000

You are immersed in magnetic fields right now. Your computer, your house, your office, your street, your TV, your iPod… they all have magnetic fields around them, and you are embedded in them as well.

The Earth’s field surrounds all of us, and that interacts with the Sun’s field, which goes out and touches Mars. For billions more miles beyond that, the Sun reaches out, and that has effects that can be measured.

But now you can see them. Magnetic Movie, created by the company Semiconductor Films and filmed at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratories, uses animations based on magnetic measurements to visualize these fields. The result is a beautiful and yet very eerie — and sometimes downright creepy — movie depicting how these fields interact.

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Magnetic fields are incredibly difficult to model and understand. I had to take a crash course when I was writing the chapter about solar flares in my book Death from the Skies!, and it was the hardest part of the whole writing process. I relied heavily on my friend (and genius) Craig DeForest, a solar astrophysicist here in Boulder at Southwest Research ...

Google reveals truth behind Apollo!

Phil Plait — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:09:54 +0000

I don’t know if I wanna laugh at this kind of parody (which truly is funny) or cry that antiscience stupidosity has reached such a level of notoriety that it’s the target of web snarkery.

But it is funny.

Tip o’ the spacesuit visor to BABloggee Vernon Balbert and the ever-webalicious A.

Amazing spoon bending

Phil Plait — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:34:23 +0000

It’s incredible to me that some people still buy into psychic spoon-bending. This silliness was promulgated by the faux-psychic (like there’s any other kind) Uri Geller back in the 70s, and has been rigorously debunked by James Randi. But there are still groups out there who do spoon bending like it’s a mental training exercise, along the lines of fire walking.

But it’s a trick, a sham, a fake, a hoax, a cheat, a con, a fraud.

I can prove it. If you take over 800 critical thinkers — self-proclaimed non-believers in anything psi — at a meeting to celebrate skepticism, give them each a spoon, and tell them to bend it with the power of their mind alone, what do you think would happen?

Richard Wiseman and Tracy King have the answer. And they have the video to back it up.

Richard is my evil twin and also a professor of psychology in England. He studies unusual thought processes, like how we perceive change — you may have seen his color-changing card video, for example.

So he and Tracy staged this spoon-bending exercise at TAM 6 in June, and we participated with gusto. ...

Live video chat Sunday, 3:00 Mountain tme

Phil Plait — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:47:16 +0000

OK, looks like I’ll be doing the live video chat thing on Sunday, July 6, at 3:00 p.m. Mountain time (21:00 UT). I haven’t embedded a stream in this new bloggy hideaway, so we’ll see if this works.

As usual, if you see and hear me below talking about bending spoons, you’re all set.

Also as usual, I encourage people to particpate in the chat room on the UStream page; type "/nick John Hancock" to change your username.

Live .TV show provided by Ustream