Millions of would-be planet watchers streamed to local observatories and raided the shelves of stores selling telescopes in August to get a better view of what the press was calling the best view of another planet in fifty thousand years, but many ended up disappointed. Expressing the views of many neophyte Mars observers, Jack Louden of Cambridge, Mass. said "Wow, what a bust! I stayed our all night on August 27th, waiting for that time when Mars would get really big, and it never happened!"
Apparently Louden, like many thousands of others, had gotten the impression from misleading news reports that the Red Planet was going to suddenly appear very large in the sky on the day of its closest approach. "We were talking about it at work, and one guy thought it would get as big as the Moon. Another said he heard it would almost fill the whole sky," says Louden. "But we go to this park where these astronomers have their telescopes set up, and wait in line half the night to get a view, and all we see is this little dot! What a rip!"
This reporter gets the idea that it will be a long time before some of these folks pay any attention to news reports about astronomical events; the whole situation reminds one of the glorious spectacles of comets Kohoutek and Halley...
That's as big as it gets?
Poetry Corner
When I Heard the Modern Astronomer
with apologies to Walt Whitman
When I heard the modern astronomer,
When the computer driven, GoTo telescope was set up before me,
When I heard its noisy whine, like dentist drills, ice crushers, killer Martian robots,
When the night birds flew away, the crickets hushed, the wildlife fled from the manmade din,
How soon unacountable I became tired and sick,
Till packing up and trudging off I wander'd to another spot,
In the mystical moist night-air, and thru the remaining night,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
GC Gazette Returns!
After several months without a new issue, the Galactic Core Gazette is back! The editors apologize for the delay, and you can stop sending the "Where have you gone to?" e-mails. What was going on? Here are the top ten of the theories that have been put forward:
9. Microsoft Windows locked up our computers.
8. We were stuck showing Mars to people who had formed lines at our 'scopes on August 27th.
7. The GC Gazette was bought out by Meade.
6. The office supply of Prozac ran out.
5. The editors' vehicle ran out of gas at a dark site.
4. We got real jobs.
3. Like Mel Gibson in Conspiracy, we stumbled across a real secret and got chased around by special agents.
2. Nothing much is funny anymore.
1. We forgot the password needed to FTP files to our web server.
Inventors!
Have an idea for a new astro-item which you'd like to see created? Send it along to the GC Gazette, and we'll turn our most creative minds lose on it! If your idea gets adopted by our development team, you'll receive Absolutely Nothing, because we regularly steal other people's ideas. Well, if you like, maybe we'll put your name in if we make up an ad for your item.
A source deep within the Bush administration has leaked startling information to the GC Gazette regarding their secret agenda for NASA's future. While being questioned about the president's turn-around, calling for more funding for the space agency and committments to sending Americans back to the Moon and to Mars when he had had promoted cuts to the agency's budget in the past, our insider let slip that the actual goal is in effect a total disbanding of NASA.
"Phase one is to give the directive to send humans to build bases on the Moon and Mars," says our source. "Planning for these huge, massively expensive undertakings will require NASA to drop most of its other projects, like the successful Hubble Space Telescope and unmanned probes being sent out into the solar system. But the administration knows that, with the economy in the shape it is in, congress will be forced to cut the funding for the manned programs within a year or two. That will leave NASA without any viable programs going, including the Space Shuttle, which will have also been scrapped. At that time, we'll be able to point to the agency and say "Look-- they are useless! Why waste any more money on them!", and then just eliminate the agency entirely."
The GC Gazette is working on getting further confirmation of this story, but feels that it sounds all too plausible.
The Ultimate Apo
Jealous of your friends when they're showing off their expensive apochromatic refractors? You now can outshine them! DimaTech Optics introduces the Dimatech Super Apo which feature a corrector lens made from manmade diamond crystal! That's right; we've harnessed the superb high-refractive index of pure diamond to give unmatched color correction.
50mm models start at just $18,000. Order yours today!
MADAME EDNA'S
PSEUDOSCIENCE-OF-THE-MONTH
Mystical Madame Edna provides her readers with alternatives to the same-ol' pseudos!
This month: Reading the Clouds
Madame Edna scoffs at her friends who tell tales of Chemtrails, supposing that some secret government agency is spraying germs or other nasty items to filter down upon them and cause all sorts of health problems. Nonsense!
Edna knows that the contrails are left by regular jet aircraft, flying about on normal business. What the secret government agency does is put stuff in the jet fuel supply to make the contrails form, and then spread out to blot out the sky, keeping those nasty amateur astronomers from getting any observing done!
Now at G.C. Gazette:
Due to demands of our writing staff, who were tired of having their previous work disappear off into the ether as new news was posted on this page, we have begun to move some of the retiring news HERE (click on underlined word to go THERE) for folks to explore if they like. We've learned to listen when a room full of monkeys stop their typing and start demanding things!
Seeking inspiration? Get a
Random Thought
created personally for you!
Click HERE to visit our home page, study astronomy, and explore the Science Humor Webring!
The Galactic Core Gazette does not have time to verify each and every story it runs, so the editor does not recommend basing legal actions, large wagers, or doctoral theses on any content herein. If you are an amateur astronomer, and have anything kindly (or humorous) to say, you can send it along to Editor-At-Fault Drew at: galactic@core.com
"I saw it on the Internet -- it must be true!"
