What's Up @ the Torrence Barrens Dark Sky Preserve - Sky Forecast

Bookmark this article if you want to know what's up at Torrence Barrens Dark Sky Preserve.

Check out the following:

Clear Sky Chart for your astronomy and observing weather forecast and a link to the Camp website - for more see Weather forecasts for Stargazers

Heavens Above for observing forecasts and charts covering the International Space Station, Satellites, Planets, Comets, and Iridium flares as seen from the camp

Google Maps for a look at the camp

What's Up @ Haliburton Scout Reserve - Sky Forecast

Bookmark this article if you want to know what's up at the Haliburton Scout Reserve.

Check out the following:

Clear Sky Chart for your astronomy and observing weather forecast and a link to the Camp website - for more see Weather forecasts for Stargazers

Heavens Above for observing forecasts and charts covering the International Space Station, Satellites, Planets, Comets, and Iridium flares as seen from the camp

Google Maps for a look at the camp

Carnival of Space #81 @ Tiny Mantras

Check out this weeks Carnival and another 1st time host.

Tipsy Orion

Real Orion Image courtesy of NASA APOD (Credit & Copyright: Matthew Spinelli)

The other day I walked into a local wine store and noticed the "Orion" brand of Port and Sherry. I immediately noticed that a few things were not right with our mythic hero of old.  Above is a photo of the label contrasted with a real photo of Orion.

Firstly, his left foot (Rigel) is out of place. His belt is too loose (from too much Turkey dinner perhaps). In fact, it's right out to his bow! And he seems to be having an outbreak of some sort around his right shoulder (Beteleguese).  I expect the poor fellow will fall flat on his face.

BTW. It's that time of year again as Orion returns to the evening sky.

What's Up @ Camp Goodyear - Sky Forecast

Bookmark this article if you want to know what's up at Camp Goodyear

Check out the following:

Clear Sky Chart for your astronomy and observing weather forecast and a link to the Camp website - for more see Weather forecasts for Stargazers

Heavens Above for observing forecasts and charts covering the International Space Station, Satellites, Planets, Comets, and Iridium flares as seen from the camp

Google Maps for a look at the camp

Note: this chart uses an existing CSC for the nearby Wildflower Observatory ( ~ 3km East of Goodyear). Check out their very cool robot observatory facility here.

Carnival of Space #80 - (US) Thanksgiving Edition @ Starts with a Bang

Well the title just about says it all. Hop on over to CoS#80 where Ethan has prepared a fine menu of space and astronomy delicacies.

What's Up @ Otter Lake Camp - SkyForecast

Bookmark this article if you want to know what's up at Otter Lake.

Check out the following:

Clear Sky Chart for your astronomy and observing weather forecast and a link to the Camp website - for more see Weather forecasts for Stargazers

Heavens Above for observing forecasts and charts covering the International Space Station, Satellites, Planets, Comets, and Iridium flares as seen from the camp

Google Maps for a look at the camp

Carnival of Space #79 @ One Astronomers Noise

This weeks Carnival of Space is being hosted at another first time host One Astronomer's Noise.

What's Up @ Woodland Trails - Sky Forecast

Bookmark this article if you want to know what's up at Woodland Trails.

Check out the following:

Clear Sky Chart for your astronomy and observing weather forecast and a link to the Camp website - for more see Weather forecasts for Stargazers

Heavens Above for observing forecasts and charts covering the International Space Station, Satellites, Planets, Comets, and Iridium flares as seen from the camp

Google Maps for a look at the camp

What's up Sky Forecasts

What's up SkyForecasts provide useful information in one place for planning stargazing events.

Using an existing chart:

These extended Clear Sky Charts the following information in one page. Each image/link will open a new window or tab with the details you want.

1. The small Clear Sky Chart graphic for the location. Click on it to see the full deatils including cloud cover, temperature, darkness, transparency, "seeing", and more. For more see Weather forecasts for Stargazers or visit Clear Sky Charts.
   
2. The Heaven's Above link will provide predictions and charts and details showing visibility of the International Space Station, Satellites, Planets, Comets, and Iridium flares as seen from the location.
   
3. The Google Maps link will take you to a Satellite photo of your observing location. This can help you plan where to setup for observing.
   
4. A link to the locations web site.

To select from a list of existing charts, click here.

Coming Soon:

Here's a list of the sites with charts and some sites that will be appearing soon:

• The Torrance Deep Sky Preserve
  
• The Haliburton Scout Reserve
  
• Camp Goodyear
  
• Woodland Trails
  
• Blue Springs Scout Reserve
  
• The 433rd Home
  

They're very easy to add once you have a Clear Sky Chart.

Adding SkyForecasts to your own site:

In order to set up your own SkyForecasts you'll need

• 8-9 pieces of information
• possibly some skills with your blogging software and javascripts in case things don't work right the first time

The Information:

• The style of chart you want. Right now there are 'full' and 'tiny' charts. The example above is a full chart. A tiny chart is suitable for a blog sidebar.
• A handle for the Clear Sky Chart for your location. More on this anon.
  
• The latitude of your observing location (decimal format with south being negative). Example: 43.6722 runs through Toronto Ontario.
• The longitude of your observing location (decimal with west being negative). Example -79.5542 runs through the western side of Toronto.
• The altitude (in meters) of your observing location. This is needed for Heavens Above. One place you can find this information is through Earth Tools which builds on Google Maps. Slide and zoom the map until the "+" is on your spot, then use height under "My Tools" to get the elevation.
  
• The zoom factor for Google Maps. This will depend on how detailed the satellite photos are for the area. You can get this from the "link" URL to the map. It'll likley be between z=15 and z=20.
• The timezone. For example "EST".
• The locations description to be used in the link to the web site for the location.
• The locations' URL to go for more information. (This is only used on full charts).

The Script You Need:

To access the ECSC function and graphics use:

<script src="http://433rd.com/media/SkyForecast/ECSC.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

To call the function with the arguments use:

<script type='text/javascript'>
ECSC('full','LLdMrToON','43.6722','-79.55420','158','16','EST','433rd Home (Lloyd Manor Park, Etobicoke)','http://blog.433rd.com/');
</script>

The Clear Sky Chart Handle:

You need to find an existing chart or setup a Clear Sky Chart through the procedures at Clear Sky Charts. The key information you need are the two URLs in the code you use to imbed the Chart. Using the Lloyd Manor Park example, these are:

• http://cleardarksky.com/c/LLdMrToONcs0.gif?1
• http://cleardarksky.com/c/LLdMrToONkey.html?1
  

Notice the "LLdMrToON" that's the handle.

If you get a new chart set up, please send a thank you to Allan Rahill at Environment Canada and Attilla Danko at ClearDarkSky for making these charts possible.

Outside of North America:

I've seen charts to the Clear Sky Charts for locations outside of North America.  These are produced by other organizations.  Rather than repeat this information, Clear Dark Sky keeps some information on this here.

Problems:

I can't speak for other blogging software, but this was a major frustration in Blogger and here are the solutions.

• Blogger has widget types for javascript for use in the sidebar and such. Javascript will work just fine in these.  You'll probably want to use the 'tiny' chart type for a sidebar.
  
• Blogger's standard Post Editor will mangle scripts, tables and other HTML objects. Don't even try to fix it, just use one of these solutions.

• You can change the global setting that controls the conversion of new lines to
  tags. Not recommended because it will reformat all your articles.
• Use the new draft post editor for to edit the post. Under Post Options you should select "ignore newlines" for that post. And under no circumstances mix editing a post with the new and old post editors. For more information on the new post editor see Blogger in Draft or just try it out here.
  

If you want to experiment, W3Schools has a series of hands on demos called "Try It". Click here for a simple example. Simply replace the text between the <body> and </body> tags and click the button labeled "Edit the Text and Click Me".

Terms of Use

If you display Clear Sky Charts you should check out the terms of use here.

As for my scripts, I should probably add a GNU or CC license to them.  My intent simply put is that you can copy them or use them.  If you enhance them, make them freely available.  And keep the credit to Mang's Bat Page. A link back would be appreciated.

And BTW,  if you find them useful let people know.  Drop me a line, add a comment or link back here.  Also let the folks at Clear Dark Skies, Heavens Above, and Environment Canada know you like their stuff.

Update: Firefox Plugin for Clear Sky Charts

Sean at Visual Astronomy sent tipped me a firefox plugin for Clear Sky Charts. For more information see Sean's article and and the plugin page.

Related Articles:

• Build your own Planisphere (Star Finder)!
• Twilight hours and a sunrise/sunset calculator

2008 Weston Santa Claus Parade

Mark Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 in your Calendars. Once again we are marching with St. Nick in Weston. For more information see 2008 Weston Santa Claus Parade.

If you are looking for the OTHER Santa Claus Parade, they're over here.

2008 Christmas Tree Sales begin soon

Click here for more information on Christmas Tree Sales.

Think of the fallen

Another year passed,
More defenders gone,
Passing into memory,
Newer generations
never knew,
Past forgetting,
Think instead,
The price they paid,
For us all,
Honour them,
Always

One year of Bat Blogging!

The Bat Page is now one!

I don't have an astounding article to share, or a web site face lift, or anything else 'major'. I thought I'd just reflect on what has been an interesting year. Along the way I learned a lot about blogging, made connections, found new some great resources, made new friends, and wrote a few good articles.

I started this blog along with a blog for the 443rd Scouts so I could write about Scouting related and side interests that might not be of interest to all of the families in our group. It began with a few ideas that would support badgework, scoutcraft, and getting in touch with other Scout groups (see Scoutblogs and Scoutreach). And I thought I had some topics might have some interest and be of use to Scouting like groups and perhaps some others.

Just a few days ago the Bat Page recorded its 20,000th visitor ( in just 9 months of tracking). That's far more than I expected when I started this. Wow! Not bad for a Scouters blog.

The chart above shows those visits. The spikes from left to right are:

• Carnival of Space #61: Tunguska Edition,
• Scam psychology, Whack-a-mole and the next 2012 hoax,
• Greenwash, Security Theatre, and Skepticism - Critical Thinking, and
• Astronomical distances are .... (well) astronomical.

Back in May I wrote Mang's Most Popular. This was before the spikes generated by The Carnival of Space and Stumblers. There is still steady interest in articles like:

• Build your own Planisphere (Star Finder)!, and
• Navigation without a compass (or GPS).

One things I tried to do with the last two articles, was to make sure they provided answers for those in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

The Web and tools like blogs have the potential to transform and expand Scouting. Events like JOTI are a fantastic complement to traditional jamborees. The promise of Scoutblogs is to keep this kind of grass-roots communication going all the time. There are great examples of Scout Bloggers, but I think there is room for a lot more. I know Scouters that have a wealth of relevant and useful information covering all of the domains of Scouting knowledge. More of them need to share this. Scouters could take a lesson from the Space/Astronomy blogging community that has shown one way it can be done.

There are a lot of people who've shown how to do it and I'd like to thank some of them: Scouters Joy, Ken, and Clarke; and Space bloggers Fraser, Ian, and Phil.

Annual Humber West Hobby Show Crest Design Competition

It's time for the annual Humber West Hobby Show Crest Design Competition.

Carnival of Space #78 @ Simostronomy

This week's carnival of space (#78) returns to Simostronomy where Mike Simosen takes an interest in variable stars which include a lot of things that go bang on a scale that makes the Mythbusters envious.

Enjoy.

Light pollution - even more in the spotlight

The issue of light pollution is underexposed. But it is getting more and more serious attention.

In Light Pollution — Someone Noticed!, Alan Dyer pointed to recent National Geographic coverage that may be the first exposure of many people to the issue.

Events like The Great World Wide Star Count - Oct 20 to Nov 3, 2008 and Light Pollution Awareness - The Globe at Night - Feb 25 to Mar 8 have been drawing attention. Even backouts like we had in 2003 provide for Reflections on light pollution.

Carnivals of Space 76 and 77

There are new Carnivals 76 and 77.

Note: some posts did not make it into these Carnivals and Fraser is investigating.