Last night, (Friday, August 27) my wife, Carol, and I were looking at the near full moon.  There was a bright start to the right and a bit lower than the moon.  Carol commented that she doesn’t remember that star being on the right side of the moon.  I guessed that maybe it was a planet and then went in and fired up Stellarium, a free planetarium program that I have on my Ubuntu computer.  The “bright star” turned out to be Jupiter.  I tried looking at it through binoculars, but that didn’t work too well.  I also have an ancient telescope that I haven’t had out in years.  I brought it out, and after spending some good time trying to locate the moon, then locating Jupiter (As I said, the telescope is very old and the sighting eyepiece has been damaged for years), we focused in on Jupiter.  It was very small, but clear.  I could see four very tiny dits of light around Jupiter, that could just be reflections of something in the telescope or my eyes.  Nevertheless, I went back to Stellarium, and zoomed way in on Jupiter, and lo and behold, there were four moons visible around the large planet.  I went back to the telescope, and there were Callisto, Europa, Io, and Ganymede, exactly where they were in real life (except the telescope reversed the image).  Europa was right next to Jupiter, but it could clearly be seen in the telescope when it was sharply focused.  It was quite exciting to see, even if it was an underpowered old telescope, being used by a very amateur, amateurish astronomer.  Click a picture below to see a larger view.

- John

Jupiter taken with digital camera through telescope.

The moon and Jupiter through the naked eye.

Stellarium's view of what we saw.

How we saw Jupiter through the telescope. (this photo is from Stellarium)

I admit it, I have a weird sense of humor.

I received an email from Montana’s Senator Max Baucus. You know, the one that helped cram down the multi-trillion dollar “health care” bill down our throats.  Anyway, I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my e-mail client (program).  And, guess what!  Thunderbird thinks that the e-mail from Max Baucus may be a SCAM!!  Yup, Thunderbird is a pretty smart program, but be careful if you decide to “Ignore the Warning”!

Click on the screen shot for a larger view.

I did my first computer animation. I decided I would like to try animating part of the Mandelbrot Fractal.

Our computers run on Ubuntu Linux; and I used the following software to do my little project:

• I used “Fraqtive” to display the fractal screens.  I recorded each screen shot seperately using the screenshot utility that comes with Ubuntu.
• I then animated the screen shots using ImageMagick’s “animate” tool
• I recored the animation with “gtk-recordMyDesktop”
• I then assembled the video using “OpenShot” video editor.

Here is the small video animation of a tiny portion of the Mandlebrot Fractal.

John

Ubuntu 9.04 – code named Jaunty Jackalope, was released on April 23. I am always (maybe too) eager to upgrade to the next version of Ubuntu as new features are always added, making it an even better operating system. Yes, for the uninformed, Ubuntu is a computer operating system. Your computer may run Windows or if it is a Mac, it may run OS X. My computer, along with millions of others runs the totally free and open Linux version called Ubuntu.

Typically, version updates are made right over the Internet. It will download a zillion files and update everything, taking, possibly, several hours to do. I read an article on some web site that I could download the distribution and update it from a burned CD. Since I had two computers to update, I decided this might be a time savings way to go.

Click HERE to read the full post about my experience installing the Jaunty Jackalope onto our home computer.

John

It is very rare that I delete a post after it is published. I made this rare exception yesterday.

The post was about a school teacher that reprimanded a student after he shared Linux disks with his fellow students.

The computers at my house run under Ubuntu Linux, NOT Windows.  Many Many people believe that computers only run on Windows or Mac OS/X.  These people also believe that all software costs something and if you give it to someone, you are doing an illegal activity.  Linux operating systems are almost always FREE, and many times out perform Windows.  If you want to see a computer desktop that puts Windows Aero to shame, let me show you Ubuntu Linux with Compiz.  WOW! And VERY cool!  Most of the applications that run on Linux are free also, and the process of installing the applications is usually a matter of  a click or two.

Here is a link to the original article.

You must read this follow up article also to make a fair analysis of the whole deal; and that is why I deleted my post about the whole bit.

In short, it is PERFECTLY LEGAL to copy and share Linux Operating System disks AND ENCOURAGED.