Starhouse Observatory Web Log

Moving to Slacker Astronomy

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 23:56:37 -0500

I’m not retiring this blog, per se, but I am going to be moving more and more of my astronomy blogging over to Slacker Astronomy. I’m spread a little too thing blog-wise so I want to try to consolidate it over there for the astronomy side of things. But, like I said, I’m not deleting this or anything so please stop by and/or stay subscribed to the feed and please join me over at Slacker Astronomy!

Check out the CoS#60!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:02:01 -0500

Michael over at Slacker Astronomy (oh, wait, that’s me!) has posted the 60th edition of the Carnival of Space, a fascinating weekly roundup of astronomy and space science blogging. It’s the brainchild and is cared for and fed by Fraser Cain at Universe Today. There are tons of great posts and a lot of good astronomy blogs you probably haven’t heard of, so go check it out!

I passed and graduated!

Thu, 29 May 2008 23:06:46 -0500

I got a B- in that damn class and fulfilled all the necessary requirements to graduate. So I now have my Bachelor of Science in Astrophysics. Woo hoo!

My University of Minnesota grade point average (GPA) was 3.772. That’s respectable. I was disappointed with everything that wasn’t an A, but I am human after all and I’m cool with that.

Observing Hiatus

Fri, 2 May 2008 22:30:46 -0500

I haven’t been getting out to my observatory lately. I’m trying to finish this damn class. While the class doesn’t take that much time, I just don’t have the head space or time to head out to my observatory in the early evening, stay up too late and then reduce the data. I don’t want the things I do in my life for fun to become work.

But I am very much looking forward to lots of warm summer nights at my observatory. I’m going to bring my son Myles along and camp out and see if he likes it. I’d have major support for my observing habit from my wife if I took “the loud one” with me. My observatory is on a friend’s hobby farm and they have two kids, so it will be fun for Myles I think. If I can get the camera clicking away I’ll have plenty of time to put Myles to bed in our tent before further action on my part is required. In the morning we’ll sleep in, maybe have breakfast with Dale, Martha, Max and Zack and then head back home.

Stay tuned, I’ll report back. Anyone successfully doing all night observing runs with kids in tow?

Confronting my humanity

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:29:51 -0500

I am one class away from graduating with my undergraduate degree in astrophysics. That last one class IS KICKING MY ASS. I’m taking a 4000-level differential equations class. I totally bombed my midterm. I literally got an F -- 51/100. This is very frustrating because I know the techniques but I don’t (apparently) know which technique to use on which problem. So every problem I got wrong I got wrong because I used the wrong technique. On every problem where I used the correct technique, I got it right!

So in order to finish with a C I have to pretty much ace the final. In my past 4 math classes, which included linear algebra and multivariable calculus, I got straight A’s!

This brings up so many issues for me.

It frustrates me when teachers give tests that are harder than the homework. That is backwards to me. On the test I think they should make absolutely sure they give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they know the basics. In this case, all the homework problems indicated which technique to use. On the test none of them did.
I am getting older. I can tell my brain works a bit slower. Once I learn something, I learn it forever, but it takes me a little while to fill in all the details. This is a class of people in their early 20’s and I’m 42.
When I started taking classes I told myself that the grades didn’t matter -- I just wanted to learn. It turns out that the grades do matter to me and it does make it less enjoyable. I just can’t do things without trying to do my best and the measure of how well you do in these classes is the grade.
When I first started taking classes (as an adult) I had zero kids. Now I have 2 kids. My business was barely getting going and now my business is thriving and growing. It is very hard for me to find long quiet periods of time to study.
I didn’t work hard enough and I have to work much harder.

Thanks for listening!