Looking Upward and Onward

So another year has started. Have you made your resolutions yet? I think that I am probably going to look at doing just intentions this year. Maybe I'll have better luck holding to an intention then a resolution. How about you, Don? Is there anything in particular you want to accomplish this year?

I have completed the revisions for the Generation Y: Hotwired! Facts, Myths, and Tips book and will be republishing it later this afternoon. I really felt I needed to put in information about multitasking. We keep hearing that the millennial generation knows how to multitask – and all of us groan because we know that multitasking isn't very efficient. I was able to find the scientific studies that support that.

I've also mapped out 2 more books – one on learning styles and meditation and another on student loans. I'm hoping to have both of them completed by June. In the meantime, I'm putting together a new business plan for Wormhole Electric Publishing. It is time to decide a new path for Wormhole. I have a lot of choices – I have been reminded that even though we are a small struggling publishing company, we have established a website presence and we have sold books. How to capitalize on that and move forward will be the main question of 2015.

As I was looking through news articles this week, I found 2 articles that captured my interest.

Joe Roe published the must see star gazing events for 2015. There are actually 3 eclipses next year – two lunar and one solar. The total solar eclipse is March 20 and it looks like Greenland, Iceland, Norway and the Faeroe Islands are going to get the best view. 

As for the moon eclipses – April 4 will see the shortest lunar eclipse since 1856. People living along the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada will see this eclipse as the moon sets. On the Atlantic seaboard, it will probably be nothing more than a smudge before moonset.

The other lunar eclipse is September 27 – 28. Central North America will get to see the eclipse from start to finish. For those on the west side, we will watch the eclipsed moon rise. This will occur while the moon is at its closest to the earth so it should be a pretty spectacular event. Maybe for this we can get out our telescope.

We will have our usual meteor fireballsin August, October, November, and December. These will be the Perseid meteorshower, the Taurid and the Geminid meteor showers. Because the moon will be just a crescent in December, the Geminid shower is supposed to be one of the best events of the year. There should be a sighting of about 120 meteors an hour.

Another promised event is a brilliant Venus through the spring and summer. We all remember Venus as being  either the Morning Star or the Evening star so it's hard to believe that we would be able to see it in the middle of the night the last few weeks of May. Venus and Jupiter will play tag in the evening sky the last week of June and again the last week of October.

Another article that I ran across was fun facts about Isaac Asimov. January 1 has been dedicated to science fiction day in honor of Isaac Asimov's birthday. I didn't know how prolific Asimov was. He wrote and edited over 500 books in the course of his lifetime. That does not include the 90,000 letters that he edited and /or wrote. I had heard that Asimov did not like going outside, but did not know that his skin was so sun sensitive that he would sunburn within 10 minutes of exposure to the sun. I also learned that even though he wrote about spaceflight, he did not like flying. He preferred to travel by car or boat.

Read your draft, Don. I'm looking forward the finished piece!

Have a great week everyone.

Carolyn

Roe, J. (2015). 10 Must-See Stargazing Events to Look Up for in 2015. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/10-must-see-stargazing-events-look-2015-053301478.html

Ulster, L. (2015). Fun facts about Isaac Asimov. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/news/isaac-asimov-facts?utm_source=GOOGLE_PLUS_PAGE&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=History%20and%20Culture

 All images downloaded from Google images

Fig 1 -- Today's solar eclipse, new moon, and Mercury retrieved from michellegregg.wordPress.com

Fig 2 -- Photography tips for amateur photographers retrieved from inspirationfeed.com

Fig 3 – Perseid meteor shower retrieved from http://gnli.christianpost.com/video/sciencecasts-the-2012-perseid-meteor-shower-14298

Fig 4 -- Venus meets Jupiter in the beehive retrieved from www.steamboattoday.com