Astronomy Tuesday

Clouds in the Martian dawn, as seen by Perseverance in Jezero Crater last month.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S Atkinson

Reflections

Another picture from last weekend. This is part of a sculpture called XO World outside the new World Trade Center Tower.

Reflections

Every week I think that I'll get back in this habit, but for some reason teaching is taking up even more of my brain than grad school did. (I've described it as having to write and perform a six-hour play every week.)

But here is something I actually saw today—reflections by the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.

San Francisco

Seen from Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, the spires of San Francisco look like something from a fairy tale.

I'm taking advantage of spring break to spend a few days visiting friends, staying in an AirBnB south of the campus in Berkeley, where everything is different—no more Kip's or Cody's or Rasputin Records—and yet unnervingly familiar.

And someone I hadn't seen in more than 40 years actually recognized me when I was walking on campus today, so apparently I am among the things that haven't really changed as much as I would like to believe.

Astronomy Tuesday

The Ring Nebula has always made me think of the Eye of Sauron. I was definitely feeling like Big Brother was watching this morning, as nonstop helicopters circled the city to track every inch of the path from Trump Tower to the Criminal Court Building.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Processing: Judy Schmidt

Saturday reflections

(I set this up last night and then forgot to click on Publish.)

The carousel in Battery Park.

I took my students on a field trip today. We've been reading about Alexander Hamilton, and we visited sites associated with him in Lower Manhattan. It was a wonderful day—though we started out walking through gloomy churchyards in the rain, after lunch the sun came out and we finished the excursion with a trip on the Staten Island Ferry. And although I didn't have to prepare slides or worksheets or a lesson plan, I did have to research the history of all of the places we saw, and after playing tour guide for six hours, I'm so tired I can hardly sit up.