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Nov. 28th, 2009 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_sinistraGoodness - I suddenly realised it had been an age since I'd written here, though not because I've been idle.
Of course, students all know about the upcoming schedule for YPL meetings. (And I must say, I'm quite looking forward to today's meeting myself: our presenters are quite enthusiastic and promise a number of fascinating stories and examples for us.)
The weather, however, is what has been taking much of my time. Every winter I've been here, there's been a certain amount of frustration dealing with observation time, but this fall's weather has been worse, and worse earlier, than other years. Obviously, this puts a huge crimp in my teaching plans, so I've been devoting most of my time to seeing if I can arrange an alternative.
In specific, I've been experimenting with what it would take to project a map of the sky onto an appropriate surface (ideally, a light-colored curved roof, based on my experiments so far). There's quite a lot of incentive, as besides solving the weather issue, it might allow us to examine views of the stars that we cannot see here - either due to the time, or due to our location.
Regrettably, the solutions I've found so far require quite a lot of attention to maintain, as well as requiring the person creating the image to have an extremely detailed knowledge of what should be present, which makes them incompatible with teaching. (Though, if I can work out a few details, it's possible that one of the seventh years might, for example, hold a projection for our first or second years while I discuss it.)
Madam Pince has been most helpful, and I've been asking a few questions of others working in similar areas - but until then, I'm afraid we're left with our wall maps and the occasional patch of starlight when it falls on a class observation day.
Poppy - sorry to neglect our tea recently. Are you free on Monday? If so, I think I'm at an impasse with the current round of research, and won't get new sources to explore for at least a week.
Of course, students all know about the upcoming schedule for YPL meetings. (And I must say, I'm quite looking forward to today's meeting myself: our presenters are quite enthusiastic and promise a number of fascinating stories and examples for us.)
The weather, however, is what has been taking much of my time. Every winter I've been here, there's been a certain amount of frustration dealing with observation time, but this fall's weather has been worse, and worse earlier, than other years. Obviously, this puts a huge crimp in my teaching plans, so I've been devoting most of my time to seeing if I can arrange an alternative.
In specific, I've been experimenting with what it would take to project a map of the sky onto an appropriate surface (ideally, a light-colored curved roof, based on my experiments so far). There's quite a lot of incentive, as besides solving the weather issue, it might allow us to examine views of the stars that we cannot see here - either due to the time, or due to our location.
Regrettably, the solutions I've found so far require quite a lot of attention to maintain, as well as requiring the person creating the image to have an extremely detailed knowledge of what should be present, which makes them incompatible with teaching. (Though, if I can work out a few details, it's possible that one of the seventh years might, for example, hold a projection for our first or second years while I discuss it.)
Madam Pince has been most helpful, and I've been asking a few questions of others working in similar areas - but until then, I'm afraid we're left with our wall maps and the occasional patch of starlight when it falls on a class observation day.
Poppy - sorry to neglect our tea recently. Are you free on Monday? If so, I think I'm at an impasse with the current round of research, and won't get new sources to explore for at least a week.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-28 11:38 pm (UTC)