Sunday notes

[kinzel]

Yesterday was Sharon's birthday and most if what we did pertained to that -- but we did check out a small conference center in Western Maine, which probably won't do for a small conference for us though it was wonderfully situated, and we did visit Old Orchard Beach where I hand delivered 25 copies of the Carousel Tide Sampler chapbook to Beggar's Ride Gallery.  I thunk we traveled on the order of 261 miles, and oh yeah, according to the GPS we went from a low of 21 feet (curious about that, since we were on a road about three feet above the high tide at a tidal wildlife refuge near Saco at the time of the reading) to a high altitude of just under 800 feet in the midst of a string of windy Maine mountain miles. 

last night, i saw several moons on either side of Jupiter, despite some high clouds here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

GPS devices don't give as accurate vertical as horizontal values [due to the configuration of the satellites--they're not far enough apart to resolve the vertical component as well as the horizontal]. It's less likely that the device was giving you the local ellipsoidal height, rather than height above geoid, because the geoid separation in that area is around -26m.

Melita

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I have been parked in a stable area (on solid granite) and watched my GPS altitude reading drift by 20-odd feet. It's a strange feeling to be told that I'm going up and down on a stationary rock, it makes me feel seasick *g*.

Fireballs & Jupiter

[tessie614.livejournal.com]

Is this what you might have seen:

www.space.com/.../amateur-astronomers-spot-jupiter-fireballs-100909.html - Cached