Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Getting inky

A young mother holds a newborn in a RAF hospital late at night in England. She remembers how vivid and spectacular the stars were that night, and many years later tells her child this. The daughter is intrigued and wants to know what her mother would have seen on the night of her first day. She chased down information on a now long closed air force base. She found pictures of the base hospital, got its orientation, and the lat/long position. The view her mother saw was facing west. An online star almanac was found. Date, time, lat/long and azimuth are fed in, and this is the view of the night sky her mother would have seen. Kate's going to get a tattoo.