International I Hate Sports Club

Well, tonight, I decided to change my avatar.

The old one was a photo of me standing in the lobby of Chase Bank in down town El Paso, back when I was still walking around with a cane. That was taken back in April of 2007.

My new avatar is a photo taken of me on June 5,2012 when I was sitting in my JAZZY Power Chair next to my Galileo telescope on the patio of a Starbucks observing the Transit of Venus across the sun.

I had my telescope with 60 mm objective lens, 900 mm focal length, set up to observe the sun by projecting the sun's image onto a white screen instead of looking through the telescope.

I was able to see the sunspots and the small black circle of the planet Venus in front of the sun.

There will not be another transit of Venus until December 11,2117 about 105 years from now.

I also made some changes in my signature line because there is a 512 character limit in the signature. I made these chances so that I could include my favorite photo of me and my telescope.

Awesome!

I think the new photo is cooler, because it makes you look like some kind of wise old scientist.

The old one looked like someone itching for a fight.

recovering_fan wrote:Awesome!

I think the new photo is cooler, because it makes you look like some kind of wise old scientist.

The old one looked like someone itching for a fight.

Thank you very much!

But, I'm not a professional.

I'm just some poor schmuck with a used telescope that a friend gave me, and I still have to order stuff for it. Yeah, just a poor schmuck who loves to read books on science and who supports science education in our schools, and taking a stand against those retards in our Republican party who want to send the USA back to the dark ages.

So, I'm still itching for a fight!

Anyway, thank you very much.

Glad you like my new avatar.

I agree with recovering_fan. I think it's really neat. Brigan's right. In one of the pictures you really do have a professorial demeanor.

Earl wrote:I agree with recovering_fan. I think it's really neat. Brigan's right. In one of the pictures you really do have a professorial demeanor.

Tank you Earl:

Yes, I think Brigan and I have sort of patched things up between us.

We'll probably still disagree on some issues, but other than that, we have found some common ground.

But, Fitman's Brother doesn't seem to be the least bit impressed.

He would probably say that any 9 year old kid with a telescope could have done the same, which of course is true enough, but when I was asked questions, I gave a far more detailed explanation of why transits of Venus occur so rarely, and also on how telescope optics work so it was more like college level explanations.

I have been doing a Google image search for photos from any local NEWS coverage of amateur groups observing the Venus transit here in El Paso, Texas.

Yes, there are plenty of local NEWS articles about the Venus transit, but I haven't found any photos of local astronomical groups in any of these NEWS articles.

That's been a disappointment. Apparently most people here in El Paso were not all that interested, or our local NEWS broadcasters weren't interested in getting photos of amateur groups here in El Paso.

Also, when I was taking my telescope with me on the bus, apparently, a lot of people who asked me about my telescope were unaware that there was going to be a transit of Venus across the sun.

So, El Paso is a cultural dead end.

Fortunately, most of the customers at Starbucks were college students so they all knew about it.

Well anyway . . . . . I had a really great time last Tuesday.