Monday, June 20, 2011

You Never Know Who You Will Meet Under The Sun

Hi everyone - it has been along time! Oh yes weather and life have kept me out of the street astro loop for awhile but this Father's Day gave us a picture perfect day for a Solar Outreach! If I had been out earlier this would have also included a wonderful waning Luna in our western sky!

Active region 1236 and some really bright beaches on the eastern limb motivated me to get out the door and show off the fun Sun stuff. It was fun for me too as over the course of this time I was able to see significant changes in the solar features I was highlighting to my visitors. I had 38 visitors in all over the 3.5 hours out in our dry Sierra climate and the folks I worked with really enjoyed the show. But one knocked me back......



Meet Dan who looks like your average middle age guy. He came by and was very interested in all this solar stuff I was doing. He was certainly more informed than the average guests I speak to as our fun conversation carried a decidedly more educated tune. And as we conversed the topic turned to our families and kids (being Dad's Day and all) he mentioned he had some interesting family lineage as being a direct family descendant of Nicolas Copernicus! Now of course I have no reason to doubt this as it came out of the clear blue and I am sure this is not a everyday day thing that Dan shares with people! So here in front of me on the park lawn is a descendant of one of the greatest science minds of human history.

Imagine sharing the Sun, the center of our Solar System with the still existing gene pool of the one who would start a new revolution in understanding our world! Fun!!!!!!

4 comments:

Oleson said...

solar observing rocks!

Mark Lee said...

I wonder what Copernicus would make of our modern astronomy .....

So good that you met a relation of the great astronomer..

Jo said...

It's so good to see you outreaching!!! Go SUG!

Sidewalk Universe said...

Totally spur of the moment outreach! Yes it was fun to stand in the shadow of science greatness for awhile!

I think Copernicus would say "right on"! to our modern astronomy and "pass the potato stuffed thingies"!