Daily Archives: 8-December-2013

Difficulty of Viewing Dwarf Planets

Posted on 8-December-2013 by mathscinotes

I was listening to an astronomer on the radio answering questions on viewing stars and planets. A question was asked about why we can have beautifully detailed photos taken from Earth of distant astronomical objects (e.g. Crab Nebula) but we cannot seem to obtain detailed photos of objects in our solar system like Pluto (Figure 1). The astronomer answered that the distant objects are huge and that we view them from Earth as having a larger viewing angle than a minor planet in our solar system. I thought it might be interesting to look at the relative viewing angle of these two objects when viewed from Earth. Continue reading →

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My Borg Name is "1 of 13"

Posted on 8-December-2013 by mathscinotes

I work for a small company that has 13 employees named "Mark", which is my first name. It is common for me to be in meetings with three "Marks" present. I have had as many as six "Marks" in a meeting. This makes using our first names difficult, and I usually go by my last name. This system works, but does sound a bit gruff to people from outside the company who here our meetings. Continue reading →

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