Lunar Eclipse This Wednesday!

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Total lunar eclipse to glow red across Australia

 
  • 6 HOURS AGO OCTOBER 06, 2014 12:03PM
The total lunar eclipse will be more spectacular than the one in April, astronomer Alan D

The total lunar eclipse will be more spectacular than the one in April, astronomer Alan Duffy said. Picture: NASA. Source:Supplied

IT’S big. It’s red. And it’s coming to a night sky near you.

On Wednesday night Australians will get the chance to witness a total lunar eclipse that will turn the full moon a deep red colour for an hour.

Astronomer Alan Duffy of Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology said the eclipse will be much more spectacular than one that was visible in Australia in April.

“This one will be the real McCoy,” he said.

“Australia is the perfect place to see the long lunar eclipse experience, weather permitting, and we will see that distinctive blood red colour.”

 

 

The partial total lunar eclipse above Geelong in April. Picture: Kaylene Stocks

The partial total lunar eclipse above Geelong in April. Picture: Kaylene Stocks Source: Supplied

 

A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth gets between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow across the moon that causes it to turn a blood red colour.

“It’s like all the sunsets around the entire earth shining on the moon. I love that description,” Dr Duffy said.

“The atmosphere bends the light from the sunset around and gives the moon that red colour.

“Without the atmosphere, the moon would just be dark (during a lunar eclipse).”

West Australians will see the total eclipse but will miss the entire passage of the earth’s shadow across the face of the moon because the eclipse begins before the moon rises over WA.

Lunar eclipses occur at least twice a year, but lunar eclipse lovers can expect seven to occur in 2038.

WHEN TO WATCH (local times):

NSW/ACT/VIC/TAS: Eclipse begins 8.15pm, total eclipse 9.25pm-10.25pm, eclipse ends 11.35pm. QLD: minus one hour for all times

SA: Eclipse starts 7.45pm, total eclipse 8.55pm-9.55pm, eclipse ends 11.05pm. NT: minus one hour for all times

WA: Moon rises at 6.19pm, total eclipse 6.25pm-7.25pm, eclipse ends 8.35pm.

From news.com.au

New Temperature Records- It’s Hotter Than We Thought!

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How bizarre- the Bureau of Meteorology has adjusted Australia’s temperature records to exaggerate the warming trend of the last century. The next time the media tell us it’s a record high temperature or an angry summer you might need to ask, “What does that even mean?”

From Jo Nova:

Australian summer maximums “warmed” by 200%

Which causes more summer heatwaves: carbon dioxide or Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) adjustments?

Ken Stewart has analyzed the adjustments used to create the all-new ACORN wonder dataset and compared them with another BOM dataset called AWAP, and finds, extraordinarily, that the trend in average summer maximums has been tripled by adjustments that the BOM imply are neutral.

Since summer maxima are the ones used to generate the most headlines in Australia, I ask again if the Bureau of Meteorology is a scientific agency or a PR group?  Increasing the trend in summer maxima would produce more headlines of hottest ever month, season, heatwave, and weekend.

In this graph Stewart splits the data into months, and compares the trends in maxima in the AWAP and ACORN datasets, across the entire nation. We see that most of the adjustments happen to data from the hottest months of the year, October to March. Even though the measured maxima in February and March are possibly cooler now than they were in the early 1900s, they have been adjusted to show warming trends.

When was the last time you heard the BOM tell you that their “hottest ever” February record depended on adjusting down the past hotter records?

Full story: Australian summer maximums “warmed” by 200% « JoNova.

Fading Glory

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The excitement is over, the Bunnies won their first premiership in a hundred years  (I exaggerate a tad) and NRL goes on holidays for a couple of months.

As I was listening to the news this morning and the soundtrack of “Glory glory to South Sydney”, the commentators waxed lyrical about the glorious victory and how the team had been redeemed after years in the wilderness. (That sounds sort of familiar).

So, after school goes back tomorrow and the cricket season starts, who is going to care about this? By Christmas who will even remember the score? And by the start of next footy season we will have to stop and think about who won the competition in 2014.

If you think I’m overstating the case, ask yourself what was the score in the last State of Origin? Only the die hard fans remember just a few months later.

Sporting glory is a fading glory. The crowds are entertained for a night and people have something to talk about at work the next day, but the accolades dim quickly. What excites us and seems so important right now soon loses its lustre after the event.

There is a reason for this.

Human beings are created for an eternal glory, an immortal honour that goes way beyond the sporting arena.

We were created to worship God, the ultimate glory, and to share in His nature. We get so easily distracted by the immediate things we see in front of us. We settle for a pretend glory and think that’s all there is.

Jesus came to bridge the gap between the human and the divine. He has prepared a place in eternity for His followers, and a glorious destiny we can only imagine.

Don’t settle for anything less.

Computer Troubles

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I’ve been frustrated by my main computer the last few days. At random times, for no apparent reason it would turn itself off.

At first this seemed to only happen when I wasn’t using it. Tim thought it might be some power saving feature that had gone wrong. Yesterday, though, it happened while I was actively using it. The power supply was now the chief suspect.

Joshua brought one from the shop and quickly installed it. Success!

The computer ran happily until this afternoon and then resumed its bad behaviour. I thought it must have been overheating. I installed an app that puts up a graph of the CPU temperature.

Screenshot from 2014-10-04 17:15:25

The temperature steadily increased until it was well over 100 C.

The culprit was a program I was using to rip DVDs. It is very heavy on the CPU, and I discovered that when the temperature reached 128 degrees the system shuts down. When I paused the program, the temperature quickly fell again to about 50 degrees.

Tim is going to get me a “new” motherboard from the computer shops trade-in pile. In the meantime I had better refrain from ripping too many DVDs!

The Pause Grows Up

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It’s official- the pause in global warming is now 18 years old- which means that people graduating from High School about now have never experienced global warming. So what happened to that catastrophic warming we keep hearing aobut?

From Watts Up With That?

It’s official: no global warming for 18 years 1 month

 / 2 hours ago October 2, 2014

Global Temperature Update By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

The RSS monthly satellite global temperature anomaly for September 2014 is in, and the Great Pause is now two months longer than it was last month. Would this year’s el Niño bite soon enough to stop the psychologically-significant 18-year threshold from being crossed? The official answer is No.

Globally, September was scarcely warmer than August, which was itself some distance below the 18-year trend-line. Therefore, taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies, there has now been no global warming for 18 years 1 month.

Dr Benny Peiser, our good friend at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK, had anticipated the official crossing of the 18-year threshold by a day or two with an interesting note circulated to supporters on the ever-lengthening period without any global warming, and featuring our 17-years-11-months graph from last month.

The Great Pause is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for a little over half the satellite temperature record. Yet the Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

clip_image002

Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to September 2014, showing no trend for 18 years 1 month.

The hiatus period of 18 years 1 month, or 217 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.

 

Full story

Newcastle Can Keep This One!

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Massive red-bellied black snake surprises Newcastle wrangler called in to remove it

Updated 2 minutes agoThu 2 Oct 2014, 8:07pm

Geoff de LoozePHOTO: Snake wrangler Geoff de Looze holds up the massive red-bellied black snake he captured in Newcastle.(Supplied: Newcastle and Hunter Animal Control)
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Wildlife wrangler Geoff de Looze is well accustomed to catching snakes and bagging them, but even he got the shock of his life when he found a massive red-bellied black snake at a job in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

“Mate, this thing was huge. I don’t even think I’ve seen one [a red-bellied black snake] half its size,” Mr de Looze said of the massive reptile.

The snake had taken up residence at a Newcastle air conditioning firm in the suburb of Cameron Park.

“He wasn’t coming out, but I could tell straight away that this snake was something else,” Mr de Looze said.

“There were people all around me at the time, and luckily this one didn’t have a go at me. These snakes will eat brown snakes and can get pretty nasty.

“These are the jobs you think: ‘I should have brought an extra pair of undies today’.”

Full story

Reflection on Matthew 21:33-46

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Scripture

“The stone that the builders rejected
has now become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing
and is wonderful to see.”

Observation
Jesus tells a parable about a man who develops a vineyard with every conceivable facility and then leases it. When harvest time comes he sends some servants to collect his share of the harvest. The tenants beat up the servants and send them away, so the owner sends a bigger group of servants with the same result.

Finally he sends his son. The tenants think that by killing the son they will gain ownership of the vineyard.

Jesus asks his listeners what they think will happen next. They reply that he will kill the tenants and lease the vineyard to someone who will give him his share of the harvest.

The leaders realise that the parable is a word against them. Ironically they respond by wanting to kill Jesus, but they are afraid of the people.

Application
The Jewish leaders had been entrusted with leading God’s people. But they had broken this trust by using their position for their own gain. Jesus says they will be dealt with by God.

Christians can feel entitled in the same way that these leaders did. We can be tempted to feel that God is blessed to have such good people as us in His kingdom. We might feel that following Jesus makes us better than non-christians.

God will surely judge all forms of pride and self-righteousness.

Prayer
Father, show me if there is any attitude in me that is based in false pride. I repent of these things and ask for your forgiveness. Amen.

Reflection on Philippians 3:1-14

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Scripture

More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Observation
Paul was against those who put their trust in circumcision. This is a work of the flesh. Paul was the most Jewish of Jews, zealous in everything, but this did him no good.

Now he sees that everything is loss compared to knowing Christ. He just wants to know Christ and to share in the power of the resurrection.

He hasn’t yet reached this goal but he presses on. His goal is the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Application
Paul’s overarching aim is to know Christ more, but not in a fleshly, self-directed way. He longs for a deeper fellowship with Christ. All of his work and his suffering come from this desire to know Christ more.

I need to make that my aim also. There is no disappointment, no sense of failure, no conflict of interests when all we want is to know Him more.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, come and reveal yourself more fully to me. Help me to make Paul’s desire my own. Amen.