2024 has been an interesting year of personal challenge and discovery. A conclusion for the family house provided fresh impetus to inhabit (in the short term) new spaces and places to improve overall health and happiness. In Vienna, I spent a full month for the third consecutive summer. Yes, it was continent hot, but time in the Austrian capital was both glorious and productive as expected. In Calgary is a city I hadn’t visited in many decades, and I witnessed a very happy aunt surrounded by many family members on her centenary year. In California’s Bay Area is a place where I hadn’t set foot in over ten years, but whose daily temperatures and chances of consistent sun offer a higher level of content.
The last time took place in La Serena, Chile at the end of 2011. Not only was it goodbye to Gemini South and Chile after 5 years, I said farewell to astronomy after almost 20 years.
But time is a tricky thing, and the moment had arrived: I had another promise to keep.
Fast forward to 2024, and I’m in the Bay Area. After reaching out a number of weeks ago, it’s wonderful to see them again after many years. They’ve kindly invited me to the SETI Institute where they work. I split from day-to-day science, but science never left, because I’m nerding out in a big way at the home of a big scientific effort: the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
Guest in Mountain View.
Cozy wide-open space, to house a number of multidisciplinary scientists to explore and study SETI themes.
Studio for SETI-hosted podcasts.
J&J, whom I met at Gemini, moved onto SOFIA: Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, fitted into a modified Boeing 747SP.
Dr. Jill Tarter: co-founder of SETI.
Dr. Frank Drake: 1st pres., SETI trustees board.
I’m nerding out in a big way: Leonhard Euler, and the famous Euler identity: e^(i•pi) = -1.
1593: Giordano Bruno suggests possibility of life on other planets; tried & executed for heresy. 1610: Galileo Galilei discovers 4 moons orbiting Jupiter, evidence against geocentric universe; convicted of heresy & sentenced to house arrest.
I have fond memories of seeing this on the big screen. 1997: the movie “Contact” is released with Jodie Foster in the lead role as Dr. Ellie Arroway, based loosely on SETI Institute co-founder Dr. Jill Tarter.
“To the SETI Institute gang, all my best! Jodie Foster.” (Arecibo)
“To the SETI Institute: live long and prosper! Leonard Nimoy.” (Celebrating 40 Years of the Drake Equation)
2020: COSMIC SETI installed at the VLA in New Mexico. 2022: 🇨🇦 CHIME in operation at SETI Institute’s HCRO in northern California.
Model of a segment for the 6.5-metre (21.3-foot) primary mirror of the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).
Meeting room with SETI timeline on the wall.
Dr. Frank Drake and his equation to estimate the number of civilizations in our Galaxy.
Astronomers: 2 active, 1 lapsed.
I made all photos above with an iPhone15 on 8 Nov 2024 (travel day 11 in the Bay Area). This post composed with Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
This is “líqtəd”, commonly known today in Seattle as Licton Springs.
This place is the city’s first indigenous landmark.
In a corner of Licton Springs Park, a couple of wood bridges cross over small creeks. Despite encroachment by urbanization over many decades and the pressure of being squeezed between Aurora Avenue and the Interstate-5 freeway, the water flow has essentially continued from the time before white/European colonization. Four springs and their emergent creeks flowed south into what is now called Green Lake. One of these springs, the “iron sulphur spring”, remains visible with its outflow merging downstream with a larger creek, as iron-oxide mud stains the ground red. The word “líqtəd” in the Lushootseed language means “red paint”. A recently installed cement ring-collar provides some protection around the spring as an attempt to preserving this historic location. As sacred site once used for medicinal and cultural activity, the Duwamish people camped and built sweat lodges near these springs; they bathed in the mineral-rich waters and used the brightly coloured mud to make paint. The second main spring, “white magnesium spring” at the park’s southern end, is no longer visible after having been capped under another existing pond.
On 16 October 2019, the city of Seattle’s Landmarks Preservation Board approved the designation of the indigenous Duwamish site. Licton Springs Park received official historical recognition as the city’s first indigenous landmark.
Above/featured: “Aurora and Mercer” – 4 Mar 2020 (X70).
A favourite place is Seattle, an American city in Washington state, only 2 to 3 hours by car from Vancouver, Canada. For two metropolitan regions close by proximity, their respective evolutions have created very different cities over time. I present below 12 places around Seattle in spring. In this part of the world, there’s every chance for overcast skies and showers, but I assure you of one thing: the light is very good when the sun is out. And when there’s abundant light, I’m all about the superposition of light, shadow, construction, and person.
In northeast Seattle, the NOAA Art Walk is contained fully within the campus of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Western Regional Center (NOAA WRC), located at Sand Point next to Magnuson Park. Initially, I’d intended only to visit one sculpture from which a “fairly successful” local band got its name. I explored the entirety of the Art Walk on a breezy sunny early-spring morning for an easy peaceful walk on a trail hugging Lake Washington’s shoreline. Over a two- to three-hour period, I encountered only a handful of other visitors, some of whom may have been NOAA staff.
Fotoeins Fotografie 