Great Courses. Experiencing Hubble

Thad Floryan wrote in news:50B2F395.6060205
@thadlabs.com:

On 11/25/2012 7:44 PM, Il mio nome è Nessuno wrote:
Quadibloc wrote in news:95ac4c46-1b98-4086-a65f-
:

On Nov 25, 1:55 am, "Il mio nome Nessuno"
wrote:

how much was it?
$199.95 as DVDs, $169.95 as a digital download.

It's difficult for me, and I think for most people, to imagine
themselves spending that kind of money to watch a documentary,
however
excellent.

John Savard

I thought the op said S&T had a sale price??? "On sale through Dec. 3.
"

If you follow the OP's trail here on sci.astro.amateur, you'll note
he seldom posts coherently or understandably; here's what he posted
this time:

" Sky an T's Dec. issue has an add by Great Courses called
" Experiencing Hubble. On sale through Dec. 3. 12 chapters of 30
" minutes each. As an example, chapter 7 is about The Sombrero
" Galaxy. My question is do these chapters have enough information
" to make them worthwhile? That is, is the science described
" useful, or is it just lay talk that offers something interesting
" from chapter to chapter. I guess, for example, I've never heard a
" 30 minute lecture on any of the subjects, Eagle Nebula, Abell
" 2218, Crab Nebula, Sagittarius Star Cloud, ... or similar
" objects. Is it more than just facts?

Note there's no mention of a discount. And it also shows how he
NEVER does his homework and expects everyone in SAA and other groups
(e.g., comp.os.linux.misc) to hand him the answers on a silver platter.

It would have taken an intelligent "non-me-me-me" person just seconds
to Google for a review of the "Great Courses" product(s).

I knew all about the op and have helped him several times...I searched
the net after the original post and saw the high prices and thought maybe
just maybe the op would give me an answer about the 'sale'
you're right...I read too much into the word
thanks again

"nobody at home:"
how much was it?

Davoud:
http://bit.ly/Wqmoho

nobody at home:
that's the sale price? wow

Thad Floryan:
Yep, astronomically priced.

The pricing is odd given this is "Black Friday Weekend" and tomorrow,
Monday, is "Cyber Monday" when everything should be dramatically
reduced in priced.

Thanks to Google's great pirate search engine, you can download the
entire thing for free by simply Googling the entirety of the following
line:

"Experiencing Hubble: Understanding the Greatest Images of the Universe"
download

Google will also find 1000s of free astronomy and computer books in PDF
form for download. Just be sure you're wearing a black astronomer's
eyepatch with a plastic parrot on your shoulder and be swigging from a
bottle of whiskey and yelling "Yo ho ho!" when you download. :-)

If you need a black eyepatch, Orion has them for sale at US$6.99:

http://www.telescope.com/catalog/sea...rm&keyword=eye
patch

That doesn't make sense. You're telling the man how to steal the other
stuff, so you should be telling him where he can shop-lift the eye
patch.

Black eyepatches are also frequently found on the shelves near the
pharmacy in well-equipped food supermarket stores in the USA.

Ooops. I spoke too soon. Good job.

Plastic parrots, tri-corner hats, and pirate swords can be found at
Toys'R'Us and other novelty and party stores. Live parrots can be
purchased from pet stores. Blunderbusses can be found at antique
shows. You might want a red/white horizontally-striped shirt, too,
which will look really nice for your mug shot. :-)

Toys'R'Us has tight security if press reporting on shoplifting arrests
is reliable. Don't know that I have ever been in a Toys'R'Us, much less
shoplifted one, so I only know what I read. I can't speak for the rest;
I have never had a parrot or a blunderbuss on my holiday
shop-ping/lifting list. I would note that crows are free, easy to
capture, intelligent, and easy to train. And a trained crow would be
easy enough to paint in bright colors.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

$39.95 (US) at Barnes & Noble.

On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:29:12 -0800, "W. eWatson"
wrote:

Sky an T's Dec. issue has an add by Great Courses called Experiencing
Hubble. On sale through Dec. 3. 12 chapters of 30 minutes each. As
an example, chapter 7 is about The Sombrero Galaxy. My question is do
these chapters have enough information to make them worthwhile? That is,
is the science described useful, or is it just lay talk that offers
something interesting from chapter to chapter. I guess, for example,
I've never heard a 30 minute lecture on any of the subjects, Eagle
Nebula, Abell 2218, Crab Nebula, Sagittarius Star Cloud, ... or similar
objects. Is it more than just facts?

Marco Old wrote in :

$39.95 (US) at Barnes & Noble.

On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:29:12 -0800, "W. eWatson"
wrote:

Sky an T's Dec. issue has an add by Great Courses called Experiencing
Hubble. On sale through Dec. 3. 12 chapters of 30 minutes each. As
an example, chapter 7 is about The Sombrero Galaxy. My question is do
these chapters have enough information to make them worthwhile? That is,
is the science described useful, or is it just lay talk that offers
something interesting from chapter to chapter. I guess, for example,
I've never heard a 30 minute lecture on any of the subjects, Eagle
Nebula, Abell 2218, Crab Nebula, Sagittarius Star Cloud, ... or similar
objects. Is it more than just facts?

ty...that's more like it

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/expe...yer/1113750500

Multimedia (DVD - NTSC)
$39.95
BN.com price
Eligible for FREE SHIPPING details
Available for Pre-Order
This item will be available on December 3, 2012. details


now some can afford to buy that parrot they want so badly...

On 11/26/2012 6:15 AM, Davoud wrote:
[...]
Toys'R'Us has tight security if press reporting on shoplifting arrests
is reliable. Don't know that I have ever been in a Toys'R'Us, much less
shoplifted one, so I only know what I read. I can't speak for the rest;
I have never had a parrot or a blunderbuss on my holiday
shop-ping/lifting list. I would note that crows are free, easy to
capture, intelligent, and easy to train. And a trained crow would be
easy enough to paint in bright colors.

I'm glad to read you have a sense of humor. :-)

A much smarter bird is the grackle, see today's 'Frisco Chronicle article:

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Devil-birds-moving-in-at-Lake-Merced-4065870.php

though I actually prefer mockingbirds who often will acquire
and sing my whistle; for example (click on last thumbnail):

http://thadlabs.com/PIX/LX200/

Note the bird's whiskers -- he didn't shave that Sunday and I didn't
either. :-)

So far I only have crows (among several score other bird species)
in my backyard so I'm awaiting the influx of grackles. Given the
temperatures in your area, I don't believe grackles have or will
migrate to your area (yet (until the so-called Global Warming
(which reminds me: where's this 'global warming' "they" keep
promising us -- it's colder than a witch's tit on Halloween\
here (Silicon Valley CA))).

Davoud:
[...]
I would note that crows are free, easy to
capture, intelligent, and easy to train. And a trained crow would be
easy enough to paint in bright colors.

Thad Floryan:
I'm glad to read you have a sense of humor. :-)

A much smarter bird is the grackle, see today's 'Frisco Chronicle article:

Can a grackle make a tool? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTtDbyQTQV0

http://www.sfgate.com/science/articl...Lake-Merced-40
65870.php

though I actually prefer mockingbirds who often will acquire
and sing my whistle; for example (click on last thumbnail):

http://thadlabs.com/PIX/LX200/

Note the bird's whiskers -- he didn't shave that Sunday and I didn't
either. :-)

The idea of an astronomical telescope as a terrestrial camera lens is
intriguing. I have at least two camera tripods that can support the
weight of my Tak FSQ-106 (7 kg, 530mm Ÿ5), but I haven't looked into a
means of mounting it to a camera tripod.

It's fascinating to hear mockingbirds imitate various mobile ringtones.
They seem to favor certain ones and they pick them up almost
immediately. It can drive one nuts, working outside, and hearing
"iPhones ringing" all over the neighborhood.

Mockingbird--the Dick Cheney of the bird world. Quick to attack because
it always feels threatened. I witnessed as my late, beloved greyhound
Bluebell http://www.davidillig.com/memoriam.shtml trotted past a blue
spruce in which a mockingbird was nesting. The mockingbird attacked,
grazing Bluebell's head and flying on. Bluebell accelerated like a
bullet (she could do 0-60 km/sec in under four seconds), and before the
mockingbird could get out of range Bluebell leapt into the air,
snatched the mockingbird, and ate it. Mission accomplished. Kind of
like Iraq ate us, except that Bluebell was merciful and dispatched the
bird quickly.

So far I only have crows (among several score other bird species)
in my backyard so I'm awaiting the influx of grackles. Given the
temperatures in your area, I don't believe grackles have or will
migrate to your area (yet (until the so-called Global Warming
(which reminds me: where's this 'global warming' "they" keep
promising us -- it's colder than a witch's tit on Halloween\
here (Silicon Valley CA))).

Do you have "Weather HD" on your Mac? I get severe alerts for SLO and
SB counties because I have friends in Santa Maria and Solvang. I've had
several alerts for both counties recently.

You already know this, but for others who might be reading: one's local
weather on any given day or even in any given season is not necessarily
tied to global climate change. The catastrophic damage caused by
super-storm Sandy in the Mid-Atlantic region is directly tied to global
climate change (rising sea levels - storm surge), whether or not this
massive late-season storm itself is attributable to global climate
change. Our house at 39° 04' 40.61" N 76° 39' 33.46" W? $9,000 in
damage from water penetration of the partially installed HVAC ductwork
and air handler in an addition to our house that is under construction,
thanks for asking. http://www.flickr.com/photos/primeval/. How
massive was this storm? A friend who lives on the coast in Nova Scotia
reports being hit by a storm surge at the same instant that my cousin
in southern West Virginia was experiencing a freak snow storm, both
brought by Sandy. Incredulous? See the extent of this storm here
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cxcobao.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Nov 27, 8:39*pm, Davoud wrote:

You already know this, but for others who might be reading: one's local
weather on any given day or even in any given season is not necessarily
tied to global climate change. The catastrophic damage caused by
super-storm Sandy in the Mid-Atlantic region is directly tied to global
climate change (rising sea levels - storm surge), whether or not this
massive late-season storm itself is attributable to global climate
change.


Forgetting what you wrote within a sentence by saying two opposite
things looks like senility to me.

The disaster is not in climate itself - climate is a subdivision of
astronomy and is defined and determined by planetary dynamics and
their characteristics, specifically as a climate spectrum between
equatorial and polar with Uranus having polar attributes while the
Earth largely 64 % equatorial climate with a slide toward the polar
spectrum by 26 %.

Global climate is an astronomical topic and this pseudoscientific
modeling cult have driven people away from astronomy who could easily
handle the basic draft of climate as it is defined by planetary
comparisons.

On Nov 25, 8:44*pm, "Il mio nome Nessuno"
wrote:

I thought the op said S&T had a sale price??? "On sale through Dec. 3. "

I saw the mention of items being on sale on the entry page of the web
site, but as I proceeded through to see the price of the specific DVD,
it was not clear that the sale applied to it.

John Savard

On 11/27/2012 11:39 AM, Davoud wrote: [...]
though I actually prefer mockingbirds who often will acquire
and sing my whistle; for example (click on last thumbnail):

http://thadlabs.com/PIX/LX200/

Note the bird's whiskers -- he didn't shave that Sunday and I didn't
either. :-)

The idea of an astronomical telescope as a terrestrial camera lens is
intriguing. I have at least two camera tripods that can support the
weight of my Tak FSQ-106 (7 kg, 530mm Ÿ5), but I haven't looked into a
means of mounting it to a camera tripod.

The more-or-less equivalent for [D]SLR cameras is known as a "mirror lens"
which are about the size of Orion's smaller MAKs though the mirror lens
typically has more glass. In the movie "THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY" there's
a scene where one guy is tallying animal herd population using a Newt:

http://thadlabs.com/PIX/TGMBC_1.jpg
http://thadlabs.com/PIX/TGMBC_2.jpg
http://thadlabs.com/PIX/TGMBC_3.jpg
http://thadlabs.com/PIX/TGMBC_4.jpg

Relatively small refractors could be easily mounted on a good camera
tripod using rings on a plate or rail that affixes to the tripod head.
I easily mounted an Orion 5" Mak on a Manfrotto tripod using Manfrotto
quick-release parts and a rail with rings.

[...]
Do you have "Weather HD" on your Mac? I get severe alerts for SLO and
SB counties because I have friends in Santa Maria and Solvang. I've had
several alerts for both counties recently.

I don't have any Macs, just some 40 or so UNIX, Linux and Windows
boxes; this is a pic of just my desk about 3-4 years ago (I need to
take a new picture since there are more systems now plus a bunch in
another room):

http://thadlabs.com/PIX/Thad_desk.jpg

You can see most of what I use for weather checking he

http://thadlabs.com/view-bracket.htm

which primarily aggregates a bunch of the Clear Sky Charts in
addition to having buttons to check NOAA and Accuweather; I also
have special alert radios and, in fact, we have an alert situation
in Silicon Valley with high winds and rain this week.

How
massive was this storm? A friend who lives on the coast in Nova Scotia
reports being hit by a storm surge at the same instant that my cousin
in southern West Virginia was experiencing a freak snow storm, both
brought by Sandy. Incredulous? See the extent of this storm here
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cxcobao.

You want to hear a weird storm story: in 1965 I was driving to the
East Coast and passing through Texas Canyon in Arizona about June 30
and the temp was well over 100F (38C) at noontime. I noticed a dark
"line" on the f-a-r horizon and within a few minutes it was snowing
and the road and all cacti were covered with snow. I remember the date
because I was heading to Stamford CT for my grandparents' 50th wedding
anniversary on July 4 (and, yeah, I drove well over 800 miles each day
and arrived on schedule).

On 11/25/2012 12:55 AM, Il mio nome è Nessuno wrote:
"W. eWatson" wrote in news:k8s729$9v5$1@dont-
email.me:

On 11/10/2012 4:29 PM, W. eWatson wrote:
Sky an T's Dec. issue has an add by Great Courses called Experiencing
Hubble. On sale through Dec. 3. 12 chapters of 30 minutes each. As
an example, chapter 7 is about The Sombrero Galaxy. My question is do
these chapters have enough information to make them worthwhile? That is,
is the science described useful, or is it just lay talk that offers
something interesting from chapter to chapter. I guess, for example,
I've never heard a 30 minute lecture on any of the subjects, Eagle
Nebula, Abell 2218, Crab Nebula, Sagittarius Star Cloud, ... or similar
objects. Is it more than just facts?

I purchased it, and find it worthy of the price. The lecturer, Dr. David
Meyer, does a fine job of presenting the material. He has worked on the
Hubble for 15 years, and has lots of gems to share about the various
topics he talks to. He spends a good bit of time on the science behind
the objects mentioned above. Very good graphics. He doesn't go deeply
into some topics, but he sure sparks an interest in them. Lots of good
and current references. Quite enjoyable.


how much was it?

$40 on sale this month.