A very Merry Christmas to both my readers A very Merry Christmas to you all. (The William Herschel Telescope has a laser to measure atmospheric turbulence, in order to correct for it. But really, it’s very low powered and no danger to flying reindeer. Santa is quite safe.)
Have a wonderful Christmas, (or whatever else you celebrate). I hope 2014 brings you whatever you most hope for.
The first book I picked up at work this morning gave me a bit of a shock. How was I supposed to classify that? Some years ago, I learned the Cyrillic alphabet (a long story), so I tried to sound it out. “Snekmro-phomo-memrucheskee camalog zvezd.” No help there. I tried looking inside. “Spektro-photo-metreecheskee catalog zvezd.” Spectro-photometric Catalogue Something-or-other. OK, so catalogues go under “Table and Data Books” – 522.0212. So…