With several little singers. Wow, what a Christmas gift!!

Search for life suggests planetary systems more habitable than ours


Source: Search for life suggests planetary systems more habitable than ours

By using a combination of technologies, and some bailing wire, duct tape and elbow grease, I've managed to give my chatbot, Morti, a telescope to share with his visitors.

Ok, ok. Maybe this isn't exactly the best place to post this, but I want to get some testing data from more than a single source, so this post should work just fine.

The URL is for Morti's main page, at http://www.geekcavecreations.com/Morti/?debug (the 'debug' thing is so I can track a few things {NOT PERSONAL STUFF, though!}

A few things, though:

1.) The Google Earth plugin will NOT work on bodies within the solar system, mainly because the Google Earth plugin won't support viewing them.
2.) The telescope searches two different databases; SIMBAD for Google Earth, and APOD for the image search. Neither one is perfect, and both are ~VERY~ intolerant of spelling errors.
3.) The SIMBAD Astronomical DB is pretty comprehensive, with over 17 million commonly accepted names, designations or identifiers for nearly 7 million objects, but there are far, far more objects in the sky than that, so don't blame Morti if the scope can't "find" something.
4.) The APOD image search will return images for a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily a celestial body. Try typing "telescope Apollo 17", and see what comes up.
5.) There is a SIMBAD image search, too, but there are some problems with it (not everything in the DB has an associated image, for one), so I won't be using that any time soon. The APOD image search is sort of weak, but it's better than the old one.

I'll be working on creating a "new image" button or link for the image search, but that's going to have to wait till after the holidays.

Almost put this in the scam thread

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/mayan-apocalypse-2012--how-predictions-came-from-new-age-magic-mushroom-trip-130852054.html

So I expect to see The Great Escape as per usual then.

Some may feel that I have started this a little early, however, it is only a little over two years before the start. Anyway, for those that are interested, here is a link to the 2015 Official site and the Pools.



Just our luck to be drawn in the toughest Pool.

It is with a very heavy heart that I must bid a very fond farewell to Sir Patrick Moore.



I grew up watching the Sky At Night if I was allowed to stay up that late. Another Great British Character gone never to be replaced.

You made it Dave, 1000 posts congrats