Calendar feature

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longtry
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Calendar feature

Post by longtry » Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:41 am

I'm in the process of slowly catching up with APOD's posts. Currently I'm at 2015, so something I'll say may be outdated or simply wrong. In that case, pls kindly correct me, will you? :ssmile:

I'm assuming that the annual calendar is being made for 2020. It'll feature 12 pictures as monthly background, along with full / waning / new / waxing moon date.

Here I propose we add 10-20 events to the calendar. They are significant dates in 2020 that are all astronomy-related. It might be a solar eclipse, an important rocket launch, a 4-planet conjunction, or a spectacular end-of-mission crash of a faraway spacecraft... Anything is possible, but the most important thing is, those 10-20 spots are all voted by us, the Starship Asterisk community.

As of now, I can only think of 2 counter-arguments.
A. The actual dates may be moved. Well, we all know that these new stuffs are just tentative. If anything to help, I think we can use another ink color to clearly specify that some event dates are not final.
B. The calendar is too crowded as it is now. This is a matter of perspective, but IMO it's too deserted now. Adding only 10 dates for 12 months is not gonna make it too jam-packed. Even if we choose to add 20 and some people find the calendar congested, then I suggest we drop those waning/waxing events. Really, nobody cares about these dates. We only want to know when it's full to point our binos toward the moon, or when it's new to observe everything else. Furthermore, even in case someone needs to know waning/waxing date, he can just glance at the calendar & add 7 to the full/new date. As a month is longer than a lunar cycle, those dates are always available on any page.

So what is your opinion on this proposal? I think if this one gets traction, then we'll follow the topic with several others in specific order, to:
1. Vote on the number of events to add on the calendar
2. List all the candidates. Or candi-dates? :wink:
3. Final vote for the most important [number chosen by 1.] events in 2020.

Thanks for reading!
P.S: I wanted to create a poll for this very topic, asking what you guys think of the idea; but can't find the option anywhere. Is it because normal members are banned from creating polls, or this feature is unavailable in the Cafe forum, or something?

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Chris Peterson
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:08 pm

longtry wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:41 am I'm in the process of slowly catching up with APOD's posts. Currently I'm at 2015, so something I'll say may be outdated or simply wrong. In that case, pls kindly correct me, will you? :ssmile:

I'm assuming that the annual calendar is being made for 2020. It'll feature 12 pictures as monthly background, along with full / waning / new / waxing moon date.

Here I propose we add 10-20 events to the calendar. They are significant dates in 2020 that are all astronomy-related. It might be a solar eclipse, an important rocket launch, a 4-planet conjunction, or a spectacular end-of-mission crash of a faraway spacecraft... Anything is possible, but the most important thing is, those 10-20 spots are all voted by us, the Starship Asterisk community.

As of now, I can only think of 2 counter-arguments.
A. The actual dates may be moved. Well, we all know that these new stuffs are just tentative. If anything to help, I think we can use another ink color to clearly specify that some event dates are not final.
Just limit these items to true astronomical events. No risk of dates changing in that case.
Chris

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longtry
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by longtry » Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:51 am

No prob, if the community wants only true astro then it'll reflect in the votes. The real problem, I think, is the lack of traffic to the forum these days, or simply that the idea is bad and people don't bother to answer.

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geckzilla
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by geckzilla » Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:17 am

The calendar wasn't made last year due to lack of interest. Presumably it won't be made again this year.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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THX1138
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by THX1138 » Fri Sep 20, 2019 7:57 am

Hmmm less people have been visiting apod, that's not good at all I and shall start coming here lots more often than I have been, the very last thing I want to see is this special website disappearing ever.
I've come to the conclusion that when i said i wanted to be somebody when i grew up i probably should have been more specific

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Ann
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by Ann » Sat Sep 21, 2019 7:48 pm

THX1138 wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 7:57 am Hmmm less people have been visiting apod, that's not good at all I and shall start coming here lots more often than I have been, the very last thing I want to see is this special website disappearing ever.
Glad to hear it! :D :thumb_up:

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neufer
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by neufer » Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:38 pm

THX1138 wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 7:57 am
Hmmm less people have been visiting apod, that's not good at all I and shall start coming here lots more often than I have been, the very last thing I want to see is this special website disappearing ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl wrote:
<<Although she was a mortal, the CUMAEAN SIBYL lived about a thousand years. This came about when Apollo offered to grant her a wish in exchange for her virginity; she took a handful of sand and asked to live for as many years as the grains of sand she held. Later, after she refused the god's love, he allowed her body to wither away because she failed to ask for eternal youth. Her body grew smaller with age and eventually was kept in a jar (ampulla). Eventually only her voice was left (Ovid's Metamorphoses 14).

The epigraph to T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" (1922) is a quote from the Satyricon of Petronius (48.8) wherein Trimalchio states, "Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω." ("For I indeed once saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in her jar, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered 'I want to die'.")

The title of Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar has been said to be a reference to the ampulla in which the Sibyl lived.>>
........................................
<<The *CUMAEAN SIBYL* was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy. The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world. Because of the importance of the Cumaean Sibyl in the legends of early Rome as codified in Virgil's Aeneid VI, and because of her proximity to Rome, the Cumaean Sibyl became the most famous among the Romans. The Erythraean Sibyl from modern-day Turkey was famed among Greeks, as was the oldest Hellenic oracle, the Sibyl of Dodona, possibly dating to the second millennium BC according to Herodotus, favored in the east.

The Cumaean Sibyl is one of the four sibyls painted by Raphael at Santa Maria della Pace. In the Sistine Ceiling of Michelangelo her powerful presence overshadows every other sibyl, even her younger and more beautiful sisters, such as the Delphic Sibyl.

The story of the acquisition of the Sibylline Books by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the semi-legendary last king of the Roman Kingdom, or Tarquinius Priscus, is one of the famous mythic elements of Roman history: Centuries ago, concurrent with the 50th Olympiad not long before the expulsion of Rome's kings, an old woman "who was not a native of the country" (Dionysius) arrived incognita in Rome. She offered nine books of prophecies to King Tarquin; and as the king declined to purchase them, owing to the exorbitant price she demanded, she burned three and offered the remaining six to Tarquin at the same stiff price, which he again refused, whereupon she burned three more and repeated her offer. Tarquin then relented and purchased the last three at the full original price, whereupon she "disappeared from among men." The books were thereafter kept in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, Rome, to be consulted only in emergencies. The temple burned down in the 80s BC, and the books with it, necessitating a re-collection of Sibylline prophecies from all parts of the empire (Tacitus 6.12). These were carefully sorted and those determined to be legitimate were saved in the rebuilt temple. The Emperor Augustus had them moved to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, where they remained for most of the remaining Imperial Period. The Books were burned in AD 405 by the General Flavius Stilicho, who was a Christian and regarded the books as Pagan and therefore evil. At the time of the Visigothic invasion five years later in AD 410, certain Pagans bemoaned the loss of the books, claiming that the invasion of the city was evidence of the wrath of the Pagan gods over the destruction of the books.
........................................
Stories recounted in Virgil's Æneid

The Cumaean Sibyl prophesied by “singing the fates” and writing on oak leaves. These would be arranged inside the entrance of her cave but, if the wind blew and scattered them, she would not help to reassemble the leaves to form the original prophecy again.

The Sibyl was a guide to the underworld (Hades), its entry being at the nearby crater of Avernus. Aeneas employed her services before his descent to the lower world to visit his dead father Anchises, but she warned him that it was no light undertaking:

Trojan, Anchises' son, the descent of Avernus is easy.
All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open.
But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven,
That is labour indeed. (Aeneid 6.126-129.)
........................................
In the Middle Ages, both the Cumaean Sibyl and Virgil were considered prophets of the birth of Christ, because the fourth of Virgil's Eclogues appears to contain a Messianic prophecy by the Sibyl. This was seized on by early Christians as such—one reason why Dante Alighieri later chose Virgil as his guide through the underworld in The Divine Comedy. Similarly, Michelangelo prominently featured the Cumaean Sibyl in the Sistine Chapel.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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owlice
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by owlice » Mon Sep 23, 2019 12:40 am

A calendar for 2019 was made; it's here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1812/A ... 5_Dave.pdf

A link to it appears at the top of this page: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html
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geckzilla
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by geckzilla » Mon Sep 23, 2019 1:08 am

Huh, looks like I was wrong. Last I heard was we weren't making one.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Ann
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by Ann » Mon Sep 23, 2019 6:47 am

owlice wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 12:40 am A calendar for 2019 was made; it's here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1812/A ... 5_Dave.pdf

A link to it appears at the top of this page: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html
Thanks, Owlice!

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owlice
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by owlice » Mon Sep 23, 2019 7:42 am

geckzilla wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 1:08 am Huh, looks like I was wrong. Last I heard was we weren't making one.
We didn't; this was made by a loyal APOD viewer. (Not that we aren't loyal APOD viewers, but you know what I mean! 8-) )
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owlice
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by owlice » Mon Sep 23, 2019 7:43 am

Ann wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 6:47 am
owlice wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 12:40 am A calendar for 2019 was made; it's here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1812/A ... 5_Dave.pdf

A link to it appears at the top of this page: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html
Thanks, Owlice!

Ann
You're welcome, Ann.
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THX1138
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Re: Calendar feature

Post by THX1138 » Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:45 am

Love this place and all of you that post here moreover the fact that one can post a question here and receive knowledgeable replies (which others will sometimes even debate) makes APOD my favorite website with my 2nd favorite being Physorg. I'm afraid I can't list my 3rd favorite due to the context theirin LOL
I've come to the conclusion that when i said i wanted to be somebody when i grew up i probably should have been more specific