Summer Vacation Part-2

Sleeping under the stars. Our tent, Joshua Tree and Milky Way at Walker Pass Campground.

Most Sc-Fi fans probably like looking at the stars. I'm no exception, and have a particular interest the night sky and telescopes and cameras. Living in Los Angeles, however, doesn't exactly make for very good stargazing. You're lucky to see a couple dozen stars at best. So I used the Dark Sky Finder to find a spot relatively close to LA to see what we could see, and try out a telescope, camera, and a few lenses. Check out Summer Vacation Part-1 if you missed it.

Summer Vacation Part-1

The summer is nearly over, but it was fun while it lasted. Most of my time was busy with work, writing, and working on the Gold Rush film project. But I was able to sneak away for a couple of extracurricular activities.

Planetfest 2012 And Curiosity Landing

It's an exciting time to be a fan of space exploration. The Curiosity Rover is on schedule to land on Mars in just two days. If you happen to be in the southern California area, you might want to check out Planetfest 2012 in Pasadena:

"A two-day celebration for all ages of the real-time landing of Curiosity on Mars.  You’ll get play-by-play narration during the spacecraft’s descent and landing, plus a peek at the first images returned from the mission."

The event is Saturday & Sunday, August 4th & 5th. There will be many speakers and activities, not to mention a live feed of the actual landing with expert commentary. Hopefully the Martians won't say "Sorry, this is a no parking zone!"

It should be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to it. I'll have a full report and pics next week :)

Weird Wednesday - Message From Mars

Mars

The Mars Curiosity Rover is due to land on the red planet in just a few days. Very cool, you might think, but not exactly something for Weird Wednesday. But among many other expected scientific discoveries, Curiosity just might get to the bottom of one long forgotten mystery: The Mysterious Mars Messages discovered by Guglielmo Marconi over 90 years ago. And that, of course, is perfect for Weird Wednesday.

A Nobel Prize winner, Marconi was a pioneer in the early development of radio. In the early 1920s, Marconi believed he received signals from another world.

Guglielmo Marconi

Using a special experimental apparatus on his Yacht, the Electra in the Mediterranean, Marconi received radio waves of a much greater wavelength than any produced on Earth at the time. This wasn't without controversy, and many experts believed the so-called signals were caused by natural storms on Mars, or perhaps some other, mundane earthy source.

But what fascinated Marconi about the signals was the fact that they seemed to repeat the Morse code for the letter "V." It seemed highly unlikely to him that a natural source would use Morse code. In fact, Marconi himself had used Morse code for the letter "V" many years previously in one of his first wireless tests. Could the strange signals be sending his own code back to him?

Mt. Wilson's 60-Inch Telescope

Like many sci-fi fans, I've always been fascinated by space, astronomy, and telescopes. Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend the night looking through Mt. Wilson's 60-Inch Telescope, located in the Angeles National Forest, north of Pasadena, CA.

Special thanks to the Keith and Alex for making this possible! And thanks to Reggie for starting the ball in motion and helping put it all together. Also a huge thank you to Tom The Telescope Operator and Shelley Bonus, our Session Director. They both were extremely knowledgeable and helpful and had our group laughing and learning all night long. You can also catch Shelley speak at The Planetary Society's Planetfest 2012 in Pasadena. Planetfest is a two-day celebration of the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars.

Some of the amazing objects we looked at are: Mars, Saturn, Neptune, M5 globular cluster (I think it was M5 - whichever it was, it looked really cool,) Cat's Eye Nebula, Ring Nebula, and Blinking Planetary Nebula.) One of the things that really stands out in such a big telescope is the amazing color in the nebulae and the details in the globular clusters.

Gold Rush Press Release

Coming soon I'll have some more updates for those interested in a behind the scenes look at the script to screen process. Here is the press release for Gold Rush:

Gold Rush Table Read

I've been working hard on the script of Gold Rush, which is why the poor ol' Mythik blog has been a bit neglected. But here's the latest: We had a table read on Saturday. Most of our main characters were able to attend, and it was awesome :)

A table read is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: the actors sit at a table and read the script out loud.

I had a very long Friday night working on the latest draft and had it ready just in the nick of time. It still needs a few revisions, but seems to be coming along nicely.

The actors did a tremendous job bringing the characters to life. With this cast, the movie should be really amazing. Not only are the actors really good at acting, they are a fun bunch of people, too.