I’ve recently gotten into astronomy and astrophotography since I got an 8″ telescope for my birthday in 2010. Since then I have found that my Android phone is a must have tool! This is a list my favorite and most useful Android apps for astronomy. All of the ones mentioned here are free or have a free version. I suggest donating or upgrading on all of them if you like them to help compensate the programmers for their hard work.
UPDATED with new app (see end of post for the new addition).
Working with a professor at my college and Carolina Edge of Space in May of 2010 I, along with a small group of friends, sent a weather balloon 74,642 feet into the sky. This post is mainly about the payload I designed, built and tested for the project.
This project was inspired by many seen recently online where students have been sending cheap payloads into the stratosphere. It started around December 2009 when we all met for the first time to discuss the project. It turns out that one of the professors in the Earth Sciences department focuses on remote sensing (gathering data about earth from satellites, etc.) who had done some weather balloon projects in the past. We all got together to discuss a possible launch.
Read moreFirst Weather Balloon Payload Testing on a Model Rocket (Pt.1)
I wasn’t ever really a list person. This is likely because I would spend more time trying to find my to-do list than it would take to get done whatever was actually on the list. Adam is a to-do list freak enthusiast. I will admit that lists can come in handy, especially with a ginormous project like a house. A new house. A BIG new house.
Plus, this is a list I shouldn’t be able to lose. (I also have secret hopes that this will grow to be the largest post on my blog.) Even better, maybe the items sitting up here for the whole world to see will motivate us to tackle “The List” on a regular basis.
This list contains must-do’s as well as dream to-do’s. Maybe I should color-coordinate the list? Nah… Okay, strike that, colors may be a necessity. I have new items since we have moved in. This color will represent the 2012 must do’s and dream to-do’s. Some to do list items we are currently undecided about. Like curtain treatments. We’ve lived without them and like the simplicity of not having them. Do I still want them?
The List
Moving In Repairs We’ve been moved in for almost a year and still haven’t finished our moving in list. Yikes!
Bedroom
Master Office (Our office is in what most people would call the master bedroom.)
Creativity Room (Don’t snicker; we have 4 bedrooms for one couple! What would you do with an extra room?)
SheekGeek Inventory Room
Kitchen
Living Room
Garage
Upstairs Bathroom
Half Bathroom
Master Office Bathroom
I have deliberated about paint colors for so many hours that I may just be in the days (quite possibly weeks) range now. I would like to add that this process would have taken less time if Adam liked all the color choices I picked out. Of course, that would have ruined some of the fun. I enjoy discussing color choices AND everyone needs a good healthy debate when it comes to decorating. Plus, in the end I am hopeful it will turn out for the better.
Honestly it wasn’t that bad because we were in agreement about having blues and greens in our home to begin with; it is the hue we argued debated over. I wanted more earthy tones. If Adam were writing this post, he would describe my color choices as dreary. He wanted brighter colors. And seemingly contradictorily he wanted gray. We both worried about cohesion between rooms and if the colors would match our current and future styles.
Who knows if we accomplished that goal… at least not yet. I am optimistic; we are new at this. Apparently (based on my internet research) I should go for posh paints like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore. Based on family aand friend’s recommendations, I am going for Valspar. It is a simple as for its value (and my wallet), Valspar seems like the right choice. I also have a sneaking suspicion that I will be painting again someday anyway.
This is the final output of our color ideas merged into one. I conceded and gave the okay to the grays. Adam conceded and gave the okay to not so bright colors (being a nice wife, I chose brighter colors than my original picks to meet him halfway).
Here is the downstairs.
And here is the upstairs.
I used Color Swatches and good ole’ fashioned eyeballing it to get the colors as close to my color samples as I could.
The Valspar chosen colors are as follows.
Seeing in all laid out makes me excited to see it in person. I can’t wait to paint!
When creating a color scheme for a blog (or any artistic endeavor), a great place to see your colors side by side is COLOURLovers. Even better, if you are at a complete loss, you can view other people’s color suggestions. In a moment of serendipity, the colors I had in mind for the SheekGeek.org redesign of *blue* and *green* were in a palette on Color Lovers. Not only that, the palette had been created just 7 minutes before I visited the site. (Not surprisingly, these are also common colors used in our home. I am definitely influenced by my surroundings.)
The colors also come with HEX codes, which make it easier for web coding (or should I say tweaking, since I do not code!) and photoshop.
These colors really got me going, because I completed almost the entire overhaul of SheekGeek.org in one night. In that night, we went from this (keep scrolling!):
To this:
I am in love with dreamy goodness of this new site design! It has my creative juices on overdrive – oh the post ideas that are brewing…
By the way, if you are wondering how I got those super long screen-shots, it was a snap with a firefox plugin called Screengrab!.
