Hope you had a lovely Easter . . .
SHORT AND SWEET - This is going to be a relatively abbreviated TWARS since the newsletter is due out tomorrow and I still need to be working on that. We all know that brevity isn't my strong suit but you get the idea.
RARE WHALE SPOTTED - The headline is "Gray Whale Spotted Off of Nantucket." You might wonder what all the fuss is about since we see grays all the time. Well, the big deal is that Atlantic Gray Whales were thought to be extinct for some time now so this really IS a big deal. Also makes you wonder where this one has been hiding and whether there are more. You can read more about it here:
ATLANTIC GRAY WHALE SPOTTED.
EXPLORING THE OCEAN - It's tough to do and the estimate is that maybe we've seen 20% of it. But an Australian company is trying to change that by creating a small underwater drone, capable of going really deep and staying down very long. Read more about it here:
UNDERWATER DRONE.
APRIL 8th ECLIPSE - As many of you know, I like to chase total solar eclipses and am very excited about the one coming up on April 8. I will be in Dallas for it and hope to be able to share some pix. Unfortunately, despite what the historical weather trends say (which were very favorable for Dallas), the actual forecast isn't looking too promising. So we shall see (or not see, as might be the case). But our repair guru Robert Stark turned me on to a really great "intelligent telescope" with a camera built in called Seestar S50 which has specific solar and lunar modes built into it. I got one and will take it with me. The pix are (IMHO) fantastic. And it's relatively cheap at $499 which includes the camera, a tripod, solar filter, app, and a carrying case. The whole things stand under 2 feet tall and looks like this:
