Milky Way

NASA's astropix of the day

I have not seen the milky way in too long.

"Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears. Such was the case earlier this month over Ontario, Canada, when part of a spectacular sky also became visible in a reflection off a lake.

To start, the brightest objects visible are bright stars and the planet Jupiter, seen as the brightest spot on the upper left. A distant town appears as a diffuse glow over the horizon. More faint still, the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy becomes apparent as a dramatic diffuse band across the sky that seems to crash into the horizon far in the distance. In the foreground, a picturesque landscape includes trees, a lake, and a stone wall. Finally, on this serene night in July when the lake water was unusually calm, reflections appear. Visible in the lake are not only reflections of several bright stars, but part of the Milky Way band itself.

Careful inspection of the image will reveal, however, that bright stars leave small trails in the lake reflections that do not appear in the sky above. The reason for this is because the above image is actually a digital composite of time-consecutive exposures from the same camera. In the first set of exposures, sky images were co-added with slight rotations to keep the stars in one place."

Volcanic Lightning

Thanks to my bud Ed for letting me steal this amazing picture from his desktop. This is the eruption of Chaiten Volcano in Southern Chile in early May.


"Lightning can happen as a result of a volcanic eruption. As the hot ash rises through the cooler atmosphere, transfer of charge occurs. This excess of electrons within the cloud makes it act like a capacitor, and should the conditions be correct, huge electrical discharges may be observed as bolts of lightning during volcanic eruptions."


More pix and long article here.

Thorn in The Moon

Our lead singer Nita contributed vocals
and piano to a track by Matt Vucic.

simply gorgeous.

A Nation of Whiners in Mental Recession

Egg on Your Face

My cell phone has been pretty unreliable for the last few weeks. Since i'm still holding out for a possible new fancy gizmo, I just bought a used phone for $20 on craigslist to tie me over a few more weeks. Here's a random picture that was still on it:

Bethesda Trolley Bike Trail

Yesterday we stumbled upon a brand new-to-us bike trail going from the White Flint Metro area to the very heart of old downtown Bethesda.

Some section are on roads through residential neighborhoods and the worst part was on the sidewalk along Old Georgetown past the NIH. But the rest was pristine trail pavement going through leafy areas. There are also 2 nice overpasses over I-270 and I-495. I gleefully waved to the stop and go traffic below as we zoomed past, all downhill.

There are still more development planned on this pretty new trail: additional trail markers, map kiosks, wayside reststops, etc. yet it's already a very convenient trail and for the time being, one of DC's best kept secrets.


Here are the original pdfs with
the full map and interesting historical info.

Metro Spirit Iritis Write-Up

We're written up in the Augusta Metro Spirit ahead of our show at the Red Lion pub this saturday.

"A giant eye stares out at the audience, with squiggly serpent-like shapes fleeing its center. The tapestry hanging on the stage behind the band forces the audience to pay attention, making people feel less like they are sitting in a bar and more like they are chilling in a basement listening to a groovy record. Once the psychedelic rock band Iritis starts playing, the eye draws you in even more, making everything flow seamlessly together in a magical harmony."

full article here.

Minor correction: our album is not completed yet. We have not even really started it. Look for it later this year.