Tau Herculid 'Meteor Storm" Bust

  It was hailed as the "meteor storm on the century" by one source. Others said it was possible that this new meteor shower could produce as many as 1000 meteors per hour. That was worth waking up for.

 Only it wasn't.

 I set my alarm for 12:50 AM (05/31) so I'd be sure to be outside by 1 AM. The peak was even predicted for 1:04 AM.

 I was out there, eyes adjusted, enjoying the pleasant night air and a nice canopy of stars in the clear sky. I waited. And I waited. And I waited. What I saw was nothing. Not a single shooting start in the twenty minutes I stood there.

Late afternoon the day before I set up a security cam on a stool and aimed it to where Arcturus would be at 1 AM. The radiant point was supposed to be just to the red giant's right.

 Here was what the camera saw while it was still daylight:

 The meteor shower was supposed to be the result of a fragmented comet - 73P/Schwassmann - Wachmann 3. the radiant point slowly moving from Hercules to Bootes.

 To be fair, there was plenty of warning that this meteor shower would be "all or nothing".

 I've only begun watching  the video that the Wyze recorded. Oddly, in the first minute after 1 AM, the camera recorded a slow moving meteor at exactly the predicted position. I was standing there and did not see it. Blame my failing eyesight. Or maybe I blinked,

 In this video, you'll begin by seeing a commercial jet moving to the right (west). Later you'll see the single flash of a firefly on the left side of the screen. The meteor will be in the upper left at the 24 second mark (clock lower right).

 Here's a freeze frame of the meteor at its brightest:

 I kept the two hours from 1 AM to 3 AM for review. I'm sure I'll find other meteors on some of the frames. But it was hardly a "storm" and really wasn't worth the while going out.

 In fact, after reviewing the first ten minutes after 1 AM, I counted just four meteors (00:24, 02:11, 03:26 and 08:26.

Ultimate Butter Pound Cake

  With a little leftover blueberry pie filling from the cheesecake I just made, what to do with it became my task. I wondered if there was a quick cake that could be made in a single loaf pan? Allrecipes basic pound cake seemed the one to try.

 The recipe is here.

 Rarely do I make recipes without modification but I made this one with the ingredients noted. My only change was making it entirely by hand, in a bowl and with a spoon. I added the ingredients in recipe order and certainly didn't bother with the "one egg at a time" instruction.

 Electric beaters are just not necessary for such as this. Stir!

 The pound cake rose beautifully and filled the loaf pan in the 45 minutes suggested. I tested it with a cake tester (not a toothpick) and found it perfectly done.

 I do wonder whether the parchment liner is necessary?  The cake is quite moist and came away from the paper so easily that I wonder if it would have stuck in a greased pan.

 I love how the top bubbled a bit, the gas poking tiny holes in the cake.

 The paper peeled away without sticking at all. It was like unwrapping a blanket from a newborn baby.

 Here's an end-on view after removing two slices for lunch. The cake is a nice vanilla flavor and dense enough not to fall apart while cutting. The bottom was lightly browned.

 I added a spoonful of blueberry pie filling to each slice and then  dusted them slightly with powdered sugar. This is an easy recipe and appears to be foolproof.

Basic Cheesecake

  Tom has a friend invited tomorrow and I asked him if he wanted me to make something. "Cheesecake" was his response. I've only made one other cheesecake and that was several year ago. Check it out here.

 This time I wanted to make a basic cheesecake but one with a graham cracker crust. My go-to place for recipes is allrecipes.com because I find they have everything I'm looking for, the recipes invariably work and their print command uses far less paper than many sites.

 Their Basic Cheesecake can be found here.

 

 This cheesecake, like all of them, is a very high calorie dessert. In fact they suggest slicing the finished cake into 16 slices. They're 375 calories each. That puts the entire 9" cheesecake at 6000 calories. But who's counting?

 I made the crust in a metal bowl (I melted the butter in the microwave separately and then added it).

 The amount of crust is just perfect for a 9" springform pan. I evenly distributed it and pressed it down lightly. Then I baked it at 350° for 10 minutes. I let this cool before adding the cheesecake batter.

 As before, I wrapped the bottom of the springform pan with foil, anticipating some leakage. There was some but it was very minor and wouldn't have required the foil. I also sat this in a standard splatter guard for further protection (that would have been enough).

 The completed cheesecake is perfectly browned. I left it in the oven about 1:05 and tested it in both the center  and an edge. There was nothing sticking to the tester.

 This is a delicious New York style cheesecake. It's about 2" thick and a delight to serve. Delicious!

HAB Launch

  I always enjoy attending a High Altitude Balloon launch at Valley View Junior High here in Farmersville, Ohio. Read about the last one and get additional background here.

 

 The instrument package was prepared under a canopy. While the weather wasn't rainy, it was chilly (57° at the 10:30 AM  launch) and cloudy. A gentle wind was coming from the ENE.

 Several classes from the junior high attended the launch.

 Filled with helium, the weather balloon was ready to go and was held down by several students.

 Here's a view of the actual launch.

The flight:

 Oddly, the balloon began its ascent and traveled to the SW but higher winds began taking it to the NW.

 At 11:06 AM it had curved back north of Farmersville and was heading slowly towards Dayton.

 About an hour into the flight 

About three hours into the flight

It looks as though data was no linger being  received so I'm not sure if this is an actual position or an estimated one. The balloon  looked to be near Fairborn and lined up with Springfield. [05/23/22]

More as it becomes available ...

1. Jill Weaver reported that this balloon achieved their highest altitude (90,000 feet or over 17 miles).

    [But see #3 below]

2. Said Weaver, "We recovered the parachute and Stratotrack on one farm field in Milford Center, Ohio and the payload that had separated from the parachute in an adjacent farm field. We actually heard the beeper and used a drone to find it! Flight time 2hrs and 20 mins."

Landing location - Credit: Google Maps

3. 05/25/22. Weaver posted:

High Altitude Balloon Launch Data from flight computer and camera comments.

Top camera: worked but the payload was at a slight angle, so it didn't catch the balloon pop fully or the parachute well. It did catch the landing

Side camera: the SPOT tracker was right in front of it, so it did not catch anything except the last bit when the parachute detached and the SPOT started flying everywhere in free fall. So, it also caught the landing

360 camera: caught video past balloon pop, but not the landing (battery died). Most of it is kind of boring, because there was so much cloud cover that you couldn't see anything. Annoyingly, it seems like the parachute was in a blind spot most of the time

Still need to hook up the Geiger counter to gather data

Top speed: 203 km/hr at 37.4k feet going up (126 mph)

Coldest outside temp: -29.2 °F

Coldest payload temp: 5 °F

Highest recorded altitude (but stuck on this for a while, so it got higher): 82,097

Lowest pressure recorded: 3064 pascals (3% pressure on ground)

4. 05/27/22: Weaver supplied me with the graphs of temperature, radiation, velocity and pressure. Click on any graph for a higher resolution version.

Temperature

Radiation

Velocity

Pressure

Attack of the Egg

  Who thinks of an egg as dangerous? Well, they can be. I now have a serious burn (blister) on the center of my upper lip. Let me explain.

 Tom likes Egg McMuffins and a few years ago he bought a set of two ""Easy Eggwich" makers. They're small plastic containers which are meant to hold a single egg for preparation in a microwave oven. They mold the egg into approximately the size to fit on an English muffin.

 Good so far. It looks like a nice idea.

  It isn't. 

  I've used them a number of times in the past and while making an egg, the things at some point seem to "explode". They literally jump off the tray inside the microwave. I suppose gasses form either in the egg - or under it - and they are launched. I remembered this and set the microwave power to low this time.

 So I cooked Tom's egg first and I broke the yolk when I cracked the egg but I knew they cooked just the same. I didn't let the microwave cook longer than 30 seconds at a time so as to avoid the explosive jump. At the one minute mark it wasn't quite done so I gave it another short cooking time.

 All was well. I placed the egg on a bun (we don't have any English muffins) and served it. I then cracked another egg and started mine (the yolk didn't break this time).

 I cooked it as I cooked the  first: on low and in 30 second increments.

 When I took it out of the pan and place it on the bun I noticed that the yolk was intact and even looked a bit inflated. I should have given  that more thought (or purposely broke the yolk before cooking).

 I didn't let it cool long - Tom was already eating - but I took the time to add salt and pepper, closed the sandwich and bit tentatively (I was testing how hot it was). It exploded with a loud pop, spraying egg yolk all over the table, my plate and me.

 The yolk obviously was filled with boiling  yolk and steam and was under pressure. When my front teeth pierced the skin the pressure was released. My front upper lip was scalded. It formed a blister which has wept for more than a day. I keep having to wipe my lip dry.

 You can see the blister on my upper lip. I'm lucky the damage wasn't worse.

 I always smirk at people who spill boiling coffee in their lap and blame the fast food joint. I think "they knew it was hot". Well I knew this was hot, too, but experience has shown me that a gentle bite is all that's needed to gauge the temperature of an egg. I never expected an explosion.

 Best beware that eggs can attack.

Bundt Cake

  I've been wanting a Bundt cake pan for years. A few weeks ago Tom and I were in a Goodwill-type store and I found a Bundt pan. Tom took one look at it and said to wait, we'd find a better one (it was not perfectly clean and still had bits of cake stuck to the interior).

 I didn't think any more about it - the pans are expensive - until Tom made a stop at Kohl's and came home with one. It's the real thing - Nordic Ware (perhaps they all are) - and non-stick. Perfect. All I needed was a bit of time. And being out of desserts didn't hurt, either.

 I have been looking at recipes. None were very complex but I wanted to start with something very basic. I settled on a vanilla version that was posted on Sugar Spun Run. The recipe is here.

 I never use an electric mixer. A tablespoon and a whisk are enough. And I didn't follow the directions to add the ingredients slowly, a little at a time. Everything went into the bowl at once and then I took pains to make sure it was completely mixed before pouring it into the pan..

 But I did make it with the ingredients specified and found that just over 50 minutes baking time was perfect.

 The cake rose until it was almost out of the pan. That gave it a built-pedestal to sit upon while I added the glaze.

 I'd call it perfectly done. I used a thin metal cake tester and pushed it into the deepest part of the cake. It came up clean.

 A top view after glazing. I sprinkled chopped pecans atop the still-unset icing. That's the only modification I made to the recipe.

 And a side view of the completed cake.

 .

 It's delicious! I can think of a thousand things to do with the basic recipe. A lemon version and one with cinnamon inside sounds great. Onward!

Squirrely Behavior

 

 On Friday Tom came into the house and told me that there was a squirrel sitting at the top of our etagere in one flower bed. "He didn't move even w hen I got close," Tom said.

 I wondered if he was stuck. I have chicken wire inside the etagere which helps contain and support the sweet peas I grow there. I could envision his fur (or tail!) getting stuck in the metal lattice of the fencing material and not knowing how to extricate himself.

 I went out a little later to mow and the squirrel was in the same spot. This is certainly strange squirrel behavior, I walked closer and closer and still he stayed. He looked at me inquisitively but made no move to run.

 But I could not see where any part of him was stuck. He seemed to be just sitting there enjoying the view.

 But I thought, how would I remove him if I had to? Certainly he would bite and I doubted any of my gloves were thick enough for the task. If a squirrel can open a nut, I dread to think what he could do to my hand.

 With these thoughts I began to mow. Later - perhaps half an hour - I came back to fill the mower with gas. He didn't like the sound of the mower at all and hopped down and scampered off.

 So he was simply unafraid of Tom and I but the mower proved too much.