This morning we will see rain and areas of fog. Temperatures will be mild........in the low to mid 60s.

Today we will continue to see mostly cloudy skies. This morning's rain will give way to scattered showers later. Winds will shift to out of the northwest at 10 to 15 miles per hour. Highs will be in the upper 60s.

Tonight skies will become partly cloudy, and it will be breezy. Lows will range from the upper 40s to the lower 50s.

Enjoy the day........as best you can.

Tony

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

Today I was at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center seeing the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft up close and REAL personal in the Clean Room - see my pics.  LRO is getting ready to launch by the end of the year and will pave the way for humans to return to the Moon in 2020.

LRO is a beauty of a spacecraft. She is the largest and will be the longest duration unmanned lunar spacecraft to date by the time she completes her mission of well over a year's length.

I previously wrote about the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite that will ride along to the Moon with LRO after both are launched by the same Atlas V 401 rocket. - see my 1-2-08 and 12-30-07 blogs as well as pic. This is a true 2-for-1 lunar mission.

Have you sent your name in to hitch a ride to the Moon on LRO? See my blog for 5-7-08. There are well over 6 million names flying to the Moon as of today.

Much more to follow as we get closer and closer to launch.

Related links: http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/  and http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/index.htm

SkyGuy

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

Want access to the Universe from your computer? Read NASA's Press Release on Microsoft Reserach's Worldwide Telescope:

New Software Brings the Universe to Your Computer

The incredible images from NASA's "Great Observatories" and many other NASA space- and ground-based telescopes are now available to the public in an educational and innovative manner through the release of the free WorldWide Telescope software from Microsoft.

Views of the cosmos from such observatories as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory can all be accessed through the same intuitive interface of exploring the night sky. Several all-sky surveys are also available through the WorldWide Telescope, including the Two Micron All-Sky Survey and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite survey. The rich multimedia software enables browsing through the visible, infrared, x-ray and other views of the universe, allowing for direct comparison of multi-wavelength observations that reveal surprising contrasts.

Other innovative features include guided tours created by scientists and educators. These tours guide users through various aspects of astronomy with narration, music, text and graphics. Members of the public, including children, will also be able to make their own tours to share with others.

The Two Micron All-Sky Survey is a collaborative effort between the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center in Pasadena, Calif., operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, both in Pasadena.

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite is a joint project between NASA, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Its data are archived at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA.

The computer requirements for the software are pretty significant so make sure your system can handle the program. I am downloading and installing it and will follow up on what I find.

Here is the link: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

SkyGuy

There is a Coastal Flood Advisory in effect for today until Noon.

A Flood Watch for much of our area goes into effect this evening, and remains in effect through tomorrow morning.

Today will be mostly cloudy. There may be a few sprinkles here and there. Highs today will be in the low to mid 70s.

Tonight will be cloudy with some showers. More persistent rain will develop late. Lows will be in the mid and upper 50s.

Rain should continue into tomorrow morning.

Enjoy the day.

Tony

Wisdom, thanks so much for reporting on that HUGE sink hole in Dale City.   You interviewed me yesterday and so many people saw it!  (I'm the one who said it looked like we had an earthquake and had another sound bite about driving on the road everyday)  Yes, I had to record myself and so did my sister and dad!  TOO FUNNY! 

If you need a "Dale City roving reporter", don't hesitate to call! 

Today will be another fine day. This morning will start out clear, but there will be increasing clouds as the day progresses. Still, our high temperature will be in the upper 70s.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy. There will be a slight chance of a shower towards morning. Lows tonight will be in the 50s.

Enjoy the day!

Tony

Time is of the Essence
Pendulum clockFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its time base. From its invention in 1656 by Christiaan Huygens until the 1930s, the pendulum clock was the world's most accurate timekeeper, accounting for its widespread use.[1] [2] Pendulum clocks must be stationary to operate; any motion or accelerations will affect the motion of the pendulum, causing inaccuracies, so other mechanisms must be used in portable timepieces. They are now kept mostly for their decorative and antique value.

Pendulum clock designed by Galileo Galilei

Vienna regulator style pendulum wall clock

[edit]History

The second pendulum clock built by Christiaan Huygens,
 in 1673.The pendulum clock was invented and patented by Christiaan Huygens in 1656, inspired by investigations of pendulums by Galileo Galilei beginning around 1602. Galileo discovered the key property that makes pendulums useful timekeepers: isochronism, which means that the period of swing of a pendulum is approximately the same for different sized swings.[3][4] Galileo had the idea for a pendulum clock in 1637, partly constructed by his son in 1649, but neither lived to finish it.[5] The introduction of the pendulum, the first harmonic oscillator used in timekeeping, increased the accuracy of clocks enormously, from about 15 minutes per day to 15 seconds per day[6]leading to their rapid spread as existing clocks were retrofitted with pendulums.

These early clocks, due to their verge escapements, had wide pendulum swings of up to 100°. Huygens discovered that wide swings made the pendulum inaccurate, causing its period, and thus the rate of the clock, to vary with changes in the driving force. Clockmakers' realization that only pendulums with small swings of a few degrees are isochronous motivated the invention of the anchor escapement in 1670, which reduced the pendulum's swing to 4°-6°.[7] This allowed the clock's case to accommodate longer, slower pendulums, which needed less power and caused less wear on the movement. The 'seconds' pendulum (also called the Royal pendulum) in which each swing takes one second, which is about one metre (39.1 in) long, became widely used. The long narrow clocks built around these pendulums, first made by William Clement around 1680, became known as grandfather clocks. The increased accuracy resulting from these developments caused the minute hand, previously rare, to be added to clock faces beginning around 1690.[8]

Until the 1800s, clocks were handmade by individual craftsmen and were very expensive. The rich ornamentation of clocks of this period indicates their value as status symbols of the wealthy. By the 1800s, factory production of clock parts gradually made pendulum clocks affordable by middle class families.

Daily life was organized around the home pendulum clock. More accurate pendulum clocks, called regulators, were installed in places of business and used to schedule work and set other clocks. The most accurate, known as astronomical regulators, were used in observatories. Beginning in the Industrial Revolution, astronomical regulators in naval observatories served as primary standards for national time distribution services.[9] From 1909, US National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) based the US time standard on Riefler pendulum clocks, accurate to about 10 milliseconds per day. In 1929 it switched to the Shortt free pendulum clock before phasing in quartz standards in the 1930s.[10] [11] With error less than one second per year, the Shortt was probably the most accurate commercially produced pendulum clock.

Pendulum clocks remained the world standard for accurate timekeeping for 270 years, until the invention of the quartz clock in 1927, and were used as standards through World War 2. The most accurate pendulum clock to date may be the Littlemore clock, built by Edward T. Hall in the 1990s.[12]

[edit]Mechanism
All mechanical pendulum clocks have these five parts[13]:

a power source; either a weight on a cord that turns a pulley, or a mainspring

a gear train that steps up the speed of the power so that the pendulum can use it

an escapement that gives the pendulum precisely timed impulses to keep it swinging and which releases the gear train in a step-by-step fashion

the pendulum, a weight on a rod

an indicator or dial that records how often the escapement has rotated and therefore how much time has passed, usually a traditional clock face with rotating hands.

More elaborate pendulum clocks may include these complications:

Striking train - strikes a chime on every hour, with the number of strikes equal to the number of the hour. More elaborate types strike on the quarter hours, and may play tunes, usually Westminster quarters.

Repeater attachment - repeats the hour chimes when a knob is pressed. This rare complication was used before artificial lighting to check what time it was at night.

Calendar dials - show the day and date

Moon phase dial - Shows the phase of the moon with a painted picture of the moon on a rotating disk.

In electromechanical pendulum clocks the power source and gear train are replaced by a solenoid that provides the impulses to the pendulum by electromagnetic force and the escapement is replaced by a switch or photodetector that senses when the pendulum is in the right position to receive the impulse. In this case the pendulum controls the timekeeping. These should not be confused with more recent quartz pendulum clocks in which an electronic quartz clock module swings a pendulum. These are not true pendulum clocks because the timekeeping is controlled by a quartz crystal in the module and the swinging pendulum is merely a decorative simulation.

[edit]Gravity-swing pendulum

Schoolhouse regulator style pendulum wall clock

The pendulum swings with a period that varies with the square root of its effective length. The rate of pendulum clocks is adjusted by moving the pendulum bob up or down on its rod, often by means of an adjusting nut under the bob. In some pendulum clocks, fine adjustment is done with an auxiliary adjustment, which may be a small weight that is moved up or down the pendulum rod, or a small tray mounted on the rod where small weights are placed or removed to change the effective length.

[edit]Thermal compensation

To keep time accurately, pendulums are usually made to not vary in length as the temperature changes. Owing to the expansion of metal, the length of a simple pendulum will vary with temperature, slowing the clock as the temperature rises. Early high-precision clocks used the liquid metal mercury to lift a portion of the pendulum mass in compensation for the increased length of the suspension. John Harrison invented the gridiron pendulum, which uses a sliding "banjo" of solid metals with differing thermal expansion rates such as brass or zinc and steel to achieve a zero-expansion pendulum while avoiding the use of toxic mercury.

By the end of the nineteenth century, materials were available that had a very low inherent change of length with temperature and these were used to make a simple pendulum rod. These included Invar, a nickel/iron alloy; and fused silica, a glass. The latter is still used for pendulums in gravimeters.

[edit]Atmospheric drag

The viscosity of the air through which the pendulum swings will vary with atomspheric pressure, humidity, and temperature. This drag also requires power that could otherwise be applied to extending the time between windings. Pendulums are sometimes polished and streamlined to reduce the effects of air drag (which is where most of the driving power goes) on the clock's accuracy. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, pendulums for clocks in astronomical observatories were often operated in a chamber that had been pumped to a low pressure to reduce drag and make the pendulum's operation even more accurate.[edit]Local gravity

Since the pendulum rate will increase with an increase in gravity, and local gravity varies with latitude and location on Earth, pendulum clocks must be readjusted to keep time after a move. Even moving a clock to the top of a tall building will cause it to lose measureable time due to lower gravity.[edit]Torsion pendulum
Main article: Torsion pendulum clock

Also called torsion-spring pendulum, this is a wheel-like mass (most often four spheres on cross spokes) suspended from a vertical strip (ribbon) of spring steel, used as the regulating mechanism in torsion pendulum clocks. Rotation of the mass winds and unwinds the suspension spring, with the energy impulse applied to the top of the spring. As the period of a cycle is quite slow compared to the gravity swing pendulum, it is possible to make clocks that need to be wound only every 30 days, or even only once a year. A clock requiring only annual winding is sometimes called a "400-Day clock", "perpetual clock" or "anniversary clock", the latter sometimes given as a wedding memorialisation gift. Schatz and Kundo, both German firms, were once the main manufacturers of this type of clock. This type is independent of the local force of gravity but is more affected by temperature changes than an uncompensated gravity-swing pendulum.

[edit]Escapement
Main article: escapementThe escapement drives the pendulum, usually from a gear train, and is the part that ticks. Most escapements have a locking state and a drive state. In the locking state, nothing moves. The motion of the pendulum switches the escapement to drive, and the escapement then pushes on the pendulum for some part of the pendulum's cycle. A notable but rare exception is Harrison's grasshopper escapement. In precision clocks, the escapement is often driven directly by a small weight or spring that is re-set at frequent intervals by an independent mechanism called a remontoire. This frees the escapement from the effects of variations in the gear train. In the late 19th century, electromechanical escapements were developed. In these, a mechanical switch or a phototube turned an electromagnet on for a brief section of the pendulum's swing. These were used on some of the most precise clocks known. They were usually employed with vacuum pendulums on astronomical clocks. The pulse of electricity that drove the pendulum would also drive a plunger to move the gear train.

In the 20th century, W.H. Shortt invented a free pendulum clock with an accuracy of one-hundredth of a second per day. In this system, the timekeeping pendulum does no work and is kept swinging by a push from a weighted arm (gravity arm) that is lowered onto the pendulum by another (slave) clock just before it is needed. The gravity arm then pushes on the free pendulum, which releases it to drop out of engagement at a time that is set entirely by the free pendulum. Once the gravity arm is released, it trips a mechanism to reset itself ready for release by the slave clock. The whole cycle is kept synchronised by a small blade spring on the pendulum of the slave clock. The slave clock is set to run slightly slow, and the reset circuit for the gravity arm activates a pivoted arm that just engages with the tip of the blade spring. If the slave clock has lost too much time, its blade spring pushes against the arm and this accelerates the pendulum. The amount of this gain is such that the blade spring doesn't engage on the next cycle but does on the next again. This form of clock became the standard for use in observatories from the mid-1920s until superseded by quartz technology.

[edit]Time Indication
The indicating system is almost always the traditional dial with moving hour and minute hands. Many clocks have a small third hand indicating seconds on a subsidiary dial. Pendulum clocks are usually designed to be set by manually pushing the minute hand around the dial to the correct time. The minute hand is mounted on a slipping friction sleeve which allows it to be turned on its arbor. The hour hand is driven not from the main train but from the minute hand's shaft through a small set of gears, so rotating the minute hand manually also sets the hour hand.

[edit]See also

The Invention of ClocksThe (Not So) Simple PendulumCategories: Clocks | Horology | Pendulumsarticle discussion edit this page history

This page was last modified on 10 May 2008, at 01:31. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.Privacy policy About Wikipedia DisclaimersMake a donation to Wikipedia and give the gift of knowledge!

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

Let's ALL get out tonight and watch the CLEAR SKY! Here's a list to look for.

Watch the glow of sunset be replaced by the dark of the night.

Mercury can STILL be seen in the west to the left of there the Sun sets. It is still a bright golden-yellow about one fist width above the western horizon - it is the brightest object in that part of the sky.

Check for the Earth's shadow in the east - a gray-blue presence that gets deeper and higher in the sky as our planet's shadow is enveloped by the dark of space.

The gibbous Moon is high overhead at 9 PM and to the far upper  right is Saturn and Regulus. Saturn is the brighter of the two "stars".

We do not have the ISS flying overhead tonight but in a few weeks hopefully we can see Discovery and the ISS passing overhead.

The stars of summer - the summer triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair - are in the east after the Fox 5 News at 10 and the Edge. All are bright with Vega at the top, Deneb at the left and Altair to the lower right. Look for them and think of hot dogs, watermelon and warm, humid nights!

Get out and enjoy the sky tonight.

SkyGuy

 

Sweet relief! Today will be mostly sunny and warmer, with a high near 70 degrees.

Tonight will be clear and quite cool. Lows will range from the mid 40s to around 50 degrees.

Enjoy the day!

Tony

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

I am writing this at 4 AM and wanted to share with you a few thoughts collected under a clear and dark sky down here in central VA. The Milky Way Galaxy, or at least the Sagittarius-Cygnus arm of our home spiral galaxy was splendidly visible this early morning after the seemingly incessant clouds swept to the east.

All the way to the north pouring out of Casseopia and into the Great Rift in Cygnus the Swan to end in the great star clouds of Sagittarius - the milky stars and dark dust clouds were there. Oh how we have given up our heritage of dark skies. Replacing the splendor and peace of the surreal celestial sphere where history and beauty abound with wasted electrical power.

Lights do not have to paint the night sky to be effective - money and energy could be saved with properly designed lighting fixtures. Technology can give us back our dark skies if only we take the steps to do so. We would also reduce our carbon emissions through reduced power requirements. There is so much we could do to change our world if we only had the collective will to do so......perhaps that will be the historical legacy of our time.

Learn more about reducing light pollution: http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do

 SkyGuy

this is for the weather team, i love your channel, but i don't like the fact that rarely do we get weather or newa about my county (calvert) please could you find out more our news also thank you.

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

Space Shuttle Discovery is on the pad at Kennedy Space Center. STS-124 is scheduled for liftoff at 5:01 PM EDT, May 31st. As described by NASA's mission overview release:

"Space shuttle Discovery’s upcoming STS-124 mission is the second of three flights that will launch components to complete the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. The shuttle crew will install Kibo’s large Japanese Pressurized Module,or JPM, and its remote manipulator system, or RMS. The RMS consists of two robotic arms that support operations outside of Kibo. The lab's logistics module, which was installed in a temporary location during STS-123 in March, will be attached to the new lab. Discovery's 14-day flight carries the heaviest payload to the station and will include three spacewalks. The shuttle also will deliver a new crew member and bring back another one after a three-month mission."

There are only 10 shuttles flights left after STS 124 and the planned retirement of Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery. Senator and Astronaut John Glenn recently spoke out against the planned retirement of the shuttle fleet by 2010 as he thinks it is not in the best interests of the US to rely on Russian spacecraft for access to space - http://www.space.com/news/ft-080507-glenn-nasa.html>

9 of the remaining flights will go to the ISS and the other flight is to service the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), now set for August.

NASA's new spacecraft, Orion, will not fly until 2015 which leaves a 5 year gap in America's access to space using national assets.

SkyGuy

Due to the weather we've been having for the past week my basement has flooded. There is at the most 2 feet of water in my basement, everything is ruined down there it sucks. You can't even see through the water it looks like the almost black....

WOW! I can't believe all this rain! I thought April was the rainy month!
I took my dog out this morning almost had to put water wings on her so she wouldn't float away.

The ground is so saturated water is standing everywhere. If I see an old guy collecting pairs of animals I think I am going to invest in a hot air balloon rental for a few weeks! LOL

STOP RAINING!!!! I want to go out riding! I don't own a boat!

Remember people DO NOT DRIVE IN STANDING/MOVING WATER! It may look safe but many dead people thought that same thing!
If you have children, DO NOT LET THEM PLAY IN THE WATER! I admit I did when I was a kid and was very lucky I did not get a disease or injury from debris under the surface.

IF YOU HAVE A BASEMENT:
Check it regularly! Make sure your sump pump is working correctly if you have one. NEVER WALK IN THE WATER OF A FLOODED BASEMENT IF ELECTRICITY IS PRESENT! NEVER STAND IN WATER WHILE TURNING ON CIRCUIT BREAKERS! Most people don't visit their basements very often and sometimes get a big surprise after a storm.
DO NOT WALK IN THE WATER you may get ELECTROCUTED!

FLOOR DRAINS:
Be sure to clear those floor drain grates! If you have a low entrance MAKE SURE NO LEAVES ARE BLOCKING THE DRAIN! This may cause flooding into your home!
If you drain tubes put them on your downspouts! Drain water as far from the house as you can!
It may be too late now but CLEAN THOSE GUTTERS! If they block up the water can seep through the facia board and into your attic/ceiling.

DO regular inspections of your yard and around the house foundation! You may get wet but you may find a problem too!

here in crystal lake mobil home park the water is rising.

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

Now that you have sent your name to go to the Moon, how about looking at the "Family" Album. Family that is in the way of our fellow planets, asteroids, moons and other members of the Sun's family.

The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) has put together an awesom Space GAllery of photos from around the solar system and this is a rainy day or night resource not to be missed.

CHeck it out: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/?msource=FL20080429&tr
=y&auid=3620007

SkyGuy

This morning we will see scattered showers, warm temperatures, and breezy conditions.

The rest of today will be mostly cloudy and breezy, with more scattered showers and some thunderstorms this afternoon. Today's high will be in the mid 70s.

Tonight will be cloudy with rain and some thunderstorms. Rain could be heavy at times. Lows will be in the 60s.

Have a good day.

Tony

So DC. MD and VA what do you like about tucker? I like his personality on -air he's funny to watch.

Hey Fellow Fox 5'ers!

You can send your name to the Moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft and get a NIFTY certificate to boot. Check out this website to sign up and learn more about LRO.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/inde
x.html

SkyGuy is going....make sure you do too!

 

Today is going to be mostly sunny and warm, with a high in the mid 80s!

Tonight will bring increasing cloudiness, with a chance of showers overnight. Lows will be in the low 60s.

Enjoy this summery day!

Tony