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It’s not one, but three novae in the past month! The first was announced on Jan 24th. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I had some trouble with the finder chart. The Centaurus nova isn’t very bright anyway. When it was discovered, I reckoned that it’s just a bit brighter than the binocular limiting magnitude here.
Then V1280 Sco, the next to be announced, brightened to 3rd magnitude, prompting a report in SkyTonight.com. Then yet another nova got discovered, just 3° from V1280 Sco. Currently at 9th magnitude, the latest nova’s probably too faint for my binos.
My attempts to capture V1280 Sco on camera yesterday didn’t seem successful. The longer exposures had skies that were too bright to show stars clearly. I had to rush for work and there was no time to play with the settings. I planned to estimate its magnitude using photometry features in IRIS, if I had gotten any decent exposures at all. This morning, I ditched the camera for binos. I made my brightness estimate, and submitted it to AAVSO. The data, compiled from observers who had submitted their magnitude estimates, looks interesting. There’s quite a bit of variation on either sides of 5.0 magnitude. The nova seems to be exhibiting some rather interesting short term behaviour. Ok, it could well be explained by unavoidable observational errors. In any case, I’m paying attention to the animal as far as the weather permits.
Here’s the link to a shot of V1280 Sco.
With the monsoonal cloudy spell finally over, I’m looking forward to more observing sessions. The current top target on my list is the newly discovered nova in Centaurus, now designated V1065 Cen. The chart can be downloaded here.
I printed the chart with the hope of using it at the first clear sky opportunity. The opportunity came tonight, but I spent at least half an hour figuring out the field represented in the AAVSO chart. When I was done, the sky had clouded out. This is a lesson in providing good scales, and preparing in advance for observing sessions.
I had some trouble determining the scale. Indicating 20″= 1 mm wasn’t too helpful, since I didn’t print at the correct resolution. After all, the gif was resized to fit the page, so 1 mm on the page is equivalent to a different angular distance. It took a while to find the resolution (300 dpi) and the pixel dimension (1100 x 1460) of the image. Do the math… and the field comes up to about half a degree across. And then it took another 15 minutes to relate stars on the chart to those in SkyAtlas 2000.0. This wouldn’t be possible without a sky charting program since the limiting magnitude on the AAVSO chart is at least 12 while SkyAtlas goes down to just 8.5.
There’s always tomorrow.
Quote from a single-someone on V day: February this year has 27 days…. Feb 14 does not exist.
Thought experiment: Suppose I meet a new friend for the first time but refuse to let him/her in on my background, e.g. the schools I attended and what I work as (with-holding my name therefore becomes necessary, in the age of the internet). How differently will the friendship work out?
In this corner of the world, it is common for people to ask new friends about their educational background, perhaps to find a connection or simply to keep the conversation going, and this irks me, because it lends oneself to existing stereotypes for people hailing from different schools. Instead of establishing connections, the social habit can set up barriers, as friends become classified according to the schools they came from. It takes effort to remove this biasing effect on first impressions. I’m not sure if I ever want to try this experiment. It sure sounds rather rude to refuse to oblige to a simple question. It can be refreshing to be recognised solely on the context of interaction rather than on one’s background. I would prefer, for example, the introductory statements “Hi Peter, meet John. He’s from <name-of-school>” and “Hi Peter, meet John. He’s a <name-of-occupation>” to read more along the lines of “Meet John. He was playing the guitar at the party yesterday. He’s a cool dude” or “Meet John. He is as interested in wakeboarding as you are.”
Vladimir Feltsman performed Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto to a well-deserved standing ovation last night. Over here, standing ovations in classical music performances are hard to come by, and are reserved for the very best. This is the second time I see this happen here; the first was at Kremerata Baltica’s performance at the same venue, to a smaller audience. For me, Feltsman’s technique was flawless. Repeated passages were well articulated and differentiated — the theme was never played the same way twice. Moments when the tempo slowed to a pause were heavenly. I felt I was lulled to a stop instead of being led to one. Some scenes (!) were endearing. Feltsman turned round to smile at the audience during a scurrying passage in the third movement. At a climatic turn during the same movement, he launched himself from the bench, to a few stifled giggles. The audience must have seen his more flambouyant moments last night.
I thought Collard, who performed the 1st Concerto two weeks ago, deserved a standing ovation too. I guess Rach 1 just doesn’t arouse this much enthusiasm.
Rach 3 got me enamoured with classical music 12 years ago, when I was a teen, so thoroughly smitten. My eyes felt wet towards the end of the first movement, as I became aware of that fact.
Pardonne moi for the angst and tirade. I just had to get it out.
Who gets the better deal? The nice-guy or the bad-ass? Maybe it’s a passing phase, but I like the bad-ass better. His moments of holiness are more appreciated if he is seen to have taken the effort to better himself, which can be extremely flattering when the positive behaviour becomes associated with the courtship process. The converse? Enough have been said about nice-guys finishing last.
I’m just a notch nearer my tolerance threshold for a student who again decided to cancel lesson because she forgot she had doubled booked the time slot. It’s the second time I was informed of the cancellation less than half an hour to the lesson. The other annoying occasions weren’t much better: I was informed on the day of the lesson. That had happened at least thrice. Lessons, if they happen at all, were often shortened by half “because she’s too tired”. The syllabus’ screwed up too — teaching Physics had never felt like teaching Geography before (see criticisms here — scroll to the criticisms section, and here — scroll to “Is Secondary School Physics in Danger of Dumbing Down?”). It’s a mystery how science/engineering-type high schoolers get the necessary preparation for college. Maybe they don’t. Everyone’s screwed.
Some amongst us have it good. Their college education’s paid for by public funds, and then they are guaranteed employment for half a decade upon graduation (some say this may not be a Good Thing). And there are those who exert certain influence over these individuals, if only through the established workplace hierarchy. It irks and disgusts me to hear of those in the latter group hold the conscience of those in the former at ransom by justifying work delegation (more bluntly, shirked responsibilities) in terms of the already spent public fund.
The pill can be swallowed a different way. There are those who evangelise their interests and assume what is good for him is good for everyone. One can therefore delegate work with an assuring feeling of having done the good deed of being interested in a subordinate’s well-being and personal development. Thanks, but we don’t share the same religion.
My seat last night was bad. It’s in the second row from the front, so the winds section, the zheng, and the harp were louder than usual for me. That’s what you get for $10 and a last minute decision.
There were good passages in the erhu concerto “Nostalgia Dreams of Beijing” (aka 2nd Concerto for Erhu by Kuan Nai-Chung), but I find it hard to appreciate the piece in its entirety. It’s not atonal, and it does not attempt to “break-from-tradition” just for its sake. It’s also not the fault of the soloist — he had the techniques and the individualism. I just didn’t enjoy the concerto. It fared only slightly better than the composer’s 1st concerto for the erhu. I was counting down to the end of the track when I was listening to a recording of the first concerto. Repeated listening didn’t help either. Is it just me or the composer?
The other pieces could have been better if I had found a better seat. Guo Wen Jing’s composition was written in a choral style that I found rather pantheistic (think Mahler’s 2nd symphony) and novel. The pipa concerto that followed was conducted by the composer himself. It was definitely more interesting than the erhu piece. At the end of her performance, the soloist was piled with bouquets and teddy bears that were too much for her to carry. They’ve got to be from her students.
My suspicions were confirmed. The musicians in SCO are using staff notation scores — at least that’s true for the erhu, zheng and yangqin sections. I wonder if the switch (if there was one in the first place) from jianpu notation was painful. After all, most of the older musicians probably began playing their instruments using jianpu scores. There are three practical reasons I can think of, and I’m not sure if these are correct. First, the ease of producing instrumental scores from the main orchestral scores, which are written in staff notation. Second, the increasing tonal complexity in modern CO compositions. Jianpu notation becomes hard to read when tonality gets vague. Third, the facilitation of cross cultural musical exchange. I’ve always thought sight reading on the erhu and yangqin using the staff notation is extremely difficult and ill-adapted for the instruments. Now the SCO musicians have proven its feasibility. I shall try that one of these days…
The attendance at Friday’s performance was better than that the week before. This I attribute to the Second Concerto’s overwhelming popularity over the First, and the more pedestrian program. Okko Kamu also conducted Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Brahm’s 4th Symphony. I found Demidenko’s touch a tad too light at times. The more pensive passages in the first and final movements tended to sound similar. At times, I was wondering if the orchestra was accompanying the piano or vice versa. Perhaps the piano’s sound didn’t come across that well because of where I sat. The two encore pieces fared better. The first was a brooding nocturne-like piece that I’ve heard on the local classical music station late at night too often. It’s one of those that I’m perpetually unable to identify because I always hear it played on the radio unintroduced. It sounds Chopinesque but without all of the composer’s flourishes. The girl seated behind me was sure it was Beethoven. Maybe she’s right. The second encore was a playful torrent of staccatos, punctuated by Baroque ornamentations, played at presto.
I prefer Collard’s performance of the First Concerto last week, despite his rather audible grunts, which were thankfully masked by the piano.
