All posts by Cathy Palmer-Lister

Astronomy News

A CME might be heading our way

Space Weather News for May 10, 2022
https://spaceweather.com
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: An unusually-magnetized sunspot exploded on May 10th, producing an intense X1.5-class solar flare. Shortwave radio signals were blacked out around the Atlantic Ocean for as much as an hour, and now there’s a chance a CME is heading our way. Updates @ Spaceweather.com.

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Above: The extreme ultraviolet flash from today’s X-class solar flare. Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

Astronomy News

Blood Moon: Lunar Eclipse Sunday!

Lunar Eclipse Sunday!

 From CTV:

The best views will be in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, where the moon will be already above the horizon by the time the eclipse is set to begin.

Click here to read full article, including how to view the eclipse if the sky is clouded over. 

From Astronomy Magazine:

Late on May 15, observers across the U.S. will be greeted with a total eclipse of the Moon, the first of two this year (the second one occurs early on the morning of Nov. 8). The Full Moon is two days from perigee, spanning nearly 33′ as it crosses the central part of Earth’s shadow, resulting in a longer-than-average 85-minute period of totality. The eclipse occurs with the Moon located in Libra the Balance; the later evening hours reveal the orange glow of Antares in neighboring Scorpius, providing a lovely complement to the orange-hued eclipsed Moon.

The visibility of the eclipse is time zone dependent. East Coast observers will see the whole eclipse in a dark sky. In the Midwest, the Full Moon rises in the eastern sky with the penumbral stages underway, enhancing the effect of the subtly progressing shadow. Observers in the Mountain time zone see the partial eclipse already underway in twilight. From the West Coast, the onset of totality occurs in twilight and the later stages of the eclipse are visible in a dark sky.

The lunar eclipse begins with the penumbral shadow — a subtle shading barely visible on the Moon’s lower limb — at 9:32 P.M. EDT. The Moon reaches the dark edge of the deep umbral shadow at 10:27 P.M. EDT. Dusky gray first creeps across the lunar surface and, as more of the Moon sinks into the shadow, an orange coloring will become noticeable, particularly through a telescope.

Fanzines

Loads of Zines to Share!

  Bill Burns informs us that these issues have been added to his site. Opuntia and Obdurate Eye are Canadian.

 Added today at https://efanzines.com are:

John Nielsen Hall’s Vita Transplantare #25 & 26

Kurt Erichsen’s Endeavor #15

Perry Middlemiss’s Perryscope #22

Garth Spencer’s The Obdurate Eye #16

Ray Palm’s The Ray X X-rayer #164

Opuntia #524, edited by Dale Speirs

 The N3F has sent us their latest Tightbeam, and a few issues of other people’s fanzines.  I recommend MarkTime 139.

Tightbeam332

Alex1221

MarkTime 139 – New Orleans

MT VOID 22101

MT VOID 22091

MT VOID 2220

MT VOID 2221

MT VOID 2222

Reading

Kickstarter Announcement: The Science Fiction Tarot

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Brandon Butler, a Canadian Speculative Fiction writer from Halifax, Nova Scotia currently residing in Toronto and a former winner of the Writers of the Future Contest in Hollywood, California, is announcing the launch of a Kickstarter campaign which is sure to interest some of our readers.  The campaign launches today, May 9th. –CPL
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brandon-butler/the-science-fiction-tarot/description
THE SCIENCE FICTION TAROT
A collection of 22 weird and wonderful short stories inspired by the cards of the Tarot.

Television

Ncuti Gatwa: BBC names actor as next Doctor Who star

From the BBC:

Actor Ncuti Gatwa will take over from Jodie Whittaker as the star of Doctor Who, the BBC has announced.

The 29-year-old will become the 14th Time Lord on the popular science fiction show, and the first non-white performer to play the lead role.

Scottish actor Gatwa, who was born in Rwanda, is best known for starring in Netflix’s sitcom Sex Education.

He told BBC News: “It feels really amazing. It’s a true honour. This role is an institution and it’s so iconic.”

Speaking on the red carpet before Sunday’s Bafta TV Awards, where he is nominated for Sex Education, Gatwa said the role of the Doctor “means a lot to so many people, including myself”.

He added: “I feel very grateful to have had the baton handed over and I’m going to try to do my best.”

Gatwa will make his debut as the Time Lord in 2023.

Ncuti Gatwa in Sex Education
Astronomy News

Potentially Very Active Sunspot Group

An active sunspot group often means we are in for aurora displays. –CPL
Space Weather News for May 3, 2022
https://spaceweather.com
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

GET READY FOR MORE FLARES: A new and potentially very active sunspot group emerged today. It announced itself with an X1-class solar flare, which caused a strong shortwave radio blackout over the Atlantic Ocean and Europe. More flares may be in the offing as the sunspot turns toward Earth. Developing story @ Spaceweather.com.

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Above: The extreme ultraviolet flash from today’s X-class solar flare. Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

Upcoming meeting

Meeting of May 14: So Many Connecticut Yankees!

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Join us on May 14th for a discussion panel led by Joe Aspler: So Many Connecticut Yankees!

1889 frontispiece by Daniel Carter Beard, restored

Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) was not the first time travel story. However, it was probably the first in the subgenre of the person transported to an earlier era, who decides to bring his new home “up to date” as part of his survival plan. 21st century inflation has brought us from one individual to entire islands, fleets, and towns.

We  invite people to discuss their favourite time travel stories of this genre. We’ll begin with the following.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain (1889)

 Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp (1939)

 Nantucket, series, by S.M. Stirling (1998 – 2000)

Axis of Time, series (aka World War 2.0) by John Birmingham (2004 – 2007, plus short fiction)

1632 series (aka Ring of Fire), started by Eric Flint; expanded into a shared universe with many contributors, many novels, much short fiction. Their online magazine also features non-fiction articles and discussions of how to adapt 21st century technology to the 17th century. And it’s still going strong.

Upcoming meeting

Don’t miss Keith’s presentation, MonSFFA May 14th

The Terrors of Topanga Canyon: B-Movie Monster-Maker Paul Blaisdell’s Fleeting Sci-Fi Film Career

 Artist and sculptor Paul Blaisdell is fondly remembered by fans of mid-century sci-fi cinema for his memorably outlandish B-movie creatures.

In the mid-1950s, Blaisdell earned a reputation among independent genre film producers like Roger Corman for quickly designing and cheaply fabricating movie monsters, leading to his rapid rise and brief reign as the go-to monster-maker among Hollywood’s low-budget sci-fi/horror filmmakers. Often donning his monster suits to play the beasts on screen, Blaisdell’s special effects work was too frequently uncredited, and just as quickly as he rose within the industry, the rapacious nature and changing fortunes of the movie business conspired to drive a disillusioned Blaisdell entirely out of the entertainment field by the early 1960s, never to return.

Today, his then-largely unsung contributions to the field are acknowledged and heralded by modern Hollywood.

Members will be sent an invitation to the zoom session on the 14th of May. visitors are welcome, please contact <president@monsffa.ca> for the link to zoom.

Fanzines

Zines to Share!

Lots of zines to share!

TH 52

This Here, edited by Nic Farey, has a most interesting article about defining “fanzine”. You’d think it would be obvious, but nooooo–when fans start splitting hairs, they don’t know when to stop.

From George Philies, the N3F Review of Books N3FReview202204

From Bill Burns over at e-fanzines


Catching up with site updates after returning from my UK Eastercon trip, I’ve added these new issues at https://efanzines.com

Michael Dobson’s Random Jottings #2, 3 & 21

Opuntia #523, edited by Dale Speirs

Octothorpe #56, a regular fannish podcast by Liz Batty, John Coxon and Alison Scott

Andy Hooper’s CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #41

Christopher J. Garcia’s Claims Department #33

Nic Farey’s This Here…#52

William Breiding’s Portable Storage #7

I also have some new pages to add to the site, which I will do soon.

—
Bill