Meet Clyde

Ladies (and Gentlemen) meet Clyde:Is he not ADORABLE???

Tomorrow is a big day for Clyde....

SR0046 LRB096 04130 KXB 14171 r
1		SENATE RESOLUTION
2		WHEREAS, Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto,
3		was born on a farm near the Illinois community of Streator; and
4		WHEREAS, Dr. Tombaugh served as a researcher at the
5		prestigious Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona; and
6		WHEREAS, Dr. Tombaugh first detected the presence of Pluto
7		in 1930; and
8		WHEREAS, Dr. Tombaugh is so far the only Illinoisan and
9		only American to ever discover a planet; and
10		WHEREAS, For more than 75 years, Pluto was considered the
11		ninth planet of the Solar System; and
12		WHEREAS, A spacecraft called New Horizons was launched in
13		January 2006 to explore Pluto in the year 2015; and
14		WHEREAS, Pluto has three moons: Charon, Nix and Hydra; and
15		WHEREAS, Pluto's average orbit is more than three billion
16		miles from the sun; and
17		WHEREAS, Pluto was unfairly downgraded to a "dwarf" planet

SR0046 - 2 - LRB096 04130 KXB 14171 r
1		in a vote in which only 4 percent of the International
2		Astronomical Union's 10,000 scientists participated; and
3		WHEREAS, Many respected astronomers believe Pluto's full
4		planetary status should be restored; therefore, be it
5		RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL
6		ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that as Pluto passes
7		overhead through Illinois' night skies, that it be
8		reestablished with full planetary status, and that March 13,
9		2009 be declared "Pluto Day" in the State of Illinois in honor
10		of the date its discovery was announced in 1930.

Are you wondering why I care about Mr. Tombaugh?

Well, my Grandma B and Clyde are 4th Cousins, once removed. (I promise for those of you that just said "I never understand that once removed stuff - to do a blog on how to understand all that).

Here's a little about Clyde:

Clyde Tombaugh was born in 1906 to an Illinois farm family. As a boy he developed an interest in stargazing that was encouraged by both his father and his uncle. The first telescope Clyde ever looked through belonged to his uncle. The first telescope he ever owned was bought from Sears. By 1925, Clyde was dissatisfied with his store bought telescope and decided to build one for himself. Clyde's father took a second job to pay for the materials needed to build it. The telescope Clyde built in 1925 was only the first of more than thirty telescopes he was to build over his lifetime.

In 1928 Clyde completed the construction of a very accurate 23-centimeter reflector. The mount for this telescope was built from part of the crankshaft from a 1910 Buick and discarded parts from a cream separator! Nevertheless, it was with this telescope that Clyde made the observations responsible for a job offer from the Lowell Observatory. Clyde made very detailed drawings of his telescopic observations of Jupiter and Mars. He sent the drawings to astronomers at the Lowell Observatory asking for their comments and suggestions. What he received instead was an offer to come to Lowell to work as a junior astronomer. Clyde accepted the job and joined the search for Percival Lowell's "Planet X", a planet beyond Neptune. Clyde Tombaugh's job was to photograph one small piece of the night sky at a time. He then had to carefully examine and compare the photos in an effort to detect an unidentified moving point of light that might be a planet. Clyde Tombaugh photographed 65% of the sky and spent thousands of hours examining photographs of the night sky. After ten months of very hard work, sometimes working through the night in an unheated dome, Clyde Tombaugh discovered an object he named Pluto. For many years, Pluto was considered to be the ninth planet in our solar system. However, as astronomers learned more about the planets and also about a new group of objects known as the Kuiper Belt Objects, it became clear that Pluto was more like the objects in that belt than the other eight planets. In August 2006, Pluto was re-classified as a dwarf planet.

So - now that you know about Clyde, please make sure to great everyone on Friday with a big hug and a "Happy Pluto Day"!!!!!!

OOO- questions!!

Do you have any "famous" relatives? What are they famous (or infamous) for? What days do you think we should recognize?

OH - and I'm going to leave you with an Essie funny. We went through McDonald's tonight, and the guy who was giving us our food was African American. Essie said "Mom, he looks like the guy Daddy used to work with. Remember? He was black and let me play with his balls?"

SNORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!