Up Early

I woke up to a stranger's voice this morning. I'd fallen asleep watching a LIVE stream from NASA's Cape Canaveral where private space launch contractor SpaceX was launching their Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.Liftoff was scheduled for 1:55AM PDT, I didn't get close. SpaceX however got as close as they could get to liftoff when the launch was aborted...1 second. The voice that woke me up was from the post-scrub press conference. Somewhere around 0600 I woke up enough to figure the lay of the land.

Launch computers showed an overpressure in one of the Falcon 9's nine rocket motors, and aborted the launch. Next launch window is 12:44AM PDT Tuesday morning. Falcon 9/Dragon Mission Status Center

This weekend is shaping up to be hyper-busy. Too many choices!

Saturday:
Indianapolis 500 Pole DayLIVE on  NBC SportsNet 8AM-11:30AM and 1:30PM-3:30PM and streaming Timing and Scoring at IndyCar.com all day.

Sunday:
The battleship USS Iowa leaves Richmond, CA on San Francisco Bay en route to Los Angeles Harbor. Under tow, the mighty dreadnaught is scheduled to pass under the Golden Gate bridge at 3:30PM PDT Sunday afternoon. The Chronicle has a great photo gallery at the link.

Annular eclipse of the Sun. 96% of the Sun will be obscured by the New Moon revealing "The Ring of Fire" for as much as 4 minutes and 30 seconds depending on where in the eclipse path the observer is. Plan your eclipse observations at Eclipse-Maps.com and be careful! DO NOT look directly at the eclipse! Use eclipse glasses, a welder's shield, or a projection method such as a pinhole projector to see the ring.

On the horns of my dilemma...
I really want to see the USS Iowa on the Bay. The timing of the tow makes it impossible to see Iowa on the open bay while still allowing for travel time to the High Sierra where the eclipse will be at the maximum displaying the full "Ring of Fire"

I'll let you know how it all turns out...