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Daily Bread for 1.25.25: A Parade of Planets

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 4:59, for 9 hours, 43 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 17.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device,” the first ever electronic game:

U.S. patent 2,455,992, filed by Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann on January 25, 1947, describes the world’s first cathode ray tubebased game, the “Cathode-ray tube amusement device”. It was inspired by the radar displays used in World War II.[13] Goldsmith and Mann were granted their patent on December 14, 1948, making it the first ever patent for an electronic game. Entitled “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device“, the patent describes a game in which a player controls the CRT’s electron gun much like an Etch A Sketch. The beam from the gun is focused at a single point on the screen to form a dot representing a missile, and the player tries to control the dot to hit paper targets put on the screen, with all hits detected mechanically.[14] By connecting a cathode ray tube to an oscilloscope and devising knobs that controlled the angle and trajectory of the light traces displayed on the oscilloscope, they were able to invent a missile game that, when using screen overlays, created the effect of firing missiles at various targets.[14] To make the game more challenging, its circuits can alter the player’s ability to aim the dot. However, due to the equipment costs and various circumstances, the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device was never sold. Only handmade prototypes were ever created.[15]


Jan Wesner Childs writes Look Up For January’s ‘Parade Of Planets’:

Stargazers are in for a treat the next few weeks as a parade of planets marches across the night sky.

The January planetary alignment includes Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus all visible to the naked eye at the same time. Neptune and Uranus will be there, too, but they won’t be shining brightly like the others.

What To Know:

Planets, including Earth, orbit around the sun in a line called the ecliptic. But what we see in the night sky changes as we move through space. “These multi-planet viewing opportunities aren’t super rare, but they don’t happen every year, so it’s worth checking it out,” according to NASA’s January night sky notes.

The best viewing for January’s planetary parade is about 90 minutes after sunset, in as dark and clear a spot as you can find. Use binoculars or a telescope for an even better look.

The alignment will be visible into February.

….

Why winter is a great time for stargazing:

The night sky changes with the seasons. In winter, cold air holds less moisture, which can make for clearer viewing.

See Jan Wesner Childs, Look Up For January’s ‘Parade Of Planets, Weather.com, January 24, 2025.


In Amsterdam, there’s an entire museum dedicated to cats:

Whitewater’s own version could go here:

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