Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: eBay is Destroying the doll collectors market! Sa...

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: eBay is Destroying the doll collectors market! Sa...:  Here is the link to Rachel Hoffman's YouTube channel where she speaks out about eBay's latest move which is hurting doll collecting...

American Doll and Toy Museum: American Doll and Toy Museum is Open!!

American Doll and Toy Museum: American Doll and Toy Museum is Open!!

This Just In; Costco and Dolls

 I just discovered that Mr. Clean magic erasers work wonders on cleaning marks on modern porcelain dolls and on vinyl, with no harm done.  I got a huge box at Costco.  My stepson takes me there about every three weeks, then I get lunch at Cain's or Portillo's.  Good Times!

The magic eraser doesn't ruin the dolls, either.  Cases getting moved today to the museum, thank goodness.  Here are some photos of dolls recently dressed.

Till next time,

Dolly Hugs

No. 3 Barbie

Orsini ? repor in vintage dress I found

Tiny dolls dressed with vintage bonnets added

Comp in new outfit

Shirley Refurbished; she was only 10.00!!

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: April 2021 Skyward by Dr. David Levy

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: April 2021 Skyward by Dr. David Levy:   From our guest blogger, Dr. David Levy; sorry for the delay in posts on all my blogs.  I have been very ill, but am recovering. Skyward fo...

Skyward, Faint Fuzzies by David H. Levy

 

Skyward for August 2021

 

 

Faint fuzzies.

 

 

This is the dome for the 18-inch telescope, which Gene and Carolkyn

Shoemaker and I used to  discover tall of the Shoemaker-Levy comets,

including the one that collided with jupiter in 1994.  Photograph by

David H. Levy.

The night before last, a comet named Palomar (actually known as C (for comet)/ 2020 T2 Palomar) was gliding near one of the most beautiful clusters of stars in the entire sky.   It was parading about at about magnitude 11, which means that for my oldish eyes, it would be too faint to see.  In fact, just a few weeks ago I spotted a second comet, named ATLAS.  That comet, at ninth magnitude, was so diffuse that I barely spotted it. So I was not going to try for this other comet.

However, this other comet was named Palomar after one of my favorite observatories!  The mighty 200-inch telescope was opened in 1948, just a couple of weeks before I was born, and the big telescope has been sighting stars for more than 70 years. In 1994, I was allowed to sit in the prime focus cage, that beautiful place where light from what the telescope is seeing comes to a perfect focus.  So sighting a comet with that hallowed name would be special.   The comet was discovered by Dmitry A. Duev on images taken using Palomar’s Oschin Schmidt telescope last October.   As the comet was brightening slowly, I  learned that on Friday evening, May 14, the comet was planning to glide past Messier 3, one of the brightest globular star clusters in the whole sky.

               That was just too much to resist.   Clusters of stars are scattered all over the sky, and our own galaxy has more than a hundred of them.  Globular clusters consist of hundreds of thousands of stars.   Messier 3 was discovered by Charles Messier, the famous Parisian discoverer of comets; it consists of some half a million stars and is more than 32,000 light years away.  At about 11.4 billion years old, it is also one of the oldest things in the universe.

         With the onset of darkness that Friday evening, I set up my telescope in my backyard observatory and pointed it toward Messier 3.  The exquisite star cluster made its appearance. Then I nudged the telescope just a little bit to a nearby field of stars.   Suddenly I spotted  a faint fuzzy spot precisely where Comet Palomar was supposed to be. As I looked around, a meteor scratched the sky to the north.  It was a bright and unusual member of the May Ophiuchid meteor shower, a bonus on this unforgettable night.

 

Comet Palomar is the 219^th comet I have seen during my lifetime.    Most of these comets have also been faint, barely visible spots of haze.  But some have been wondrous.  My first comet, Ikeya-Seki, was the great comet of 1965.  Whether a comet is a faint fuzzy of a magnificent comet with a long tail, they are always welcome visitors to the Earth’s region of the solar system, each one signing, as comet finder Leslie Peltier loved to write, “its sweeping flourish in the guest book of the Sun.”

 

American Doll and Toy Museum: Thinking outside the Doll House, A Memoir, is now ...

American Doll and Toy Museum: Thinking outside the Doll House, A Memoir, is now ...: Here is the link: Thinking outside the Doll House:  https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Outside-Doll-House-Memoir-ebook/dp/B08W9QFPB9/ref=sr_1_1...