Clever old me...

Another night down the observatory, and another night crawling in just as dusk lifts the darkness of the night. I'm be getting a bad name for being a dirty stop-out at this rate. After spending weeks watching the others taking pictures and producing some nice pictures, I thought it was time I did.

With a little help in the setup, I shot some video of the Moon, through the large 14" (35cm) telescope. Then with some processing, I produced this image, which is quite acceptable. And before you ask, no, I don't know where on the Moon this is, I've enlisted my old friend John Harper at Scarborough to help identify what craters they are (he knows these kinda things). {He says its around the crater Pythagoras, which is the one half in shadow, with a central peak]

I can't let the others get all the glory, now can I? :) Mind you, I feel part of the BLAS Telescope Imaging Team, now....

The others took some images of Jupiter and Saturn but they weren't as good as MY moon images, so I was well pleased with it.

Today
Mother's birthday, big dinner tonight etc. Better see what I can buy as a present...

Visitor of Today

Just for something to post, I thought a short entry of the visitor here that most piqued my curiosity, so IS THIS YOU??? :)

Time: 11:12 am - May 28, 2007
Search: Yahoo! - talking too much
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If this is you, then you are welcome to please leave a message, in fact this goes for any and every visitor to the blog, tell me about yourself. Some of you I know (Hi Sharon in Korea!), but the rest I don't. Come and tell me how you came across my blog and what you thought of it. Every blogger likes to see comments, and I'm no exception. Its wonderful to think that at some point each day, someone elsewhere in the world is reading these words.

For those of you that receive this by email, I wouldn't bother, cos I know who you all are. In fact, if you are a regular reader, then you too can receive it this way, just click on the link "Blog Email List (via Yahoo)" and subscribe there, providing you have a Yahoo! email or similar...

Good 48 hours...??

Hmmm, well, I think that's a fair title for THIS entry.

On Friday, I had a brief (about 15 minutes) interview over the phone with TfL (Transport for London) towards their Customer Service Assistant positions. It went well, and I've been invited to join the 3rd stage in the process, a day at their Assessment Centre, at Ashford House, in London. Get that and the following stage right, and there's a good chance of a being offered a position. From what I can gather, this day is spent doing things like role-play exercises to see how the individual reacts to typical situations in the job. Should be interesting and a little bit of fun too. Plus the train fare will probably be paid by Employment Services....

Yesterday, I rediscovered the joys of watching cricket live in person, as I joined my father for the day watching Driffield Town CC play host to Sheffield United CC. Watching the game on TV is great, but you don't get the atmosphere of being there in person as we did. We had a great time watching some thrilling Kevin Pietersen-like batting, some enthralling spin bowling and some accurate pace bowling. And the result was favourable too. Driffield managed to set their opponents a chase of 272 from a maximum of 55 overs, but Sheffield were never really up with the rate, they lost wickets regularly and in the end, only made 216, to leave Driffield the winners by 55 runs.

Father and I came to the conclusion that we must do this again! The funniest thing was that one or two of the locals thought we were from Sheffield as they had never seen us before....

Home sweet home...

Once again the latest Lonely Planet Guide to Britain has come out and it describes my home city of Hull is such direct terms.

It says Hull is, "A curmudgeonly English seaport, with a hard-bitten attitude to all things in life, and an almost lunatic nightlife."

Sounds pretty accurate to me. :)

Good night/Good morning

Astronomy can be both an antisocial hobby and yet a social one too. Over the weekend, being down the observatory with the lads was a great way to wind down a little, and on Saturday night we made sure we filled it to the max. Arriving there about 9-45 pm, just as night was starting to take a hold, the three of us spent the night observing, taking pictures of the objects we were looking at, drinking tea/coffee and scoffing chocolate biscuits, plus bossman George brought a pie each (cheers George! Steak and Kidney pies too!) as we really had a fun night. Next thing we knew, the sky was lightening up in the northwest, telling us that the night was over and the sun wanted to be back in the sky.

Yep, we lasted longer than the night and was it worth it? Definitely. Paul took some nice images, and this of number 57 in Charles Messier's catalogue, aka The Ring Nebula, was very tasty indeed. Its not an easy object to see, even through a telescope, due to its size and realatively low brightness, but a short timed exposure of a few seconds or so through the scope brings it out nicely.

Rolling into bed at 4-am is not something I'd done for a while but on reflection, Saturday nights are definitely all right (for astronomy that is!).

Raindrops....

Well its 11am Monday, and the rain has finally stopped. In about 18 hours, for which it never really stopped raining at all during that time, somethere between 25 and 40 mm (1 to 1.6") fell on the local area, depending on your source; officially its the former, but 2 unofficial sites, one about a mile away and the other some 10 miles distant, say the latter.

It has been a while since we've had that kind of rainfall in a similar short space of time, normally 40mm is about 2/3 of the month's total at this time of year. The ground seems to have soaked it up like a bone-dry sponge, as the month of April saw very little rain all month, less than 10mm (0.4") across the whole 30 days.

Of course, I could imagine there'll be a few rivers in the area rising quite quickly over the next day or so.... The Severn will be a worry for a while to the likes of Shrewsbury, in the Midlands, I'll have no doubt about that.

Rolling back the months

While on the way to meet sister for coffee yesterday, as is our regular thing, I ran into one of the blokes from the postroom. After a few minutes chat, he suggested I pop over that afternoon to see everyone. With having nothing much to do, I agreed. It was like nothing had changed, still quiet of an afternoon, friendly banter and mild abuse etc. all over the place. Missed the characters though, shame really, but it was good. To round it off I promised to let them know when i was leaving (finally), so they could throw a "thank goodness he's gone" party, I jested as I left.

3 Astronomers (sort of...)

Most of you will be aware of my interest in astronomy, and that I belong to two differing societies. One Society I don't actually belong to (officially) is out at Brough, just off the A63 out of Hull. However, because I'm such a valued member I can get away with not paying the annual membershop (plus I cannot afford it!!), but I do pay the monthly top-up fee. As a result, I can get to use the observatory there, and during this fine settled spell, I've been down there many clear nights, with this pair of reprobates.

The one on the left, pulling the face, is Allan, what a naughty sense of Scottish humour he has. The one on the right, who looks like he's suffering from the strike at the razorblade factory is Paul, who actually a good flamenco guitarist (as least that what he says), and the self-confessed brains of the party is stood behind. I'm sure HE needs no introduction. If it's a clear night, chances are that we'll be down there, with Society leader George, who scuttled off before the photo was taken, at 2 am last night.

Some would say we only go there to have somewhere to drink tea, eat biscuits and have a bit of a lads' night, but we do actually do observe many things while we're down, using a computer guided and controlled 14 inch (35cm) reflecting telescope. We do enjoy ourselves...