It may well be the back-end of October but the garden still thinks that it's late summer.
The tomatoes are still putting out flowers and fruit:
And the raspberries aren't finished yet:
And there's this critter which has set off our CCTV cam a few times recently:
We're still waiting for the hedgehogs to put in an appearance.
Over 650 pics... plenty of clouds and more than a few planes, but only two Leonid meteors.
I'll post separate pics of them later, but for now here's a time-lapse of 45-second frames compiled to play at 2fps.
Leonid meteors at UTC 03:05:12 and at UTC 05:00:15
It's best viewed in full-screen after it has finished buffering.
Canon 1000D, 10-18mm zoom @ 10mm, F5.6, ISO 800, captured with APT v 3.33 (http://www.ideiki.com/astro/)
Post-processing with PS CS3, Irfanview, K3CCDTools3 and VDub.
Over 650 pics... more than a few planes, but few meteors.
I'll post separate pics of them later, but for now here's a time-lapse of 60-second frames compiled to play at 2fps.
One Leonid at 02:33:24 and one sporadic at 06:26:04
It's best viewed in full-screen after it has finished buffering.
Canon 1000D, 10-18mm zoom @ 10mm, F5.6, ISO 800, captured with APT v 3.33 (http://www.ideiki.com/astro/)
Post-processing with PS CS3, Irfanview, K3CCDTools3 and VDub.
It was a sad day when we had to have the old willow taken out.
We would have liked to have kept it but it was becoming unruly and dangerous, the remains of the middle trunk which we'd had reduced during pollarding back in 2009 had rotted all the way down to ground level and were no longer binding the other three trunks, so the whole tree had to go with dignity instead of being trashed by a storm.
It was much older than anyone thought - before felling it, all opinions were that it was just a bit older than the house, so about 60 years old. When the trunks had been taken down I went to see the stump before they ground it out, even at 2ft high it was 4ft across. I tried to count the growth-rings but lost count at about 80, we now think it was into its 9th or maybe even its 10th decade.
We've saved a few wands to plant elsewhere in the garden, so it stands a chance of regenerating from those, but when the ground has settled we'll be planting a large native Birch in its place.
And the wood wasn't all wasted - we've propped up a couple of huge chunks of cut trunk and have hung bird-feeders on them, and we've used a couple of cut rounds to make a hefty Flintstones-style bird-table. Pics soon!
Anyway, here's a rough & ready time-lapse of its last few hours:
So, what do you arrange for a thrill-seeking girl's 18th-birthday treat? That's an easy one... you dress her up in red overalls, stick her in a harness and chuck her off the side of a mountain 
The venue for the day was Zip World near Bethesda. Here's the web-page blurb:
"Zip World has the longest zip line in Europe and is NOW OPEN at Penrhyn Quarry, Bethesda – “The Nearest Thing to Flying”!!
The Zip World site contains two specially constructed and spectacular zip lines, the first will take you down to the bottom of the quarry where you will pick up your specialised vehicle for a magnificent quarry tour, before zip lining back for a mile to the start.
You will be reaching speeds of up to 100 mph and you will be travelling 500ft above the mountain lake so be ready for a ride of a lifetime!"
Me and Chris took the quarry tour and stayed away from anything dangerous, Anna did the tour and the Little Zipper, Ella got the full works. I'll let the pics and captions tell the story. Don't forget to max the volume when playing the movie.
Folk on the Little Zipper
Little Zipper end-zone
Suiting-up
Suited and booted
Waiting for the safety lecture
Concentrating hard on not looking nervous
Up at the Little Zipper end-zone we could see the Big Zipper launch area
Zooming in on the Big Zipper launch area
The RAF provided a fly-by
Ella and Anna wired-up at the Little Zipper launch-pad
On the move
Approaching the fastest bit
Ella approaching the bungee-brake
Anna hitting the bungee-brake
Just hanging around
Happy Ella
Happy Anna
So alike and yet so different
Ella looking apprehensive up at the Big Zipper launch area
Still trying to keep it together
The launch pad. The end-zone is the light patch on the spoil-mound the other side of the quarry.
Penrhyn Quarry from the Big Zipper launch area
Busy at the top - a Beeb crew were there filming Davina Wave of CBBC's DNN fame
Anna playing it cool.
Every time I see this pic it reminds me of this.
Click here to see the video in fullscreen HD on Vimeo
After the truck-ride back down to meet Ella the omnivores in our party filled up with excellent cholesterol-burgers from the van down at the site office. Sadly, the party's veggie had to go without.
Verdict: Top day out. Highly recommended. Great burger-van.
I caught this thing on video while out shooting the Moon with my telescope this morning.
This clip is a 10fps cut from a 1-minute video, originally 60fps.
No post-processing apart from the addition of frame times and numbers in VirtualDub.
Telescope: 6" f/9 RC Astrograph - 152mm Aperture / 1370mm Focal Length.
Camera: DMK 21AU04.AS (Sony ICX098BL CCD chip 640 x 480 pixels @ 5.6 µm x 5.6 µm).
Calculated FOV: 6.7 x 9.0 arcmin.
FOV centre: Alt: 17 deg, Az: 178 deg, RA: 18h, Dec: -21 deg
I'm trying to work out if it's a satellite, a rock or just space-junk.
If I figure it out, I'll let you know.
