WTF is going on here?
It wouldn't be so bad if the pic was of somewhere in Bulgaria.
It's actually a pic of the Eastern and the Far Eastern Fells of Cumbria, England.
I should know, it's my image!
Creative Commons?
Pah!
Author Archive.
WTFIGOH, Northeastern Illinois University?
Observing Report 2nd August 2011 (Sunspots and Active Regions)
There's been a lot of sunspot activity over the past few days, far too much for me to pass up an opportunity to nab some image data.
Mouseover the pic for the labelled version:
Sunspots and Active Regions 02/08/2011.
1000D at prime on the C80ED-R.
Baader Planetarium AstroSolar™ Safety Film (neutral density 5.0).
Observing Report 24th-25th July 2011 (Messiers, Jupiter and Moon but no Sun)
Sunday evening was still and clear with good seeing so I made my excuses and headed to the shed for another Messier Object imaging session. For some reason the northern skies were darker than I'd expected so I had a look around there and decided to try to image M81 and M82 in one hit. After a bit of jiggery-pokery I got the 1000D rotated to get a decent framing and then I set to with the hardware and software. After a couple of hours I'd got some decent subframes so I moved to a different target - M74. This thing isn't called The Phantom for no good reason... it's hard to image because it's so dim. I upped the exposure from the standard 5 minutes to a more realistic 15 but still didn't get useful results so I scrubbed the attempt.
By then the Moon was rising and the sky was lightening. Jupiter had already risen and was an obvious target so I opted to go for a wide shot with the webcam and CCD camera in order to pick up some Galilean moons.
That finished, I turned the scope towards the Moon which was by then well above the horizon with the Sun not far behind. Just enough time to grab some CCD data to make another big mosaic.
I had intended to go the last mile and get some early-morning sunspot images but before the Sun reached a suitable position I was too knackered so I called it a morning, packed up and got me a few ZZZZs before the usual waking-up time.
Clickable results as follows:
M81 (aka Bode's Galaxy, NGC 3031, lower-right) and M82 (aka The Cigar Galaxy, NGC 3034, upper-left),
a pair of galaxies in the constellation Ursa Major.
Subs: 24 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.
L to R: Jupiter, Europa, Io, Ganymede.
Luminance: 100/1000 frames stacked with K3CCDTools3, DMK mono CCD camera on the 6" R-C.
Colour: 100/1000 frames stacked with K3CCDTools3, SPC900NC webcam on the 6" R-C.
The Moon.
14-pane mosaic created with iMerge.
Each pane 500/2000 frames stacked with K3CCDTools3.
DMK mono CCD camera on the 6" R-C, unguided.
Baffled… again
It's all a tad confusing down at the George Eliot Hospital ITU....
Fail 1: When visiting on Friday I was accompanied by a child and an adult, and all three of us were allowed at the bedside at the same time. This afternoon the visiting-party was me and two children, but on arrival I was told that only two people were allowed at the bedside so we would have to take turns. Somehow I was supposed to comply with that decree and with the rule that all children must be accompanied by a responsible adult at all times. I still can't figure out how to do that.
Fail 2: It seems like the Unit isn't always the Intensive Therapy Unit. Staff also referred to it as the Intensive Care Unit, the Intensive Treatment Unit, the Critical Care Unit and another title that I can't recall. Just to add to the confusion, there is a separate Critical Care area. Ask for directions and it's a Q&A session to figure out where you really need to go. It isn't just the staff though - signs and posters have the same confusing terminology. It's hassle and/or stress that ITU-patient visitors can do without.
Best of all, though, is Fail 3: Usage of communications devices... just look at these signs on the ITU security-doors:
Clear as mud
as are my pics (taken with the phone) 
The North-South Divide
My neighbour Brian's a great bloke. He's from The Smoke and despite living in The Midlands for the last 30 or so years he's not lost his accent, his relaxed approach to life or his liking for the watered-down beer that they serve down there.
He likes to grow stuff in his greenhouse and he has a friend who does likewise with other crops. Each year one will start, say, the beans and the tomatoes, the other will start strawberries and peas or something like that - you get the gist of it. When the plants are ready to grow on, Brian and his mate do swaps so that they both have a fuller range to plant out later in the season. Often, Brian gives us some of his surplus plants, and for the last few years we've had some potted house-plants and some fine runner-bean plants from him.
For some time now we've been considering getting a greenhouse of our own and I've been accumulating materials to make a suitable base for said structure. When we told Brian of our plans he was ready with advice about how to build and what to plant, and he offered us some lentils that his friend had, telling me that they'd be perfect for a greenhouse. Well, I've no idea about growing those, so I declined and said that we wanted to start off with some simple crops. Tomatoes, courgettes, perhaps a melon or two. Lentils sounded like too much of a challenge for the first year.
Anyway, every time I've mentioned the greenhouse (or lack thereof) he's been banging on at me to go and get those lentils. He said that they'd cost me nowt, as his mate just wanted to get rid of them. Eventually I relented and decided that we could give them a shot. I asked him if they were red or green lentils, he said they were grey so I assumed that they were some sort of Puy lentil variety. He said that they'd be good up by the fence where the soil was banked up against the gravel-boards . When I asked him how big they are, he said "about five foot".
Yesterday we were out in his van collecting some slabs that I'd bought over eBay. On the way back he suggested that we should swing by his mate's house and have a look at those lentils, I agreed and so the detour was made.
He led me to the side of the house where there was a mound of surplus building materials. "There you are", he said, "take what you need, we can put them in the van right now if you want them."
I stood there confused, bemused and amused. There were six of them. They were grey and five foot just as he'd said.
Problem is, they aren't lentils...
they're lintels...
grey, five-foot-long, 8" x 10" cross-section steel-reinforced concrete lintels.
I had to explain the difference. The ordeal was not unlike this. If he offers me any peas next year, I'll be wary.
The girls have been baking again…
62 things to do eat before I'm 50:
49 Not Out, just in case you were wondering.
