Archive for June 2011

Observing Report 26th-27th June 2011 Part 2 (A late-morning crescent Moon)

Posted by on June 30th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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After doing my bit to get the rest of the family off to work, school or whatever I went back to the obsy to pack away the kit. By then it was getting on for 10a.m. , the sun was beating down again and the sky was clear and blue. High up and almost due south I could just make out the thin crescent of the waning Moon, and I was compelled to have a pop at it with the DMK. A red filter was needed to cut the blue glare and to reduce the effect of the bad seeing and so the resolution's not great, but it was worth playing those ten minutes of extra-time...

Moon (27/06/2011 @ 10:05 approx).11 panes stitched with MaxIm DL5.
Each pane is 150/3000 stacked frames. DMK mono CCD camera on the GSRC6M.

Observing Report 26th-27th June 2011 Part 1 (A double and a cluster)

Posted by on June 29th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
Tags: , , ,

A warm clear night after one of the hottest day of the year so far. Clarity was good although the seeing was only fair at best. Still not much full darkness but managed to get two targets before it got too light...

Albireo, the fifth brightest star in the constellation Cygnus.
Albireo appears to the naked eye to be a single star but through a telescope even low magnifications resolve it into a double star.
The brighter yellow star makes a striking colour contrast with its fainter blue companion.
Subs: 10 light @ 150s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

M39 (aka NGC 7092), an open cluster in the constellation Cygnus.
Subs: 12 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it

Posted by on June 29th 2011 in LMAO!

 

Allegedly, Ella cleans and tidies her room at least once every week. Lately, however, we've come to question the effectiveness of the process.

The festering aroma in there was getting worse with each passing hot day. There was something in there, something bad.

Eventually an investigation was needed, so I donned the HazMat suit and ventured inside.

At length the cause was found...

in her school-bag...

unused since before the start of her GCSEs...

Friday 13th May, in fact.

Besides the collection of paperwork, used foil and moulding sarnies, there was an "interesting" array of fruit in various states of decomposition.

Anyone care to work out the number of oranges in the picture below?

 

 

A stern rebuke and a pair of yellow Marigolds were issued.

😈

Lumbar Jack

Posted by on June 28th 2011 in Health, or lack thereof

I had intended to get away with Mike last weekend to do some coastal walking/drinking and sea-fishing on the Lleyn, but during the preceding days I was a competitor in a BG! v stepladder v gravity competition while hedge-cutting. As usual Sir Isaac was triumphant, I was awarded third place and now my lower back is crocked. No bruises or broken bones but plenty of muscle-pullage.

This means that I didn't get to test the Lifeventure Downlight 900 bag that Adam Smith sent for review. Even worse, I didn't get to help Mike to test his beer-coolers.

There's a second opportunity for me to test the bag the weekend after next, as I've planned a wildcamping weekend in The Lakes. Whether I'll be match-fit in time is a moot-point - all this forced rest isn't conducive to staying in shape. Besides, a week of doing absolutely jack will send me round the bend.

Looks like I've a week of DVDs and blogging to look forward to.

 

😥

Drop-ship

Posted by on June 24th 2011 in A bit of a rant

Although the lappy's CPU fan hasn't caused any more trouble, it sounds like it's on the way out. Working on the basis that surfing for a replacement would be difficult after it croaks, I've been trying to source a replacement.

The obvious place to start looking was the IBM/Lenovo webshop. That's the UK webshop, so the part should already be in the UK. It found the required part, not cheap at £23.17 plus VAT, but it was what I expected to have to pay for a genuine replacement part.

What I didn't expect was the size of the shipping charges. FFS, I wanted it shipped, not a ship!!!

That's just mad. I've had huge packages, containing telescopes with delicate optics worth hundreds of pounds, sent fully-insured almost halfway around the globe for less than half the shipping cost of this fan which, even when packaged, is small enough to fit through a standard letterbox. How can it cost so much for p&p? For that price I'd expect them to do the main send on a NASA space-shuttle and have the final delivery done by The Pope driving a DeLorean.

Needless to say, I've dropped the idea of buying from IBM and now I'm looking elsewhere.

 

Caught red-handed

Posted by on June 23rd 2011 in In the garden, Rambling on...

Recently there's been a spate of burglaries around here. Notices have been put up in shop-windows and other prominent places, advising the public to be alert and vigilant. We're out to catch the thieving bastards one way or another.

With this in mind, you can imagine how I felt about an hour ago when I was sitting in the kitchen having a well-earned cuppa and I heard somebody moving about on our back yard and trying the door-handle. I looked up and through the patterned glass I could see a shadowy figure the other side. I grabbed the nearest defensive item (a decent bit of rough-cut 2-by-2 left over from a recent DIY job) and made my way slowly and silently to the door...

The intruder was still there. By then my pulse was racing and the adrenaline was kicking in.  I jumped up to the door and flung it wide open, knocking the intruder to the ground (the door opens outwards). Jumping though the doorway I shouted something profane at the prostrate figure before me, and took up a stance a sensible distance away from him while holding the 2-by-2 in a state of readiness in case he got a bit shirty.

He was a bit dazed and didn't look much of a threat so I backed off a bit and let him get to his feet. When he reached into his open shoulder-bag I tensed a little but I relaxed and was somewhat amused when he presented me with this:


(Click it)

He said he wasn't injured so I sent him packing after showing him the front door (complete with letterbox slot) and the front gateway, and after telling him to refrain from trespassing on our driveway to gain illegal access to our back garden via a gate with a "PRIVATE" sign on it.
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