An incredibly busy week, and still not the end of term. In fact I'm just glad that it isn't the end of term, because that would mean everything should have been finished. It seems a very long time since I watched the little red-gold point of Antares slide behind the dark Earthlit limb of the Moon at Mt John last Thursday. (People: if there is an ( Read more... )

Not such good seeing last night due to persistent high cirrus. Did get a little look at the local sights (47 Tuc looks very nice through the 0.6m - since I just finished doing a big lab on globular clusters, it was wonderful to see it after crunching data on its stars for weeks). After that everyone pointed to and found their designated star ( Read more... )

Going to Mt John for two nights, leaving this afternoon.
Wishing for clear skies, hopefully...

Small strokes give greater complexity. So pretty...
http://www.zefrank.com/snowflake/

Ever since having found this web-based magazine about two months ago I have been happily grazing my way down its back list of stories. Definitely the best sf site I know about. These people get GOOD stories, many of considerable length, by a varied range of authors...and the most satisfying part is that they post a new one each week. And poetry, ( Read more... )

A fun visit on Thurs to our local WW2 command and control centre that they never quite finished...the Cracroft Caverns under the volcano. All educational and informative with physics and suchlike, seeing the 4 ring lasers there - one a little table-top design, one embedded in a giant telescope mirror blank and surrounded by big stacks of full milk ( Read more... )

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/images/scientific_integrity/Finalist7.JPG

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060905-eagle-human.html

I rather liked At the Mountains of Madness, so thank you to theuns for pointing it out. I will keep an eye out for the remains of the base camp of the Miskatonic University expedition near that of Scott's expedition ( Read more... )

Eight monarch butterflies in our white blossom tree this morning.