Krioma.net

Most Astrologers have the sense to backup comments they make but it seems that the guy that Jools Holland spoke to on his show (on BBC 1) has not been doing his research. Firstly the "fact", as he described it, that the celestial body known as Sedna is a planet is incorrect. It is an object from the Oort cloud. I bet you would be hard pressed to find even the most enthusiastic of astronomers who would classify it as a planet. Oh and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) hasn't classified it as a planet therefore it is not a planet.
It might be obvious to people that I think Astrology is at the best bollocks. I hold nothing against people who think that it works and those who actually try to figure it out. Hang on a minute. Does Astrology make sense? Easy answer - no! There is no way the actions of Jupiter will effect our individual lives. Yes its gravitational pull has some effect on us but in comparison to the Earth, Moon and the Sun this is insignificant. Now Jupiter is the largest body (apart from the Sun) in the solar system and since this has hardly any effect then do the other planets? Umm no. Oh and don't even get me started on the fact that if one of these objects is contained within some man made star pattern then it matters more than in another man made star pattern. Oh I think it should be pointed out to Astrologers that they need to update their calendar. Due to precision the constellations have now "shifted" in position and so those born in January are no longer born under the capricorn constellation.
Finally the bloke on Jools Holland said that Sedna would reduce resentment this year. Umm how can we even measure that! Also how does he propose that this does this? Its gravity wont affect us. What will? Maybe he can submit a paper to Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) on this new type of physical process. Maybe this reduction in resentment is due to transfers by the anti-resentment particle. Oh and this has a mass approximately equal to bull crap!
Rant over. Happy New Year!
More:
+ Later with Jools - http://www.bbc.co.uk/later/
+ Sedna an overview - http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/
+ NASA article - http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/planet_like_body.html
+ IAU - http://www.iau.org/
+ ApJ - http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/

Last night I saw two wonderful things. The first was a rather powerful meteor. It lasted for about 3 seconds as it raced through the constellation of Cetus. It was a wonderful sight. I love to see meteors and they are probably my favourite thing to see. It was a red / yellow colour. This was possibly the most clear meteor I have ever seen and takes the tally up to two for my time at home for Christmas.
After this excitement I went and did my normal pattern. Last night I spent probably 10 minutes looking at the Hyades and Aldebaran. These are in Taurus and are a wonderful sight with the eye. They are even better through binoculars (see sky chart). Aldebaran itself forms the eye of the bull. I can easily see why. It is a deep red - something you might expect of an enraged bull. Taurus is an easy to make out constellation a good guide is to find the top right star of Orion (Meissa) and the follow the same diagonal from Betelgeuse. If this is followed you shall see Taurus and if you go slightly higher up you will see the Pleiades (also within Taurus; see star chart). Like the Pleiades the Hyades are an open cluster of stars and hundreds can be seen. A wide range of colours will be easily visible - a truly wondrous sight.
The reason I spent so much time in Taurus was that Comet Machholz has now drifted into this constellation. It has also risen in brightness. It is now the time to observe this object. I also think I saw two tails coming away from it with my binoculars but my sight was diminished due to the light pollution of Birmingham City centre. It was good to see it and it is now easily visible. Hopefully I will get some more clear skies to view the tails while it is still quite bright.
Sky Charts:

More:
+ Taurus -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/myspace/constellationguide/taurus.shtml
+ Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites - http://www.star.le.ac.uk/edu/comets/meteors.html
+ Comet Machholz - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_12_15.php#000462

It seems that people are really starting to start observing this in detail now. Hopefully as it brightens more and more people will take pictures of it. I am going to try and take a few shots next week. For now here (image by Paul.F.Gordon) is a good attempt at what you probably would see with your eye.
More:
+ Comet Machholz - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_12_15.php#000462

After the latest bidding for the hearts of the world is taken on by America I did my usual looking around and laughing at the stories about George "if i just had one more brain cell" Bush. Firstly I reckon Jed "I fixed it Florida lets try Asia" Bush is being setup to be the next Bush inline for the Presidency. Why don't they just setup a monarch for themselves. Surely sending Jed and Mr "I swear I am black" Powell to the crisis affected area is going to do no good. I guess it comes down to the photo opportunity. Great.
Anyway - my thoughts go out to the countless people affect by the tsunami and earthquakes. I even donated some cash to oxfam. It was rather simple. If you want to do the same go to: http://www.oxfam.co.uk
Back to the anti-bush stuff. I also came across an excellent site selling some rather funny t-shirts etc today. I particular like a United States of Canada one which shows most of the USA as the USC, I guess, and then mostly Texas and a few other states as the USA. The site is: http://www.cafepress.com/beatbushgear/
Then while chatting to my mate Jordan on MSN (yes I use a microsoft product for something :-o ) he sent me a link to a story about a planned "Death Star". This is quite funny, see: http://www.bigfib.com/issue34/32world3-en.html

I find it quite difficult at the best of times to read large documents on the web but I feel it is a great resource. No paper, storage space is minimum and costs are heavily reduced. I came across an interesting website full of online books the other day. It is http://www.nap.edu/. This is mostly scientific publications but is well worth a look. I came across a book I intend to read "Schrödinger's Rabbits: The Many Worlds of Quantum". It is available to read online at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309090512/html/

I finally got around to adding some more content on my manta force man section of my site. So if you want to see any of it mosey on over to http://www.krioma.net/mantaforce.php

Something for anyone involved in teaching of astronomy: astronomyteacher.com. I came across this site a while back now and it has some very interesting resources on it. I have not used any myself (yet) but I am sure they could be used to good effect. The building a telescope document intrigues me. Very useful site.

Lets face it most of astronomical knowledge is still new and constantly under debate. The debates of the past seem trivial to us now, in certain respects at least, but I wonder where we would be with out them. Of course the great debates of the past still go on. I guess the most notable great debate in astronomy that comes to my mind first is the Curtis-Shapley debate. This is rather interesting and I would suggest you give it a look over. An excellent site on this is: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/debate/debate20.html They also cover a few more up to date debates on this site that I am not as aware of occurring but are very interesting see: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/debate/debate.html

Meteors as I have said in the past have always fascinated me. I love to see them but I have been hampered by bad weather in general. For example for the last 8 years, or so (it changes every time I think to be honest), I have tried to observe the Leonids and I have not yet once seen a meteor yet! Once I did wake up with frost forming on my face - falling to sleep in the garden with a mate. That was funny. If you want to know when meteor showers are going to occur this year take a look at the following excellent site: http://www.geocities.com/~starwanderer/meteor.htm

I came across a rather good java application today. It shows you lots of useful information about where the planets are and also the orbit of their moons around the planets. The later is very useful when you are observing the large gas giants and want to know which moons you can see. It is written by Brendan Murphy and operates off the Castle Point Astronomy Club's website. To get the application see: http://www.cpac.freeserve.co.uk/docs/solar.htm

I came across another few images of Comet Machholz. It is still a pleasure to observe hopefully I will be able to get a scope on it early next week. Anyway the first picture I came across was taken by Adrian Jones and can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/opticalpath/Machholz_05Jan.jpg. This is an excellent image and the tails are clearly visible. The second is taken by Carsten Arnholm and can be found at:
http://arnholm.org/astro/deepsky/2004q2_machholz/2004q2_machholz_20041230_2130ut.jpg
More:
+ Comet Machholz - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_12_15.php#000462

Chandra scientist have released images and data that suggest that they have discovered the most powerful eruption ever seen in the Universe. It appears to have been found in a galaxy close to the centre of our cluster. The x-ray cavities that have been discovered appear on opposite sides of the large galaxy under question and there presence indicates that a large eruption from the galaxies central supermassive black hole caused them. The suggestion is that a vast amount of gas fell onto the black hole and once releasing large jets which pushed through the galaxy and into the hot interglatic gas. As these jets moved the gas it caused these cavities to form. This is rather interesting and seems quite feasible.

More:
+ Chandra Press Release - http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/ms0735/

I was preparing a talk I am going to give this week coming and came across a page for those of you who are interested in reading about galaxies. I am quite interested in numerical models that are being used for the production of some very interesting simulations of galaxies interactions. Some instantly stunning results can be found on Joshua Barnes' website. His current research with John Hibbard in this field can be found on:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/%7Ebarnes/research/interaction_models/index.html
I am particular interested in their reproduction of the famous mice interacting galaxies. Some of the pictures they have produced look quite similar. Take a look at: http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/%7Ebarnes/research/interaction_models/mice/index.html.

More:

+ Modeling The Mice - http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/%7Ebarnes/research/interaction_models/mice/index.html
+ Joshua Barnes' Website - http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/%7Ebarnes/barnes.html

+ The Mice - http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/
newsdesk/archive/releases/2002/11/

Well my 500th post in just over a year. I do wonder what I have wasted space with. Seem like lots of astronomy related stuff. I wonder how many people actually read this? For anyone who does, thanks. Oh and glad you have put up with the dodgy and sometimes awful grammar. I guess it can make life interesting (trying to decode it!). I have had more and more hits each month I am pushing 200,000 a month now. I guess that means someone comes here? Or it is me pressing refresh more than I thought. Well I am going to keep posting. Sorry I don't have a commenting system enabled. I had too many problems with bull shit advertising and was causing me too much hassle to delete each one. If you do have any comments though please pass them on to me. My contact details can be found on the about page. Or you can use my gmail account: krioma@gmail.com. Again thanks for reading!

It seems that Bluetooth is not as secure as people think it is. I do think the majority of the world lives in this bubble where they believe that everything they do electronically is secure. You say to people do you have a firewall. They either respond with "umm, whats that" or "I turned that thing on in windows". Ok most people just don't know. Maybe they should learn or ask about stuff. It really annoys me when people get virus' and then they moan that they haven't done anything. Indeed they haven't - that is the problem. In the world we live in you need to have a firewall. If you don't have one you are screwed. Turn on the windows one - that is a start. The rest do some research. It will be worth it in the long run - seriously. Buy a router!

Back to Bluetooth. I was doing some reading around and I am not going to claim I understand half of this but heck it makes interesting reading. It appears that some Bluetooth phones are increasingly open to attack. Not a good thing. If you are concerned about your Bluetooth handset then check with your phone company. I know Nokia have released some patches already.
More:
+ Bluetooth Hacking (pdf) - http://trifinite.org/Downloads/21c3_Bluetooth_Hacking.pdf + trifinite.org - http://trifinite.org/

I meant to post this a while back now. While watching Jools Holland's new years party the Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain played. They were good. They did an excellent cover of "Smells like teen spirit" by Nirvana. Was absolutely brilliant. You could imagine it being Curt Cobain singing. Very good. I have never been a fan of the Ukulele but this performance has made me have a rethink.
More:
+ Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain - http://www.ukuleleorchestra.com

Yep that's what the North Korean's want their men to do. If they don't there names are publicised via TV (with their addresses) to name and shame them. Nice eh? I guess my semi long hair wouldn't go down well there!
The BBC article can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm

It was actually clear here for a few moments last night. Luckily it was as I popped my head outside. I quickly grabbed my binoculars and I got a fantastic sight. Comet Machholz and the Pleiades all in one field of view. The comet looking greener than it had before was clearly visible. I also came across an excellent photo of this by Paul Gordon see: http://www.madpc.net/Nikon-4500/2005/Macholz-M45.jpg

An absolutely stunning photo of the Comet Machholz has been posted on spaceweather.com. It is of the comet as it passed by the Pleiades (M45). This has produced an excellent opportunity to get great detail and colour in one shot of two lovely objects. For the pic see: http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2005/10jan05/Seip.jpg

The Earthquake which has caused such huge human suffering has also changed our planet are a large (but also small scale). Large in that it has affected stuff globally but small in that they are only tiny changed. Take a look at:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/10jan_earthquake.htm And remember you can donate at http://www.dec.org.uk - if you feel the urge to.

It just came out in the UK. What a film! I don't think I have laughed so much in a long time. It was absolutely excellent. I am sure people could find this offensive at moments. The crucial thing is to remember that they are taking the piss of the American attitude to the rest of the world. It is definitely Thunderbirds with attitude. The music from this film will be in my head for weeks to come. Go see it - well worth the £3 I have to pay s a student.
For more see:
Team America Site - http://www.teamamerica.com/
Trailer - http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/team_america/

ESA's probe Huygens has successfully landed on Saturn's largest moon Titan. A wonderful achievement. It has even started to send back pictures and the first ones have been sent back and can be seen as raw images at
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMBQO71Y3E_0.html The images are quite impressive and are going to produce lots of detailed science. Audio recordings of the surface can also be found at http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM85Q71Y3E_index_0.html
For more see:
ESA Site - http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html
Astronomy Now Article - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/cassini/050112huygenspre.html
NASA Article - http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/30dec_titan.htm

More and more astronomers have been taking photos of this comet. Here are a few good examples:
Paul Gordon - http://www.madpc.net/Nikon-4500/Comet/Comet-Matcholts-12-01-05a.jpg
Peter Lloyd - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.lloyd3/Machholz5.jpg
Peter Vasey - http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/astroplover/MX716/Calimach.jpg
For more see:
My favourite image - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2005_01_12.php#000523 More images - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2005_01_06.php#000515 Comet Machholz Info - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_12_15.php#000462

I think it is the aim of most astrophotographers to get a good picture of the Horsehead nebula in Orion. One day I will - I hope. I came across a good attempt via a webcam earlier today. See: http://astro.neutral.org/imagehtml/20041217_b33.html

Earlier today the Sun unleashed a massive solar flare towards the Earth. This has been classified as a power X7 class solar flare. This is a pretty big one. It is believed to have caused the largest radiation storm to hit the Earth since 1989. Early this evening I got a warning off AuroraWatch about this and the electron density increasing. I wasn't sure though and since the weather looked bad I though there was no chance. However I cam back to my computer about midnight and it looked promising. The activity was still quite high and it was wonderfully clear.

Plot from SAMNET's York magnetometer
I reckon we might have seen the Aurora. I initially saw a glowing object in Orion which could have been some auroral activity but I was much more convinced when we saw a banded reddish glow towards campus. The only problem is Birmingham is badly light polluted and so I can not be sure if we did see it. I would iike to think we did and it is quite conceivable that we might have. Definitely makes me want to go North on a holiday soon. (Oh I dragged all my house mates into the garden!)
Through a group I am a member off their have been various observing reports with regards to tonight Aurora already so it is possible that we did see something. An interesting video of the aurora can be seen at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.rogers/Aurora-210105.avi and there have been some excellent photos taken in more traditional observing places. Some good photos where taken by Carsten Arnholm and can be found at http://www.arnholm.org/astro/atmosphere/aurora20050121/ More info:
- Solar Flare Classification - http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/flareclasses.html
- Aurora Watch - http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/aurorawatch/

On Thursday I stepped down as Chair of the University of Birmingham Astronomical Society. This was a sad day as I have spent so much time working on the society in the last 1.5 years whilst I have been Chair. We have made so much progress and are now back to being a great society if I don't say so myself. I have been on the committee in total for 3.5 years, the first two being as Treasurer. Gosh it is going to be odd not running the meetings. I will still attend and can only hope the new committee keep it going. I have total confidence in them so I am sure they will. Oh and a big thank you to everyone who has helped me over the past few years.
More:
- University of Birmingham Astronomical Society - http://www.astrosoc.org.uk

Well I am still undecided if I did actually see last nights aurora. I would say I am 70% sure I did. I have heard that it was spotted in Southampton, Norfolk and parts of Northern England so it is feasible it made it to Birmingham. We are higher in latitude terms that Southampton. I came across some excellent photos of the aurora taken by Derek Brankin in Dundee, see: http://venus.computing.dundee.ac.uk/aurora.htm. Seems like they got an excellent show up there.

I ranted on the other day about people not having anti virus software or firewall software but I did not offer any useable advice. So here are a few pointers. Get an anti virus program. Norton is excellent but you have to pay - it is probably worth it though, especially if you don't want to be messing about with hunting down the final remnants of the Virus yourself. I personally use Grisoft's AVG. I really like this and would highly recommend it. It is also free which helps out quite well. The latest version can be found at: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2.
Anti-virus programs don't take care of every sort of malicious program that could screw up your computer so I would recommend installing some anti spyware programs. I personally use a combination of Spybot, HijackThis, Spyware Blaster, Ad-Aware. These can all be found with a simple google search and in general the basic version is free. Give them a go you might just fin that your computer is running a little faster.

After my close encounter with what I believed was aurora the other night (see: http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2005_01_22.php#000529) I decided to see what other sources of aurora notififaction was out there and a bit more info on how to take photographs etc. I am not a very good photographer but always like to give it a go. It turns out that my girlfriend has the perfect camera for this so if we ever see aurora again I will get her to have a go. On my trail across the web I came across a very useful page. It like the AuroraWatch site gives you local forecasts of auroral activity. The site is: http://www.aurorachasers.com/

This is a picture of me and my old committee as we stepped down as the running body of astrosoc - what a scary bunch! (note: alex missing due to illness). Good luck to the new lot.

Want to see a wonderfully green comet with some clear dust trails? Take a look at http://jthommes.com/Astro/Machholz0114.htm and stare in amazement!

Now this is one for the scared computer freak out there. Ever got a girls email addy and wanted to send her a message but needed some backup? (probably not!) If so what you need is the virtual wingman. Give it a try at: http://www.arrivistepress.com/arrivistewingman.shtml alternatively you could just email her or walk up to her and ask her out..

Even though I haven't had the chance to do much webcam astronomy I have learnt quite a lot about it now. I cant wait to actually get chance to do it properly. We have the equipment at astrosoc so it might be feasible to do this there but I am looking forward to buying a new telescope and some sort of imaging device. Will probably buy one after my degree - even if I am doing a PhD I will have a bit more disposable cash to spend. Going back to the point of this post. As I said I have learnt a lot about webcam astronomy and I would encourage people to give it a go. It is a good option if you can't afford a professional astronomical CCD - not sure many can. If you want to know more about how to use / what you can get from a webcam take a look at this page.

At home I use a combination of Microsoft Windows XP and Mandrake (a linux distro). They are on different computers but I can control them from the same keyboard, mouse and monitor. Is actually quite good. I am able to play any game I wish in Windows and the do anything I want to do in Linux. Works quite well. I am always interested in new distributions of Linux in fact I was considering wiping mandrake and sticking on SUSE instead but changed my mind - too much effort. Today I came across a very interesting distribution of Linux. It is called Lin4Astro and has everything you could need to do webcam astronomy on in linux. I think it might be worth a try - especially since it boots of a CD and does not involve and install. If you want to take a closer look at it see: http://www.lin4astro.org/ (note the homepage is in French this can easily be changed via the top right icon). Oh this distribution is based on Knoppix which is a live linux CD and is based on debian.

I have finally got around to putting a new image gallery online. I have meant to do this since i changed my site design since the previous gallery was not compatible with the features in xhmtl that I am using. Shame as I like that. It is currently still accessible at: http://gallery.krioma.net but I don't know how long I will leave this version online. It was powered by My Photo Gallery from fuzzymonkey. I am now using SPGM (Simple Picture Gallery Manager), http://spgm.sourceforge.net/, which is a decent bit of code and the beauty is that it does not need any database support. This would have been damn useful if I had found it when I was running the astrosoc website! I might even use it on the PPS website. To see my new gallery go to: http://www.krioma.net/spgm/index.php

It is that time of the year.. ball time. Everything is sorted for Astrosoc and now so is PPS. I am rather looking forward to it. It is going to take place at Aston Villa Football Ground. My friend Tom came up with an excellent poster for it:

Late this afternoon me and my house mate, Andy (a.k.a. Geordie), went out to do some game shopping. What did we come back with? Well he got: Farcry, LOTR: Battle for middle earth (what I have seen is fantastic!) and Battlefield Vietnam. I went for a slightly cheaper option, still ended up quite expensive in the end! I picked up Gangsters 2 for £2.99 (second hand from gamestation - best game shop in the UK). This is a game I have wanted to play for a long time. It is old now but from what I have played so far shows promise though the control are a bit counter intuitive. I also brought UFO: Aftermath which is part of the wonderful XCOM series (and I am currently installing it now)- these games define my gaming as a young teenager. This was also second hand and cost £5 I picked up Haegemonia, I have played this before (Geordie owns it) and it is absolutely wonderful so I thought i'd buy it since it was on offer. Oh and finally I went and got Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, this was the most expensive one cost £22. So far I am in two minds about this game - when I decide what I think about it I will right a full review - if I can be bothered.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU - http://www.iau.org) has recently given names to some newly discovered objects orbiting around Saturn. It has also modified the names of a few (mostly spelling issues). The IAU are the only organisation that has the authority to name celestial objects, in other words beware of those star naming companies out there. Anyway before I start a rant on about that the new objects are:
Saturn XXXI Narvi = S/2003 S 1
Saturn XXXII Methone = S/2004 S 1
Saturn XXXIII Pallene = S/2004 S 2
Saturn XXXIV Polydeuces = S/2004 S 5
and the renamed are:
Saturn XXIII Suttungr = S/2000 S 12
Saturn XXVII Skathi = S/2000 S 8
Saturn XXX Thrymr = S/2000 S 7