Krioma.net

Nope, its a satellite. And no, not one of love... it is just a satellite going across an observation taken last night:

Last night, I took a quick point a shoot image of the Orion nebula with the Wast Hill Observatory telescope. Ok not so much point and shoot but it was very rough. It was the end of a second year observing night (for their undergrad lab) and I though why not have a quick look at something pretty. I check that M42 was high enough and then just let it rip... (I think this is a 2 second exposure, and it is just in V )I haven't done any processing but you can clearly make out the dust of the nebula, where stars are formed:

Just to prove people take the piss out of Christanity.... [onehorseshy.com]

I'm currently sat on the platform of Stafford Train station, oh what fun, my train has been delayed twice now (I currently have 30 minutes to wait, great!). Well at least it does give me chance to write this.... yippee. So why am I in Stafford, its not like it is on my regularly daily routine. Well I am here, well was here, to give a talk to the good people at Stafford and District Astronomical Society. I do enjoy giving talks, its a nice break from the routine. Only problem is I am missing this weeks Astrosoc, which I hate to do as I always have a good laugh. I was actually hoping I would get back for some of it but the way the trains are currently going I probably won't.


The real bitch of it is I was actually praising the trains earlier.....why, oh why did I decide to do this. Umm, a freight train just parked on the platform I am waiting at... that can not be a good thing, especially since the thing infront of me is marked "super heavy, marine pollutant"... ummm, what next.



Back to the talk. Tonight I was speaking about "Galaxies and the largest Structure in the Universe". This talk has been given to many different places now, all different backgrounds. Tonight was a fairly interested crowd and it became as much of a discussion as me standing up at the front boring people with my rant. I like it when it becomes this, it also avoids the random questions at the end! I must thank the people of Stafford AS for putting up with me and giving me such a great reception. Anyway my hands are getting cold and I'm not so sure about having my shiny laptop out here...:-)

Ok I'm finally off the bloody platform and on the Bristol Train... explanation.. overhead power equipment... but isn't this a diesel train?? I'm sure there must be some technical aspect of railways that I don't know about but surely this train does not require the power... and guess what the shop is now closed, not that I want anything but I was thinking about a warm cuppa... oh well. 44 minutes late. I'm glad I haven't waited for the train I was originally thinking of getting... that is delayed from 21:22 till about 10:19.... wow! The guy on the platform was like if you are going to Birmingham I suggest you get on this one, so guess what... I did. As if I was going to stand around on a cold platform for any longer than I had to... idiots.



Oh I just saw something really funny, some chav on the phone, it died so she shook it like a bottle, lol. As if that will do anything. Well I'm definitely in a rather bitchy mode. At least I can use my laptop.


Things to do when i get in: look up how diesel trains work, so i can bitch about overhead power for the rest of eternity, write a letter moaning to the rail regulator that although I have to pay extra for my journeys I am never on time. Today has just taken the piss. I can normally put up with the late local trains, as they normally work to me getting them instead of missing them but what with that and this! I don;t mind with the local ones but surely they can't justify increasing transportation fees based on this. It is a joke.

Yesterday was epic.. well and the day before. After my talk in Stafford I did return to meet up with my fellow astronomy group in the pub for a swift drink. This continued onto doing karaoke, great. My singing wasn't up to much, especially when my "friends" gave me the challenge of doing Parklife by Blur.. we did it but made people cry! :-) I then did with a big group, "Bat out of hell", then with a mate "You'll never walk alone"... I thought that went well, but obviously not! :-) After all this I was feeling quite awake and since we hadn't drunk we decided that observing would be great.. the sky was unbelievable. So we took a couple of the 1st years out to the Uni observing and were there gazing into the heavens till 5am! I will have to post some pictures as we saw some fantastic objects. Once we did this we went back to Uni and I started work, again....

Just when you feel like you are out of luck and love is a gonna, something else crosses your path to give you a hope for another night... well maybe but then again maybe not. All you can do is smile and live in hope, cause tonight may not be the night but there are many more nights to follow.

...well duh, sorry just seems a little obvious since it is a smashed up rock. Interesting [UniverseToday] article.

Today's [APOD] has a wonderfully beautiful image on it:





Credit: Walter Tape (Alaska Fairbanks)

Possibly, probably, who knows. Oh you probably need to see the playlist before I comment more:

Sum 41 - some say

The Smiths - This Charming Man

Panic! At the Disco - The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage

The Exies - What You Deserve

30 Seconds To Mars - Revolve

Beastie Boys - Girls

Earshot - Someone

Jack's Mannequin - Mixed Tape

Alien Ant Farm - Friday, I'm In Love

Seether - Fine Again

Well lets start with the Sum 41 one, quite melow... a complentative mood.
The Smiths, umm, its definetly dance and poppy - nice to bop along to. I do like to see myself as charming... which takes me on to an even dancier one, Panic! At the disco.... I'm defintely desperate for attention.


The Exies, well this brings out the inner angst, and the pain. Probably what I deserve. Takes me back to the anger of "f*ck it all". Then back to the mellow 30 Seconds to Mars, looking to the future....


Then I think the song that probably has describes the last 6 months of my life comes up..... "Girls" by the Beastie Boys. Oh well! Earshot makes me go back to the anger and dark places that makes me think of the past. Jack's Mannequin makes me feel better cause I don't know where I am and it is cool to think that there is indeed a piece of me in every second of every single day.


Well then it goes up hill and I realise that all of the though is just not worth it, cause end of the day I know that on Friday I will be in love... well maybe not Friday but at some point during the week for a split second I will have a though that will remind me of why I do what I do and that all the above just doesn't matter. Oh and if it is in a hawaiian shirt, all the better.


And it all finishes with Seether, fine again. Maybe everyday is the same but heck one day will be different.

Maybe some of this makes sense but I'm sure it doesn't and I am talking complete and utter bollocks. Oh well! :-)

No, I'm not talking about surfing. I'm talking about the biggest shock wave known to us in the entire Universe. It's truly spectacular - [SpaceflightNow]

I was looking back at past ball pictures, to help my friend Heather with dress issues(!), and I came across this beauty from 2003:

This is funny, thanks Tom, take a look at: [BoreMe]

Interesting title? Really weird and wacky physics? Take a look at: [Chandra]

Sometimes I wonder why I stayed on at Birmingham Uni todo my Phd...obviously it is a great place to do one and is "top quality" in terms of research and it is where the project I wanted to do is. But then I think why else and days like the other day remind me... the place is just so beautiful - here is a picture of the Aston Webb building during some recent snow:

I just got back from [las iguanas]... a latin american restaurant... wow the food was great. Quite a good veggie choice to be honest - this always makes me happy, I love to take as long as the meat eaters to decide on what to eat. I had nachos with lots of jalapenos for a starter, probably not the healthest of decisions but hey! For my main I had a wonderful enchilada that was stuffed with creamy cheese and spiced spinach... and it was laid on top of a oh bed of refried black beans and a nice red chilli sauce on top, yummy! Top meal, great night...and a nice birthday treat for Maz (who is a good mate of mine).

Yay, I'm happy! :-)

image taken from the stephan quintent.

.. in the physics department today! shocking. Oh well, its for good reasons, that I'm not wiling to spread over the internet... well not yet, maybe later ;-)

Well, last night was fun, really great! I went to see Yellowcard at the Academy. I wasn't going to but I got convinced by a little weirdo that it would be cool to go along... so I got tickets off a tout. The gig itself was great and they were rather entertaining, but I definetely had other things on my mind.... the first date. I guess thats what you can call it. Eitherway it was cool, Yellowcard rocked the place. Only one regret I have about the night is not being in the middle of the pit when they got one half of the room to run at the other half.. shame that, but I was getting some better bodily contact, ;-) lol. Here is my shitty mobile phone pic of the band:

I have had a great weekend, only problem is now I'm supposed to be working... ummm, its not quite happening. Lunch early and then lots of work this afternoon, has to be done.

Big geek moment, oh well. Pi day occurs tomorrow, so celebrate! I will.... for futher info see: [Wiki] and of course [PiDay]. This is how I will be celebrating it by wearing one of my favourite tshirts:

Do I honestly look like that... maybe I do... here is me doing a good go of it anyway! :-)

BTW this was taken at the PPS Christmas party. You can even vote [here]...though you possibly have to register.

Argh, another eclipse, another cloudy night. Why, oh why! Bloomin' British weather. I don't mind hugely cause we still managed to raise the profile of my Astronomical Society, we must have had about 200 people passing by our stand. The telescopes were deemed impressive, so we can't moan. We got to do the public outreach stuff, just not anything really cool. Well there is always the next one.... shame though cause a nice red moon would have been awfully romantic.

It was a goal with Fulham that started it all before and now here we go again. Go Robbie, go! :-) If you don't have a bloomin' clue about what I am going on about take a look at: [BBC Website]

The penumbral Lunar eclipse was blocked out here by bloody clouds.. [SpaceWeather.com] has pictures showing us just what we missed out on! Argh.

8 goals in two games! The latest being a nice 3-1 win at Newcastle... see [BBC Sport] for more.

Friday was the [PPS] Ball, which is always a wonderful occasion. It had even greater meaning to me this year, it was the first time with someone special. I then got the privilege of spending all day with said person yesterday, it was great. I went to see V is for Vendetta with her, that is a great film (will write more seperately) then took her to this nice Italian cafe, the food was great. The company even better. Then I had the fun of spending all evening with her and introducing her to a few of my mates. It was all good and I am very pleased. Anyway I will write more on the ball and V at some point I am sure...

... Liverpool can score goals! :-) -- [Birmingham City 0 - 7 Liverpool]

What a week, busy, full of work and fun.

It started with last Saturday... this alone was an action packed day with me going out with Lizzie. We started off with a trip to subway for food then on to see V for Vendetta, a nice meal at an Italian cafe on Broad St and then a few pubs before we met my friends at Risa.

The Sunday was a bit more relaxed, I came home and tried to make up for the fact that I had not been around much! i.e. lots of work.

The Monday was a good, hard day of work, I was in for 8am! Work went well and then I got to spend a bit of time with the lovely lady before I came home and went out for a curry, there was a special fundraiser for [St. Martins Church] that my dad had organised. The food was good though I was definitely missing someone. I then went home crashed and relaxed before another busy day at Uni. Oh I did have some phenomenal news on the Tuesday morning - we got time on the GMRT (a radio telescope in India) which means I get to look for exoplanets and go to India... yay! Tuesday evening was a nice and relaxed affair that was originally going to be a cinema evening but once we got there and decided there was nothing we wanted to see it turned into a nice meal at a pizza place on Broad St and then a trip to wonderful tesco.. :-)

Wednesday, well there is only one thing you should do on the last Wednesday of term, GO TO [SNOBS]! So after a busy day of work, I was there from 9am till 9pm! We went to Snobs. The one problem being how shattered I was since I had played footie at 5! It was a friendly so nothing at stake really. Lots of fun and so was snobs.

As always Thursday night is astrosoc night and being the end of term, it was quiz night. This meant that me and Steve had to quickly rush the quiz together since the pair of us have been to busy with work. Before astrosoc we went to the Gun Barrels for a nice and cheap dinner. This was nice cause I got to spend all evening with the lovely lady again! yay!

After all this came Friday, I was shattered. But I did have possibly the best day of work I have had in a while, got quite a bit done. Then I was so exhausted I had to go and crash early. So thats what I did. Sleep, was good. I needed it since I had to go into uni on Sat to get some stuff done before we went the Planetarium. Oh yeah, on Sat we had a wonderful Planetarium show at the new Birmingham Planetarium. Not only was we treated to a free show by the director but a nice hour long extras show. Was quite spectacular really. Well worth the entrance to thinktank (science museum). We then had my favourite, Pizza (at the hut) and then on to watch a film. We chose a random one, Kidulthood. Which was interesting, if not contrived and obvious. Didn't matter as I was with that special person. I could have watched anything and not be bothered.

Can you spot me?

Today there was a partial solar eclipse over the UK, so being the geeky astronomer I am I was outside hoping for no rain and clear skies... well we started off the day with cloud, cloud, cloud but as we approached totallity things improved. It was still cloudy but we could quite clearly (with appropriate filters) see the sun! :-) Yay. It was nice, the eclipse looked wonderful. The weather got even better as we went to final contact, shame that it was that way around but heck it was nice to see something. We are normally beaten by the weather but we were not entirely today. We even got a small scope onto it for some nice projection viewing.

The top one is a direct camera image, with a solar filter... obviously no direct viewing with optical aids. This is not far off the maximum eclipse for Birmingham this time

The bottom is a projection image approaching final contact. (images taken by Scott Porter, with the [University of Birmingham Astronomical Society]

Umm, I'm not sure if I can figure out how the f*ck this happened:

Which British Band Are You?

The SPA have a nice collection of images taken by their observers fom various different locations, this includes some spectacular images taken at totallity. I do wish I had gone over to Libya now... oh well, there is many more left in my life. Oh and for those pics take a look at: [SPA Solar Section]