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I meant to post this on halloween but one thing lead to another and I didn't get around to it. APOD's Oct 31st entry was indeed spooky: SH2 136

I decided that (well I think Lizzie did to be honest) we should carve up some pumpkins for halloween so we did:

yep mine is the one that looks like a 5 year old child did it, oh well I've never been good at arts and crafts.. does using a kitchen knife actually count as arts and crafts? who knows, who cares! :-)

The most important chart you will ever see:

taken from http://themot.org/gallery/d/58721-1/pacmanchart.png

Well it might sound daft but you have to believe it (well maybe not!). To read more about how the mars rover was considering to end it all by raming a rock see [theonion.com]

I hate this time of year. I love fireworks but I hate the shite ones that people launch into the sky causing huge pollution and a really bad smell. It is nice to a point but what a waste of money. People can waste their money if they want but why do they have to do it on such a dangerous and destructive way? My dog is cowering at the moment and refuses to go outside to go the loo! I don't see the point in these fireworks, I'm going to a public display for £2 tomorrow and it will be much better than these ones. I think some form of ban would be good and there is a site with a vote for this, [here, infact], though I don't totally agree with their stance I do think they are going in the right direction.

UK Urban Exploration Forums provide a different view on your environment, with some breathtaking pictures I'd definetely recommend it for some lunchtime (or even late sat night) viewing! Take a look at it: [28dayslater.co.uk]

Interesting photo of a plain crossing the moon:

Originally taken from [www.dailymail.co.uk] and due to how bright the plane is I'm not sure I believe it as real.

NASA Announces a New Servicing Mission to the Hubble Space Telescope - yay! Take a look at the article [here]

On Friday I got to see (for the 3rd time) the wicked We are Scientists... they really did get the crowd going, but then again they were going quite a bit even during the more relaxed Au Revoir Simone. Au Revoir Simone kicked off the gig with some wonderful electronic sounds, this has lead me on to buying their ablum off their website, [Au Revoir Simone] and they (well there manager) were really nice about me being half asleep and paying for US shipping and not worldwide (I was half asleep when I ordered) - just letting me get off with it. So big smile to Au Revoir Simone! :-)

As for the rest of the gig, I didn't catch the name of the second band but they weren't as good as Au Revoir Simone.... then on came the We are Scientists producing a great set and even ending the night as a boy band!

As usual the Vale fireworks were spectacular. This must be the 5th or 6th one I have been to and for a free display you can't get much better... my camera was running out of battery but I did get to take a few pics:

and I short video (for those who know Brum Uni... how much cooler would it have been if they had ended it on destroyed the derelict Mason??)

Walking past the back of the Aston Webb building here at Birmingham Uni the other night gave me the chance to see a wonderful site. The back of the great hall lit up by portable lights.. nice and pretty so I thought I would share it...

Today's APOD shows a quite startling image of Janus... and yes it does look like a potato!!

Credit: CICLOPS, JPL, ESA, NASA

Full article... [apod nov 7th 2006]

Well here is something I never thought I would see... Microsoft Firefox - http://www.msfirefox.com/. I particularly like the enchanced features: "Tired of slow image rendering? Microsoft Firefox 2007 can deliver online pornography at blazing fiery speeds. By using a proprietary dynamic algorithm, anything that remotely resembles a tit or a boob will download up to 10 times faster! " lol....

and if you didn't gather its a complete but convincing piss-take! :-)

On Nov 8th there was a transit of Mercury across the Sun.. I didn't say more about this beforehand since none of the transit was visible from the UK but it was across the world and some quite lovely pictures have emerged... take a look at: [spaceweather.com] for some remarkable sights. Shame we couldn't see it here.

The first public talk of the academic year for astrosoc went quite well with over 50 people of the general public present and Dr David Gregory giving a quite excellent talk. We even managed to get on the Uni's webpage... [bham.ac.uk]

No Guy... no bonfire? No real celebration of this British event... instead some huge turtle and some lackluster fireworks. To say I was disapointed would be an underestimate. You would also think that they would know how to do crowd control instead of putting thousands of people through a very small gap, can't have been more than 10ft wide! argh... anyway I did take a couple of pics (and a video see bottom of post):

Oh and I made a video, which I won't embed this time, and you can see it at: [www.youtube.com]

The University of Birmingham Astronomical Society owns a Grubb telescope from 1872... we recently obtained funding to refurbish this wonderful piece. As I am the Chair of the society I'm quite involved in doing this... I will post a more detailed piece on the scope once all the work is done but here are a few pics of the current progress....

screw that holds the base to the roof has completely fallen apart

metal bits off the Grubb... Physics department and Guild of Students (the original site for the telescope) sit in the background

fine adjustement screws on the main column of the 1872 made base...

the more modern gear mechanism for our Grubb telescope mount

counterweights come off the telescope from 1872 for the first time in a while!

The Sun over aston webb building giving an eerie feel.. oh and notice the pulley in the foreground which is part of the old mechanism of the Grubb telescope

University of Birmingham main courtyard in the autumn

I can't believe it, Eddie's one of my fav clubs in Brum has burnt down... on a selfish note: there goes another place that doesn't play rap shite. See: [bbc.co.uk]

The campus looked beautiful today when the autumn Sun shone through the somewhat light cloud cover...

I'm not sure this comes under news, but definetely current affairs....

At 22:20 last night I got mugged.... shame that as I really liked that phone. I was walking past somewhere on my own and a guy I had notice on the bus with what appeared blood on him had obviously followed me. Noticed my phone pulled out a knife and asked me for it. I reckon I could have took him but the state of him really put me off having a go. Well I decided that it was best to give him the phone (especially since he didn't know I had my mac laptop and my ipod in my bag... feeling quite smug about that part to be honest). I did, however, make sure that he didn't get away with my sim card... I told him you can have the phone but not my sim card I want that. Since he backed down on this I probably should have just gone at him but I thought again best not too and I was getting the thing that really mattered to me out of it all. So s**t happens. People are w**kers. Oh well... ruins my other perfect night... just gave a public talk about exoplanets in Kidderminster....

On Saturday night I took astrosoc out to the Wast Hills observatory... the idea was to use the new 14" telescope to take some images but alas the camera was not working, we however rectified this and managed to do some observing (a few pics are below). Since it was clear, almost the new moon, it was perfect conditions for observing the Leonids... and indeed we saw some. I saw probably the two most spectucalar meteors I have ever seen. One that looked like a fireball went through Orion causing a huge streak across the sky and the other on the opposite sky but travelling towards Leo. Wow! I also saw a couple of less spectacular but wonderful meteors. I have never seen anything from the Leonids before, so after about 10 years of trying this was a welcome sight. Yay!

Here are a few images we took:

The Horsehead nebula in Orion, 60secs exposure with an out of focus 14" meade,



M31, the Andromeda Galaxy... a 60 second exposure throught a bg20 filter, hoping to get much better in the future. The dust lane is quite seeable.




60 seconds exposure of the Crabb nebula in Green... using a 14" meade, better to come, I hope!

NASA tracks a good 10,000 pieces of crap in orbit..

It seems that humanity is as good at messing up space as it is the planet.

Read more [here].

The week before last the University of Birmingham Astronomical Society, whom I am Chair, hosted our 4th PPARC public lecture and our speaker was Dr David Gregory who is a science journalist. We had a very enjoyable talk and for publicity of the Uni we had the below photo, which I really like, taken:

I am on the left (with the messy hair), David is in the centre with the camera and Kym is on the right (Kym is the secretary of the society).

I came across this great video on youtube, had to share it... :-)