This afternoon I decided that it was an ideal chance to go outside (into my parents garden) and take a few photos. The sky was a deep blue and the horizon was a golden orange due to the Sun setting. It was quite gorgeous. Well here are my attempts at taking photos of this (more and larger versions are available here [Image Gallery].
Yesterday I went out into my back garden just as the Sun was setting and wow it was wonderful. I just can't think of many things more poetic than a sunset. I love the orange glow that the atmosphere has the depth of the colours is wonderful. From where I am in Birmingham every night the sun sets over the city centre - this is a sight that can be breath taking.
I took a few photos of this just as the sun was finally disappearing and there was a lovely red glow present (larger versions can be found in my [Image Gallery].
Well I didn't think it would but it did. It snowed in Birmingham on Christmas day. It really makes Christmas feel right! I took some photos of the snow coming down.. so I canprove it to everyone!
Images:
More:
+ BBC Weather Birmingham Christmas Snow -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2004/12/15/weather_christmas_snow_feature.shtml
Yesterday I got back my big group photo picture of us at the PPS ball - taken by the pro's. Below you can see a scanned in photo. I like to think that us physicists can scrub up quite well! :-) What a crazy night - for more photos see here. 
It was threatening to rain for a while yesterday and when it finally did (just before I went to the pub) it produced this wonderful rainbow
I love rainbows, I find them so fascinating and beautiful, so I was well pleased when these pictures, which I took with my mobile phone, came out well. For more see: [Image Gallery]
I have finally gotten around to putting the pictures I took at the [Oval last month] on my site. I took some of the game but the most striking part is the wonderful purple sky.
For more see: [Image Gallery]
I finally got around to taking the photos from my week in Edinburgh off my phone. I had a great time up their, it probably also involved me drinking more than I did during my freshers week(!). It was good and I love the licensing laws. Edinburgh seems like a place you could go to for many different occasions. Here are a selection of some of my favourites (more can be found [here]
I've finally gotten around to posting some pics of the last few weeks. This includes pictures taken after the astrosoc freshers quiz which featured me and Ran singing along to "Gaybar" by Electric Six:
A few more can be found [here]
October 1st was the date of the second Federation of Astronomical Societies conventions I have helped organise. This years one was at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. It went well, we had about 70 people along - slightly lower than I would have hoped but it still went down well. Anyway the reason I mention this is because I have just gotten around to posting the photos for this:
More can be found [here]
In the past two months I have seen more rainbows than I did, from what I can remember, during my whole time living in Selly Oak. The shocking thing is that is only 2! Rainbows are cool. And here is a picture of this one:
Last Thursday was the PPS (Poynting Physical Society) freshers pub crawl. It went down well with loads of people there! Since my job on the PPS committee is essentially to keep the website going I have just uploaded the pictures from this event, some of them are quite ammusing, take a look at [here]. Here are a few of my favs though:
The other day it rained rather heavily but it left some rather purple skies across campus, I couldn't resist taking some pictures with my mobile phone:
We went for a curry the other night and look at the mess my mate Ran got himself into...tut tut, some people!
And if you think that was bad, I think Rowan got too excited when they brought out the family sized naan bread!
Before my trip to London on Sat was a night of alcohol at Maz's... well not so much only about 10 bottles of Carlsberg. It was a good night and obviously the picture phone had to come out at some point didn't it! :-) I took this wonderful photo of Ran:
and this brilliant action shot (umm maybe not!) of Adam after he was attacked with chocolate cake (he looks gob smacked!):
I even tried to get a photo of Maz but they all came out blurry...and no we wasn't listening to Puddle of Mudd (I obviously am now, for some reason):
Oh what fun :-)
Today is much better but the last few days in Brum have been awfully foggy! It is unbelievable how odd people act when there is a little bit of bad weather. At least one good thing has come out of this time; I got to take what I think is a rather cool image of Old Joe, the clocktower on campus.
I always think the University of Birmingham campus is great for taking pictures, no matter the weather, the natural beauty of this place shines through - well that depends if you are looking at the hideous Muirhead tower!
I'm getting more and more slack at posting pictures... here are some to prove that we did have snow in Birmingham last week. I have to say how beautiful and tranquil the University campus is when it is snowing, well assuming you can miss out of the snowballs. I did - Ria didn't, muhahaha! :-) Another thing that happens is people go crazy on their commute, bloody buses!
The campus here offers so many wonderful photo opportunities, any weather it is fantastic, here are a few at dusk. I particular like the ones of the Faraday sculpture (its not off him but for him, by Eduardo Paolozzi), it is an odd sculpture but I really do like the impact it has on my daily life, its the first thing I see related to physics when I get to Uni and the last (in general assuming I don't get the bus) when I leave!
And this is the main lectern in the great hall...
Maybe... or maybe the subject material needs to be better! Take a look:
Here are a few photos that I said I would post from the [Astrosoc] Annual Dinner. These ones are off Scott Porter, I didn't actually check if he will mind me posting them here but I'm sure he won't ... if you do come and find me I'm like 3 desks away! :-)
This is the obligatory big group photo (don't we all look smart!):
And now for just the committee... a few more happy faces (!)..
I decided I was too lazy to upload my pics of the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) to my image gallery here, I'll pic the best at some point and post them on here. For now however, I signed up for a Fotki account and have posted my pics on there: [NAM 2006 Pics]
Here is another picture of my ugly mug.. at least this time I have a rather beautiful young lady next to me :-) !!
Last night my walk from the bus home was quite stunning as the Sun was just dropping below the houses and giving off a glorious glow..
I have said this before, I will say this again, and I say this now. The University campus is beautiful, no matter the weather (well maybe not in torrential rain!). I love the place, it is very much a factor into why I originally stayed here to do a PhD.. which for other reasons I'm very glad I did. Anyway onto the topic, the clocktower at sunset:
This was with my mobile phone so probably not the best image you could have taken of such a wonderful moment but it is still pretty cool, I love the purpley-pink colouration. Beautiful
I though this looked pretty cool... yes it is just a tree, but a tree from me lying down....
A couple of images I took with my phone that came out quite nice in B+W whilst I was awaiting the bus home...
It looks like the HSBC building at Five Ways in Brum is going energy effiecient... cool...
Umm, now this is not something I expected as I headed to my office...
Whilst going to the cinema, to see United 93, I had to take a picture of the beautiful sunset that was descending over five ways... lovely.
Oh and United 93 was an excellent film but I do have a feeling it might have been still a bit too early to make a film about this sort of thing....
I took loads and I mean loads of pictures and movies on my new camera yesterday, was lots of fun. I am particular pleased with a couple and though I would share a few with you, I will be sharing many more in the future but not just yet. Whilst walking around I was taking lots and lots of photos and I think Lizzie was starting to get annoyed that most of them where of her so I decided to start taking them of the wonderful buildings around us. The first I really liked was of the cube's in the bullring, well a cube, with the Selfridges building behind it, it really did capture the essence of the water (well that's what I am saying!):
The other image I took was of the big flower football outside the entrance to the Bullrign complex. I think (I'm pretty sure) the Ball is their to advertise the T-mobile fan park (I keep meaning to go, probably won't now!) down at Millennium point... lots of football going on down there, with the largest events outside of Germany, so the advertising says. Anyway the actual ball is pretty and quite artistic... so take a look below:
I gave Lizzie some flowers the other day and they were truely stunning, especially a photo taken in a darkened corner of the room:
I still haven't posted any real photos from my trip to Canada, well I will in more detail soon but I'm a bit busy getting ready to go off to India. I though I would give a quickly and stunning view of Toronto though... below is the CN Tower, the world's tallest manmade structure... oh I had dinner near the top and stood on the (gulp!) glass floor!
I thought I would give tabblo ago... I wonder if this will mess up the page / my strict xhtml....
This is my first time using Tabblo so this is as much of a test than anything else.
On this page you will see a few pics that I took in India in August 2006.
... See my Tabblo
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...
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
The campus looked beautiful today when the autumn Sun shone through the somewhat light cloud cover...
Before Christmas I was playing around with my new greenlaser, which I use for astronomy (can point at the stars), and managed to get a (sort of) heart:
I went over to the park to try and spot a comet earlier, no luck - I think I have missed this one... damn clouds 
. Though I got some good shots of the Sun going down..
I introduce the audience to our guest speaker, Prof John Brown, back in December (photo by Scott Porter)
Do you like my new pose... I think it shows off my angry side / possibly going grey, quite well...
It snowed here quite heavily in Birmingham this week. It was quite a welcome and fun change. This lead to many interesting developments occuring on campus.
The Snow Woman
Clocktower
The Snowman outside physics..
E = mc^2
The otherday I got through the professional photos taken at the IoP Awards... I think I came out looking ok...
Last night I was slightly disapointed. I'm not entirely sure why, I am putting it down to me being tired and my back aching a little. The gig was good and it was excellent that they played a 2 hour set but I got a little bored. I think it was probably just down to tiredness and the fact that at times they are a bit melodic... it was a good gig but not as good as I had hoped.
At the start of the gig we had the experience of a shoe flying towards us..
I also took some photos of the band...
I do like the background lighting they had...
For valentines day I bought Lizzie some roses....
Last Night I had the pleasure of watching Bowling for Soup rock the Birmingham Carling Academy. The gig was great and just as I expect Bowling for Soup definitely put on a show. Sometimes a little too much show and not enough gig but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Lots of fun and well worth the cash. They are coming back for Download (which I may attend this year for a change from Reading) and a tour later in October... I think I will have to see them again.
The Fabulous Bowling for Soup....
Bowling for Soup with UK tour background..
A soft focus image of the stage...
I'm not one for stupidly lighting up buildings - I'm an astronomer and light pollution annoys me more than lots of things. The other night, in a one off event (I hope!), the University campus was quite nicely lit up. The clocktower and Aston Webb building were the central focus of this. I have a feeling it was an event dinner being held in the Aston Webb building for the European Athletics championship being held in Birmingham... anyway I got a couple of decent photos...
Aston Webb building...
UoB on clocktower
Clocktower and tree lit up...
Moon and Aston Webb
Glare of lights...
Tonight the Moon disappeared into the shadow of the Earth.... I decided that it would be cool to see if but even cooler if I actually got a few photos, and I did.. yay!
The Moon rises...
The eclipse begins...
At totality the Moon turns a deep red due to light being refracted around the Earth's atmosphere.. coooool!
This is due to refractor of light from the Sun in the Earth's atmosphere.
As the eclipse ends the Moon shows its true power again..
My telescope and the Moon
PPS Ball 2007
Last night was the [Poynting Physical Society's] Annual Spring Ball. This is the big social event of the year here in the School of Physics and Astronomy and the University of Birmingham. This year it took place the home of Warwickshire Country Cricket Club, Edgbaston. It is a nice place for a ball, in fact the first PPS ball I went to back in 2002 was there(!), with a large dance floor. Large dance floor = me dancing like an idiot. Oh well, nothing new there then. I managed to take quite a few photos but here are a few select ones (more will appear on the PPS website when I get chance)....
Welcome...
me and Lizzie...
Tom being daft..
Adam and Maz..
me and Rich..
Tom dishes out the champers...
I took some images of the Uni campus yesterday, I think they came out quite nicely...
Quite a few of the clocktower...
now a slight break for some flowers..
Another one of the clocktower, if you zoom in you can see a bird flying over the face..
The Sun about aston webb..
The other night we went out for one of my close friends 21st birthday party... it all started well with the bowling. Bowling is always good fun.. and I think Ran got a bit excited..
We then went off to Old Orleans on Broad St. This is one of my favourite places on Broad St to eat. Well not any more. There service was appaling. This worst I have ever had. They took well over 2 hours to bring out meals with some 30minutes apart. It was like watching a really bad episode of Hells Kitchen. They were just awful. The waiter was a best rude, especially when he was seemingly trying to blame me for the tables being slightly separated - causing the tower of food to fall over me *I moved quickly and didn't get the hot sizzling stuff on me* when he put it down.. argh! Anyway apart from the shite service I had fun.
Food time... maybe...
Last weekend me and Lizzie celebrated one year together by taking a short trip down to London. It was a nice few days away and also lots of fun...
On the Sat we went to the Science Museum were I had my pic taken next to an F1 car.. sssh, I don't think we were allowed to take this but we didn't notice this till after, woops.
I also got to start off some vibrations...
On the Sunday we travelled down to the London Eye but it was a bit busy so we just took a walk up the river.
The eye had red noses added:
Lizzie doesn't seem to impressed with my constant taking of photos, I'm obviously happy:
Lizzie takes photos of Big Ben
We visited St Paul's Cathedral on the Sunday before we left...
On Friday I travelled up to Liverpool to give a talk to Liverpool Astronomical Society. I spoke about extrasolar planets (full title being "Extrasolar Planets and their Aurora"). I have to say I very much enjoyed it and it was a pleasure to speak at the oldest Astronomical Society in the UK (and the world, I think). I felt it went down well and I hope I was clear with my explanations, though I know I can be "hand-wavy" on occasion. I love giving talks about astronomy.
Anyway since I was in Liverpool I went to meet my good friend Katherine, who incidentally put me up overnight..
On Sat morning she gave me a tour of Liverpool, which I very much enjoyed... now come the pics, which are much better than my boring text.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral at night (where I gave the talk, not in main room - I would have been scared if it had been!):
Radio City Tower:
My fast food place (yeah, right! 
):
St Luke's Church that was destroyed by air raids in the second world war:
outside the Anglican Cathedral:
inside the Anglican Cathedral:
Liverpool University:
For my friend Kym's 21st birthday party we went out to Nando's, followed by cocktails, Flares and then a house party.. gosh that girl got it all 
.
Here are a couple of photos that really stick out from the night....
Lizzie with hat...
Kym turning nice a quickly so I get a face full of hair..
Adam, well being Adam...
It's above you...
Me and Tom with the 'fro's...
Maz and Adam giving us a light show on the dancefloor..
I managed to take an image of the Moon with my digital camera in projection on my scope. I'm sure if my mount was a bit better I would have gotten a much better image, maybe time to invest.
Anyway here we go...
Last night was the University of Birmingham Guild Awards 2007. These took place in the decked out Deb hall (it had a massive star cloth which looked well cool!). It was a good night (once a few sillness' at the start were sorted). Of course I am going to be happy as I won an award! YAY!
I was awarded the "Ross Barlow Memorial Prize for outstanding individual student" which means alot. I have been invovled in Guild societies (abliet mostly astrosoc) for 6 years and I feel I have put in a huge amount of time - enjoyed every second. The Guild means a lot to me, though I do moan about it most of the time! I'm not sure exactly what to say on this, I'm not saying I don't like attention but I am used to being the person who does lots of organisation and isn't always in the spotlight.
I found Ben Whitehouse's (Project and Event Support Co-ordinator.) words on facebook quite fitting...:
"My other favourite memory will be watching the various groups and individuals who won look slightly surprised as they punched the air. I even got a little teary as I watched Sam George accept his award for outstanding individual student. It's been two years since I met Ross Barlow briefly at my first event at the guild of students. It was the student group awards on the Tuesday of my first week at work. I was very new and very unaware of just how passionate our groups could get. Ross clearly loved volunteering for various groups and got a kick out of being involved. Ruth described Ross as having a dry sense of humour... I caught just a little of that on the night. Ross died in a hang gliding accident later that week."
More about the event: [redbrick]
And now some pics... me and Lizzie having fun..
Me and Kym,
Adam and Maz perform for Ballroom dancing..
