Astronomy | Obsessive Ramblings

Heavyweight Champion

August 6th, 2012 | 4 Comments

What a fantastic start to the day! While everyone else is gearing up for another day of sport and (hopefully) Team GB triumph at the London Olympics, after a 350 million mile journey, NASA’s Mars Scientific Laboratory, named Curiosity, was nearing it’s final destination and the trickiest part of it’s 252 day journey. Landings on the red planet have not had a good average over the years, with many of them resulting in catastrophic failure at the … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Technology

No Blogging Tonight!

May 5th, 2012 | Comments Off

I’ve got a stack of work to do on my training plan as I’ve been running for too long without a proper plan over recent weeks due to travelling and Liz’s over-fraternising with the medical establishment in the Royal Surrey. Now that things are getting back to some semblance of normality, and I only have 3½ months or so to my ‘target’ race (which it now strikes me I’ve not really elaborated on to any extent … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Training

Mega Moon

May 2nd, 2012 | Comments Off

There will be a very special astronomical event this Saturday which, weather permitting, you’ll not want to miss. As the full moon rises, around 8:25pm (in the UK) above the south-eastern horizon on the evening of the 5 May, it will appear spectacularly large – larger, in fact, than it has for about 100 years, when this set of circumstances last occurred. Popularly dubbed the ‘Mega Moon’ this effect is caused by a combination of factors, not … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Family Events

Conference and Shuttle

April 17th, 2012 | 2 Comments

Today was an easier day. For me at least. Several of the people I have met here were also presenting their own sessions and they were scheduled for Tuesday, the second day of the conference, so they were unlikely to be quite as relaxed as me, since I completed mine yesterday. There were several interesting presentations today, including one from Malcolm Ross, the Appian chap that had driven us around DC on Sunday, as he is the … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Technology, Work

A moment of Reflection

March 26th, 2012 | 3 Comments

Back to work again today and Liz had a good day with help from Cecilia taking the children to school, but she actually made it up the hill to meet the children in the late afternoon. We had the usual rush around to swimming this evening, but on the way to my swimming I stopped to look at the view. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Recovery

Running more slowly – Venus and Me

February 28th, 2012 | Comments Off

It seems that Venus and I have something in common. ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that Venus is running a little more slower than previously measured. According to the European Space Agency, a team of researchers used an instrument on-board the orbiter to penetrate the cloud cover over our neighbour at infra-red wavelengths. They studied surface features and discovered that some were displaced by up to 20 km from where they should be given the accepted … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Discussion

Training and Planets

January 23rd, 2012 | Comments Off

The late mornings seem to be catching My alarm went off for me to get out for a run this morning before work, but Liz had uncharacteristically not woken up with her alarm so I said she could go out and I would run at lunchtime, so at least she got her run in. I managed to get out on the streets again at lunchtime, a familiar run from work to the Thames, across Tower … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Training

Leap Seconds

January 18th, 2012 | Comments Off

So there it is. We might be about to lose our leap seconds and disconnect with the age old tradition of correcting for the Earth’s wobble. Let me explain. Atomic clocks are accurate. Very accurate. In fact, so accurate that they are used as the basis of the ISO standard definition of a second. If you want the figures (which I know you do) they are accurate to 1 second in every 6 million years. Advances in technology … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Running, Technology

Running to the stars

January 16th, 2012 | 1 Comment

If I could find some way to combine two of my passions in life, it would be something like this morning’s run. Liz has a very early run this morning (up at 5:00am for a 5:30 run, so I could run at 6:00am) and this seems to be the way that Monday’s are shaping up. After yesterday’s long run I really didn’t feel much like getting out into the cold again. This morning it was still … Read entire article »

Filed under: Astronomy, Blogaday, Training