Wednesday, 15 June 2022

Contrails vs Chemtrails.


Chemtrails or contrails, which is it ?  or maybe both!

All I know is that this morning the skies above our village are littered with the tell tale signature of criss-crossing transatlantic aeroplanes.   

Is it possible that our governments are spraying us with mind altering chemicals, disease inducing pathogens?

From an astronomers point of view, those blasted skytrails will, over the course of the day spread out and form a thin film of haze over the entire sky.  

That haze can linger into late evening, resulting in noticeable dimming and slight blurring of the stars.


As we all know, during the Covid lockdowns, the Iceland volcano eruption of 2010, and the Twin Tower attack of 911, all aeroplanes were temporarily grounded. 

Within those small windows of no flight, I observed a marked improvement in astronomical seeing. The stars and star clusters were much better defined. The Moon craters appeared sharper.


Contrails vs Chemtrails

Personally I'm on the side of the astronomer Bob Berman. Who's quote, can be found on the Wikipedia Chem trail page.

Astronomer Bob Berman has characterized the chemtrail conspiracy theory as a classic example of failure to apply Occam's razor, writing in 2009 that instead of adopting the long-established "simple solution" that the trails consist of frozen water vapour, "the conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their own children."[52]


Have a read of Wikipedia's take on the Chem trail theory.  wiki/Chemtrail Theory



Friday, 10 June 2022

Today a giant prominence.

The sky was mostly clouded this morning, but a few gaps appeared. 

This photo was taken at 09h45m UT. 

Within a few minutes you could easily see the structure slowly changing shape.  

It was amazing to see this life giving solar flare change shape in "real time".




Cycle 25 definitely has many surprises in store. Today giant flares, tomorrow countless sunspots, lightbridges, filaments and plages.  

That's the wonder of solar observing... everyday is different. 

Thursday, 19 May 2022

Wednesday, 18 May 2022

No show Perseids 2009 - Hello to HIYA poetry.

Originally I wrote this back in August of 2009. 

It was going to be a post about meteors, but ended up as an introduction to a poetry form that I'd been mulling over for several months.


Up on the Preseli Hills:

Two camper vans, tea and cakes, plus guitars, harmonicas, and several good friends, we waited for the night to unfold.

We were all hoping to see the Perseid shower at its maximum that evening, but the Pembrokeshire sky had different ideas, we ended up with total cloud cover for the entire evening.

No matter, we still had good company, lots of tea and cake and we spent several hours talking, laughing and playing guitars.

At about 3.00 am I lay awake peeping at Jupiter through a gap in the cloud, but still no meteors. 

With no meteors to concentrate on, my mind turned to poetry matters, namely the syllabic count of haiku.

Whilst pondering the poetical, I slowly fell back to sleep; a haiku style seed was germinating.


Hello to HIYA.
That morning I had an idea for a poetry form that might be of interest to poets, I call it HIYA. *

Firstly you make a chart as follows:


Then you choose any word you want to make your poem.

For example I will use the letters of my name:  MARK.

Look up each letter of your word on the above chart.  

Write down the corresponding number you see above it.

My word MARK would read as follows:
M=4, A=1, R=9, K=2

Once you correspond a number to each of your letters, you then use this number as a syllable count for each line of your poem.


Poem for the Perseids
                                                                                               Syllable Count

Throughout the night                 4         M
Clouds                               1         A
Rest upon the Preseli hill tops      9         R
I sigh.                              2         K


Any word or combination of words can be used, plus the poem can be split up into any length verse you see fit. 

Have a go, see what you think.


Have a guess what my initial word was in this poem. 

Tea Party for the Perseids

We sit so patiently waiting
Surrounded by clouds
Time for tea
Time for cake
Time to talk with old friends.


That evening back in August of 2009 may not of revealed any meteors, but I'm glad it revealed the HIYA.


*Why is it call it HIYA?

As a child, there was a lady I once knew, who lived at the end of my grandmother's street.

Everytime she spotted me walking past she would shout out "HIYA" at the top of her voice.

Her voice was high and loud !.. I would often be startled out of my daydreaming as I walked past her window.


Plus HIYA sounds a bit like HAIKU.

Friday, 13 May 2022

Old school Sci Fi at its best.

Recently I wrote a quick review about the 1979 television film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles

You can find it over on my eBay site.


Here's the review with a few bits added and a few taken away.


Old school Sci Fi at its best.

Absolutely love the "Martian Chronicles",have done since I first saw it as a kid back in the early 1980's. The special effects are not brilliant, infact some of them are terrible, but that's not important.

It's the story (Thank you Ray Bradbury)and the pace of filming combined that make for an unforgettable film experience.

Also the film score is amazing.

For science fiction without the special effects of present day, and to be transported back to being a kid again, and a slower pace of life, you can't go wrong with the Martian Chronicles.

The above television adaptation is excellent, but also I have to mention - if you ever see the Martian Chronicles book, or The Silver Locusts as it is also called, grab it, read it, it's definitely a classic.

Like most of Ray Bradbury's works.


Saturday, 30 April 2022

Moonbow over Aberporth.


Moonbow Haiku

I've only ever seen a Moonbow once, it was an unforgettable sight. I was walking down to the beach in Aberporth, the year was 1988, I forget the month. 

The village was quiet, no one else around, which probably means it was outside of the holiday season, and still fairly warm, I guess around the end of September. 

The Moon had not long risen and the darkened sky had just a few scattered clouds. 

And there it was, a magnificent arc of light spanning the village, a rainbow, or more precisely a Moonbow. 

It had none of the colours we normally see, only a white glow with hints of darker/lighter graduation in place of the individual rainbow colours. 

It was fascinating, I realised it was a rare event, so I simply stood in the middle of the road and observed for as long as possible. 

Sadly it was all over in what felt like a minute or so. 

Wow.. that was nearly 34 years ago! .. I wonder if I'll ever see the like again?

Aberporth Church ~ Jupiter in attendance

Wednesday, 27 April 2022

Today's Sol prominence image.





Lots of solar activity today.

Unfortunately also lots of slow moving Sun blocking clouds also.

It's a good job that the solar telescope is lightweight and easy to set up. 

I had just enough time earlier  this morning to capture a few images. 

At the moment as I write, the hazy sky is loitering and hiding the Sun's face.

SFI: 150 - SN: 126 - K-Index: 1

Head in the clouds.

Today, whilst looking through some old phone pictures, I found these cloud captures from back last October.

I remember that day being a typical Pembrokeshire day i.e rain, sleet, sunshine and wind. 

Four seasons rolled into one! 




"Head in the clouds" was an accusation often thrown at me as a kid. 

Yes I freely admit to being a total "head in the clouds" sort of person, both then and now.  

To ponder the Universe with cloud company has to be in the top ten of things to do.




Here's great book to familiarise yourself with all things clouds:

The Cloud Appreciation Society web site is well worth a look.
https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/




Sunday, 24 April 2022

The silent tick of the cycling solar clock.

Aren't sundials amazingly elegant and simple in their design. 

They hold a consistent simplicity that echoes the clockwork of the stars and planets that reside above. 

We humans love our patterns and cycles, the cyclical ebb and flow of the seas, the cycles of lunar phases, the changing of the seasons, the change of night to day and back again. 

What could better display our ancestors fascination with cycles, than that of the humble sundial.


Apparently the earliest known sundials date back to at least 1500 BC !  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial


Fascinating to think that humans were busy figuring ways to connect to the cycles of the Cosmos from at least 3500 years ago, and probably way before that.

The above sundial was spotted today at a nearby church, I wonder how many other churches have sundials hidden away in their grounds?   

I will have to make a trip soon to a church I know in our local town, which has a sundial fixed vertically to the church wall. 

I will endeavour to take a picture and put up a blog post about it.


The above picture shows that the time was 1.30pm GMT, not bad considering my phone's timekeeper was at 2.47pm BST. 

It seems this sundial was 17 minutes slow... 

Considering the sundial is circa 1500BC technology, I think I can live with the 17 minute variance!


Little red Vixen returns.

Last Saturday's solar eclipse got me thinking about my old Vixen refractor; the telescope I used to take my 2015 solar eclipse images.  ...