An oversight on my part (can’t count) I accidentally skipped episode 31 and went to 32. To avoid messing up database records and associated hyperlinks, I will not be going back to episode 31 so the next one will be episode 33. Episode 32 will remain for ever in some multi dimensional episode void.
So don’t be looking for something that does not exist. Even if your name is Hans Blix.
Want to know what’s in the night sky for this month? Tune in to Chris Northen’s radio show between 09:00 and 10:00 on allfm 96.9
Manchester Astronomical Society’s member Mike Oates presents “sky notes” on the first Friday of each month.
Yes, you can listen online. Next broadcast – tomorrow morning.
In size, mass and orbit Venus is the nearest Earth has to a twin in the Solar System. It is the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon, hottest planet in the solar system, has a day longer than its year, is named after the Roman goddess of love and yet it has a deadly atmosphere and its the one planet that gets closer to the Earth than any other.
In this episode, recorded in late 2008, Professor Fred Taylor, Jesus College Oxford, talks about the Venus Express mission.
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This week’s quote is my rather obtuse reference to the runaway greenhouse effect on the planet Venus. Its from Will Rogers and its what he says to his niece on seeing Venus de Milo in the Louvre in Paris.
“See what will happen if you don’t stop biting your fingernails?”
You will have noticed that I’m not quite on schedule right now. Indeed have not been so for a few weeks. As a one man band I expect that to happen from time to time. Last week however was special. For the very first time, I became a dad. Both my wife Regine and my daughter – Amrita Christine May-Singh are well and healthy.
I have some projects underway for Astrotalkuk and will resume a more regular pattern in the coming weeks and months.
Just over a week ago, Wordpress 2.6 was released. I updated and everything was working fine. I have run in to a problem when I attempted to upload episode 23. It turns out that the plugin I use for this – called Podpress, is not compatible with Worpress 2.6. For existing episodes its fine but I cannot upload anything new.
An updated version of the plugin should be available early next week. Rather than regress to Wordpress version 2.51 I will wait a few days. So middle of next week if not before, it should be back to “normal”.
Something different.
If you are even only a tiny bit of a techie, you will be aware of the huge impact of Wordpress – the open source blogging platform, is having in the online community worldwide. Indeed, AstrotalkUK runs on Wordpress.
From time to time, the Wordpress community gets together for a day or two to talk, mingle, learn and socialise with other wordpress bloggers, designers, developers or just about anyone who is interested in or connected to Wordpress. They call these events “Wordcamp”. They have taken place around the globe and on the weekend of July 19th and 20th, the UK contingent will have one of our own in Birmingham. I’ll be there. Its 35 quid for the two days of talks, presentations, social events. Interested? More here.
The 24 hour downtime wasn’t planned. A loss of some config files on Sunday evening at my webshost (IXwebhost) took much longer to recover than I had expected. Infact I am still waiting for them to contact me! I now know much more about cgi-bin folder, .htaccess file and hsphere than is healthy. Thanks to regular automated backups that no data was lost. Nice to be back.
About 20 years after Galileo used the telescope for astronomy, William Crabtree and Jeremiah Horrocks used it to observe a transit of Venus in 1639. Carl Barry and Lilian Fletcher researched documented this unique event. If you missed it a 19mb video here.
Former executive Paul Allen (Allen Telescope Array) from Microsoft and Wayne Rosing (LSST Observatory) from Google are modern examples of private investors in space research.
Emerging from the the industrial revolution in the 19th century Lancashire were two similar individuals who contributed to making large mirrors and large telescopes. James Naysmith and William Lassell.
Standard Podcast [34:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Flash Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadIts been a busy week – Space conference and Buzz Aldrin’s visit – more in coming episodes. Episode 9 should have gone out yesterday. I’m late. You may not be aware but Astrotalkuk uses Wordpress (WP). Version 2.5 was released this weekend. So over the next few days I hope to upload Episode 9, upgrade to WP 2.5 and fix the RSS link so Itunes (or other podcast reader) will pick up each episode automatically.
The Astronomy Centre: If you head east out of the Lancashire town of Bacup along the A681 towards the Yorkshire town of Todmorden, a couple of miles up a snaking undulating road, nestled amongst the green hills, wild flowers and the sheep you see on your left two large astronomical domes. This is the home of the Astronomy Centre.
Founded by Peter Drew, it is the largest dedicated resource for the amatuer astronomers in the country. A not for profit venture, the astronomy centre has been developed and maintained by a diverse team of skilled, dedicated and industrious volunteers.
Amateur Astronomy – the next generation? In the 1960s and 70s astronomy did not have the competition from computer games, internet and TV. That apparently is what is keeping the young people away from participating in astronomy. Guy Fennimore, secretary of the Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA), suggests that astronomy is not the only victim and describes the SPA’s “young stargazers initiative”.
Roger Pickard, the president of the British Astronomical Association, recounts the days of committed amateurs who made the telescopes they used and asserts the ongoing strong relationship between amateur and professional astronomers.
This recording took place at Astrofest 2008, apologies for the occasional noisy background.
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