Not very astronomical but may be of interest, especially if you are in the Northwest England and express geeky tendencies. You may be aware that Astrotalkuk.org uses an extremely popular blogging platform called WordPress. No? No matter.
WordPress users and developers around the world have an annual get togethers to talk about the latest developments in WordPress through something called “Wordcamp”. The first UK Wordcamp was in Birmingham in 2008, Cardiff last year and next weekend it comes to Manchester. More here.
I recorded this interview with Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little WordPress founding developers last year. Here is another minute and a half of “silliness” not included in the original recording.
Matt turned up at Cardiff wearing a hat. He posted a picture on his blog displaying the odd haircut which triggered the hat but I cannot find it now. Matt – next time you attend a wordcamp in the UK wearing a hat, make it a stetson, we won’t let you in otherwise:) You are a Texan!
As per my post in April and thanks to a co-operative volcano, Dr Ed Mitchell, Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 14 will be in Pontefract tomorrow evening at 19:30 on Friday 2nd July 2010. Tickets at £30 are available at the door, for all the details download this one page word document.
He is actually arriving early this morning. If you are in or can get to Pontefract (West Yorkshire, UK) today, you can even have dinner and have your photograph taken with Ed Mitchell this evening. Contact Ken Willoughby on 01977 795535 or 07561085440.
Nestling in a valley amongst the rolling green hills of the Eifel region of western Germany is the 100m Effelsberg steerable radio telescope. Similar to the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank which is on the plains of Cheshire in northwest England which can be seen from miles away. The Effelsberg telescope is situated in a valley so it easy to pass close by and not see it.
It is an international facility. Participating in Very Long Base Interferometry (VLBI) where physical links are necessary with other countries it also hosts astronomers from many other countries and participates in global research projects. Although its website may appear a littel dated, Effelsberg has a surprisingly rich online presence including the current schedule and of course the now mandatory webcam.
Effelsberg is a leading player in a new international project called LOw Frequency ARray or LOFAR. Lofar targets the low frequency range between 10MHZ and 250MHZ. However, for many years commercial FM radio stations, the local emergency services and the aviation industry have been using frequencies between 90MHZ and 108MHZ so Lofar range is split in to two bands. Low (10-90MHZ) and high (108 – 250MHZ). Thus there are in fact three telescopes at Effelsberg.
On a recent visit, Dr Norbert Junkes talked about the previous, current and new activities taking place at Effelsberg.
Have you come across a non profit website TED? It’s primary goal to share ideas in Technology, Entertainment and Design, ideas it deems as worthy of sharing.
I bumped in to a video on TED about dictionaries. Interesting in its own right but it caught my attention because the presenter, Erin Mckean an American lexicographer, referred to Micheal Oates’ descovery of comets without the use of a telescope as an example of fresh thinking. In her 2007 video, she was challenging the traditional definition of a dictionary.
Well guess what? In the early hours of this morning the air control body extended the non-emergency flight restrictions to 19:00 this evening (I expect that to be extended). Consequently, Ken Willoughby has informed me that Ed Mitchell’s visit will not take place today.
The visit will be rescheduled and details will be published once finalised. In the meantime, some interesting links.
The recent volcanic activity in Iceland has resulted in high levels of volcanic ash in the higher atmosphere over many parts of Europe. The prevailing weather has pushed dangerous amounts of it over the UK. Flights over Scotland have been grounded since this morning and now the aviation authorities have called for an end to all air traffic (except emergencies) for 6 hours in UK airspace from midday until 18:00 (BST) today.
One of the fligfhts impacted has been Dr Ed Mitchell’s from the US. He should be in the UK now but is not. Thus the program for today has been cancelled. Volcanism and weather are highly unpredictable. I hope to get an update later today regarding the program for tomorrow.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
Its 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.
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.
