Blog!ARU

If you've ever thought “What is my cat doing to help me get fit?” then you could do worse, but not overly so, than to try a Cat Workout:

Via Boing Boing

It is often said that you get on better in life if you have a fine pair of jugs. With this in mind I've bought another one. I think you'll agree that they're a couple of beauties:

Two months ago I bought a cheap magnetic exercise bike from Argos — I can't recommend it enough (it's near silent, comfortable and has much better resistance than I expected). For someone who used to cycle a lot, but who has done very little exercise in the last few years, it's been a bit of shock to see how out of shape I've gotten.

OK, so my weight is bang on for my height (~72kg @ 6ft) but the first attempt on the bike on resistance setting 4 out of 8 knackered me after only a couple of miles. In the last two weeks though I've been a bit more motivated and after sticking with it a 13.6mile ride in 33minutes on resistance setting 5 out of 8 (allegedly using up 500 ‘calories’) isn't leaving me knackered anymore and I'm finding it fun again! I'm also feeling like I've got more energy and I've also made a start with weights again.

The Trek 4700 is looking a bit forlorn sat in the garage (where it's sat pretty much since my accident) but I don't think it's going to be long before it's out on the road again.

I'm not sure how much of a fan of gardening I am, but I do like growing things in pots — anyone want any spider plants as I've got a few billion to give away? Now, at the severe risk of destroying any of the manly credentials I may have left, I am rather proud of an African Violet plant that is flowering for the second time in six months. It's a rather odd thing in that for a plant it doesn't like normal planty things such as sunshine and water (if its leaves get wet they shrivel up and die) so it begs the question of how it has managed to survive the eons and where it actually likes to grow apart from on north-facing window sills in Somerset? Window sills in Africa presumably.

Whilst I was on holiday earlier in the month I had an idea to write a Sudoku puzzle solver. Since I'd already written a game of Sudoku (the one AOL were interested in buying back in the mists of time, yes, that AOL) the solver didn't seem like it would be much work. Hmmn, a few hours later here's my first attempt at a Sudoku Puzzle Solver. At the moment it won't solve the most difficult puzzles completely, though I know of at least 3 other solving techniques to add to it but they aren't likely to get added anytime soon. However, it should easily answer the types of puzzle you find in magazines and competitions.

A couple of photos and a video from a recent trip to the North East of England to visit family and an opportunity to re-visit Upper-Teesdale — one of my favourite places.

Cow Green reservoir from near the car-park

Down by the shore of Cow Green

Cow Green reservoir with dramatic lighting

Corpuscular rays above Cow Green (available as wallpaper)

The river Tees flows over the Whin Sill at High Force

Last October I bought one of these: an Orion USA SkyQuest XT10 Intelliscope from SCS Astro. It was ready to collect at the end of November and I drove across to Wellington to pick it up (the box it was packed in was larger than I guessed it would be and it only just fit in the Fiesta with the front passenger seat pulled forward).

I used it once or twice (first thing I looked at being the Orion Nebula) but was generally too busy with work to set aside much time for it (also couldn't get the finder-scope aligned and on the first attempt the azimuth digital axis encoder wasn't working), so when I took time off for Christmas I took it back up to Darlington. Unfortunately Darlington's skies these days are too light-polluted to see much of anything (except the police helicopter that's regularly buzzing the area near my parents'), so the Andromeda Galaxy was barely visible in the scope against the orange background.

I brought the 'scope back with me at the start of January and it sat idle in my kitchen until last night when I decided to have a look at Saturn. Unfortunately it was barely discernable due to fuzziness which was either the sky or the optics. Had another go at collimating the secondary mirror (after having previously read how to do this) as it looked to be quite out of alignment probably due to transporting it in the boot of a Fiesta for 600 miles. Collimating the secondary is a world of pain — never do this for fun, tighten a tiny allen bolt here, another there, take a look through the Chesire eyepiece, wash, rinse repeat, think you've got it, tighten the main bolt up then discover the alignment is worse than before, wash, rinse, repeat. Gave up after 30mins but decided to have another go just before going to bed and got a much better alignment.

Anyway, tonight has been a very clear night, so with the thermals on had a go with the new collimation and Saturn was very clear and crisp, though the rings are nearly edge-on so it looks like a weird barred disc and not the image you expect (will have to wait a few years before the rings open right out again). With the finder-scope now properly aligned and the azimuth encoder fixed objects in the sky are a lot easier to find than the first attempt in December, though at times it's still easier to point the scope by line-of-sight using the barrel of the finder-scope, then use the finder-scope to fine-tune and then switch to the 'scope eyepiece — this was the way I found Comet Lulin, which is not as bright as I expected — certainly not visible to the naked-eye, but the coma and a star-like central point for the comet body are visible in the 'scope.

I need to find a location where I can take the telescope as it's awkward creeping around the garden at night trying not to attract the attention of the neighbours and the streetlights are rather bright, but for this I need a bigger car! With the scope set in the dark corner of the garden I'm limited to viewing overhead down to 20 degrees above the horizon from the north-east to the south, but that's still a fair amount of sky. Now with the controller tracking the sky properly slewing to objects is pretty easy (I thought I'd enjoy star-hopping a telescope, but not at all — having arrow directions on where to point the scope is the minimum you need for hassle-free use). So, after Saturn and Comet Lulin, the first galaxy suggested by the controller was NGC2903 — when you look through the finderscope (and it's a 50mm diameter finderscope) you don't see a thing, but sure enough it's there in the 'scope eyepiece. Just a few hundred photons that have travelled to your eye after setting off on their journey many millions of years ago, and which if you hadn't looked at them would have been lost to the patio rather anti-climactically! Globular clusters like Messier 3 looked surprisingly good, nice and bright and with a higher-power eyepiece you can see the swarm of individual stars buzzing around the core of these miniature galaxies.

So, after a couple of hours tonight I'm looking forward to slightly warmer weather for stargazing and doing a bit more and it looks like I've got over most of my initial disappointment.

It's snowed a bit recently in Somerset, the most snow I've seen since I was at primary school more than 20 years ago. Driving to work today it was interesting sitting in stationary traffic in Frome with the car slowly yawing around on the road camber on its own. The main road to work was passable with care (at times driving on compacted snow rather than slushy tarmac) — but not for long and was closed later in the morning as lorries became stranded near Longleat. The photos below were taken a couple of days before the current weather, but today has been the worst for driving so far — first time I've had the feeling whilst driving of “ah, this is a mistake, I should turn back”.

The view from the Office

The view from my bedroom

The morning after the night before — the other view from my bedroom window

The view from the kitchen

Tonight is clear and frosty with the clear patches of road quite icy and the car's ABS kicking in on mild braking, the steering sometime optional. The snow, rather than sounding like walking on cornflour, sounds like walking on rice crispies. The local councils are understandably rationing road salt, the local buses aren't running, trains are delayed, rubbish and recycling isn't being collected (mine is overdue by 4 days) and I wonder what my gas bill is going to be like!