Daughters birthday

This weekend we have celebrated our daughters 27th birthday. She got lots of presents including a framed photo of an Owl that I took last year at Foxton Locks

We also went out for a meal where we embarrassed her with a cake.

Five planets lined up in the sky.

At 5:45am my alarm went off and I took my camera into the garden in the hope of taking a photograph of the moon and the 5 planets in line. Unfortunately it was impossible to take a picture of them all as the house and a street light were in the way. I saw Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and Venus but not Mercury.
I did take a few pictures of the Moon and Jupiter as well as attempting to get a few pictures of the sky in general but was thwarted by the light pollution from Harlow's street lights.

The Moon was an easy photography subject, my zoom lens is not the most powerful.

Here you can see the Moon and Jupiter in the same shot

A long exposure of the sky (the Plough) gets a strange tint from the street lights. The stars are blurred due to the Earths rotation. 

The cause of my problems, the town of Harlow brightly lit up.

Film Review - Interstellar

I will start my renewed blog off with a short review of the film Interstellar starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine.

It is set in the future where blight and disease is decimating the worlds food supplies and, after wars over food, technology and engineering is no longer an approved pursuit, rather farming and the production of food is now uppermost in the populations mind.

McConaughey plays Cooper, the owner of a farm and a former NASA pilot. His daughter, Murphy, claims she has a ghost in her room but Cooper realizes that it is actually a gravitational anomaly that is actually a form of communication from an alien intelligence.  The message leads him to a secret scientific establishment and then into a journey to another galaxy on a one way mission to find a new home for the human race.

I will not spoil the story as it is well worth a watch, the film examines love and loss plus the problems an interstellar traveler would have with relativity at light speed travel and close to black holes.

Its a very thought provoking film that will leave you crying at the end but then feeling happy with the very end.

The cast are wonderful with no weak performances from any of them including the kids at the start. There is a lot of scientific geekery plus a lot of emotional human interest. The special effects are good but dont expect ray guns and Star Wars type space ship flights, this film is far more scientifically rooted in reality.

I give if 4.5 out of 5, a must see.

27th January - Starting again

Ok, this is the re-start of my personal blog. I will try to keep it almost up to date with my thoughts and deeds from now on.

Today was a normal working day for me that consisted of driving a big green bus to Heathrow and back and then a blue bus to Stanstead and back. A nice half twelve finish saw me home by one oclock and relaxing in front of the goggle box.

Although tomorrow is my rest day my alarm will be set for half five to allow me to photograph the moon and the five planets that are currently in line with it at around 6am in the morning. Pictures will appear here tomorrow.

I know this is not the most interesting of blog entries but I hope to improve them from now on.