Setting moon….

Posted on May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Life, Mercury, Mono exposure, Moon, Night sky, Photo, Planets, Setting moon, Space, Venus, Waxing or waning moon?, What star?Leave a comment

From my (short) perspective, he moon was already set, but my hubby, who is a lot taller could still see it. So I held my phone up high, took it off auto onto manual, so it wasn’t overexposed, and took a few snaps. This was the best of the bunch.

Moon set. You can tell the sun is north west of it because of the sunlight light reflected on the moons surface.

Some bright stars in the sky tonight. Mercury and Venus have already set. One bright star overhead but can’t identify it. I had a quick look at what’s visible in tonight’s sky, but I think most of the other planets are rising in the morning.

Solstice

Posted on May 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Hemispheres, Life, Light, Moon, Poem, Poetry, Solstice, Space, Summer, Sun, Thinking, Time, WinterLeave a comment

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As the year waxes and wanes,

as time passes,

light rises and falls.

Life comes and goes,

hearing bird song, then silence.

Summer solstice,

the world is warm,

but days will shrink and shrivel.

Winter solstice,

the promise of warmth,

locked in ice,

day lengthens, nights slowly shrink.

North and South

seasons, polar opposites.

Hot in one hemisphere,

cold in the other.

Unless, near the equator,

seasons are less obvious,

No frozen wastes here.

World floating in space,

around Sol, the Sun, our star,

Earth tipped at an angle,

anchored by moon,

held in mutual gravity

Eternal?

Be the moon…

Posted on May 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged "moon" photo, Friends, Fun, Humour, Loo roll, Me as the moon, Photo, Playing, Something to do, Space, Toilet roll tubeLeave a comment

Turn yourself into the moon! With a toilet roll. My friends in Australia are doing this. Third one I added some dots for stars and sprayed black around the third on in a sketcher app.

Funny how you can create things so simply. I found the most difficult thing was to line it up, I took a few photos and on a lot of them I could see the blue paintwork in our bathroom. Plus it’s exposing my face to the world! Don’t laugh too much!

Digital galaxy

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Astronomy, Digital drawing, Drawing, Galaxy, Nebula, Past, Sketch Fu, Space, Spiral galaxy, Stars10 Comments

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Another one of my digital drawings on sketchfu. Probably drawn in 2013 before the site closed down. A lot of this is done by using opacity and transparency. There were about seven sizes of pens on the website and a large colour palette and a colour picker and erasers that I think had a varied transparency.

When you do something like this you have to build up from a basic background, layering details, adding more and smaller detail as I go along.

Observation is important. I can excuse slight mistakes, but I try and be as accurate as possible.

I’m interested in astronomy so being able to draw from beautiful images is a real pleasure. I think this either came from a stock image, or somewhere like NASA or ESA, but it’s so long ago…

In other news..

Posted on March 19, 2020March 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomy, Comet, Comet Atlas, Earth, New comet, News, Space, Space weather, Telescope, World1 Comment

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Digital illustration of a comet. Didn’t want to use someone else’s copyright photo. This is just to give an impression of its colour….

I get alerts from Spaceweather.com about all sorts of astronomical events. I got this alert about a comet this morning. As we are in ‘interesting times’ I thought I would let you know.

Here is a short excerpt with the link:
COMET ATLAS IS BRIGHTENING FASTER THAN EXPECTED: Get ready for a wild ride. Comet ATLAS (C2019 Y4) is plunging toward the sun and, if it doesn’t fly apart first, it could become one of the brightest comets in years. Amateur astronomers are already getting fantastic images as the comet brightens even faster than expected. Visit Spaceweather.com for the full story.

I don’t think the link will work from here, but it’s an easy address to find.

Thinking about the universe and all that..

Posted on March 13, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Dark energy, Dark matter, Digital drawing, Just an idea, Life, Space, Thinking, Universe, WorldLeave a comment

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‘space’, digital drawing’

I was sitting thinking about dark matter and dark energy today as you do. I’m not sure exactly what they are, but scientists are trying to find out.

To explain, normal matter only takes up a small percentage of the amount of matter in the universe. The rest could be ‘dark matter’ which cannot be measured by normal scientific measures. Also there is dark energy. A type of energy that is repulsive. The universe is expanding and this dark energy is apparently speeding that process up.

Then I thought about the idea that there may be more than one universe. The multiverse. In some theories each decision we make could create a new universe. But we can only see the one we are in? My mind started to boggle. Maybe the dark matter could be from the universes we can’t see, and the dark energy from the creation of each new universe’s.

This is the trouble with speculation, I don’t know whether any of this makes any sense. But I like thinking, and if it takes my mind off the world at the moment, then maybe it’s a good thing.

What’s in a cage?

Posted on February 4, 2020February 4, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cage, Free, Life, Mind, Poem, Poetry, Room, Space, Stuck, Thought, Trapped, Travel9 Comments

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What’s in a cage,

and what is a cage?

Are we trapped in a net,

or free?

Are we birds in cages

or enclosed by space?

How big is your cage?

Can you walk across a room?

Are their bars on your window?

Is there no way out.

No bus,

no car?

Are you stuck in your mind?

Many cages exist,

some are visible,

some are in your mind…

Jupiter Blue

Posted on January 30, 2020January 30, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Astronomy, Blogging, Juno probe, Jupiter, Layers, Painting, Painting for sale, Pluto, Space, Technology2 Comments

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Would you buy a painting of one of the poles of Jupiter? I’ve done a few paintings os astronomical objects. This is from a photo from the Juno probe a few years ago. I’m thinking if doing a ainting of Pluto’s heart. But although I love it I wonder if anyone out there is actually interested. Maybe I’m too interested in tech. I can’t help it though.

It’s not easy to hand paint these images, it takes ages to blend the colours and build them up. Then you have to make sure it’s accurate, although I don’t measure everything exactly. I can’t compete with photography but I do try my best. Anyway this is a large acrylic on canvas and it is for sale.

How to tell the earth is a sphere…

Posted on January 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ancient Greeks, Angles, Earth, Flat earth, Geography, Life, Measurements, Myth, Not flat, Science, Space, Sphere, SunLeave a comment

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So how can you tell the Earth is a sphere? The ancient Greeks worked it out ( I don’t remember the name of the person who did).

The experiment was to put a stick in the sand at or near the equator, so it would have a tiny shadow directly underneath the it at mid day as the Sun was directly overhead.

If you place a stick upright, at 90° to the Eaths surface either North or South of the equator, the stick casts a shadow at mid day. (Look at the hands of a clock the hands move round in the same way). Say the equator is 3pm and the Sun is overhead, you would get no shadow, then as you go further away from the stick at the equator you get increasing angles (see diagram). Eventually at the poles the shadows would be at their longest.

So how can you tell its a sphere? The angles add up. You can calculate the curvature of the planet from these simple experiments. The ancient Greeks got very close to calculating the circumference of the Earth. Their calculations were only a small percentage out on their measurement.

Twisted sunrise

Posted on January 10, 2020January 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Astronomical, Astronomy, Betelguse, Explosion, Fainting, Life, Massive star, Milky-way, Poem, Poetry, Red Giant, Science, Space, Star, Super novaLeave a comment

Betelguse the star is shrinking.

Fainting they say.

On the shoulder of Orion,

it’s getting fainter.

Red Giant,

stellar wonder,

obese and middle aged?

Perhaps your sides are about to split.

Red Giants can’t stay inflated.

They use up all their fuel.

Puffed up and massive.

Suddenly they can pop like a balloon.

Not enough energy to push out,

the star will fall inwards,

then boom!

Bounce out…

In a million years or so?

You might be a Supernova!

Make a Betelguse nebula.

Then Orions shoulder will flower.

And we may see an exploding star.

The first in the Milky-way since 1604.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Space