My Blog

Category: Astronomy

  • Plantastic

    For anyone with an interest in plants, art or indeed both, below is a link to the degree show at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh.  They offer training in botanical drawing, a uniquely special method of documenting the life story of a plant.  I have long been in awe of this, and its practitioners.…

  • Summer-y

    Oh good grief, I was sure I had posted at least once  in June, outwith Dad’s birthday, but I see the last one was May 28th.   Poor old BTW always suffers the most appalling neglect in the summer, it’s shocking behaviour and someone somewhere needs a strongly worded email.   In our defence I see that…

  • Rocky Roads

    Back home from Tenerife, to the nigh impossible task of selecting a few pictures from the hundreds taken, and sifting the memories into a condensed format for anyone unfortunate enough to be in our vicinity over the next few days.  We stayed here and once we got there, which was not easy, we found it…

  • Beggar’s mantle

    If you haven’t already gathered, we live in the Kingdom of Fife, which King James VI described as “beggar’s mantle fringed wi’ gowd”, a reference to the fishing and trading villages of the coast.  Whilst it’s a handy and memorable phrase, especially in terms of the economics prevalent at the time, it has been superseded.  Not…

  • No singularity

    I just looked up singularity and it so does not mean what I thought it did, but get this:- Mathematical singularity, a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined or not “well-behaved”, for example infinite or not differentiable. If the thought of a badly behaved mathematical object doesn’t make you smile on…

  • Train of thought

    Well, I had hoped to be posting some pictures tomorrow of the Flying Scotsman on her journey round the Fife Circle, but as we all know now, that ain’t going to happen, since thanks to glorious ineptitude on someone’s part, no-one checked if the train would fit.  Now, the identification of untested assumptions is all…

  • Addendum

    With the frankly wonderful Lars Juel Kjeldsen, who steered us to a clear view of totality.

  • Si vis pacem, para bellum.*

    A maxim which applies to all areas of life, not just the battle field, IMHO.   Jings, where to start?   Where did I leave off?  February 4th, apparently.   Since that time we were made aware that the Russian Consul General in Scotland was to award Dad with the Ushakov medal, at home, in honour of his…

  • The North, Circular

    Affairs of the stomach much on my mind these days, so it was with rising interest that I noted a factoid from the appendices to one of my favourite books, The Poetry of Birds*.   The noble bird the gannet derives its name from the Scottish word gant or gaunt which means to yawn by…

  • Saturday serendipity

    For the first time in a week it is actually possible to see the horizon.    A dreich haar has enveloped the Kingdom of late, and frankly it has been depressing.             Turns out to be jolly difficult to photograph in low light, through a window, without a tripod.  Who knew?…