it's now Tuesday morning, and in waiting in a hotel in Windhoek for the SDL driver to pick me up and begin the long drive to the lodge. I'm tired. No sleep on Sunday night, minimal sleep on the planes, and although I slept well enough last night, I'm really going to struggle with the day ahead. To top it off, I've just reread the last email from the lodge manager and saw that the current guest astronomer is being dropped off at the airport this morning, so I guess I have to hit the ground running tonight ...

Yep, you read that correctly, my book A month on the Moon is coming soon as an app, but only for Android devices currently. Check out the screenshots: It’s currently in testing phase, but sho…

My wife Julia bought me a pair of these for my upcoming birthday, and I just had to try them out, even though the day itself is still a few weeks away. I've been after a pair of these for ages now, and finally, with yet another trip to Namibia looming in October, I felt that the time was right to get them.

So yeah, I got a couple of hours at the eyepiece last night, and gave AstroHopper a run at finding some DSOs in various parts of the sky. I started off by aligning AH on Arcturus, mainly because it was so well placed for the purpose, then decided just manually push the scope round to M3 (by manually’ I mean that I hadn’t searched for M3 so there wasn’t a direction indicator, I just pushed the scope until M3 was centred on the screen).

This is more of an update to part 1 than a whole new report/review, or whatever. Anyway, I managed to grab another brief session with AH last night, and the results were ... really very good. The thing that made such a difference was using a wide-FOV eyepiece (24mm, 82 degree Explore Scientific) as opposed to a Vixen zoom (AFOV at 24mm is about 40 degrees, so approximately half that of the ES).

A discrete haptic/audio metronome for speech therapy, music, sports

Whilst having a bit of a tidy up the other day, I found an old 35mm film canister with, as luck would have it, a translucent lid. With the eclipse looming, I thought, 'ah ha, I know if a good use for this ... A solar finder'. Basically a pinhole camera, making a solar finder is simplicity itself: drill a small hole at the center of the bottom, draw some cross hairs on the lid, and attach to the scope... ... you can just see the white dot that is the sun below centre. eBay is probably a good source of canisters.

Over the past year or so, I've been finding it increasingly difficult to use the standard 'straight-through' 9x50 finder scope that came with the 250PX Newtonian/Dob. Whether it's a matter of age or infirmity, or both, the 9x50 just isn't doing it for me. I use to be quite good at using it, and, until lately, often championed its use; certainly over the right-angled type or the dew magnets that are Telrads.

I’ve been seeing a Speech and Language therapist recently who has been giving me some strategies to help with some speech issues (volume, clarity and pacing, etc). During our most r…

Zoom eyepieces are like Marmite, you either love them or you don’t. Although now discontinued, there are plenty of these available on the second hand market to make a review worthwhile. My view: great eyepiece, but not suitable for all scopes. Specs Focal length (mm) - Zoom spans 8-24; Apparent field of view (°) - 40-60; Eye relief (mm) - 19 ; Barrel dia - 1.25"; Coatings - multiple; Adjustable eyepiece cup - (folding); Filter thread - yes; Weight (g) - 215g…

So yeah, I got the use of an ST120 in a ‘try before committing’ arrangement, and so, despite the bright summer sky and an almost First Quarter waxing Moon to contend with, I set it up on an iOptron Mini Tower II mount, and waited for twilight. The scope came with an AZ5 atop a sturdy Manfrotto photo tripod, but because the AZ5 was broken - it spun freely in the azimuth direction and wasn’t controllable or lockable - I decided to forego using it so as to give the 120 the best chance to sell itself.

Thanks to the wonders of Amazon's Kindle Translate, German and Spanish language editions of The song of Herzlte are available now (Kindle only): Which is quite amazing, really. For some reason, the translation AI is having issues with The last act of human kindness, but I'm told it will be available soon.

Lying in bed on a lazy Sunday morning, a thought came to me: given the ubiquity and popularity of SeeStars, the fact(?*) that they log location data, date and time, etc, would it be possible to log and collate sky quality data and how it changes over time ... We're all familiar with satellite trails in our images, so maybe the increasing frequency and sky brightness resulting from them could be monitored too.

Fancy getting your virtual hands on a free copy of one of these ebooks from the Apple Books store? Well, I’m giving away three promo codes for each of them, starting with The last act of human kind…

Fancy getting your virtual hands on a free copy of one of these ebooks from the Apple Books store? Well, I’m giving away three promo codes for each of them, starting with The last act of human kind…

Fancy getting your virtual hands on a free copy of one of these ebooks from the Apple Books store? Well, I’m giving away three promo codes for each of them, starting with The last act of human kindness. TOCs apply, as is often the case: wp-1776323290112Download Here are the first three codes, again these are for The last act of human kindness, …

‎Science & Nature · 2023

Letters to US agency raise concerns over tech firm’s plans to use reflective satellites and expand numbers in low Earth orbit

Being hard at work on volume three of my sci-fi series, I'm becoming acutely aware of the explosion of the use of generative AI in both the mainstream publishing world (my day job), and indy/self publishing worlds. Dip into r/KDP or r/selfpublishing, for example, and you'll find that countless posts from people happily using/praising the use of AI in the development of their manuscripts, or refusing/disparaging its use.

Search results for "5 cosmic fragments " at Rakuten Kobo. Read free previews and reviews from booklovers. Shop eBooks and audiobooks at Rakuten Kobo.

Read "A decade in stargazing Told through twelve constellations" by Kevin Quinn available from Rakuten Kobo. A Luminous, Personal Journey Through the Night Sky A Decade in Stargazing is an intimate and engaging companion for anyo...

Search results for "5 Cosmic Fragments" at Rakuten Kobo. Read free previews and reviews from booklovers. Shop eBooks and audiobooks at Rakuten Kobo.

As my Helios 10*50s don't have any way of attaching nebula filters I thought I'd have a go at seeing if I could implement some kind of bodge... A spare pair of objective caps with a hole cut in the middle took care of holding the filters in place, and a pair of rubber washers, left over from another project, prevents the filters from scratching the lenses ... Quite pleased with the result. OIII on one side, UHC on the other. Can't wait to try them out.

Demystify the world of stargazing equipment and start observing with confidence. Many aspiring astronomers are discouraged by their first experiences – often the result of unsuitable “toy&#82…