Early Risers.

[Darlington_Shed]

4 hours ago, PupCam said:

Jupiter videos look promising, star stills look, err, rubbish so a "a skill to be developed"

 

I'd appreciate some info about the camera you're using. Astrophotography - like model railways - was meant to be a key part of my retirement. Sadly, I've done little or nothing with either. So far!

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Jeopardy! which in it's first run (hosted by Art Fleming in 1964)

I forgot to mention that it was a Jeopardy! win back in the Art Fleming era that, in part*, led Mel Gibson's father to emigrate to Australia:

Quote

In 1968, Gibson appeared on the Art Fleming-hosted version of the game show Jeopardy! as "Red Gibson, a railroad brakeman from South Ozone Park, New York". Gibson won $4,680 and retired undefeated after five shows, in accordance with the rules of the show then in force. He was invited back to appear in the 1968 Tournament of Champions, where he became the year's grand champion, winning slightly over one thousand dollars more, as well as a two-person cruise to the West Indies.

* Actually it was a court settlement over a work injury that funded the move.

[Ozexpatriate]

The forecast freezing rain materialized. It rained from around five to seven this evening and that rain froze. Now there is a solid layer of ice sitting on a separate layer of refrozen sleet. It's a slippery mess out there. It's bad enough that chains might not be adequate.

 

Hopefully the southerly system that brought the rain will bring warming temperatures - which were pretty steady at around -3°C through the afternoon. The patio thermometer suggests it is now closer to -2°C.

[Smiffy2]

5 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

Sounds good, but how is it that those of shorter stature (most women, and certainly most 8 year olds) are able to handle the scale length of fenders (or fender basses) while some of us who are of average male height or greater find the scale length of gibsons can be a stretch for what we want to do ?

The difference in scale length is only a couple of centimetres, so it must be the body shape. Being girthy I find the Les Paul style uncomfortable. 

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  It's getting warmer. The seaweed twirlers have promised us a one day only special offer of double digit temperatures.  However the fire is still on.  This morning I am waiting in for UPS to deliver a new circular saw blade for the chopsaw. The old one had gone a tad blunt after 5 years of hard use.  Then a guy is coming to realign the sattelite dish. I had one final go yesterday and gave up when my fingers froze.  The day wasn't wasted as I got on with putting up speaker cables to the relocated HiFi cabinet. In the evening I retreated to the shed and did some routing for the new lounge shutters.  That went well. 

 

Whilst waiting for the delivery I will continue with the speaker cables. 

 

Great news from Fraggle Rock. 

 

Ttfn

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

A very, very light dusting of snow has appeared overnight...

 

Today will start with some shark use, followed by floor swabbing  on those floor areas not carpeted. 

 

After that.. a few emails then back to soldering iron wielding as part of the on going wire strangling.

 

Good news for @New Haven Neil, hope your good lady gets positive news soon as well.

 

@Smiffy2.. can you send me some positive thoughts to get the items I am trying to fettle at the moment fettled please?

 

The sooner I get my new lenses the better.. difficult to focus on small items at the m9ment.. pah!

 

To all ERs who gave ailments may you get them sorted ..pronto. to our missing ERs.. I hope you are well!

 

TTFN

 

Baz

Edited January 17 by Barry O

[NGT6 1315]

Moaning awl. Good to hear everything's in the green, @New Haven Neil.

 

Freezing rain and severe flash icing conditions affecting large parts of the country have been forecast beginning this afternoon. Gotha, however, has 6 to 12 inches of snow coming up, apparently. That might turn out to be interesting indeed!

 

Stay safe, everyone...

 

 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

A light frost here to start the day along with a grey sky.  It should stay dry and there may be some wintry sunshine this afternoon.  Chilly (for The Land of Sutt) at -1°C rising to a high of 3°C.  

@New Haven Neil Great to hear your good news Neil.

The Boss had an improved night, only waking once and she's feeling a bit better.  Must be all the care and attention she's been receiving from the Head Nurse!  😂

I have a visit to the dentist to look forward to at midday, nothing else planned at present.

Time to sort out some breakfast.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

 

[grandadbob]

Mention of young girls and guitars made me think of this, an all girl rock band (three sisters) from Mexico who have evolved somewhat.

From this:  

 

To this:

 

Lots of stuff on YouTube and they're touring the UK this year.  Maybe not everybody's cup of tea but I like them.

Edited January 17 by grandadbob

[Smiffy2]

Lots of positive thoughts, Baz. Lots.

 

I should explain my absence - arthritis and bad eyes, lack of space and lack of talent led to me suspending all modelling activities, bar painting some ModelU3D figures. Badly.

Then Covid. Had Covid Jan 2020, caught the last plane out of San Francisco...

2 more lots of Covid. Long depression...

 

Now getting into guitars - I bought a Squier Telecaster about a year ago to try to loosen up the arthur in my left hand, and it's partly worked, but I still can't make all the chord shapes I'd like.

 

Then I found out about Harley Benton guitar kits, and made myself one (a Jazzmaster (called Yggdrasil) - I'll put up pix if anyone's interested). Fits my propensity to woodwork and guitars...

Then a Telecaster with a neck humbucker (Delilah), which #1 son liked so much I gave it to him, and I'm making myself another (Delilah II). Eldest grand-daughter liked it so I made her a Jazzmaster (called Spike). Then I made a thinline Tele for me. Not yet named, probably Brynnhildr. Youngest grand-daughter didn't want to be left out so I' m making her a purple Stratocaster (Spud). Julie found a dead £40 Strat in a hospice shop, so. I've put new electrics in that, just some soldering to do and that will be working, and I'm making another Tele with 2 humbuckers (Jezebelle). Now Spike wants me to make an Abba Waterloo guitar for her boyfriend (it's star-shaped and painted metallic gold. Tasteful.) Oh, and #2 grandson, the lad with cerebral palsy, would like a blue left-handed Strat, but that's just in the planning stages. And I'm restoring a 1960s f-hole concert acoustic.

 

Now I write that down it seems ludicrous...

[Barry O]

@Smiffy2 good work as well! My music is confined to listening to all sorts of it.. 

 

Baz

[New Haven Neil]

Morning wurld.  So much for being back to an ER, had an awful night so had an extra hour or two.  

 

Thanks for all the good wishes, it is a weight off my mind to be sure but SWMBO's issues are no closer to resolution, she has four weeks wait for the camera where the sun don't shine to try to see if they can work out what's wrong with her digestion, CT and ultrasound so far found nothing but issues prevail.  Not IBS or IBD, leaves a lesser list which gets worrying.

 

-1c sur le rock this morning at 0930, and not increasing resulting in a frost but not heavy as the air is presumably quite dry.  Its very icy though, any water is frozen hard. Not a lot planned really as it is too cold to try to heat the garage/layout room, Mrs NHN working from home, so I have to be relatively quiet while she deals with the hassles of the day.

 

The binmen waste disposal team usually come about 6am alternate Wednesday, but have only just arrived at 0930, presumably they have issues with the roads being icy.  Andreas is pretty much out in the sticks, we're about the last place for the gritters to get to, if they come at all.  No bus route.... :-(

[DaveF]

It's cool here, -3.9C with a gentle breeze off the land and bright sunshine which is melting the white frost in places.  I can get cold hands and feet and have done so for the at least the past 67 years because I can remember white fingers while waiting for the train to school when I was about 7.  For me it starts with the middle finger on each hand going white, then others follow.  The same happens with my toes.  They take a long time to return to normal when I get back to a warm place so I wear gloves and thick socks if I am out for any length of time in winter.  I don't have any blood/heart medication, I think it is just poor circulation.  Also that my body temperature is often only 36.2C and can be as low as 35.8C indoors during the day.

 

I slept quite well last night with a few dreams, one was about driving along a sea front in heavy traffic whilst at the same time walking along the same sea front.  It made perfect sense in the dream.

 

In a few minutes I will thaw out the car and then go for a blood test to look at my PSA as a precaution just in case the urintation issue is more than something caused by the hernia.  Then I will deliver the 100th birthday card and come back home and stay in the warm.   I might work on the model or watch another DVD or read or......

 

I enjoyed the Maigret last night, the French was not too difficult to follow, the sub titles helped at times.  The murder was on a train at a station so there were quite a few shots of trains passing by.  I didn't recognise the loco, it looked more Belgian than French so I may try to find out later.  It was shot on a preserved railway.

 

As for how I feel I'll just say I am a bit more cheerful than yesterday, life is nowhere near as bad as it could be.

 

David

[monkeysarefun]

18 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

Today another cold one, reminder, THIS IS COLD --> -19c recovering the newspaper, sunny but that matters little, high around -15c, realfeel -26c

 

 

I'm currently catching up on "Fargo",  that cold and snow and stuff just looks mental!  

 

Its the surf and the sun  for me.

[Rich_F]

Still job hunting here after my shock (overnight) redundancy: Sparing the details the company directors no longer want to invest in the product I was headhunted for 18 months ago 🙄

 

Anyway, I've managed to do some more modelling using my spares box & creativity while we limit spending & to keep the mojo up! 

 

For those with niche, electronic music knowledge I'm off to see The Orb tomorrow night. Hopefully I'll again soon be feeling happy & on "Little Fluffy Clouds" 😉

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bright sunny start to the day here in the northwest corner of England, the temperature is currently -3C, so the catch that I I’ve got to stay inside today doesn’t really matter. @New Haven Neil great news Neil, hope the ‘boss’ eventually gets the same news too. Sheila eye sight is slowly improving each day, she’s even managed a little ironing today, as for me, I’m still doing the bigger domestic tasks for now. 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian

[The White Rabbit]

Morning awl,

 

I forgot to post a link yesterday - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/merlin-spaniel-humans-dogs-home - about [some, anyway] dogs' homing instinct. I have heard that some birds use a sense of the earth's magnetic field to help them in their migratory flights, so it seems logical that other species could have a similar ability. I'm not sure whether humans do or not. I have known some people to have a very good sense of direction, including points of the compass - but how much was due to a genuine sense of the magnetic field and how much due to other factors, possibly working subconsciously, such as picking up on moss growing on the north side of tree trunks I'm not sure. 

 

Still chilly today but with less icing sugar around. I'll have another go at getting the DVD drive working - further to what Tony said, if it was an addition to an existing machine then I'd accept that as an explanation but it's a new machine (on W11) - for various reasons I've recently had to purchase a new desktop and monitor, also thought I'd get a CD/DVD drive/reader/thingummy at the same time as a lot of photos and some software I have is only on a CD rather than a memory stick and the new desktops don't seem to have a CD/DVD option. It is particularly aggravating as I explicitly checked with Dell first that the DVD drive was compatible... fortunately I have transcripts of the webchat. I anticipate quoting section 14(3) of the Sale of Goods Act. Now, best go and check if that's been updated or amended. Carpe diem tout le monde ... 

[pH]

A forecast 10 to 20 cm of white stuff is in the process of falling. Drive-shovelling awaits.

[monkeysarefun]

26 minutes ago, Rich_F said:

"Little Fluffy Clouds" 

 

 

 

Thats a Golden Oldie these days, scary to think that its as far in the past now as 1957 was when IT was released.

 

A bloke on the local government alternative music station was a fan of songs with spoken word samples in them, he had that on high rotation back in the day, along  with Ramblin Man by Lemon Jelly, and this one about the development of the Spitfire of all things, sampling the movie "The First Of The Few".

 

Tally Ho, Red Leader!

 

 

Edited January 17 by monkeysarefun

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl 

 3 hours sleep, woke due to the club meeting having been held in a pub, 3 hours sleep, 2 hours sleep. A very good total.

 

Ben the very happy collie was taken on patrol he had a very good run around.

I've just been out to the shed just painted the bits of mast step it was previously resting on, turned round the centre console and did the bits I couldn't access before.

 

While doing that, I heard the neighbour calling, so i went out and she said she had Ben!!! 

She'd opened to door. Ben walked in went into the room and sat In front of the cupboard she keeps doggy biscuits in, staring at the cupboard.

He must have gone down their side of our house which he's never done before,  there's a temporary gap at the moment nearest the front, they are going to put in a short wall he obviously went through 

 

 Ben the very guilty looking Collie was waiting in the house for me and when I told him to go home that's the way he came back.. I've put up a sheet of corrugated iron for now, to stop him until the wall is done.

 

I'm now off upstairs muddling.

[PupCam]

Morning All

 

6 hours ago, Darlington_Shed said:

I'd appreciate some info about the camera you're using. Astrophotography - like model railways - was meant to be a key part of my retirement. Sadly, I've done little or nothing with either. So far!

 

I started as a complete beginner, knowing absolutely nothing, and as a consequence my basic apparatus is very cheap and cheerful.     A couple of years ago I bought a Skywatcher 130  with equatorial mount including a single axis (RA) mount.    This was more by luck than judgement as I didn't appreciate the benefit of such a mount over a basic Azimuth & Elevation version at the time or indeed the necessity for it for astrophotography.     For my first attempts at astrophotography I made an adapter for my son's mirror-less Canon camera body.   I had a degree of success with this for both lunar and deep sky images.  Last year I bought a dedicated astro-camera and despite all of my recent experience with budget equipment I bought a budget colour camera.  The benefits of this where, like a cheap scope, for little money (it was about £130, which is about as cheap as you can get when cameras typically cost £300+ and many are in 4 figures)  it gives you a taster of things to come if you can first spot the limitations of the equipment and then work round them.    The watchwords with everything related to astronomy on a budget appear to be patience and persistence.    If you are the type of person who tries something and immediately gives up when it doesn't work first time and moves on to something new then astrophotography probably isn't for you but when you do make progress despite and not because of the budget equipment I have to say it's rather pleasing.    So far my really memorable achievements/moments are:

 

     The first time I looked at the moon through the telescope  - Wow!

     EVERY time I look at Jupiter through the telescope - Wow squared that doesn't diminish the more times I do it!

     The first time I looked at Pleiades through the telescope

     The first time I got a half decent, sharp image of the moon after getting the hang of some software (Registax IIRC)

     When I finally managed to extract some detail (not a lot I grant you) in the Orion nebula

     My recent exploits and improvements in imaging Jupiter with various software packages

     My first recent wobbly image of Saturn

 

Rather than fill up ER's with a load of astronomy details I'll give you full details of my set up and the things I've done to try and work around the limitations of my budget gear in this thread later on.

 

ION

 

I believe a walk is to be walked around the Swiss Gardens at Old Warden.  

 

TTFNQ

 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The computer battery sign has re-appeared this morning when I switched on so alls well on that front. However a new battery will be required soon as there's only 19% available now. That's something to do when I'm mobile again. No news from the insurance yet so I will try to gee them up a bit. Just received notice that my parcel will arrive between twelve and one. Thats it for now, be back later.

[PhilJ W]

14 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Ben the very happy collie was taken on patrol he had a very good run around.

While doing that, I heard the neighbour calling, so i went out and she said she had Ben!!! 

She'd opened to door. Ben walked in went into the room and sat In front of the cupboard she keeps doggy biscuits in, staring at the cupboard.

He must have gone down their side of our house which he's never done before,  there's a temporary gap at the moment nearest the front, they are going to put in a short wall he obviously went through. 

 Ben the very guilty looking Collie was waiting in the house for me and when I told him to go home that's the way he came back.. I've put up a sheet of corrugated iron for now, to stop him until the wall is done.

I assume that he's been in the neighbours house before, or does he have senses that we know nothing about?

[monkeysarefun]

11 minutes ago, PupCam said:

     The first time I looked at the moon through the telescope  - Wow!

      EVERY time I look at Jupiter through the telescope - Wow squared that doesn't diminish the more times I do it!

     The first time I looked at Pleiades through the telescope

     The first time I got a half decent, sharp image of the moon after getting the hang of some software (Registax IIRC)

     When I finally managed to extract some detail (not a lot I grant you) in the Orion nebula

     My recent exploits and improvements in imaging Jupiter with various software packages

     My first recent wobbly image of Saturn

 

Here it would be looking up and seeing the Milky Way on a moonless night. Highlights within that would be the Jewel Box in the Southern Cross, which is visible as a bright patch but looks impressive even through binoculars.

 

  Its  that bright spot near the centre of the picture, this was just taken with my phone  in the front yard so there's no magnification and the street lights kill the effect a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

[southern42]

3 hours ago, Smiffy2 said:

The difference in scale length is only a couple of centimetres, so it must be the body shape. Being girthy I find the Les Paul style uncomfortable. 

 

Hole diameter and distance between holes on same scale flutes give different degrees of comfort for me. At the moment I have D flutes, wooden and bamboo, and a plastic C flute. Each one is different and throws up its own peculiarities. 

 

Of the two bamboo flutes (named A after the 5th note - upper two holes covered - above D), I find the thinner one is the more comfortable and easier to play which has delayed my getting a flute in G which is longer (at 16 inches) and wider with larger holes and greater distance between them. This to enable me to play along with the tutor rather than just listening and playing alone in a different key, but I fear that the stretch may be more uncomfortable. I reassure myself, that if the reach is possible, I did learn how to train my fingers to play some most uncomfortable chord shapes on guitar in my time!

 

These western ones also have subtle degrees of comfort and differences in fingering, blowing, and sound so I give them their own set of tunes, as I did with guitars. The top one is reserved for early music and the middle for folk music, both mainly played in D, G, E minor and A minor, and the one below for tunes in keys such as C, F and F minor. The bottom flute is used to start kids playing western flute while their hands are still small and/or as an inexpensive way of starting them off before spending lots of Deltic tokens on the full length silver variety. 

See the plastic fife in action