Since serious science has no place in this thread, I should mention my Eclipse betting tips would have doubled your money. Midnight Lion and Cecilia Star romped home.
My only dud was Witch Hunter, which unsurprisingly was beaten by Dancing Gemini... I really should have seen that coming.
Exciting Space News at Southsea cinema. The Wednesday 16th April 2PM offering is "The Day the Earth Caught Fire". After my initial confusion with "The Day the Earth Stood Sill" with all that flying saucer and robot and "Klaatu Barada Nikto" stuff, it looks a gripping tale prophecying Global Warming:
The idiots have tilted the Earth's axis 11 degrees! London is now a burning hothouse, and the girls are stripping off. The only thing to do in these End of the World situations is to have a farewell drink:
Can't wait. 🤣
My only dud was Witch Hunter, which unsurprisingly was beaten by Dancing Gemini... I really should have seen that coming.
Exciting Space News at Southsea cinema. The Wednesday 16th April 2PM offering is "The Day the Earth Caught Fire". After my initial confusion with "The Day the Earth Stood Sill" with all that flying saucer and robot and "Klaatu Barada Nikto" stuff, it looks a gripping tale prophecying Global Warming:
The idiots have tilted the Earth's axis 11 degrees! London is now a burning hothouse, and the girls are stripping off. The only thing to do in these End of the World situations is to have a farewell drink:
Can't wait. 🤣
I have The Day the Earth Caught Fire on DVD! 
The Talking Pictures channel is showing Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women at 10.55 tonight.
1966, rated 18 and 2 stars - I shall record it on VHS tape as my DVD recorder has packed in!
The Talking Pictures channel is showing Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women at 10.55 tonight.
1966, rated 18 and 2 stars - I shall record it on VHS tape as my DVD recorder has packed in!
The Day the Earth Caught Fire was written by Val Guest (1911-2006).
He made a significant contribution to the sci-fi movie genre including: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066561/?ref_=nm_knf_i_4
The dinosaur special effects are wonderful, but the real star of the movie is Victoria Vetri as the beautiful blonde sacrificial virgin!
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is a 1970 Hammer production that I've yet to see.
It promises to at least equal Hammer's 1966 One Million Years B.C. if the trailer in the link above is anything to go by!
He made a significant contribution to the sci-fi movie genre including: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066561/?ref_=nm_knf_i_4
The dinosaur special effects are wonderful, but the real star of the movie is Victoria Vetri as the beautiful blonde sacrificial virgin!
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is a 1970 Hammer production that I've yet to see.
It promises to at least equal Hammer's 1966 One Million Years B.C. if the trailer in the link above is anything to go by!
I managed to find "Planet of the Prehistoric Women" on youtube and skimmed it. Lonely White Earth Men arrive on Planet inhabited by bikini bathing beauties who are HUNGRY!
A Roger Corman effort... he of the Vampire films. My nephew is a film buff. He was telling me about "Nick and Nora" who he felt were a Raymond Chandler creation. Turns out they were a Dashiell Hammett creation from The Thin Man as indianajo would know..
We agreed that Chandler and Hammett both killed themselves with DRINK! But Nick and Nora are funny:
"You wanna drink?"
"What do you think?"
I am having second thoughts about "B" Movies. They sort of do your head in... 😵
My true destiny is as a horse racing tipster, I feel. I could be the new "Templegate"! My hot steak continues.
Hartswood, which trainer Richard Fahey rated in his column, romped home at 13/2 today at Doncaster, followed by my own whimsical late fancy "Thunder Star" at 6/1.
Any horse called Thunder is good, IMO. Star is always good too. Now you know the secret of the Turf. 🤣
A Roger Corman effort... he of the Vampire films. My nephew is a film buff. He was telling me about "Nick and Nora" who he felt were a Raymond Chandler creation. Turns out they were a Dashiell Hammett creation from The Thin Man as indianajo would know..
We agreed that Chandler and Hammett both killed themselves with DRINK! But Nick and Nora are funny:
"You wanna drink?"
"What do you think?"
I am having second thoughts about "B" Movies. They sort of do your head in... 😵
My true destiny is as a horse racing tipster, I feel. I could be the new "Templegate"! My hot steak continues.
Hartswood, which trainer Richard Fahey rated in his column, romped home at 13/2 today at Doncaster, followed by my own whimsical late fancy "Thunder Star" at 6/1.
Any horse called Thunder is good, IMO. Star is always good too. Now you know the secret of the Turf. 🤣
Attachments
Norwegians going to Space! 😎
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c39jkp4m7xzo
Norwegians back to Earth 20 seconds later:
Oh well... 🙄
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c39jkp4m7xzo
Norwegians back to Earth 20 seconds later:
Oh well... 🙄
Oh dear, but let's hope this first flight test leads to greater things.
It's essential in the current climate for Europe to have its own satellite launch programme.
It can't affiord not to! 🙂
It's essential in the current climate for Europe to have its own satellite launch programme.
It can't affiord not to! 🙂
FEM-FIRE-TRE-TO-EN GA! (5-4-3-2-1 GO!)
You see I speak a little tourist Norwegian...
But I did wonder where Norway is. Now we know. At the bottom of a mountain.
"Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success," the firm's co-founder Daniel Metzler said.
Yes. No Penguins hurt.... 🤣
( I know, I know....)
You see I speak a little tourist Norwegian...
But I did wonder where Norway is. Now we know. At the bottom of a mountain.
"Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success," the firm's co-founder Daniel Metzler said.
Yes. No Penguins hurt.... 🤣
( I know, I know....)
I was wondering why there are no Penguins in Norway. Apparently somebody did introduce a half dozen to an island, but they disappeared.
So the answer is:
But there was a common bird called the Great Auk until about 1850 commonly living on islands:
As they became rarer, being prized by for their eggs, and down and food if you were starving, dead easy to catch, collectors offered even more money for eggs, which saw them off:
IIRC, the flightless Dodo was absolutely delicious, which was its downfall.
So the answer is:
But there was a common bird called the Great Auk until about 1850 commonly living on islands:
As they became rarer, being prized by for their eggs, and down and food if you were starving, dead easy to catch, collectors offered even more money for eggs, which saw them off:
IIRC, the flightless Dodo was absolutely delicious, which was its downfall.
On the contrary, I read that seafarers described Dodo meat as variously "offensive", "tough", "unpleasant" and "of no nourishment".
Don't believe me? Then just ask Alice:
P.S. A US Biotech company plans to "de-extinct" the dodo along with the wooly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.
A simple apology from you Scots for clubbing to death the last of the Great Auk's on a charge of Witchcraft would have done...
Gone the way of the spectacular Carolina Parakeet, the Passenger Pigeon and the Dodo. 🙄
I have been out and about tonight. No Nova as usual. But I wanted to get a picture of TNT's favourite star Capella in Auriga:
Whatever is that blue line supposed to be? I think it's the Galactic Plane and here in Auriga, it's the Anti-centre of the Milky Way.
What you need to know here is that we are looking away from the centre into our spiral arm where stars are forming.
We can see more than the 1000 LY thickness of the galaxy which is in the direction of orange Arcturus as Galactic North Pole, and the Messier star clusters here are about 4000 LY away.
Huge Epsilon Auriga (E) is to the right and between "The Kids" double and Capella, and is also 2000-4000 LY away.
All is nicely lined up horizontally in my photo, even if the M37, M36 and M38 clusters are just a smudge on my camera. Not a patch on the nearer Pleiades, Hyades and even the Beehive cluster. But interesting, one feels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auriga#Deep-sky_objects
The Milky Way is more just a few star clusters in this direction, and this continues into Perseus too.
Cool, eh?
Gone the way of the spectacular Carolina Parakeet, the Passenger Pigeon and the Dodo. 🙄
I have been out and about tonight. No Nova as usual. But I wanted to get a picture of TNT's favourite star Capella in Auriga:
Whatever is that blue line supposed to be? I think it's the Galactic Plane and here in Auriga, it's the Anti-centre of the Milky Way.
What you need to know here is that we are looking away from the centre into our spiral arm where stars are forming.
We can see more than the 1000 LY thickness of the galaxy which is in the direction of orange Arcturus as Galactic North Pole, and the Messier star clusters here are about 4000 LY away.
Huge Epsilon Auriga (E) is to the right and between "The Kids" double and Capella, and is also 2000-4000 LY away.
All is nicely lined up horizontally in my photo, even if the M37, M36 and M38 clusters are just a smudge on my camera. Not a patch on the nearer Pleiades, Hyades and even the Beehive cluster. But interesting, one feels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auriga#Deep-sky_objects
The Milky Way is more just a few star clusters in this direction, and this continues into Perseus too.
Cool, eh?
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I looked up the Galactic Plane, and here is a really good map of it that claims to have all 9000 stars that you might see with your eyes but for light pollution, which renders North and West difficult for me in Portsmouth:
This is Galactic Coordinates and projection, so it distorts a bit at the poles. It's the line of the Milky Way. You can get the original image here with a right-click save:
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galchart.html
Most of the interesting local deep-sky objects like nebulae and star clusters are near this line,
This is Galactic Coordinates and projection, so it distorts a bit at the poles. It's the line of the Milky Way. You can get the original image here with a right-click save:
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galchart.html
Most of the interesting local deep-sky objects like nebulae and star clusters are near this line,
"Varying dark energy would vastly expand the range of possibilities for where the universe is headed. The expansion might grind to a halt, and gravity could bring everything crashing together." (my bold etc...)
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-d...r-new-evidence-strengthens-the-case-20250319/
;-)
//
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-d...r-new-evidence-strengthens-the-case-20250319/
;-)
//
Nice link! Worth opening if only for the flight through the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument’s (DESI's) new map of millions of galaxies.
This is the same new evidence that Dark Energy is changing with time as discussed by Dr. Becky in her video in post #5,640.
The main thrust of the article is that the DESI results are casting our Lambda-CDM model of the Universe in doubt.
But when it comes to the CRUNCH, TNT, don't get your hopes up just yet!
This is the same new evidence that Dark Energy is changing with time as discussed by Dr. Becky in her video in post #5,640.
The main thrust of the article is that the DESI results are casting our Lambda-CDM model of the Universe in doubt.
But when it comes to the CRUNCH, TNT, don't get your hopes up just yet!
Nobody knows what Dark Energy is, or what it is doing... 🤣
I was interested in the picture of the DES Telescope in Chile, not to be confused with DESI in Arizona.
After some puzzling, I have identified the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds in Dorado and Mensa which are very southerly, with the Southern Cross and Milky Way to the Left.
The LMC was the scene of Supernova 1987A, magnitude 3 for a month in May and now a neutron star I believe.
I was interested in the picture of the DES Telescope in Chile, not to be confused with DESI in Arizona.
After some puzzling, I have identified the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds in Dorado and Mensa which are very southerly, with the Southern Cross and Milky Way to the Left.
The LMC was the scene of Supernova 1987A, magnitude 3 for a month in May and now a neutron star I believe.
Before we turn the page, I have been checking my theory that the Milky Way is faint around Auriga. TNT's downloadable high resolution picture comes to my aid!
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...enerates-gravity.393908/page-247#post-7803990
This is a smaller version, Cygnus is bottom left in a rich patch, Cassiopeia and Auriga (looking to the edge of the Galaxy) top right. Polaris (North) bottom right. You can even see the Andromeda Galaxy on the full image. I am happy with that.
Hope our TNT Swedish Observatory is back online soon. I am hoping to see Algol which is usually mag 2.1 at Minimum 3.8 next Wednesday at 9PM BST, 20.00 UTC.
https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/the-minima-of-algol/
It's going to be difficult looking into light pollution, but someone has to do it, and I am a doer not a viewer. 🤣
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...enerates-gravity.393908/page-247#post-7803990
This is a smaller version, Cygnus is bottom left in a rich patch, Cassiopeia and Auriga (looking to the edge of the Galaxy) top right. Polaris (North) bottom right. You can even see the Andromeda Galaxy on the full image. I am happy with that.
Hope our TNT Swedish Observatory is back online soon. I am hoping to see Algol which is usually mag 2.1 at Minimum 3.8 next Wednesday at 9PM BST, 20.00 UTC.
https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/the-minima-of-algol/
It's going to be difficult looking into light pollution, but someone has to do it, and I am a doer not a viewer. 🤣
The JWST has just captured this image of asteroid 2024 YR4 (whose probability of hitting Earth has fallen to near zero):
The image doesn't look spectacular, but the JWST team measures the asteroid to be around 60 metres in diameter, which is about the height of a 15-story building. The thermal properties revealed by the infrared instruments suggest that the surface of 2024 YR4 is made up of sizeable rocks rather than fine grained sand. This all goes to show how valuable the JWST may prove to be if another possible impactor comes along: https://www.space.com/space-explora...nths-ago-the-jwst-just-got-a-clear-view-of-it
The image doesn't look spectacular, but the JWST team measures the asteroid to be around 60 metres in diameter, which is about the height of a 15-story building. The thermal properties revealed by the infrared instruments suggest that the surface of 2024 YR4 is made up of sizeable rocks rather than fine grained sand. This all goes to show how valuable the JWST may prove to be if another possible impactor comes along: https://www.space.com/space-explora...nths-ago-the-jwst-just-got-a-clear-view-of-it