Life in Wellington, New Zealand, photos, and dogs

For several reasons I've decided to close this blog and incorporate existing and future posts into my main blog, KnowIT.

Please visit that blog for posts and comments.

 

From the category archives:

Astronomy

Thumbnail image for New Hubble Images – the butterfly

New Hubble Images – the butterfly

Beautiful images are coming out of the newly refurbished Hubble Telescope.

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 10 September 2009 0 comments

A rare sunset in Wellington

I grew up in Canterbury, home of the Nor’west Arch.1 Sunsets there are often spectacular as the low sun shines up onto the bottom of the cloud cover, lighting the sky on fire. Here in Wellington, we sometimes have some really nice sunsets, with a bit of orange sky and all, but last night’s was [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 12 January 2007 0 comments

Meteor Creates Sonic Boom Over Christchurch

Darn, I missed this, even though it was heard as far away as Wellington, apparently: Meteor Creates Sonic Boom Over Christchurch (4:01 pm, 12 Sep 2006): A meteor has entered the atmosphere above Canterbury creating a sonic boom across the city. The resident superintendent of the Mount John observatory Alan Gilmore says the sonic boom [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 13 September 2006 0 comments

Jupiter with binoculars

I stepped outside for a moment looked up to the East and thought: that’s a bright star! It couldn’t be Venus, because it was in the wrong direction — since Venus is closer to the sun than Earth is, it is always near the sun, which had set a few hours ago in the West. [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 22 April 2006 2 comments

Tui duet

Venus was bright in the East when I got up about 6.15 this morning so I took my binoculars out onto the deck for a look. Of course some light cloud came across precisely then, but I was able to check out Venus, nearby Uranus, Mercury and Neptune and the just-past-full moon. Apart from Venus [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 19 April 2006 0 comments

Sky watching

When I was a teenager I was deeply interested in space, astronomy, Apollo flights to the moon and sci-fi. I even joined and was on the committee of the local Canterbury Astronomical Society. Over time, as university and working took over, the sky watching side of things faded considerably, but last year I revived astronomy [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 12 March 2006 0 comments

Solid planet in our galaxy

Stuff.co.nz reports on a new planet: It is nearly 25,000 light years away, with a ground temperature of minus 220deg, but it looks more like Earth than any other planet found so far. … The planet, with the tongue-twisting name of OGLE-2005-BGL-390Lb, is outside our solar system but within our galaxy, near the centre of [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 26 January 2006 0 comments

Saturn’s Dione

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is a beaut! The wee thumbnail here does it no justice at all. It shows Saturn’s moon Dione, Saturn’s rings and the shadows cast by the rings. And if you’ve never visited Astronomy Picture of the Day then you should. There are thousands of gorgeous pictures archived, with a [...]

Read the full article ⍾ Astronomy 22 October 2005 0 comments