One of my biggest problems with writing a blog, other than the fact I keep forgetting they exist because I get caught up in my normal work, is that the number of migraines I’ve had over the past couple of years has increased considerably. This basically means that staring at a computer screen for anything that isn’t necessary just doesn’t happen for weeks at a time! Spot the difference in date between my last astronomy blog post and this one to see what I mean.

Not much has happened yet. I’ve continued reading the entry level books I got out; I’ve wandered out onto moderately dark country roads (a little too close to town) with a pair of cheap binoculars a couple of times and started to recognise a couple of star patterns; I’ve been reading bits of a couple of astronomy magazines when I get time; and I’ve been oogling telescopes of different types and reading up on what actually matters as opposed to what advertisers want us to believe matters.

So not a tremendous amount, but the nights are getting lighter and I have the summer to slowly get up to speed with the intention of starting more seriously late autumn when the nights become darker again. I’ll try to start blogging on more specific matters in the nearish future, as much to create a record to look back on myself as anything else.

Today I began a new project. Or rather, took a few quick snaps to work out how to begin it. The light was rapidly changing and most of the shots were taken the in shade, close to the wall and with limited depth of field as a result. In order to get the quality of result I’m looking for, I need to go back alone so I’m not boring the person I’m with and a tripod in tow to ensure nice sharp images.

In the meantime, the project is very simple and a more focused extension of my textures project. I want to concentrate on walls and the interest around them. Here are a few of the sample photos I captured today to give an idea of what will be coming in the future.

Around October last year I began to re-gain a more serious interest in astronomy. I think I had probably been reading about star trail photography with a view to gaining some skills over the coming year in order to run a tuition course on the subject in late 2013. Whatever got me thinking about it again properly, the result was almost predictable for me. I went out and bought a couple of astronomy magazines and started to idly browse without actively reading anything. I find it gives me a general overview sense of what’s happening and lets me know if I’m going to retain an interest or not without spending precious time reading in-depth.

If, after a few days of periodic browsing I still have a greater than average interest, I’ll probably start to read the more interesting looking articles and eventually work through a good part of the magazine while working out which parts are worthwhile for me. Quite helpful to save time should I buy future copies of the same magazine.

After this, I move onto browsing the web. Using search engines to find vaguely relevant websites and scanning quickly to gauge what they’re offering. Bookmarking those that seem to interest and discarding those that don’t seem to be well written or simply annoy me to navigate. As part of this stage, I’ll automatically include searching for relevant local organisations.

Depending on the amount of free time I have, it will either take a couple of weeks or several months to get through this stage. From October 2012 to March 2013 … looks like I didn’t have a lot of free time over the past few months!

So what’s next? I’ve picked up a couple of entry level books on astronomy and will try to find the time to work through those over the next few weeks. I attended an open evening at a local university observatory two nights ago (blog post to be written soon) and am now looking at a local organisation which allows non-members to attend lectures for free – with the intention of gaining them as members in due course, no doubt.

When I was a child I was very interested in astronomy and got a Tasco refractor telescope when I was 12 or so. It wasn’t especially good, though I didn’t know that at the time, so I focused mostly on lunar observing and thoroughly enjoyed the cold (very very very cold) nights in my garden pointing at the moon and occasionally to the darker areas of the sky and being excited to see stars I couldn’t spot with my naked eye. Sadly when I was around 16 the mount broke and I was told by Tasco that they no longer supported the style of mount and were unable to help. I suspect they just weren’t interested in helping, but I wasn’t in a position to argue. Unfortunately by that point my photography had taken over and I was spending all my spare money on equipment, film and processing – so I couldn’t afford to replace the scope.

Since then, just over two decades have passed and while I’ve always retained the interest in astronomy, it’s only over the past six months I’ve actively started to think about getting back into it again.

My intention with this blog is therefore fairly simple. So much time has passed that I’m effectively a newcomer once again. That and I only ever really paid attention to the moon anyway, so I have such an incredible amount to learn. I’m going to use this blog to chart my progress – what I read, watch, do, where I go and who I talk to. I’m doing it mostly for myself so I have a record to look back on. I’m certainly not expecting anyone else to pay much attention to the blog!

That’s a long enough intro, onto the beginnings!

Checking for sort order placement. Should appear below core post but above Alexandra Street post.

Placeholder text for the first street that will be included in the project.

Should display below the sticky top-level post.

Placeholder text for the project to see if the sticky works the way I expect it to.