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August 29, 2007
Woo hoo! One second of fame!
My eclipse photo from my last post featured for a smidgen under a second in a photo montage at the end of One News on TV1 tonight! Here's a link to the video clip on the TVNZ website.Posted by conor at 8:27 PM
Lunar Eclipse, 28th August 2007
Well, it was worth the wait. Not having seen an eclipse before (that I can remember anyway), I only really started getting interested in today's eclipse late last week, and then the weather yesterday afternoon turned threatening. I ended up driving about 25kms each way up over the Port Hills towards Godley Head to even see the moon, and then it clouded over and started raining before the eclipse even started! However, by the time I was as good as back home, the clouds rolled back to ultimately reveal this:
Posted by conor at 11:16 AM
August 23, 2007
Google Earth has gone skywards
The latest version of Google Earth now includes incredible visualisation of pretty much the whole universe! Download the latest version of Google Earth and you'll notice a little planet button on the toolbar. Click this and, voila, you'll be shown the sky as it is above the location you were previously viewing in Google Earth. Start flying around and zooming in, and you'll be able to find a wealth of galactic imagery, including a lot of Hubble imagery. You can also create the usual Google Earth placemarks! For example, here's one which will take you to the Crab Nebula:
Ummm, I can almost feel a telescope coming on. While Google Earth/Sky seems to be great for exploring and viewing some stunning Hubble imagery for example, I've also come across Stellarium, an open-source project which looks like it might be much better at being able to show you what is visible in the sky at any moment in time. I might load it on the laptop and use it to pick good directions for some more star trail photos...
Posted by conor at 10:48 AM
August 22, 2007
Google Maps now does embeddable maps
To illustrate, here's a Google map showing the contents of the Google Earth file from my last post of our day tramp up Double Hill.View Larger Map
Posted by conor at 9:32 AM
August 13, 2007
Day trip to Double Hill
We hummed and hawwed about the weather forecast, but ended up taking a quick day trip up the Rakaia River valley to Double Hill, which is noted as a 2 hour walk with panoramic views of a couple of the big valleys in the Canterbury headwaters. Didn't quite make it to the top, since the kids were just having too good a time using all their energy talking nonsense to each other and laughing non-stop, but enjoyable day out never the less. If you've got Google Earth (and if you haven't, why not?), here's a small GE file highlighting a few of the photos (and locations). We also drove past Glenrock Station which has accomodation we intend to go back and check out in the future.
Posted by conor at 2:16 PM