A new astronomy podcast from the UK!

by Mike on May 28, 2012

2020 Astro Banner

Drum roll please!

I’m co-hosting a new astronomy podcast with my friend Dave Woods. Each episode is a boredom-busting 20 minutes of practical astronomy advice, news and reviews. We’re on iTunes but you can also listen directly on our website through your web browser.

It’s also recorded live in a pub, so who knows what will happen!

Tune in!

Web: http://www.2020astro.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/2020astro

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/2020astro

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/2020-astro-podcast/id530684918

2020 Astro iTunes Cover Art

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The Helper’s Box

by Mike on May 20, 2012

Every Friday, Dylan’s class teacher chooses one child to be the Helper for the following Monday. The general idea is that the chosen child puts a favourite toy or object into the box and the class play a game of twenty questions/guess the object with clues given by the child. It’s one of those great little ideas to encourage children with the idea of presenting, asking and answering questions and sharing their interests.

 

Last time we had a dead snake in a bottle, courtesy of my brother in law’s partner, who found it in the hay in her horse’s yard.

This time, in keeping with the previous serpent theme, we’re bringing something biblical to the classroom!

Locusts!

I had a thought about opening their box and putting them directly in the helpers box so that when the teacher opens them, they get covered in flies!!! Flies!! Muwahahahahaha….

That is all.

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TED: Ideas not worth sharing

May 19, 2012

I love TED, those amazing and interesting people standing on stage presenting their cutting edge work in Technology, Entertainment and Design. The TED organisation’s slogan is “Ideas worth sharing” and their videos published almost daily form part of my daily video diet. Although this week it appears that someone at TED thought one of their [...]

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Review & Overview: Prototype-Translating a .NET application

May 14, 2012

Disclaimer: This is a technical article intended for software developers. It’s full of techno-waffle, so if coding isn’t your thing, please feel free to read the rest of my blog where I go into astronomy, technology, gadgets and general geekery. You have been warned! As a freelance software developer, I get all kinds of requests. [...]

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Second picture in BBC Sky at Night Magazine

March 21, 2012

This was a surprise; after having my first magazine-published astro photograph in BBC Sky at Night magazine in February 2012, I’ve had this one published in April 2012. It was a real surprise seeing this land on my doormat over the weekend! Original on Flickr (click for larger version): Congratulations to everyone who has had [...]

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The new iPad’s retina display, is it worth it?

March 19, 2012

The new iPad is finally here and it’s not called the iPad “3”, “HD” or any other moniker. For the purposes of the review, I’ll refer to the latest iPad as the “3”. The headline feature is the new “Retina” display which while not sporting quite as high a pixel density as the iPhone 4/4S [...]

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First picture in BBC Sky at Night Magazine

January 18, 2012

BBC Sky at Night Magazine decided to use one of my astro-images in their February 2012 magazine, which is out today. I’m chuffed! (The winning image of the month was a beautiful shot of the terminator (edge) of the moon by Steve Loveridge. Well done, Steve!) click to see a larger version on Flickr I [...]

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Galaxy Hunting

January 17, 2012

Just for fun I thought that I’d set my telescope up and instead of putting its time towards a project, I just pointed out from our own galaxy to see if I could spot other galaxies, far, far away. You see, all the stars you see in the sky at night with your eyes are [...]

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Strange website traffic

January 12, 2012

Here’s a chart of all the unique traffic to this blog from December 2011, over the holiday season and into 2012. It’s interesting to see traffic fall off dramatically in the days leading up to Christmas and New Year. Boxing Day was the highest day for visitors and surprisingly around 530 people logged onto www.mikewilson.cc on [...]

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Rosette Nebula in Ha (Caldwell 49, NGC 2237, 2239, 2246)

January 12, 2012

(click to zoom!) My latest image was taken last month, on the 12th December 2011. It’s shows a view of the Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen Alpha (656nm +/- 7nm). It’s a careful ‘slice’ of the full colour (white) light spectrum that appears in the deep red potion of the spectrum. This shows clouds of gas, [...]

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