Deep Sky Objects
After some effort I've managed to get some deep-sky objects added to stellarmap.com - data-source courtesy of the Saguaro Astronomy Club - thanks guys. I lived in Tucson, AZ for a couple of years so know how beautiful the skies can be over there :)
It's quite stunning how many objects are out there and it definitely adds to the show. Finding a way to present the various types of objects; galaxies, nebula, clusters, nova and so on, turned out to be harder and; as is so often the case, simpler then I thought. "Harder" since I started trying to draw more detailed galaxies and clusters than necessary - this is a strain on my ageing brain trying to work out angles and curves and on the CPU trying to render this detail. "Simpler" as I finally went with simple fuzzy ellipses regardless of the object - I think it works quite well; as simple solutions tend to do, but needs some tweaking to see if I can vary the colour and brightness better relative to apparent values.
All of the client side processing is a drag on the CPU and whilst I've tried to keep this down by eliminating redundant processing it needs a fairly decent machine and one of the better performing browsers out there (i.e. Google Chrome!). Firefox and Safari do well and IE9 is a vast improvement over previous versions though Chrome still puts it to shame. My personal favourite is Opera but for now it's sidelined on stellarmap.com due to compatibility issues with HTML5 and embedded SVG (Opera - please fix this!). In any case, I suspect this is much more that can be done to improve performance but for now this will have to do.
Some particularly nice pictures are a cluster of galaxies in Virgo, the Orion nebula, and the Andromeda Galaxy.
Updated: 2011-09-28 22:36
Recipes
Another link that's nothing to do with stars (you'll be wondering what you're doing here no doubt - the answer is almost certainly the stellar map - go there now if you care little for food)!
Much to my satisfaction, my wife is a keen cook and keeps several reams of recipes in a collection of binders that are slowly taking over the house. So, as a fully paid up geek I've knocked up a simple website for her to record, list, search and rate recipes - of course there are a number of these out there, but this one is "hers".
There's also a recipe tag-cloud which I think is quite interesting - right now you can see that her preference is for "quick", "easy", "chicken", "family meals" - guess that tells me what to expect for dinner tonight!
More star stuff coming - am working on adding deep sky objects right now...
Updated: 2011-07-24 10:04
Colour Selector
 |
It's been a while since any update and whilst
really nothing to do with stars I thought I'd upload a little applet I've been playing with. Essentially it tries to convert an image from colour to grey-scale whilst leaving behind a specific selected colour - inspired by the Nikon D5100 colour-select feature (which I didn't buy in favour of a D90 for the internal motor). Rather clunky and a bit flaky at the moment but hopefully it'll get better. Just a bit of fun! |
Updated: 2011-07-20 23:14:35
Photopic Sky Survey
 | Photopic Sky survey provides a stunning view of the heavens captured from 37,400 photographs stitched together into a 5,000 mega-pixel image. Absolutely awesome... |
Updated: 2011-05-15 11:59
The Jodcast
A very good friend of mine recently got a mention on the Jodcast - well done that man! For anyone that's interested he's on the mend now.
... and Hello to everyone at Jodcast!
Updated: 2011-05-01 20:39
Potato Earth
 | A fantastic animation of the new GOCE geoid is available on the ESA site. The BBC kindly refer to it as the 'Potato Earth'. |
Updated: 2011-04-02 11:39
Navigable Star Map
This is an experimental star map using SVG and XHTML to render star maps directly in the browser. This allows drag, zoom and navigate just like desktop planetarium software such as SkyMap or KStars within a browser.
Use the mouse to drag the heavens and zoom in and out.
Since heavy use of Javascript, SVG and XHTML is made a relatively modern browser is required such as Opera or Chrome. Firefox 3.6 works but performs poorly through Firefox 4 looks a lot better. IE versions up to V8 fail spectacularly but IE9 works well. It's amazing how much better the newer browsers are for this sort of thing...
Updated: 2011-02-22 21:11
Campaign for Dark Skies - Star Count
Take part in the campaign for dark skies star count 2011. See how many stars you can see. Count the number of stars you can see between the four corner stars of the Orion constellation (Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and Saiph) and submit your results online.
Updated: 2011-02-01 00:20:04
Hubble telescope detects the oldest known galaxy
If there are galaxies forming around 500 million years after the big bang then there must have been stars drifting through the vacuum of space for a few years before that. Looking up into the sky from a planet orbiting a new born star at that time what would you see? The cold darkness of an empty universe? The fading after-glow of the big-bang? The dull fuzzy glow from thousands of protostars? The frequent flashing of star birth and gradual awakening of stars across the night sky?
Would be nice to see (though our brief human life-span may be rather limiting). Fingers crossed for the James Webb telescope...
Updated: 2011-01-26 21:13:36
Betelgeuse
Another star ready to go super nova - not quite as far away as Eta Carinae at only 427 light-years so could be even brighter. I guess we'll all need to get used to a little insomnia for a while...Updated: 2011-01-22 11:28:23
Eta Carinae
Eta Carinae is a variable star with magnitude ranging from -0.8 to 7.9. The star is expected to go super-nova soon.Updated: 2011-01-15 19:07:37