Found this image via Digg and it’s so cool I thought I’d share. One of those pictures where the the photographer captured something we’re all fairly used to seeing in a different way.

Don’t forget to Digg it…

If you haven’t heard of Photosynth, its an incredible idea from Microsoft’s labs (yes they do cool stuff too!). Basically the concept is that as more and more photos are taken of a particular object or location the better a computer could get at creating a sort of simulated view…

I recently saw a Digg article which linked to a space.com page about the 10 Strangest Things in Space. All but 2 of the items were not pictures at all but computer simulations, or artists impressions. So here to correct this injustice to phenomena everywhere I present the REAL 10 Strangest…

I had my first day working for SETPOINT Wales yesterday in their mobile planetarium, the Stardome. I went to Crickhowell High School and had a great (if tiring day) giving a space talk and showing, what felt like hundreds of children, the constellations.

The reason I like talking about space is…

Amazing picture here of the Northern Lights from space. Spotted on Digg (link here). The Aurorae are created by the interaction between outflows of energetic material from the Sun and the Earth’s ionosphere. I have never seen any, but very much would like to.

This image appeared on APOD the other day. It shows a solar eclipse as viewed from space. Very cool.

This image was taken from the old MIR station during the August 11th 1999 eclipse which was, if you can remember, visible from the UK. In fact if you look very…

Here’s a great image of all the bodies in the Solar System in order of size. It only goes down to a diameter of 200 miles - otherwise it would get very silly indeed. Note that several planets fall after several moons in the rankings. also note the small collection…

These days we’ve all seen pictures of other worlds in stunning detail. We are familiar with pictures of the Moon and of the Earth and well know that the circles we see online and on paper are really globes, floating around in outer space. Now NASA’s STEREO mission to observe the…

My NAM 2007 photos are up on Flickr. not very astronomy related, more the social side. Will put up a scientific version soon…

Obviously not vietNAM but the UK’s National Astronomy Meeting. This is my first NAM and so far it’s so-so. There have been interesting talks and I have met some interesting people. However so far I would call it fun or jolly.
Basically every year the…

In last week’s lab we had some more fun with liquid nitrogen. This time we used it to cool a ceramic superconductor (i.e. not a metal one) and then floated a magnet on top of it. The result in shown in the image above.

What…

I don’t speak Welsh but assume this says something like ‘daffodil that was frozen in nitrogen and then crushed during first year physics lab’. I know that because I crushed and froze it myself and this photo was taken by…

Today I had the chance to quiz my friends Fraser and Vanessa about the Faulkes Telescope. Faulkes is actually two scopes - one Northern one Southern - which are robotic. They can be controlled by various groups around the world who might oherwise not…

So I think we just had Winter. Thursday and Friday’s snow fell hard and fast but was gone just as quickly in the end. Which was a bit sad. Although I have heard reports that in the Brecon Beacons the sledging was excellent over…

Our little monster, Monty had his first try out in the snow this morning. At first he was very wary but soon got over his fears and started to tunnel around the garden using his nose. He would bundle up a small roll of snow…

Sometimes I’ll see a photo that just blows me away! This is a very good example. I wish I could take a photo like this but I really don’t see how it could ever happen given my impatience and lack of technical knowledge.

I found it on the Astronomy Picture…

This was one of those ‘thank god for cameraphones’ moments. I just happened to see this sunset and just happened to be at a great spot to take this picture of the St. David’s Hotel on Cardiff Bay.

We had just been…

Big doesn’t quite cover this blog post.

For the past few weeks in my role as a demonstrator in the first year undergraduates lab, I have been supervising the experiment titled Large Scale Structure of the Universe. The experiment itself is a slightly painful exercise involving a series of simulated…

The last time it happened was in 2003 and the next time will be 2016. The November 2006 transit of Mercury was watched by millions of people and a few spacecraft too.

Occuring between the evening of Wednesday 8th of November to the morning of Thursday 9th, GMT, Mercury appeared…

Well today is day three (techincally) of my PhD. Monday was just an enrolment day and so yesterday was my first hands on day in the office. It is nice to be back. i’m not really wandering the same corridors as I did before and due to my two year…