Best of Friends

Same time next year

The First of January 2014

Have a Happy Ewe Year !

and an Excellent Hogmany

Flocks by Night

Suffolk Flocks by Night
a surrealist digital painting by 
George Malformed Roberts Ba(Hons) Arch. BArch. Dip Env Man.
amateur astronomer and  boy architect (retired hurt)

May Toot and I wish all blog readers and friends around the world a 'Merry Christmas' and a 'Happy and Peaceful New Year'.

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.
"Fear not," said he, for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind,
"Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind."

" God bless us everyone"

Toot's Reindeer Sculpture 'Francoise'

Well what more can I say?  It is Christmas!

The Claus Siblings

Santa and his sister or Santa and her brother?

Bringing good girls and boys important Christmas links:

http://www.noradsanta.org/


http://reindeercam.com/

The True Spirit of Christmas

Marjory Olive Bissett
(1924-2001)

Never let it be said that my late mother in law, 'Madge' Bissett did not know how to celebrate Christmas!

" Mum, may you be space hopping around with the choir celestial this and every Christmas"  love from A & G and all the little and not so little space hoppers.

African Nativity

A little bit of Africa brought to Norwich

Berries

Pyracantha, mistletoe and holly

Toot awoke this morning to see a flock of blackbirds stripping the red berries from the pyracantha hedge at the front of our house.

This autumn and winter has been particularly mild in Suffolk.  The birds have been able to find food in the nearby fields and hedgerows and consequently have left the berries on plants in our garden alone.

This morning it was a little colder so our backyard berries took a hit.  Toot and I love to watch the birds and throughout winter we put out food and water on our bird table.

If it becomes very cold many small birds die, so if you wish to support the ecosystem please dont forget to feed and water the birds in your garden.

Save a sprig of mistletoe for yourself and remember to kiss those you love under it.  I believe you can rightfully expect at least one kiss per berry.  If you have no mistletoe in your garden you can buy it in the UK for about £2 per bunch.  In my opinion and bearing in mind the seasonal return, a fiscally sound investment.

Golly gosh! I just looked out the window and large hailstones are falling from the sky and bouncing all over the paving in our backyard.  Eat up birds!

Barry the Snowman

I'm definitely beginning to feel seasonal! The garden is fully decorated, the holly tree is full of berries,  Barry the Snowman is in 'his office' and the reindeer is grazing along the border.

Toot has shopped, wrapped and cooked herself to a standstill.  We await the annual visit of the man in red!

I hope all my readers have been good girls and boys?

Silent Night

A storm in a glass bubble

Snow-Storm or Snow Globe

 This Snow Globe, comes out for Christmas and when the clockwork is wound, plays the Christmas carol 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'. It was made during the 21st Century in China. The very first Snow Globe was probably made in France during the 19th Century.

Toot and I both remember when as children we opened our respective Christmas stockings and found inside; a Snow Storm together with a an apple, an orange, some nuts and a sixpence.

Schlumbergera Truncata

Christmas Cactus

In winter, when the Christmas Cactus in our sitting room comes into bloom, Toot and I know that it will not be long before Santa Claus comes to make his annual visit.

The Christmas Cactus (aka The 'Thanksgiving Cactus' in the USA) is native to Brazil.  Our plant, a descendant from her late Mum's cactus, blooms a number of times each year and each time it flowers it reminds us of her.

Lost Art Treasures No9

The Adoration of the Jedi
by Pieter Bagel the Elder

Credits: Base image Wikipedia

Photographing Uranus

The planet Uranus as seen through my 127mm refractor
at 7.30pm on Dec 04 2013.

Possibly, the little blue dot below Uranus at approx 7.o'clock is one of its moons, Oberon, but it might be a background star?

Not a brilliant image as the battery powering my mount failed, the wind was getting up and I was becoming icy cold.  It is also composed from a single frame taken with my DSLR, rather than a frame stack from a video clip taken with my planetary camera.

Uranus is a very cold gas giant planet.  At methane cloud top, the planet is minus 200 degrees C, good heavens, that's even colder than the wind that blows just outside the General Post Office in Great Yarmouth!.  Although it looks like a small blue dot in this photograph, the planet is 14.5 times more massive than the Earth.  Being a gas giant, Uranus has a relatively low mean density and so in volume terms it is 63,000 times bigger than Earth.  It is, however, a very long way away, approximately 3 billion kilometres distant (3,000,000,000).  So photographing Uranus is not as easy as you might think.

It is possible to see Uranus using 10x50mm. binoculars but you need a good dark night and to know where to look.

For more information follow the link:
http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/uranus.htm