A Merry Christmas 2022

 

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our Blog Readers from round the World. 

May we wish wish you well and hope that 2023 brings an end to conflict, poverty, hunger, prejudice and suffering wherever it exists.

Barry the Snowman 2022

 Christmas would not be Christmas without our friend Barry the Snowman resident in his garden office. This year Barry has abandoned his usual location and taken up a more prominent position in front of the sitting room window. Nice one mate! 

The Winter Milky Way

 

The view from our Backyard last night. No Moon to dilute the starlight but hazy cloud moving in from the west was a problem when combined with a little light pollution. Image taken with an astro-modded 200d Canon DSLR and a Sigma EX zoom lens at f=11mm. 10x30sec exposures at ISO1600 were stacked and processed.

What a beautiful night, only marred by light intermittent cloud. Mars and Uranus are visible in this image. Other astronomical delights on show include:

• The constellations; Orion, Taurus, Canis Minor, Monoceros, Lepus, Aries and Gemini.
• The show piece stars; Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph, Alnitak, Mintaka, Alnilam, Procyon, Castor, Pollux, Sirius and Aldebaran.
• The open star clusters; the Hyades and the Pleiades.
• Orion's Dagger and the Great Orion Molecular Cloud..

Apart from all that scientific stuff, it makes for a very pretty picture.

Oh those Summer Nights!

 

The Summer Miky Way from summers past and remixed and cropped by Kurt Thrust using Starnet GUI and Affinity Photo. The original data was captured using a tripod mounted 400d Canon DSLR with a standard EFS 18-55mm zoom lens at f=18mm.

"The weather continues 'exceptionally inclement' at the Jodrell Plank Observatory and so, along with polishing our equipment, observatory staff members have been keeping on their 'astro-imaging toes' by reprocessing data captured under past and better conditions. I clearly remember the warm summer night when we collected light from the Milky Way running through the constellation Cygnus. The bright star centre right in the above image is the white super giant Deneb and the bright star top right is the nearby (25 light years distant) Vega. Vega has at least two large planets and a debris disk orbiting it. Vega is spinning so fast that it has a central bulge created by centrifugal force (or as my old physics master Mr. Rawlinson used to say " a lack of centripetal acceleration").- Joel Cairo CEO Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The sky aglow with ionised hydrogen gas.

 

The night sky between the Constellations Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Triangulum and Camelopardalis. A wide sky image taken with the Canon 600d DSLR camera on the Star Adventurer equatorial mount at the Jodrell Plank Observatory. Image credit Pip Stakkert.

"Whenever I see images on which the 'spinning wheel' of our nearest neighbour galaxy Messier 31 features, I cannot help but wonder whether intelligent life forms inhabit planets orbiting any of its trillion stars" - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory. 

Conjunction

The waxing gibbous Moon and Jupiter in conjunction. Canon 600d DSLR and zoom lens at f=200mm. If you look closely you can see Jupiter's moons Callisto and Ganymede.

Beautiful night with the terminator on the Moon catching the Bay of Rainbows.

The Bay of Rainbows - image credit: George Roberts

 

Jupiter

Jupiter 'King of the Planets '  -George Roberts Oct 2022

 "Thank you - Thank you very much"! - The King.

Full Harvest Moon

 

The Harvest Moon shining through 'sea-fret'. Astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR and a Samyang EX 135mm lens. George Roberts

After spending the early part of the night imaging stars, I decided to experiment and see what happened if I tried photographing the Moon with a camera which had had its infra-red filter removed. Whilst undertaking this experiment, the North Sea intervened by conjuring up a 'sea-fret'. I rather liked the soft red result.

There's gold in them there hills !

 

'Derbyshire' watercolour sketch - George Roberts -Aug 2022

Thanks to Rachel, William , Felix, Maisy, Custard and Tabby we had a lovely holiday in Derbyshire. In a quiet moment I painted this view from the terrace of the 'holiday let'.  Just a quick sketch in paint without any pre-drawing. I believe Tai Shan Schierenberg would describe this as " A bit loose'.

After Sun

 

"Red sky at night is a shepherd's delight"

A Gibbous Moon on a Warm Summer's Night

 

The lovely Toot sanctioned the expenditure for a new Samyang F2 135mm ED lens - so I tried it out on the first clear night . I love the Moon seen against a blue early evening sky. The new lens is a superb piece of glass!

I don't know the meaning of the word failure

 

Living inside my Head - sculpture George Roberts 2022

Every year I submit art works to Grayson Perry's Art Club and each year I fail to have them broadcast 'on the telly'. " Am I disheartened? - well just a little but I  will not give up my sad pursuit of national recognition as an artist of renown!

The theme for the work 'Living in your Head' was provided by Grayson and resonated with me as I spend much of my time living in my head or as the wonderful Toot describes it 'in a reverie'.

My idea was to construct a head from bits and pieces found in our loft and 3d printed in our shed. The concept for the work being; to make and house inside a glass head a retrospective film of my life. Once I started this project, I really enjoyed looking back over my 70 plus years on our planet and making an audio-visual representation of it. The film with soundtrack is now complete and on a pen-drive  held in a printed cup decorated with astro-themes at the centre of my sculpture. My life to date  exists inside my sculpture unopened like Schrodinger's cat awaiting the inexorable passage of time and my ultimate demise. Quite literally, I am living in my head for as long as the sculpture exists. Pity Grayson didn't rate this bit of artistic handy-work but hey-ho - life is full of disappointments!

It's what Vincent would have wanted.

 

'Very Starry Night' - Digital Collage- George Roberts Feb 2022. Credits: Vincent van Gogh, Wikipedia, MOMA, Hubble Space Telescope, ESA Gaia Telescope and the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

Was going to use this image for a joke submission to the 'International Astrophotographer of the Year 2022 Competition' but was put off by the entry fee - £10 is quite a lot for 'S&Gs'! The sky is however completely free to look at as long as the clouds play their part by parting!

Starry Night

 

'Starry Night on the Essex Coast' - digital art  George Roberts February 2022

Not as good as the original but a similar composition. On the plus side, no ears were harmed in the making of my image.

Credits: Vincent and MoMA The Museum of Modern Art

Runner-up - Britain's most massive hairy cock

 

'Runner-up -Britain's most massive hairy cock 2022' - a piece of work by George Roberts

"Words fail me"

Gannet on a Stick - Defending our Coastline

 

'Gannet on a Stick' - Digital Estuarine Art - George Roberts January 2021

You may shout "liar 

 cock-womble, fool, utter-dick"

But it was 'me' that got job done

When I placed that gannet on that stick.

Stupendous, unbelievable, fantastic

Fine bird!

Hear Hear!

Family Tree and Seaside Bunting

 

Family Tree - crafted by Rachel Roberts 2021

Seaside Bunting - crafted by Jasmine Roberts 2021

"You cannot put a price on love"

The Russian House

 

Matryoshka Dolls - painted by Alice Boon 2021

Look inside and one might see

A bit of you and a bit of me

Each one fits the next just like a glove 

Our family made with lots of love

Bully's Fountain

 

'Let's see what you might have won' - stainless steel, glass, polished pebbles and 3d printed black PLA filament. Solar powered indoor and outdoor fountain.- George Roberts 2021. By kind permission of William Roberts.

The pebbles were collected from the estuary at Southend, Lowestoft Beach and Holy Island. Lots of nice memories paddling in the estuary and sea.

Happy New Year 2022