pointless.net  • Blog • Photos • About


recent posts

I tried to see NEOWISE late on Friday night but in hindsight I was too early and there was too much cloud.

It was visible early on Monday morning. I first tried looking from the Greenway but although it was fairly dark and the height gave a fairly clear view north the London Stadium blocked the view to the north east.

After some cycling around I found this spot, which gave a clear dark view to the north west and west but still had a few lights to the north east.

It was enough to block the lights with my arm and then look north east by north and the comet was easily visible to the naked eye.

Here's a pic from my camera - you can just see the comet as a downward facing smudge above the telescope (You'll need to click on the picture and zoom in), the naked eye view was a little better then with the coma being more obvious:

/m/p/jasper/500-hs/store_00010001/DCIM/130___07/thumb_IMG_0690.JPG

I took my Galileoscope with me and could see the comet clearly though it, I could just about take a pic through the eyepiece with my phone - lining up the phone camera and eyepiece is annoyingly fiddly.

/m/p/jasper/pixel3a/Pixel 3a Camera/OpenCamera/thumb_IMG_20200713_031316.jpg

Apart from the comet it was an excellent night for doing astronomy with Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all nicely visible and the Galileoscope doing exactly what it was supposed to do, I could clearly see the bright pinpricks of the Jovian moons lined up either side of Jupiter, Saturn was distinctly blobby looking with it's rings, Venus showed a crescent and on the Moon you could see the crisp outline of craters and mountains along the terminator.

There might be better viewing spots in the Olympic park - There where some very dark spots with the trees screening out some of the light from around the park and there are a few hilly bits, annoyingly the highest one has dense planting on it and it looks like you are discouraged from going on top of it.

I'd also go earlier in the morning, by 3:40 or so it was too light to see the comet, getting on site at 1am would of been better.

No comments yet!
October 15, 2019 : Tap water is the best water

tags: cat littleg

No comments yet!
October 2, 2019 : Lilly and Nutella snuggle

On my lap no less! I think this is the only time they've done this tho...

No comments yet!
September 10, 2017 : Snuggly purry kitten

Sorry for phone bleeps :(

No comments yet!
August 11, 2017 : Kitty

I has a kitty.

/m/p/jasper/phone/thumb_IMG_20170811_205837.jpg

Biting works, both fingers and toes.

/m/p/jasper/phone/thumb_IMG_20170811_064428.jpg /m/p/jasper/phone/thumb_IMG_20170811_074831.jpg

Eating is also fully functional.

/m/p/jasper/phone/thumb_IMG_20170810_202036.jpg

tags: kitty pics

No comments yet!

I'd sort of heard about Abbey Wood But hadn't realised that it was only an hour or so away. We went for a walk on Monday and had a look at the area where you can dig for fossils, and on top of a pile of shelly bits that someone had left (It looked as if someone had been doing some fairly organised sieving of the sand) there was a small brown twigish thing, which was a sharks tooth:

/m/p/jasper/500-hs/store_00010001/DCIM/127___10/thumb_IMG_0677.JPG /m/p/jasper/500-hs/store_00010001/DCIM/127___10/thumb_IMG_0673.JPG

No comments yet!

My brother had mentioned Belfast Truss's a few times and I remembered them when reading about what was happening on the Olympic site at Kings Yard several years ago.

The Belfast Truss's from Kings Yard where salvaged (pdf, see page 33) and a few weeks ago while out for a walk I spotted them in a builders yard on Gallions point. Unfortunately they are in a rather sorry state, the wind has mostly shredded the tarpaulin covering them and they are now exposed to the rain:

/m/p/jasper/phone/thumb_IMG_20160207_163217.jpg

Now all i need is a £million or so, some land, a tame Architect and Civil Engineer and i can make a nice bit of reproduction Industrial Heritage... :)

No comments yet!

Archive by year:

2020 2019 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005

Blog Posts by tags:

comet talks android garden netbsd code ipv6 dane sysadmin ssl weather python galileoscope gps hacks purr techsupport ccccamp hacking cute upgrades ai london kitten fossil linux nfc wildlife pointless.net snmp bugs doomed neowise usb tooth debian xmpp goscomb nutella pics demos summer openpandora facebook javascript spam cat cacert ccc.de sucks camping bitcoin kitty borg lilly rfid yak shaving networking dnssec tent lhs rpi spf avahi facepalm littleg smt tlsa panic emf canvas t-mobile


Valid HTML 4.01! Valid CSS! ipv6 ready