Even if you're not an Elvis fan, this is really something. I love when they pan to Elvis - he really does look like he's there!
Showing posts with label Awesome Sights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Awesome Sights. Show all posts
16 Sept 2009
13 Sept 2009
Clipper!
Me (with Australian flag), Mum (with Finnish flag), my aunt Christine (with Union Jack & St George's Cross)
My Aunt Christine, Mum and Dad (Dad in his Australian Rugby Shirt) all holding the Australian Flag.
The Red Arrows - Spectacular!
The Hull and Humber Yacht
The Australian Yacht in the middle
Today was the start of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race (leaving from Hull). Oh it was a FANTASTIC day. Perfect for sailing - all nice and blustery! And I think we had nearly all the Yachts covered between my Aunt, Mum, Dad and me (as we had the Finnish, Australian and English flags!) LOL!
It was fantastic and an amazing turnout - about 100,000 they thought. A really nice atmosphere too. The Red Arrow display was absolutely out of this world and lasted for ages too (we're so used to them doing a fly-by as they train up the Humber, it was nice to see them do so many tricks etc).
ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC! Can't wait to see all the boats back in ten months! (By the way ONLY the Skipper on each Yacht has any sailing experience ... the rest are complete novices!)
20 Jun 2009
The fabulous Perpetuum Jazzile
This is a YouTube clip of Perpetuum Jazzile using there hands to stimulate storm before singing .... and it really is FAB!
27 May 2009
Ring of Fire
I was watching a show about the ring of fire this morning before I went to work and it's one of those cool facts that I wanted to share.
The "Pacific Ring of Fire" (or sometimes just Ring of Fire) is an area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean.
In a 40,000 km horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.
It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the circum-Pacific seismic belt.
The Final Frontier...
I read this in the Daily Mail a few weeks ago and it still blows my mind. Not only that but the world's space junk is monitored (on behalf of the world) here in Yorkshire. I think that's pretty cool!
The final frontier teeming with man-made rubbish:
The incredible pictures of 'space junk' swirling round Earth's orbit
By MICHAEL HANLON
Not only our atmosphere and oceans are being polluted by billions of pieces of junk.
As these computer-generated images show, Mankind's seemingly insatiable desire to litter has now extended out into space, with potentially devastating results.
Rocket scientists call it 'orbital debris'; everyone else calls it space junk. And it is becoming a problem.
The computer-generated images show the mass of swirling debris that has formed around the Earth.
We put our first object into space just 51 years ago - Sputnik One.
But in just half a century we have created a swarm of perhaps tens of millions of items of debris, all circling around the planet - rubbish through which the 600-odd operating satellites, one space station, one space telescope, an occasional space shuttle, interplanetary probe and Soyuz rockets have to negotiate a safe passage.
As the images show, these form distinct rings and spheres around Earth.
Most hug close to the surface, 200-300 miles up in low-earth-orbit, where they pose a potentially deadly hazard to astronauts and their spacecraft before they burn up in the atmosphere, usually a few months later.
About 50 per cent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events or collisions.
Millions more swing round in 'geostationary' orbits, more than 20,000 miles up where they remain.
The debris consists of derelict spacecraft and dead satellites, bits of rocket casing, pieces of metal ejected during collisions and docking procedures, nuts and bolts, dropped tools, frozen lumps of rocket fuel and human waste material from manned spacecraft.
In 1965, during the first U.S. space walk, the Gemini 4 astronaut Edward White, lost a glove.
For a month, the glove stayed on orbit at a speed of 17,500mph, becoming the most dangerous garment in history until it burnt up in the atmosphere a few months later.
The geostationary ring, at an altitude of about 36 000 km. This orbit is heavily used by telecommunication satellites.
The Russian Mir space station generated more than 200 plastic bags of rubbish, simply thrown into space. And in 1994, when a Pegasus unmanned rocket blew up, it created more than 300,000 fragments more than an eighth of an inch across.
Amazingly, Nasa and other agencies have catalogued much of this debris, piece by piece. Objects as small as a tenth of an inch or so can be tracked by the radar of the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.
Space junk is important because it is so deadly. Even tiny flecks of paint are travelling fast enough - tens of thousands of miles an hour - that should they hit the International Space Station, for example, they could easily put a dent in the skin or even crack a window.
If the tiniest nut or bolt were to collide with a space-walking astronaut, it would kill him or her instantly.
The number of objects in Earth orbit has increased steadily - by two hundred per year on average
Whenever a space shuttle is in orbit, the Surveillance Network regularly examines the trajectories of known orbital debris to identify possible close encounters.
If another object is projected to come within a few miles of the space shuttle, it will normally manoeuvre away from the object if the chance of a collision exceeds one in 10,000.
This occurs infrequently, about once every year or two.
Perhaps surprisingly, harmful collisions between space junk and operating spacecraft have been rare.
Modern spacecraft are equipped with shields which can deflect objects measuring up to half an inch or so across.
Fortunately space is very, very big and the spaces between all these bits of junk remain large, and the probability of a hit very small.
But it is only a matter of time before an accident occurs. Sadly, cleaning up space is going to be a lot harder than clearing up litter down here on Earth.
The final frontier teeming with man-made rubbish:
The incredible pictures of 'space junk' swirling round Earth's orbit
By MICHAEL HANLON
Not only our atmosphere and oceans are being polluted by billions of pieces of junk.
As these computer-generated images show, Mankind's seemingly insatiable desire to litter has now extended out into space, with potentially devastating results.
Rocket scientists call it 'orbital debris'; everyone else calls it space junk. And it is becoming a problem.
The computer-generated images show the mass of swirling debris that has formed around the Earth.
We put our first object into space just 51 years ago - Sputnik One.
But in just half a century we have created a swarm of perhaps tens of millions of items of debris, all circling around the planet - rubbish through which the 600-odd operating satellites, one space station, one space telescope, an occasional space shuttle, interplanetary probe and Soyuz rockets have to negotiate a safe passage.
As the images show, these form distinct rings and spheres around Earth.
Most hug close to the surface, 200-300 miles up in low-earth-orbit, where they pose a potentially deadly hazard to astronauts and their spacecraft before they burn up in the atmosphere, usually a few months later.
About 50 per cent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events or collisions.Millions more swing round in 'geostationary' orbits, more than 20,000 miles up where they remain.
The debris consists of derelict spacecraft and dead satellites, bits of rocket casing, pieces of metal ejected during collisions and docking procedures, nuts and bolts, dropped tools, frozen lumps of rocket fuel and human waste material from manned spacecraft.
In 1965, during the first U.S. space walk, the Gemini 4 astronaut Edward White, lost a glove.
For a month, the glove stayed on orbit at a speed of 17,500mph, becoming the most dangerous garment in history until it burnt up in the atmosphere a few months later.
The geostationary ring, at an altitude of about 36 000 km. This orbit is heavily used by telecommunication satellites.The Russian Mir space station generated more than 200 plastic bags of rubbish, simply thrown into space. And in 1994, when a Pegasus unmanned rocket blew up, it created more than 300,000 fragments more than an eighth of an inch across.
Amazingly, Nasa and other agencies have catalogued much of this debris, piece by piece. Objects as small as a tenth of an inch or so can be tracked by the radar of the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.
Space junk is important because it is so deadly. Even tiny flecks of paint are travelling fast enough - tens of thousands of miles an hour - that should they hit the International Space Station, for example, they could easily put a dent in the skin or even crack a window.
If the tiniest nut or bolt were to collide with a space-walking astronaut, it would kill him or her instantly.
The number of objects in Earth orbit has increased steadily - by two hundred per year on average
Whenever a space shuttle is in orbit, the Surveillance Network regularly examines the trajectories of known orbital debris to identify possible close encounters.
If another object is projected to come within a few miles of the space shuttle, it will normally manoeuvre away from the object if the chance of a collision exceeds one in 10,000.
This occurs infrequently, about once every year or two.
Perhaps surprisingly, harmful collisions between space junk and operating spacecraft have been rare.
Modern spacecraft are equipped with shields which can deflect objects measuring up to half an inch or so across.
Fortunately space is very, very big and the spaces between all these bits of junk remain large, and the probability of a hit very small.
But it is only a matter of time before an accident occurs. Sadly, cleaning up space is going to be a lot harder than clearing up litter down here on Earth.
1 Mar 2009
Did you see Venus?
VENUS! As seen from my bedroom window!
Story from Space.com
It has been a superb winter for viewing the queen of the planets, Venus. February marks the pinnacle of its evening visibility as it stands like a sequined showgirl nearly halfway up in the western sky at sunset.
You can't miss it. Just look west after sunset. In fact, you can see it during the day if you know where to look. Find it just after sunset one evening, then scan around the same spot just before sunset the next day.
Currently shining at its greatest brilliance for this current apparition, this dazzling evening "star" currently appears as a distinct crescent shape in small telescopes, which is growing progressively larger in size as it approaches our Earth; its cloudy disk is now about one-fourth illuminated and shrinking nightly but right now its diminishing phase exactly offsets the gain in brightness from its growing apparent size. It is what astronomers call the "greatest illuminated extent" of this planet's disk.
On Friday night, Feb. 27, a lovely crescent moon will appear to snuggle up close to Venus, particularly for skywatchers across the Western Hemisphere. It will make for an eye-catching scene as the two brightest sky objects of the night dominate the early evening scene for about three hours after sundown; even those who do not normally look up will likely have their attention drawn to this "dynamic duo" during their normal commute home from work or school.
It really was a wonderful sight!!!
Story from Space.com
It has been a superb winter for viewing the queen of the planets, Venus. February marks the pinnacle of its evening visibility as it stands like a sequined showgirl nearly halfway up in the western sky at sunset.
You can't miss it. Just look west after sunset. In fact, you can see it during the day if you know where to look. Find it just after sunset one evening, then scan around the same spot just before sunset the next day.
Currently shining at its greatest brilliance for this current apparition, this dazzling evening "star" currently appears as a distinct crescent shape in small telescopes, which is growing progressively larger in size as it approaches our Earth; its cloudy disk is now about one-fourth illuminated and shrinking nightly but right now its diminishing phase exactly offsets the gain in brightness from its growing apparent size. It is what astronomers call the "greatest illuminated extent" of this planet's disk.
On Friday night, Feb. 27, a lovely crescent moon will appear to snuggle up close to Venus, particularly for skywatchers across the Western Hemisphere. It will make for an eye-catching scene as the two brightest sky objects of the night dominate the early evening scene for about three hours after sundown; even those who do not normally look up will likely have their attention drawn to this "dynamic duo" during their normal commute home from work or school.
It really was a wonderful sight!!!
13 Feb 2009
12 Feb 2009
What a beautiful day!
When I woke up this morning, this was the view. A beautiful pink & mauve sky...
and then three deer appeared!
and my backyard when I got home.
It's been a beautiful day!
and then three deer appeared! It started snowing again at lunch and this was the view from my desk at work.
and my backyard when I got home.It's been a beautiful day!
20 Jan 2009
24 Nov 2008
First Snow!
This weekend saw the first snow of winter ~ and it fell all Friday night and during Saturday. Fantastic! A real "winter wonderland" feeling! I loved it and immediately started playing Christmas Carols.
Still snowing that night!
Streets full of snow.
The sky full of snow...
Marshall checking out the falling snow from the safety of the lounge room
(and yes that IS snow on his head).
(and yes that IS snow on his head).
Still snowing that night!
Streets full of snow. 2 Oct 2008
5 Jun 2008
Now this is a Bridge!
The Millau viaduct is part of the new E11 expressway connecting Paris and Barcelona and features the highest bridge piers ever constructed.
The tallest is 240 meters (787 feet) high and the overall height is an impressive 336 meters (1102 feet), making this the highest bridge in the world. It is taller than the Eiffel Tower!!
Intriguingly, the Millau Viaduct is not straight. A straight road could induce a sensation of floating for drivers, which a slight curve remedies. The curve is 20km in range. Moreover, the road has a light incline of 3% to improve the visibility and reassure the driver.
It is an amazing engineering feat!
The tallest is 240 meters (787 feet) high and the overall height is an impressive 336 meters (1102 feet), making this the highest bridge in the world. It is taller than the Eiffel Tower!!
Intriguingly, the Millau Viaduct is not straight. A straight road could induce a sensation of floating for drivers, which a slight curve remedies. The curve is 20km in range. Moreover, the road has a light incline of 3% to improve the visibility and reassure the driver.
It is an amazing engineering feat!
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