Bills Posts

When a meteor hits the atmosphere, it does so at typically speeds of 70 miles per second. While not relativistic (that is, comparable to the speed of light – 186,280 mps-ish) it is still pretty fast.

When this happens a lot of heat is generated. The object will typically be metallic. It’ll melt the rock, and it will shed particles. Those particles will fall to earth as a micrometeorite. The game is finding them.

These things are small, dust sized particles. But they have two important characteristics that aid in their discovery and identification;

• They are usually magnetic (although they can be glass) and
• They tend to be spherical,

Neither of these properties are exclusive to micrometeorites so a degree of close examination is required, and sometimes you have to resort to special means to confirm, involving Scanning Electron Microscopes.

So, how do you find the little beasties? Knowing where to look is useful. Any undisturbed flat space is good. Any flat Roofs of shops and factories. I haven’t had the bottle to approach any of these in Gosport so far, and there are a few.

You could start in the guttering of your conservatory, whilst the roof of your conservatory isn’t flat, and of course rain washes things, they can get trapped. One other important fact; it is averaged that one micrometeoroid per square metre per year. So there are a lot of them about. My next post on this topic will talk about the process of finding them and identifying them.

I think that the urge to write is as strong today, as it was when I started the 366 project, and here we are two months beyond the conclusion of that project, and one thing I was quite clear about was my desire to continue to write after its conclusion. I’ve done that through this blog and what I write on Facebook.

I’ve written in the past about the Fantasy Holiday that I’ve been running on FB, this week for example we are in Nebraska, I don’t know very much about the state, but doing the FH exercise has massively increased my awareness of the USA, and there are places that I would very much like to visit in most states. Will I ever? Who knows. There are now only 5 or six states left to visit, and I will be finishing and take a break for Christmas.

I broached the topic of another FH with Elayne for 2022, and her response was yes, absolutely. Well, I do have an idea, and I am making some preparations for it, but I’m not going to announce any detail here, I am going to raise it first on FB. I’m not planning to do it (FH22) here. Should I?

One thing that I have become aware of is that some of my posts since 366 have been more than a bit wobbly and feeble. I acknowledge that I have (not always) lost focus. I did have some ideas about how I’m going to manage this, I need to revisit those.

Heavy clouds to the south, clouds but lighter to the north. It rained briefly, although stopped further water from the sky is promised. We’ve just had breakfast, and now we are deciding what to do. I was worried that there were no birds, but all of a sudden there was a flurry of activity on the fence, and the little bundles of feathers arrived with their usual flurry. They seem to have disappeared, but I know they are around because the birdseed in the feeders is going down and will need topping up soon.

Elayne has said that we aren’t going in to the garden this morning, so I can go for a walk if I wish, and I do wish. No sign of the starlings. I think I have stopped the pigeons from getting on to the table. They don’t even seem to be trying this morning. Oh, no – hang on, there’s one on the roof of the table now had another go, and now appears to have given up. The sparrows are flitting backwards and forwards across the garden. It’s lovely to see them.

The Victoria of Wight is doing something unusual, it’s gone right up past the aircraft carrier and is doing the north turn now. is it going to turn round and come back or is it going carry on to a linkspan at Port of Portsmouth? That makes me wonder if the Camber itself is perhaps closed for some reason? Because that is definitely not normal behaviour. When I got back, I checked, and there is essential maintenance happening at the normal ferry port, so Wight Link are using the port.

A ship carrying refrigerated containers is called a Reefer. Such a ship is the Duncan Island, at about 180m in length not a huge container ship, but one which was an appropriate size for coming in to the harbour.

The tide was well up, with the high level literally only a few minutes away. The ship gently glided in to the well sheltered harbour where the water was moving slowly and lazily, escorted by tugs fore and aft.

She would be bearing containers that are giant freezers, bringing fruit and veg in to what is one of the largest harbours & busiest ports in the country for that kind of produce.

The Duncan Island represents one particular type of ship that regularly attends the port. There are the regular ferries, three types; local within the port, further abroad to the Isle of Wight, both vehicle and pedestrian, and to the Channel Islands, and international.

I always enjoy watching any ship come in to the harbour or indeed going out. It’s nice to know that the port is busy, and it is a pleasure to watch the movements of the different vessels..

The weather has been pretty consistent this week. With some changes to the cloud, and starting off quite cold and warming up toward today, now what’s it going to be like tomorrow?

The major frustration this week has been the tripod strap. I really need to do something about this. Now, the frustration is that I don’t want to have to mess around undoing the straps because they are more than a bit fiddly.

There was a complete lack of wind this morning. To the extent that I felt it necessary to blow on the blades to make sure that the anemometer was working, even though I could feel quite clearly that there was no wind.

That gave rise to a completely calm cocklepond, and resulting in tonight’s header picture, which really could be flipped over and I think to you would be pushed to tell.

It probably shows tonight that I was a little bit blocked, as I waffled on about nothing consequential. Thanks for putting up with me.

My initial thought was to do a quite heavy crop on this picture, but then when I really looked at it, I saw what appears to be almost a feeling of motion toward the centre of the frame. How about this one;

Here’s the Normandie coming in through the Portsmouth Harbour entrance. I think the lighting is quite pleasant and it is a moderately interesting subject. Worthy of a picture. And here is another one;

This is the view across the water of Portsmouth Harbour to the Spinnaker, middle-centre left is HMS Warrior, and middle-far left you can just make out the tops of the half masts of HMS Victory, I believe the main part of her masts are being refurbished.

Now, what Io have done with these three photos is shown you what I have always treated as the main subjects for photographing on my morning walks. When it comes to night photography I’m very aware that I have been very self-limiting in my subjects. Even now, you will still see many more pictures of these three subjects – the weather will never be the same as it was when these were taken (ok, it might be similar).

I want to be a little bit more adventurous than I have been so hopefully you might see more pictures of different subjects. Now I’m not promising that these pictures will be any good. But as you well know, sometimes you take a picture not expecting much and they turn out to be not bad. Well, that’s my hope anyway.

A problem I have is my lack of artistic (Hah!) originality, so this is going to be an interesting experiment, just bear with me.

I’m sat in my comfy chair, waiting for the next episode of Spooks to start, when Elayne drops some chocolate coins into my lap. The left over of a Women’s Institute Christmas preparation. “Don’t eat them all in one go” she says, Hah!

There’s this thing about chocolate that makes it completely addictive. As long as there is chocolate within reach it has to be eaten. Now, all of the coins have go. Did I eat them all in one go, you bet I did! That’s the thing about chocolate any effort to control its consumption is I am sad to say doomed to failure. That’s why we try not to have it in the house. Just occasionally the system fails.

I mentioned on a previous post that during our holiday in Pagham we paid a visit to Littlehampton, along the riverfront,there was a very nice promenade, at the end of which, near the lifeboat station was a very nice cafe.

I’m saying this because Gosport also has a very nice promenade, and it also has a very nice waterfront cafe. Unfortunately, the two are not together.

Now, it’;s not often that I say something political, but;There are plans to redevelope the bus station, it’s a 1960s carbuncle that has served its purpose and really needs to be pulled down and redeveloped into something much more attractive and useful. Now the big question is does the Gosport Borough Council have the gumption to do what is right?

Well, that’s the question isn’t it.

This is looking to the west at about 0645. There’s something about the light that appeals to me.

I haven’t spoken about the books that I’m reading at the moment, I have two on the go; the book about village life I tend to read at breakfast, the book about portsmouth, and the book by Danny Sullivan about Ley Lines. Now, I’m tempted to say don’t worry, I’m not falling in to some mystical weirdness, I just think it’s a nice idea and is fascinating to read about. Now, the book is branching out a bit to talk about UFO’s but I’ll stick with it. I can’t explain my interest in the whole ley line thing. Partly it’s because of things like Stone Henge, or the Avebury Ring and the apparently obvious (geographical?) relationship between them.

The book about Portsmouth is fascinating, at the moment it is talking about life in the 18th century, which was pretty rough, especially in an over-populated coastal town with poor sanitation, disease rife, and the possibility of being picked off by a press gang ever present.

I’m never really sure why I have two books (and some times I’ve had three I think) on the go. Usually, it’s because I can’t make up my mind which one to read first. Sometimes it develops into I’m finding this one the most interesting, so that becomes the focus, other times, like this one – I remain on both books.

Yesterday, we spent most of the day in the garden getting it ready for winter. We haven’t finished, and will probably give it another good going next weekend. Still even though I did a quick walk in to town to get lunch from Greggs (yes, we were a bit naughty) which is only about a mile and a half. Even so, I managed to clock up over 22,500 steps, and only about 4,000 of those were the trip in to town. It goes to show just how much exercise is involved in a bit of gardening.

Today was a bit different, a bit more relaxed. By the time we’d been to the garden centre for lunch, and I had been to B&Q to see if I could get the wood for the baseboard on my model railway (I couldn’t, but it’s OK I can wait), I had only managed to clock up a few thousand steps, I do try to aim for 10,000 but unless I went for a walk I wasn’t going to do that. Anyhow, come 5PM I decided that I needed to take a quick walk, so headed off to the promenade via the cockleponds. A very pleasant 2.5 miles and enough to take me over the 10,000.

Looks like the weather is going to be dry in the mornings for the week ahead, so provided I wake up in time, it should be a week of morning & lunchtime walks – good for the mileage.

I think this brings to a close a rather pleasant weekend. I must admit that by the end of the day in the garden I was flagging, and it was nice to stop. I sat down with a cup of tea and nearly fell asleep, but after a nice refreshing shower, I felt as right as rain, and went on to have a lovely zoom with some old friends. So, both days appear to be ending well. Bit frustrated about the wood, but on a scale of L>H, 1-10, I’m at L2, so not a disaster by any means. One thing I will need to do though, is get to grips with a Dremel. Not been massively successful so far, but I can learn.

I know that the title is a bit strange, I’ll explain;

In 2016 I became a licensed radio ham. If you are licensed, you’ll know how to look me up, my callsign was M6BBB, it’s still registered to me, I’m now an intermediate. This is important, because being a radio ham has introduced me to a whole new language.

If you hear a radio ham refer to the station manager, they are almost invariably referring to their spouse or partner whom they live with. The Station manager needs to be patient and understanding if not, they can make the life of the amateur unbearable. I am incredibly lucky. My station manager is incredibly understanding and patient. But, woe betide me if I let my shack get untidy, or if my antennas get in the way in the garden.

What about the 73’s? Well, that comes from something called the Phillips Code, developed in 1879 by the American Journalist Walter P. Phillips called a brevity code, it shortened they way of saying things to make messages easier and quicker to send.

The numerical values of the Phillips code are a later extension to the original code, and there are two which are still heavily used by radio amateurs these are; “88” (said as Eight Eight, not Eighty Eight) Which means “Hugs and Kisses” and “73” (similarly, always said as “Seven Three’s”, very rarely as “Seventy Three.” This means “Best Wishes” or “Best Regards.”

Now, the problem that. Both the terms Station Manager and 73 have a habit with me of creeping in to everyday life. I have actually typed 73’s at the end of a works email, luckily I’ve realised what I’ve done and managed to catch it before sending. I’ve also referred to Elayne as the Station Manager in a normal conversation raising questions of “Who?” I could see this becoming a bit embarrassing, but fun!