Take a look at

... this article.

And finally

I'm tired. I hope that this blog entry makes sense! I can proudly state that I've submitted two papers this week, but am only just keeping my eyes open! I don't have much on tomorrow (except Mike's birthday party), but will be playing the Mahler and Strauss concert on Sunday. I've been getting too excited about the holiday to describe what has been happening recently. Lots! For instance, Kate, Maureen and I had a wonderful evening a few days ago playing the Brahms' piano trio.

Anyway back to the holiday. On the last day, Jonathan drove us back to Sydney via the Borenore Caves. I've driven past these caves on numerous occasions, but never had the time to visit. We drove down a dirt road for a few hundred metres before getting out near the caves. They were stunning! I've never been somewhere in which there is no safety at all. Don't read this mum -- if there was a rock fall then there would have been no way that we could have got out. Following the adventurous Tiffany (who admittedly had the only torch) we crawled through passages, climbed up rocks, pushed our way through small holes (I'm going on a diet before the next trip).

According to a website that I've just found, the area around the Borenore caves "contains a large diversity of karst morphological and sedimentological features, including speleothems, a 14m high scalloped arch, a through cave, and residual pillars." So there!

This site goes on to tell me " The Borenore Caves area is overlain by a Tertiary basalt lava flow, derived from nearby Mount Canobolas." which may, or may not, answer Tiffany's question about why there were black streaks throughout the rocks.

It's really hard to describe the experience of being in such a stunning spot (although at the time I was just hoping that the torch battery wouldn't fail and that I would fit through the next hole that we were heading towards).

After leaving the caves we drove home (with a short stop in Blackheath for lunch). Just down from the mountains we passed our 1000km mark for the holiday - well driven Jonathan! It was fun. Jonathan has some more photos in his photo gallery (including some really crazy-looking photos obtained using high dynamic range imaging).

A related interlude ....

Australian researchers have found an embryo in a fish that lived 375 million years ago.

onwards to Parkes

Jonathan and I like Parkes! We were only there a week or two ago, but came back for a holiday! I've driven to Parkes heaps of times now and I still get excited on the road trying to be the first person to spot the telescope (in fact, this is a bit unfair as I know exactly where it is!).

Dick and Sarah were observing. Dick seemed very amused that Jonathan and I had turned up. Anyway, he was very friendly and didn't mind us looking around the control room. We all headed off to see a film (which was reasonably good, but rather old) about the dish and then for a walk around inside. As the dish was observing, we couldn't get on to the surface, but did climb up a ladder to get up as far as the Master Equatorial room.

As the Sun started to set we went outside to take sunset photos of the dish - although I now realise that I only have one photo that includes the dish! I blame Tiffany for her photo suggestions! Later we planned to head straight into the city, but got so distracted by the kangaroos and then the stars that we spent ages looking for shooting stars and satellites. I was trying to sound impressive and naming the stars, but they soon realised that I was making it all up. Oh well, I should go travelling with people who are a little more gullible.

We drove back in the town to have an enjoyable Thai meal before heading around to J.S.'s house. He managed to impress Christine as his name is in the credits of the film "The Dish" and actually controlled the telescope during the filming. We had fun with his family and dragged out his optical telescope to look at the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the craters on our own moon.

... and back to the hotel. The last installment should come tomorrow. Jonathan drove us back to Sydney via the stunning Borenore caves ...

A continuation of the holiday

Well ... here we go. We start off in Canberra, but (without getting lost) quickly head off towards Yass. There's not much to see in Yass, but the countryside is stunning. Our first stop was in Boorowa (or someplace similar). We went to a small cafe with a very friendly owner (who had lots of photos of Outer Mongolia up on the wall) to warm ourselves up on coffee and hot chocolates.

The first major stop on our trip (after driving through Cowra - which is interesting because it was a POW camp in the second World war and had the largest breakout in modern military history in which 231 Japanese soldiers died. It now has the largest Japanese Garden in the Southern Hemisphere and the town slogan is the "World's friendliest town" or something similar) was a few hours later when we arrived in Canowindra (pronounced Canaundra).

What a place! Canowindra is rather small, but has one of the best museums that I've been in. The "age of fishes" museum should be World famous. Unfortunately it isn't. We were welcomed at the gate as if we were the first visitors in a very long time! The museum is close to where an ancient billabong dried up (about 360 million years ago) leaving thousands upon thousands of dead fish. What a view into life in the Devonian era. The museum was brilliantly set-out. I came away imaging the river flowing past, the billabong slowly drying and the armoured fish swimming around ...

After lunch in a rather interesting pub where Jonathan may well have got food poisoning in the "Beerandbullshit corner" and they had a copy of the notice for a 4000 pound reward for the capture of "John Gilbert, John O'Mealley, Benjamin Hall and John Vane", we headed off towards Parkes.

We checked in at the Spanish Lantern motel before heading straight up to the telescope.

More to come ...

Have a few minutes

I've got a few minutes before heading off for orchestra and so I thought that I'd write a bit more about our holiday. We were tired at the end of the first day. Jonathan, Tiffany and I drove to Canberra after work. Unfortunately it was dark for quite a bit of the way, but we did manage to get a stunning view of the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds from a stopping point overlooking Lake George. There's an interesting discussion going on about how Lake George manages to spend most of its time empty, but then suddenly fill up with water: "Many urban myths have been started about the lake being connected to other lakes in Peru or South Africa and there is a little grain of truth in it," Mr Nancarrow says. Anyway, we couldn't see any water and it was terribly cold, so after staring at the stars for a while we got back in the car to continue towards Canberra.

Oh dear - I got us very lost. I blame Google maps which seems to contain roads that don't exist and not contain roads that do exist. Eventually we found University House, checked in and then went to see the sights of Canberra. Every street we walked down seemed empty, but every bar and cafe was full. We had our second dinner of the evening in a nice restaurant (that served Crackenback pale ale - it's wonderful) being forced to listen to some very loud (but quite good) guitar playing - the musician held the guitar horizontally on his lap and played with a shot glass!

After ambling around a little more we all decided that we were tired and so headed off back to the hotel.

The photos attached to this blog are meant to build up excitement about the next day (it's hard to make Canberra seem very exciting - especially as it was dark and cold).

Another wonderful holiday

Jonathan, Tiffany, Christine and I have just completed another wonderful holiday (although, I guess, Christine's holiday hasn't quite finished as she'll be on a bus to Canberra at the moment). I'll write more later, but this is a quick summary. Jonathan, Tiffany and I drove down to Canberra after work on Friday. We stayed in the University House in Canberra (Canberra is so, so cold!). On Saturday morning we met up with Christine and then drove through some wonderful country to Canowindra (which has a stunning museum - more later) and onwards to Parkes. We looked around "The Dish" before returning to the town of Parkes and spending the evening with John S. (looking at Saturn, Jupiter and the moon through his telescope). This morning we set off back towards Sydney and stopped at the dramatic Borenore caves. A few photos are attached - more to come.

Waiting ...

Still waiting for the people to turn up to inspect my house again. It's moderately tidy. I just discovered the "Global Peace Index of 2008" which lists the most "peaceful" countries. Australia is at number 27, the UK at 49 and the USA at 97. Apparently the most "peaceful" country is Iceland!

The weekend was fun. I was playing music on Sunday basically from 10am until 10pm. With the TOPS orchestra we rehearsed Mahler 4 and Strauss' Tod und Verklarung. Later a group of us ended up at Maureen's house for a little chamber concert. We performed a Vivaldi cello sonata, the first movement of Borodin's 2nd quartet, the first movement of Beethoven's Ghost piano trio, the Brahms clarinet trio, a Beethoven piano quartet and the Mozart clarinet quintet.

On Monday, I went to the Beecroft orchestra where we were rehearsing Beethoven's 7th Symphony.

Still waiting ... they'd better turn up!

A photo!

Haven't put a photo on my blog for a while, so here goes ... This photo is of my new toy! An iPod. It's fun although I keep upsetting myself by listening to violin/piano and violin/cello music. I'm playing a Mahler symphony with TOPS tomorow, followed by performing the Mozart clarinet quintet in concert. Too many memories :(

On a non-emotional topic --- I'm having awful trouble trying to implement a Wiener filter and my potato is taking ages to cook.

Ups and downs

I was tired this morning. However, I did manage to get up and take a ridiculously long bus ride to Parramatta to have my medical and X-ray for my Australian Visa. After fuelling up on a huge cooked breakfast I went in for the fastest medical ever ... walk through door ... "take all your clothes off" ... "stand on one leg with your eyes shut" ... needle jabbed into arm for an HIV test ... X-ray taken ... all done.

Admittedly when the doctor said things like "take all your clothes off and stand in the corner on one leg with your eyes shut", I did stand in the corner worrying about whether I had misheard the request.

Anyway, I then returned via the post-office where my divorce stuff had been returned because both M. and I had not written our names on the form exactly as they were on the marriage certificate ... **** (insert swear word). Now I need to get more forms signed in front of solicitors by both M. and myself (insert another few swear words for good measure) before the procedure will continue.

Samantha and I (+ whoever will join us) are going to jump out of a plane (hopefully with a parachute attached) on Thursday 5th of June.

A hint ...

... don't try to work whilst listening to Flamenco music. "Que se ven desde el Conquero" is a tad distracting.

What's the point of a blog?

Feeling rather strange again today. Keeping this blog seems really strange. I cannot write down the most important things because a blog is so public and yet I have no interest in keeping the equivalent of a locked diary. I'm being slowly swamped by forms at the moment. Even though I got through a lot today, I still seem to be getting behind.

Work is great, but again is just building up. I'm proud to have been chosen to write an important document that could affect the future science that is carried out at Parkes. However, this needs to be done properly and I discovered twice today that I couldn't even remember my telephone number! On a positive note, I discovered that my Hirsch factor for paper citations has gone up today to 18 with my top paper now having more than 162 citations (this is the paper that Maryam is also on). I'm slowly managing to relax - this evening I had an enjoyable coffee with Kate at the new coffee shop near my house, enjoyed a pie and chips and now am back at work to tidy up a few loose ends.

Jonathan, his sister, Christine and I are planning to spend a weekend driving around - hopefully we'll get to Parkes, a fossil museum that I'd love to see and spend some time at the Jenolean Caves.

urgg

What a day.

Still stressed ...

I've decided that I need a relaxing holiday. I flew into Parkes yesterday to attend a workshop here. I gave my talk this morning (a bit later than expected as I slept through my alarm clock - sorry Rob!).

The teachers really enjoyed themselves and my talk went well. Not much more to write at the moment - I'm trying to finish off heaps of work.

I'm panicking

I'm getting rather stressed. My Australia VISA expires next month and I don't yet have a replacement. The replacement permanent residency visa is complicated because I'm still married, ... Gosh this is complicated ... I hate forms.

I'm also trying to do a million different projects all at once. On a positive note, I sent around another (final?) draft of my paper today. Also, I've been invited to speak at both the student conference in Freemantle and the large Australian Society of Astronomy conference in Perth in July. I'm booking a train ticket back to Sydney on the Indian-Pacific train (with sleeper cabin!).

In reply to Peter's comment on my previous blog: yes, registax is not available for the Mac :( However, here is another image of the LMC and the Galaxy above that Jonathan and I took at Parkes. I'm going to Parkes again on Saturday to give a talk at the teacher workshop (flying in and driving out). I also am meant to fly down to somewhere called Wahdonga (or something similar) to give another talk in a month or two.

More fun with the camera!

Wow! Jonathan and I have just been playing around with his camera and produced the image below! This was built up from 15, long (30 second) exposures of the stunning sky we have here at the moment. We used Keith's image stacker to de-rotate the sky (as the camera was only on a simple camera mount). If you look very carefully then you can see the Southern Cross in the centre of the picture. The dark bit below the Southern Cross is the "Coalsack nebula". You can also make out some other cool nebulae!

Remember, this was done with a simple digital camera and normal tripod!

The stars

Jonathan has just managed to get some great photos of the stars (using simply his camera and a tripod). He has photographed the Milky Way (see picture above) and has even managed to photograph the large and small Magallanic clouds. The stars are absolutely stunning tonight (the naked eye view is just as impressive as the photograph - the Milky Way is going directly overhead)!

A Willy-Willy in Central Australia

I forgot to mention the new experience of hitting a "willy-willy" in a little car (when driving near Alice Springs)! I'd better explain quickly that a "willy-willy" is an Aboriginal word for a dust devil. According to wikipedia dust devils "form when hot air near the surface rises quickly through a small pocket of cooler low pressure air above it. If conditions are just right, the air may begin to rotate." They typically have winds that reach about 70km/hr. It certainly knocked our car to the side!

(Click on the panorama above for a larger view of the area around "The Dish")

Dubbo zoo

Another strange, but generally enjoyable day! To celebrate getting some good work done yesterday we decided to go to Dubbo zoo. The last time I was there was one of the last trips that I had with M. and therefore the whole experience was rather upsetting. Oh well! The zoo was as stunning as I'd remembered. The Fairy Wren in the photo was just flying around, but looked as beautiful as the rest of the animals and birds.

I am now an expert on the mating habits of the Giant Galapagas tortoise! They make a lot of noise. (By the way for any readers of my blog who happen to live in Wales then take a look at this web site!)

The drive from Parkes was also fun (about 100km in each direction).

Tonight, Rutger and I have been updating the tempo2 software package to make it implement a Bayesian fitting algorithm. We've almost got it working. Tomorrow we're on the long shift until 4am!