Where's Chug?

Some people have asked me what's happened to the narrowboat normally in CanalCam's view. Well, that battleship grey boat (as was) is knows as Chug, and was last seen just a bit further upstream by the Wool Road Transhipment Warehouse sporting a bit of a new paint job, and looking rather smart for it.

Well here's hoping that Chug will return soon to brighten up CanalCam a bit

Zen and the Art of Triv

If you're snowed in and looking for something to spend a few minutes of your time on. Take a look at Boddhizazen Zen Buddhism blog - I thought it'd be really heavy going, but actually it's quite easy to understand. Big Thumbs up!

I'm Dreaming of a White CanalCam

Today we were blessed with the first snow (this side of June) in t'Uppermill.
So, just in case you missed it, here's a CanalCam view from earlier

Yes I know that everyone else had it at the weekend, but Saddleworth seems to have its own micro climate and I've not found anyone's weather forecast to be right for us, in fact most weather sites seem to group us in with Oldham (which we are not!)

Oh well, fingers crossed that we get sent home after lunch - just like they used to do at school!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bear

What kind of an ejit wanders round the HNC when it's pitch black and freezing cold?
Well, the kind that wants to take photos of stars on such a beautiful crisp clear night!.




Yes, dear HNCCB visitor (thanks - you're the only one today!) here's my pic of Ursa Major (the Great Bear) on the right, with Ursa Minor (Little Bear) - top left.
Didn't quite go high enough, but the top tip should be Polaris (the North Star) - which is always...well...erm.... North!
Yeah, I know they don't look much like bears

You'll probably need to click on the images to see the stars - the right hand picture shows my attempt to draw the constellations on top of the stars

Below here is the view East where you can see Orion






The curvy right hand bit is his bow - the three diagonal stars are the famous "Orion's Belt" - heard a rumour recently that all three stars had simultaneously, instantaneously gone Nova, then to singluarities (black holes) - but turned out that Irene was looking at the wrong bit of sky - phew, thank heavens for that - literally!

The three vertical stars below Orion's belt are his sword. Incedentally - his left hand shoulder is a star called Betelgeuse - cool name, probably why Tim Burton choose it for his film

Ooh yeah - and just off to the top left of this picutre is Gemini - and no it's not related to the failed UK Eurovision act

To find out more about our night sky, I recommend you download a copy of Stellarium

How Jumbo Jets Fly

It was fairly foggy this morning - seems that it's come North from France.
Yesterday in Pairs it was also quite foggy and as my plane taxied towards the runway I noticed that the moisture in the air was condensing back into clouds as the pressure briefly dropped above aircraft wings.
Quite an amazing sight and also helps explain how jumbo jets fly....
By making the air travel further above the wing that below it, the air pressure above lowers.
With higher pressure below the wing it pushes the wing and the rest of the plane into the air.

Or something like that - then again, Jumbo jets are so huge I think they need a bit of magic to help as well.




OK, I know this second one isn't a 747, but it was quite pretty.
Back to local pictures for a while now!

Sunrise as HNC enters Saddleworth

Driving to work this morning, happened to notice that the sun had just risen over a beautiful frosty view (brrrr it was cold - about minus 4 !)
- drove along a few hundred meters to find that the hill's altitude between me and the sun had "gone up a bit" - so the sun hadn't quite risen - and got a lucky second chance to snap this nice view

HNC is about 1/3 of the way up the cromssing from - right hand side towards Stalybridge, left hand side towards Uppermill.

Sorry, probably no posts this weekend - I'm away on business again - gay Paris this time - shucks!

Cold Still and Quiet

At least for a few weeks we can expect it to be pretty quiet round here, as there are quite a few canal stoppages just down the canal from here towards Ashton - with no easy way past, I wouldn't expect to see too many narrowboats passing CanalCam over the next few weeks.

As nice looking as narrowboats are, fortunately, there are many other pretty things to snap as Autumn turns to winter.

Today was a beautiful clear day, bright, quite still and quite cool - turning chilly as night drew in -


now just below freezing - I hope we can look forward to some frozen canal pictures soon enough.

Unfortunately, working hours mean that my photography is somewhat limited to nighttime shots during the week - but roll on the weekends!!

This is what home is all about

Ahh, I love the weekends - after a busy week at work - a few days business in Vienna (yep, Austria - International giggolo that I am, but it meant nothing to me) It's really nice to click those ruby slippers and get back home to a loving wife, dogs, a warm fire and surroundings that you know really well and feel comfortable with.

Fun as other places are to visit, there's nothing quite like getting out on a Saturday afteroon, walking along the canal, starting through packs of tourists feeding beercans to the ducks - see the pic


(Try saying "beercan" without sounding like a Jamaican person saying "bacon")
OK, they probably weren't really feeding it to the ducks, though no doubt the ducks would be up for it anyway, much like the dogs - they really do seem to eat anything you throw to them.

So where was I? - Oh yes, leaving the bustling village, and people eating Buckley's pies, then working your way out to the peaceful countryside, it really puts things into perspective.



As the sun is just beginning to set, you turn round for home - a glorious golden colour fills the sky and reflects off the rippling water as a lonesome duck comes to join you - sorry mate, I'm fresh out of beercans!

Autumnal Scene

This shows off the leaves really well by Wade Lock in Uppermill.
5 Years ago, this place looked like a... well, it looked like a building site
... because it was a building site!
Now it looks like it's been there forever.

There are still quite a few leaves left on the trees to come off - maybe we'll get some better pictures this weekend.

Dog Raspberries

Went for a nice walk this afternoon to find some Autumnal canal pictures.
The dogs loved rooting round in the wet leaves and undergrowth. Got some nice pictures that I'll show off later this week, but had to share this beauty with you straight away - didn't even notice at the time what they were both doing as these licks happen in the blink of an eye - although normally they're saved for when they get up close to your face and you're not expecting them - yuk!

Fireworks

Went to Martin's annual bonfire party tonight - once again a spectacular explosion fest!!

Took some time-lapse photos of fireworks, but sadly, they're a bit over exposed.
I figure that I get to practise my fireworks photography once every 365 days, so I might have it sussed by the turn of the century.

Mucky Puppies

At last, the weekend and daylight!
Having said that it's a bit of a dull day today, rather muddy from all the rain, but the dogs seemed to enjoy the mess all the same. I'll save some of the other pictures for those cold dark autumnal nights later this week.

I also tested the gods of fate by getting a couple of miles away from home then running out of camera battery power. Was half expecting to see a flock of heron socialising with some kingfishers, but no such luck - just quite a lot of mud and drizzle instead. CanalCam blog welcomes those browsers from warmer climates and says - yeah OK, we're jealous!

Ooh yes, I'm due a correction as well from my last post, apparently, squiggels don't hibernate - they just become quite moody and antisocial during the winter time

Remember, remember those meddling squiggles

Well, for those of you who aren't from England, you might not know that November 5th is a celebrated English event called "Bonfire Night" - long story about this chap called "old man" Guy Fawkes-Rivers who ran the local amusement park and wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

But didn't get away with it in the end - because of those meddling kids.
Now we celebrate his failure with bonfires, fireworks, pies and peas (for some bizarre reason)

Here's hoping that the weather will improve on the evening of the 5th so I can take some fireworks timelapse pictures.

In the mean time, here's a cute squiggle that I saw by the canal earlier this year, I haven't seen many of these guys recently, I guess they've gone into hibernation now.

Enough of the Scooby Doo stuff - let's try some British Irony:
Classic Blackadder including "as dead as that squirrel" - "what squirrel" - BANG - "eep, thud" sketch

A Mars a day helps you work rest and play

Tried to take a photo of Mars tonight in all its glory.

This is the best of a poor bunch with a 300mm lens (not actually that big), well you can see the round shape and the colour's about right (maybe a little pale) but it's lacking in detail - I guess that's something to do with Earth's atmosphere interfering or something.

Still nice to have it so dark along the canal that you can take pictures like this without ambient streetlights interfering.

Some room for improvement here I think!

tinterweb.com Spam

I'm afraid that some spammer has wrongfully taken my tinterweb.com domain name and used it to send out spam messages.
I am slowly recoving from a vast set of undeliverable messages in my inbox - I dread to think how many have been delivered and are annoying people.

If you receive such spam from some vandal using my domain name, I can only apologise and say wholeheartedly that I have nothing to do with it, please ignore/delete the mesage.

I have reported this incident to my Internet Service Providers in the hope there is some way to prevent genuine messages from my domain being blacklisted.

More Spectral Hounds

Tried more painting with light tonight again too - the Spectral Hounds didn't come out quite as well as last time, but it's a bigger pack this time!

Mars the god of Chocolate.

Just in case you haven't heard the news, Mars was recently as close to us (and hence as bright) as it will get for another 13 years.

For the next few nights, look east soon after sunset, the brightest spot in the sky will be Mars - unless you're looking at a street light - or the moon!

I subscribe to Space Weather, and the nice people send me regular emails to let me know about cool things like this, OK so the timings are American and some events like eclipses are localised, but mostly space there is space here is space everywhere!