Ducks are very sociable creatures. We fly together. We eat together. We swim together. We also like making new friends. That's why I am so excited by the prospect of meeting some more of Ryszard and Ro's China Friends! Sure I've met a few of them before and taken to them like a duck to water. Sorry did I just write that? Ha, ha! I've been around humans too much!
But it's always nice to meet some more. But friendships shouldn't be taken for granted. Take my twin brother Chuck Spaceduck. We got on so well as ducklings. But something changed and ever since then he's waddled around with a chip on his shoulder. I only wish I knew what put his beak out of joint. His slightly evil tendencies worry me...
Ryszard asked me to write an algorithm to work out the best time and place to meet based on current locations of his friends nests, so that each has the shortest journey possible. I reported to him that the best time and place to meet is July 11th 2010 on Easter Island. For some reason, he was not amused!
Anyway keep looking at the stars!
Brad
Thursday 24 September 2009
Saturday 19 September 2009
Charlotte and Martin
So it's been back on the road today. Ryszard, Ro and I went down to sunny and warm Cobham (England) where we had a fantastic time sitting outside one of those quaint pubs that England is famous for.Ryszard remarked that Cobham is the home of the Moody Blues. With the Threshold Music shop on the high street still owned by them.
It was so nice of them to find a pub where duck was not on the menu. I hadn't met Charlotte and Martin before. It has to be said we took to each other like a... well... duck to water. Looking forward to seeing them again at the big China get together.
The conversation briefly turned to astronomy and they mentioned pictures of the International Space Station in the newspapers. That reminded me that on a previous blog I posted a wide-angle picture of it taken by Ryszard and that he was going to try to image it with his telescope. Well he nailed it on September 17th as it flew over Crowthorne. The photo is above and clearly shows (ok a bit fuzzy but when you consider its over 200miles away!) the main body and the solar panel arrays.
It makes me quite nostalgic for my time on the ISS. I will never forget my first space-waddle.
Magic!
Saturday 12 September 2009
Caroline and Ed's
Wow what a fantastic time I had last night at Ed and Caroline's House Warming. I got to meet lots of interesting new humans. Fascinating species! Some of them are 'very friendly' indeed.
You can check the photo's out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gorell
As you can see there was one unfortunate incident. I was ambushed by a Duck and her two Ducklings. She claimed I was the daddy of her brood. She didn't look happy. Anyway we eventually established that it was a case of mistaken identity. She confused me with Chuck Spaceduck my identical (and slightly evil) twin brother. A Duckoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test will sort it all out.
I had a great time singing along to ABBA. I was especially pleased with my rendition of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme! (a duck after midnight) and I Have a Duck.
The evening was only spoilt by two people independently coming up with the same tired old joke. "Why don't you have a Twitter account? ... cos Ducks can't Tweet". Like Dahhhh, I'd never heard that one before.
They should know that Ducks use Quacker which is limited to 128 Quackets of info per post.
Great night - loving this Travelling Companion thang!
You can check the photo's out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gorell
As you can see there was one unfortunate incident. I was ambushed by a Duck and her two Ducklings. She claimed I was the daddy of her brood. She didn't look happy. Anyway we eventually established that it was a case of mistaken identity. She confused me with Chuck Spaceduck my identical (and slightly evil) twin brother. A Duckoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test will sort it all out.
I had a great time singing along to ABBA. I was especially pleased with my rendition of Gimme, Gimme, Gimme! (a duck after midnight) and I Have a Duck.
The evening was only spoilt by two people independently coming up with the same tired old joke. "Why don't you have a Twitter account? ... cos Ducks can't Tweet". Like Dahhhh, I'd never heard that one before.
They should know that Ducks use Quacker which is limited to 128 Quackets of info per post.
Great night - loving this Travelling Companion thang!
Thursday 10 September 2009
Fly-bys!
So as mentioned previously you can see the International Space Station this week! The original plan was for Ryszard to track it with the Telescope but after dashing to and from Birmingham (England) and Manchester (England) this week we decided to go for a wide angle shot. The path of the ISS is the bright line. The shutter closed with the ISS in the constellation of Aquila just below the bright star Altair. (If you double click the picture you can see that Altair has a very blue colour. It also spins really fast, once ever 7 hours!)If truth be told I am not a great fan of Aquila - "the Eagle". Eagles and ducks don't tend to get along that well. As a bonus the shuttle went through a few minutes before.
Still plenty of chances to view!
Monday 7 September 2009
A strange light in the sky
As I write a Space Shuttle is docked with the International Space Station which is whizzing round the earth at an altitude of about 350 kilometres. Even as the duck flies that's a long way away. Now what if I said it was possible to photograph it from your backyard so that you can see its solar panels and living quackers, sorry quarters? Well that's what my Travelling Companion Ryszard is going to attempt later this week. Admittedly he is going to use his telescope to do it. Not easy, as he has to manually track an object that's moving at about 4 miles per second!
Anyway, if you catch at the right time, just after sunset when you are in shadow but it is still illuminated by the sun, it can be a really majestic sight. And bright! It can get about as bright as Jupiter is at the moment (it's that bright light hanging in the south about 10pm). To the naked eye it just looks like a slightly yellow point of light moving silently against the stars taking about 3 minutes to cross the sky.
Mid September is a good time to see it. The following is only a rough guide centered around Corwthorne (but it should hold true for areas around).
September 10th - around 9:00pm about 45 degrees up.
September 11th - around 9:25pm - more overhead.
September 13th - around 8:40pm - almost overhead.
Good luck!
Anyway, if you catch at the right time, just after sunset when you are in shadow but it is still illuminated by the sun, it can be a really majestic sight. And bright! It can get about as bright as Jupiter is at the moment (it's that bright light hanging in the south about 10pm). To the naked eye it just looks like a slightly yellow point of light moving silently against the stars taking about 3 minutes to cross the sky.
Mid September is a good time to see it. The following is only a rough guide centered around Corwthorne (but it should hold true for areas around).
September 10th - around 9:00pm about 45 degrees up.
September 11th - around 9:25pm - more overhead.
September 13th - around 8:40pm - almost overhead.
Good luck!
Thursday 3 September 2009
Duck Linguistics
One of my Facebook friends asked me whether it hurt my beak writing so much. Well there's no need to worry. NASA has supplied me with a headset and translation software so all I need to do is quack and the words just pour onto the page.
As I also explained to another one of my friends, ducks quack Esperanto. Because of its set grammatical structure it translates very accurately. The decision to go with Esperanto was taken quite a few years ago and was brought in to reduce misunderstanding when migrating around the world. I guess it's something you humans could learn from... talking the same language!
Mind you there are some ducks that still quack the old languages. For example, in China there are a number of ducks that still insist on Quacking Mandarin.
As I also explained to another one of my friends, ducks quack Esperanto. Because of its set grammatical structure it translates very accurately. The decision to go with Esperanto was taken quite a few years ago and was brought in to reduce misunderstanding when migrating around the world. I guess it's something you humans could learn from... talking the same language!
Mind you there are some ducks that still quack the old languages. For example, in China there are a number of ducks that still insist on Quacking Mandarin.
Wednesday 2 September 2009
What a wonderful world
If you've been following me on Facebook, you'll know that I've just returned from supervising the launch of the latest Shuttle mission to the ISS. Everything went by the book and now I'm back in Crowthorne (my new home) discussing travel plans with Ryszard. He thinks that it may be later next year before we travel far afield due to the economic situation in the UK at the moment. That's cool. Plenty of feathers in many pies.
It's a great world out there. Even in the locale of Crowthorne there's plenty to see. Over the weekend went into the many woods and Coal-Tits, Great Spotted Woodpeckers and even the glimpse of a Kestrel. Even the walls of Broadmoor Hospital look strangely enigmatic.
On the jet back from the states I got to thinking that this world is great. You just have to look. And all the better that I saw it with eyes that weren't tainted by drugs. Its a great source of strength to me that I did not give in to the dealers in my Neighbourhood. Those scum who peddaled 'Q'. When I think of all those ducklinghood friends, good ducks that went "Daffy". It's something I really passionate about... I would never do Quack Cocaine.
Ryszard and I share the wonder of space. And through my blog I hope to share some of that passion to. See the picture at the top of the opening page to my blog site. I asked Ryszard whether in his library of the astro-photos he's taken he had something that was appropriate. He said "How about the Wild-Duck cluster!" so called 'cos some of the stars are in the shape of a 'V'. I can see it. Can you? Mind you he thought it should be called the "Wild Goose Cluster" in honour of the Wild Goose Pagoda he saw in China.
Anyway it's all out there. If its night-time and the sky is clear look up. If you see a light that doesn't move you've seen a star. Congratulations you've just taken your first waddle in space.
It's a great world out there. Even in the locale of Crowthorne there's plenty to see. Over the weekend went into the many woods and Coal-Tits, Great Spotted Woodpeckers and even the glimpse of a Kestrel. Even the walls of Broadmoor Hospital look strangely enigmatic.
On the jet back from the states I got to thinking that this world is great. You just have to look. And all the better that I saw it with eyes that weren't tainted by drugs. Its a great source of strength to me that I did not give in to the dealers in my Neighbourhood. Those scum who peddaled 'Q'. When I think of all those ducklinghood friends, good ducks that went "Daffy". It's something I really passionate about... I would never do Quack Cocaine.
Ryszard and I share the wonder of space. And through my blog I hope to share some of that passion to. See the picture at the top of the opening page to my blog site. I asked Ryszard whether in his library of the astro-photos he's taken he had something that was appropriate. He said "How about the Wild-Duck cluster!" so called 'cos some of the stars are in the shape of a 'V'. I can see it. Can you? Mind you he thought it should be called the "Wild Goose Cluster" in honour of the Wild Goose Pagoda he saw in China.
Anyway it's all out there. If its night-time and the sky is clear look up. If you see a light that doesn't move you've seen a star. Congratulations you've just taken your first waddle in space.
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