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[Socrates]

Just a little note to say I won't be here (and won't visit CDZ) from Tuesday to Sunday next week. I'm going to an observatory in the Provence hills (they say mountains, but I'd rather say hills ). This is for my studies (I'm in Astronomy and Astrophysics). We will go to bed at 5am every night !!!

So no turns will be played, for either Skyfish and Killer during that time.

[Socrates]

Here is a 1st bunch of pics that I took with my numerical camera, when I was in the observatory in Provence (south of France). All pics from space in this post were taken with the camera behind one of the optical ouput of a 80-cm telescope.


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In case you didn't recognize, this is the Moon during the 1st crescent.


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Shooting Jupiter with flash (why not ?) ; you can see some of its strips on the surface.


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Still Jupiter, but with no flash. The powerful God is so bright !! And you can see what seems to be three of its Galilean satellites.


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Saturn with flash. Too bad that the conversion to a JPG took some light away ; the initial shot was better.


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Saturn with no flash. You can still see its rings, in the middle of this very bright form. Maybe its biggest satellite, Titan, is on the left.


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The night after that, in the 120-cm telescope. The upper part of the telescope.


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Still the 120-cm one. You can see some of its mechanical parts.

Next post will be for pics taken with the 120-cm telescope, but through a CCD.

[Skyfish]

very nice !

[Beam]

Cool pics krys, specially the ones with Titan and 3 of the 4 Galilean satelites in the Jupiter pic. Did you do measeruments as well in order to identify the satelites?

[Socrates]

@ Beam : No we didn't do measurements there, because it was done with the 80cm telescope, which was only for lurking purpose. It would require to know the satellites' positions on their orbits, or to observe them several nights, because you clearly miss one dimension on the picture.

Time for some 3-colour pics from the CCD installed on the 120cm telescope ! As I sometimes can't recall what pics I took personnally (me and another guy, because there were a few groups which rotate on several nights), I suppose these were "my" pics !


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The planetary nebula in Lyra (M57).


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One of the galaxies in the Leo constellation (M66). The 3 layers don't fit nicely, due to atmospheric perturbations.


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The Dumbbell Nebula (NGC 6853). I think it's this one, comparing to other pics from the Internet !! It doesn't look like a 3-colour pic, all the more as it was taken on a different night.


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A globular cluster (of stars). It could be any one of them, I can't recall which one it was. I should have kept a better paper of what we shot ! (and maybe it wasn't one of "my" pics too...)


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A spiral galaxy seen from above (or below). It could be any one of such galaxies, since it's not one of my pics.


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A galaxy seen from the side (not one of my pics). You can see the absorption of light due to interstellar clouds (dark parts). Such clouds "eat" the visible light and reject some infrared light (thus invisible), due to their low temperature.


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The Sombrero Galaxy (not one of my pics). I know it's this one, since it heavily looks like those from the Internet. Beautiful shot.


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Saturn in ultraviolet. Not nice to see because it was printed and then re-scanned ! We tried to shoot it in visible light, but the damn CCD couldn't take very quick shots (less than 3 seconds) : the planet was really too brilliant in such wavelenghts, so we just did it in UV.

Well, I didn't post all pics, since other ones weren't as interesting and nice, and we screwed some more (3-layer thingie). It was a nice week.

[Socrates]

Some of you may have seen a strange MSN pseudo these days, and it has to do with my new summer job. I'm working in welcome stuff in some of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport's terminals. I basically walk all the time in one section of the terminal, searching for people who might need some information/advice/help. I will work in terminals 1 and 3 during July and maybe August. The job sometimes starts at 7am and sometimes ends at 11pm !! Not on the same day of course... And fortunately there are many days off. I wear a yellow shirt and black trousers, so if you happen to travel to Paris this summer, via Roissy, then you may see me there !

Tell me if this is the case for someone.

[Socrates]

This thread needs an update ! First of all, I needed to tell that working in an airport this summer was a little hard (but nice) from one point of view. I saw so many nice girls during those months that I sometimes was a little for a while. The good part is I (and my colleagues) could see and talk to so many pretty ones. The bad part is that it could only last a few minutes at max. Mmmh, should I pick one up, I'd say that (I suppose) late-20s girl (with boyfriend) which was so beautiful and nice to talk to. She was leaving to Egypt, possibly Luxor ; had she told me to come with her straight away (and leave the boyfriend !! ), I would have done it. Dear airport...


OK, why another post ? Last Friday I visited a museum, and that was my 1st personal initiative ever. You guessed it, I went to the Musée du Louvre in Paris, it's now free from 6pm to 10pm for 26- people on Fridays. So I went there and took some crappy pics. Here are 3 of them. Aggie, you can laugh big time...


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A mummy that was put into black tar and other stuff, dating from Greek or Roman Egypt ; it was a guy who died at the age of 21. Quite impressive to see it in real.


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The God of the Gods, Zeus himself, with thunder in his hand. I tried to shot him from below because it is Zeus after all. You can see how good I am to make blurry pics.


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A classic from the Louvre : "Vénus de Milo". Can't remember if that is the statue that an old Greek guy found around his house and kept touching at night on hiw own. Erk. Nice tits BTW.

That's all folks. Next time I'll learn how to take photos.

[Socrates]

I went a second time to the Louvre, one week afterwards, but this time I hadn't any camera. A pity, since I saw some cool Persian mosaics, a reconstitution of an Assyrian royal room (with the winged tauruses), and... a black stone with Hammurabi's code of laws in its entirety. What a blast to see it there, and laugh at some of the laws !

Anyway, it's roughly 10am this morning, quite an unusual time for me to be awake. That's because it's the 3rd time in 2 weeks that I haven't slept a wink at night, and decided to get up to stop trying to sleep. This is with quite certainty related to my recent sickness, which I'm gonna explain a bit here. I had been under antidepressant for 4 months, not a strong treatment but still. This basically was to help me doing things in my life. I had a look at the notice, and I found out I was in its "social phobies" category. They put the "" too. Maybe some of you will find it odd, well I don't know if I appeared so in Breda. I think it's more the way I fear the business world et al... But back on topic : the doctor told me to stop it for a while because I had the feeling it didn't do me anything (at least now). So... I suddenly stopped taking it, and 3 days later I was sick. It lasted a week, where I just couldn't help staying in bed. It wasn't a headache, but a general (smiley says it better than me) that made me wanted to sleep all day. Couldn't even stay a while in front of my PC, it was too hard for the head. Sorry for the delays in my games (Swimming Pool and Diplo). I now think I won't touch any of those medicines, they're too dangerous, and I'd better solve my problems on my own.

Oh while I'm at it. I never wanted to retake it during the sickness, so as to quit with it on an easier pace ; now that I had stopped it, all I wanted is to let it go, fucking medicine ! Once, as I was feeling very bad, I was about to call for God or something (maybe it is due to the language, strongly related to God-ish quotes) ; I immediately decided it was nonsense, and didn't start praying any God at all, and told to myself "fuck, I'll just let time pass and that's it !" Inch Allah !! Losers.

[akots]

Yep, stop poisoning yourself with these chemicals. I know first-hand they are not good.

[ERIKK]

Havent noticed anything in Breda Krys. I agree it's wise to stop taking these things but if it
prevents you from getting sick I realy don't know what is wise and what not.

Hope you get better (and some sleep ) soon!