eclipse time

We debated whther to go to Spain or Iceland to see today's total eclipse of the sun, but in the end remained at home, to see the 96% eclipse visible from here.

We scoped out yesterday where would be a good place to view from.  As it is late afternoon/early evening, it turns out that it's not quite visible from our garden: just too low.  But it is visible from just across the road.  So we set up a viewing station on the pavement there, with just five instruments this time.

The carboard telescope we got for the 1999 total eclipse; the solar binoculars with built in filters; the SeeStar telescope with its solar filter; a collander, and a bottle of water (not a viewing instrument, but needed because, despite being early evening, it was hot).  Not shown: a pair of solar viewing glasses.

Because we were out in public, there were several passers-by.  We encouraged them to look through the binoculars, first explaining that these were special safe ones, and they should never use ordinary binoculars.  We spent a lot of time looking through them ourselves. Definitely a good investment.

The cardboard telescope produced its usual slightly fuzzy result.

And the collader produced an array of slightly fuzzy images.

It took a bit of adjusting to get the collander at the right distance for good images.  The holes are probably a bit too big.

But by far the best images are from the SeeStar.  It was a bit tricky to use, as we needed to view the tablet to set it up and capture images.  And since the sun was very bright, the screen was hard to see.  But we got a lot of great images from it anyway.

colour and size changes are due to fiddling with the telescope controls

The day did get noticeably cooler, and a bit dimmer, close to maximum.

So a good eclipse experience.  But we know it's nothing like the experience of a total one.

cloth poster

Today my poster for an up-coming conference arrived through the post.  Since it's an international conference, and I don't want to lug a poster tube on a flight (and don't have a student to do that for me!) I decided to get it printed on cloth.  I've seen a few of these recently, and they have looked good.  So does this one.

A0 poster, ready to be folded and packed

sequestering carbon, several books at a time CLXIII

The latest batch, comprising his'n'hers reciprocal birthday presents.

heatwave number 4

There are so many things wrong with this picture (phone screenshot):

1. It is a quarter to 9 at night, and yet it's still 30°C
2. It's going to be max 26°C tomorrow (so still heatwave temperatures)
3. It was max 33°C today (deduced, because 26+7 = 33; it got to 35°C not far away)
4. The idea that it is going to be colder tomorrow (rather than maybe "cooler" or "less ridiculously hot")

a turkey isn't just for Christmas

Christmas 2025 is finally over.  We had the last portion of turkey in the freezer for dinner tonight.

heart totally eclipsed

Bonnie Tyler, 1951–2026.

The song Total Eclipse of the Heart has enriched my life in so many ways.

• the original song video
• diagrammatic syntax of the lyrics
• the Lego video
• two alternative total eclipses: the Marsh family with Totally fixed where we are, contrasted with Total Eclispe of the Spirk
• Dr Who crossovers
• the literal video: Random use of candles
• then going meta: Dr Who literal crossover (watch the literal video first, or you'll miss most of it!)
• even its use in debugging our internet

Respect for a great singer, a great song, and dedicated fans.

three months later

Late March, we decided to experiment with a new solar PV usage strategy due to the relative rates of chear rate grid power overnight (costing us 6.4p/kWh) and the amount we are paid for exporting during the day (15p/kWh).  Rather than use the battery to power the house during the cheap rate, we would used grid power and charge the battery overnight, then export more during the day.  We assumed, from the relative rates, the power company preferred this, maybe to even out demand.

Late June, we get a letter from our power company.  They are changing the export payment rate to 6p/kWh.  On asking why, they told us that some customers are charging their batteries overnight, then exporting that charge during the day.  So the power company is paying those customers 8.6p/kWh (not accounting for losses) to store and resupply its own power.

Anyhow, the power company obviously thought that paying customers to time-shift its own power was a step too far in power demand management, hence the reduction in export payments for all electricity, including actual generation.

Oh well.  Back to manually setting the battery charging pattern (and a severly reduced income from export payment).  Since it's currently summer, that mostly means using the battery to power the house overnight, as there will be enough sunshine to recharge it during the day.  Things will start getting more complicated again come autumn.