Newsletter

Not so long ago it was all over for the astronomically illiterate. People who didn't know the difference between magnitude and the meridian were doomed to live an uneventful, boring life. But fear not. This is set to change, because Dark Skies now provides an online jargon-filled astronomical dictionary!

This brilliantly engineered piece of HTML stems from the Socks in Space menu. It is fully interlinked with itself to give the illusion that it's so much better. Additionally, socklets and tips on the SIS menu have been altered to include direct links to the definitions of assorted words used within the socklet concerned. Enjoy.

I like facelifts. Without facelifts and changing the way things look I might be reduced to having to write actual material. Don't forget to reload everything - especially the contents frame. Anyway, enjoy the new background and javascript-induced image switches in the contents frame. They're not exactly my idea but everyone seems to use them these days. :-) It's these sorts of pointless braindead things which make the internet so much better-a-place than outside in the middle of the night. Please note that I happen to be writing this at a time when there's a gale and torrential rain outside.

There is also a new non-obvious feature I would really like to show off. It's for those of you like me, who enjoy using the arrow keys and the mouse at the same time. (We often call it multitasking.) When clicking on an option on the contents bar, some browsers remove the focus from the main window. This usually means having to click in the main window to return the focus before being able to use the arrow keys to move up and down. Thanks to a small bit of javascript this is no longer necessary. :-) Why do I bother telling everyone this? I have no idea, but there was some space to fill.

Dark Skies tips are much easier to write than normal socklets. They're quick, I don't have to think much, and I have a whole list of ideas written up just over there. (Points to the other side of the room.) Perhaps this is the reason that there is now another tip on the Socks in Space menu. This one is all about astronomical grammar. It's not solidly accepted, but I like it. Being definitively correct has it's advantages.

While I'm here, don't forget about the Leonids (meteor shower). It will hopefully be coming around mid-November. This is generally accepted to be the biggest meteor shower of all. It only hits about every thirty years. Suddenly there are a lot of commercial and government agencies worried about the expensive equipment that they have put into orbit over that time. Unfortunately it's difficult to confirm that it's not a false alarm. It's possible that the expected light show from the ground view will be a non-event, but that's no excuse to assume as such. More about it when the time approaches, as long as I remember. :)

One of these days it might actually settle down. :-) The About Astronomy and What's the point of Astronomy? socklets have been chopped up and thrown at each other. They look better this way. Some of the paragraphs have also been slightly rewritten.

There's also a new tip about Staring at the Sun safely.

It's here and it's pointless. Yes, you can now download SkySpy - a program I wrote half of several months ago. Isn't it too bad nobody wrote the other half? :-) There is now a link on the contents page which will let you download this stunningly realistic example of what happens when your mind gets sidetracked by studying. There are more details about running SkySpy on the page concerned, as well as a link to download it. Unfortunately one of the parts that is not finished about it is it's constellation database, which is only about a tenth full. Anyone is more than welcome to fill this up if they can be bothered. Please email me if you do and I'll include your update in the archive.

In other news, there are a couple of new socklet tips which I wrote this morning. One of them is about looking up verses looking sideways. The other is slightly more detailed and about getting decent binoculars. It can arguably be applied to telescopes as well. Enjoy.

Socks in Space has now been split up into several sections. At present there is a section devoted to the basic 'getting started' type of topics, and a new section to do with general astronomy tips. Currently there's but one tip there about looking at dark objects. This should grow over time since I have a whole list of title ideas stashed away which I will get around to typing up and adding eventually.

Also of note is that I've re-written the What's the point of Astronomy? socklet. I never have been too happy with that one but at least it's better than it was yesterday. :-)

Anyway, happy stargazing. And please remember, viewing this site while digesting plutonium may be hazardous to your health.

One of these days I might actually get around to putting some astronomical things in this newsletter. Comet SOHO might have made it except it's timing was a couple of weeks too early. Did anyone get a decent glimpse of it, by the way? As usual Wellington seems to cloud over immediately upon anything interesting happening and the closest I ever got to seeing it was when the entire sky was clear except for a cloud in the exact place where I was trying to look. (No it wasn't the comet, it was an actual cloud.)

Anyway, for those of you who haven't noticed, here is a list of things that have been ripped apart and pasted back together around this site:

• The header frame has been fixed to look much better. Previously it looked disgusting. Apologies for any induced blindness however there will be no compensation! Consider this a lesson to utilise your browser security features properly in the future.
• Fonts have been updated all over the place to hopefully make things much easier to read. If you don't have Arial installed as a true type font it may cause problems and force your browser to revert back to a default font. I'm trying to keep this in mind and design everything such that it won't be too serious for people who might have this problem.
• The contents page has had a complete revamp. This included some decent wallpaper, a much better layout, and a little text editing to make it easier to comprehend.
• Socks in Space has been done up a lot. There is now a much nicer header complete with a very expensive highly talented artists impression of a two dimensional pink sock puppet staring in unbelievable awe towards the cosmos. This artists rendition was tremendously difficult to sketch .. uh .. purchase, so please appreciate it for exactly what it is. There are also three extra socklets in addition to the original count. This brings the current quota to the equivalent of fifty million minus forty nine million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety seven. Well actually, the About Astronomy socklet was stolen from the contents page. But since SIS has been established it seemed to fit there anyway.

Things are starting to take a bit of shape around here now. :)

Hey, does anyone have, or know where I can get hold of some comical cartoonistic images of neon-outlined socks? I've been trying to find something for the Socks in Space section but you'd be surprised how difficult this is to come across. Maybe I just don't know where to look. (Shrug).

Hi everyone! Here's the Dark Skies Newsletter which I haven't been promising everyone for the last month or so. This entry is really not much more than a space filler to get the thing underway.

I'm hoping to update the newsletter every so often whether it be to announce new stuff on DS, offer my own completely biased comment on whatever's going on in the astronomical world, hassle astrology, or simply to blab on about nothing in particular.

I've had an entire weekend with only one varsity project, so by the time this newsletter shows up there will have been a few changes since Dark Skies was first put here. For one thing there's a new snazzy looking contents bar in the form of an image map in the top frame. Also of note is the new section entitled socks in space. Socks in space is intended to contain snippets of astronomically-related information. At the time of writing there is only one socklet which I wrote in my free time. Assuming Dark Skies keeps growing (which depends on the amount of time I can afford to put in to it) Socks in Space will probably become a major part of Dark Skies in the future. If you'd like to contribute anything to it, you're more than welcome to. Contributions can be serious, humorous, or or somewhere in the middle. Just as long as they're astronomically related. I'm more than happy to credit people. If you're interested them please email me to sort something out.

Admittedly things are still looking a bit tacky around here. I'm working on it, as usual, in my spare time.

Now that we've reached the end of this newsletter, email me if you're bored. To round things off, have a late and early Merry Christmas, don't get run over by a stompeding antelope, and goodbye.

I have a feeling that in the distant future I may regret that previous sentence being the final sentence ever to be read in this newsletter, so consider this sentence the one to really round things off.