Stars twinkle, planets don't

Sirius, Jupiter and Betelgeuse

It's easy to think that all the small dots in the night sky are stars. They aren't of course. There are at least 5 planets that you can easily see with the naked eye. Mercury can be seen with the naked eye, but being so close to the Sun it's usually at dawn or dusk and not at night you can see it. The others are Venus, Earth (duh...), Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So how can you tell the difference between a star and a planet if you just happen to look up at the night sky? Stars twinkle. Yes the nursery rhyme is true. Twinkle, twinkle little star. Although they aren't exactly small they appear small to us.
The photo above illustrates the difference between stars and planets. Left to right it's Sirius, Jupiter and Betelgeuse. Why I chose to have two stars is because they are different colours so they appear to twinkle differently. Jupiter as you can see does not twinkle at all. So why is that? From what I can guess, and what seems logical to me, is that stars shine light in all wavelengths and Earth's atmosphere lets the different wavelengths through at different speeds so that it appears to twinkle. That would also explain why they twinkle more near the horizon. Planets on the other hand reflects just a few wavelengths of light from our Sun so they always appear to be a solid dot.
Even if I got this right I'm sure there are people out there that can explain it better.
The photos are 10-second exposures taken handheld with my Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i), Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L. At least the stars make really nice artworks that way.

The Orion Nebula

Click to be able to see Venus

Last night was a clear winter night. That means a lot of stars were visible. Also the Moon, Venus and Jupiter were close together in the sky. I was even able to see Venus with my naked eyes during the day because the Moon was so close. It might be hard to see in this photo but Venus is close to the bottom right corner. It was so amazing to actually see one of the planets in the bright blue sky while the sun was still up.

Orion nebula without enhancements

Anyhow, that wasn't what this blog post was going to be about. The Orion nebula. A nebula you can also see with naked eyes (it's the middle "star" in the sword). Although I'm guessing not in daylight. I have seen it through binoculars and telescopes though. I've tried to photograph it through a telescope as well, but since I haven't got a camera adapter it was hard to hold the camera still. To take these photos I used my Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i) and my Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM lens.

Orion nebula like I see it through my telescope

I took ten 1-second exposures to reduce the star trails. Then I used an old version of a program called DeepSkyStacker to stack the photos together. I made two different versions of the photo. One almost black and white that looks close to what you see when you look at it with a telescope. And one with some more colour in it.

Orion nebula with colours

Using a 200mm lens on a crop-sensor camera still makes the photo way too big. So I had to crop away most of the photo since there wasn't anything in it that I would use. As you can see in the photos I didn't make the crop in exactly the same place for all three photos and that was mostly because I'm lazy. At least they are the same size.

The Blue Rose

After reading Jen's blog post about literary tattoos, and commented about my tattoo that might or might not qualify as such, I started thinking. I should make a blog post about why I got that tattoo.
When I was younger my little brother had a textbook in school that included an old Chinese folktale called "The Blue Rose". It's a story about love and how you, as some blokes from Liverpool would put it, can't buy love. The story felt like it really meant something to me. So a few years ago I decided it was time to get the tattoo done.
I have since read many different versions of it, but here is the version that was found in that textbook:

The Emperor of China had a daughter.
She was very beautiful.
Many was it who wanted to marry her.
But the Princess said:
-I'll only marry the man who gives me a blue rose.

First came a warrior with a rose made of blue gems.
After that came a rich merchant.
He gave the Princess a china cup.
Painted on the cup was a blue rose.
-Your roses are nice, said the Princess, but they aren't real roses.

Finally a young poet came along.
The Princess fell in love with the poet.
-I want him, she thought.

Together they went to see the Emperor.
-We want to get married, said the poet.
-But where is the blue rose? asked the Emperor.

The poet gave the Princess a white rose.
-Oh, what a beautiful blue rose, she said.
-That's just a regular white rose, the warrior and the merchant shouted.

Then the Emperor said:
-My daughter is very wise. If she says the rose is blue, then it's blue!

The Princess and the poet got married.
They were very happy.

Favourite Discworld characters

As some of you know I "like" Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. I have almost all of the novels (don't have Snuff yet) and young adult novels. I also have The Last Hero illustrated Discworld fable and Discworld the Roleplaying Game. I read almost all of the ones I have. Bought the young adult novels not too long ago so haven't finished all of them yet. Anyhow, out of boredom I decided to make a list of my favourite characters in the books so far.
In alphabetical order they are:
Cohen the Barbarian
C.M.O.T. Dibbler
DEATH
Detritus
Eskarina Smith
Fred Colon
Granny Weatherwax
Havelock Vetinari
Hrun the Barbarian
Mustrum Ridcully
Nanny Ogg
Nobby Nobbs
Otto von Chriek
Ponder Stibbons
Samuel Vimes
Susan Sto Helit
The Death of Rats
Tiffany Aching

Then there are the groups of characters that you can't really split up, but are still hilarious:
Igor
Nac Mac Feegle

Lastly my least favourite main character:
Moist von Lipwig

If there is another Moist von Lipwig book (Raising Taxes?) I will still buy and read it of course, but I'm hoping for more Witch books or DEATH books.

How I lost weight without a special diet

August 22 2011, 26 weeks ago today, I weighed 113,5 kg (250.2 lbs). February 20 2012, today, I weigh 84,5 kg (186.3 lbs). So how did I lose 29 kg (63.9 lbs) without a special diet?
I basically just did two things:
1. Stopped eating candy, snacks, cookies and so on. I don't eat much "fast food" so there wasn't really anything of that to stop eating.
2. Started exercising.
I have a very unhealthy relationship to candy. If I have a bag of candy I will eat until it's empty. Doesn't matter how big the bag is or how sick I feel while eating. So, that's not good.
When I say I exercise I don't mean that I go to a gym and work out for hours. I have an exercise bike in my apartment. It's right over there in front of the tv. Watching tv or even better tv-shows on dvd (to avoid the commercials) is a great way to exercise without thinking too much about it. American tv-shows have 20 (or 40), or so, minutes long episodes. British tv-shows are closer to 30 minutes.
My exercise bike has 8 resistances and in August when I started exercising I had it on the second resistance and could only do 10 minutes straight. Then I took a break for a few minutes and then did another 5 minutes. Perfect for a 20 minute episode of an American sitcom (The Big Bang Theory for example).
With time I have been able to increase the resistance (up to fifth/sixth resistance now) as well as doing more than 10 minutes at a time. Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Neverwhere and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and a few others, worked well for when I started doing 20+ minutes at a time.
I have watched a few movies on dvd too. When I do watch a movie I will do a 40+ minute workout each time. Usually takes 2-4 "sittings" to finish the movie.
I haven't started with any tv-shows that has 40-minute episodes yet, but I have Firefly on dvd that I will start watching soon. Just need to get well first.
Lastly I do not exercise every day. It was 4-6 times a week in the beginning and 2-4 times a week now. Although the last few weeks I haven't done anything because I've been feeling ill.
So in conclusion if you want to lose weight and you spend 15-30 minutes watching tv every day. Get an exercise bike and work out while watching your favourite shows. It worked for me, so it might also work for you. Although I can't guarantee that it works for everyone.
My current goal is to get down under 80 kg (176.4 lbs). My ultimate goal is to stay somewhere around 75 kg (165.3 lbs).

Having the flu!

Ok, so I might not have the flu, but the evidence tells me I probably do. I've got headache, a cold, muscle aches and higher than normal body temperature. Why I say "higher than normal body temperature" and not fever is because most people don't see 37ºC (98.6ºF) as fever. My regular body temperature is lower than the average person, but not lower than what's healthy. When I was born my body temperature was 35,8ºC (96.44ºF). They wrapped me up in heating blankets to get my temperature up to "normal" but that didn't help. Nowadays my normal temperature is somewhere around 35,8ºC and 36,2ºC (97.16ºF). It's always funny to see nurses take my temperature when I'm at a hospital feeling ill. They always say that I can't be ill because it's only 36,8ºC (98.24ºF) or so. Then when they finally do tests they notice that oh I really am ill. That happens every time I have tonsilitis for example.
Now, where was I. Oh right, I probably have the flu. So no real blog post today.

2D vs 3D movies

More and more movies are released in 3D. Some old movies are re-released in 3D. So are 3D movies better than 2D movies? In my opinion... No. Or as Phil Plait, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer, said on Twitter the other day: "Every movie is 3D: a series of 2D (width x height) pictures changing with time. #pedant"
The only movie I've seen both the 2D and 3D version of is Alice in Wonderland. I saw the 3D version in a movie theater and the 2D version at home on dvd. To me it was the same movie. Adding the illusion of another dimension didn't enhance the experience of the movie for me. It's still the same movie so why pay 2 euro more for the 3D effect?
The main reason why I'm writing this blog post is because currently at the theaters here in Sweden they are showing Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace in 3D. I saw the original version at the movie theater and I've seen it on dvd. Adding another dimension to the script could've made me go see it again but since the third dimension is just a visual thing I won't bother. I'm not saying that The Phantom Menace is a bad movie, but it's not exactly up to par with say The Empire Strikes Back.
Then there's the thing about those big ass goggles you have to wear while watching the 3D movies. Uncomfortable to say the least. If they could somehow manage to make the movies 3D without having to wear any special glasses, and if they lowered the price to the regular movie price, then I might consider going to see another 3D movie.

Valentine's Day!

Is this a holiday to celebrate the loved ones or a way for the stores to sell cheap hearts/roses/chocolate extremely expensive?
Let's look at it like this:
Roses normally cost about 2-3 euro each here. This week however they cost about 6-7 euro each. The stores of course claim that it's because there are so few roses available because other countries grab so many for their markets. Right...
Ok, that didn't convince you. How about going to a restaurant to have a nice dinner with your loved one? Normally it would cost about 25-30 euro. This week you can get the exact same food in the exact same restaurant for the cheap price of about 35-40 euro.
The only thing that seems to be about the same price is chocolate. I guess it's really special to give a loved one chocolate on this specific day. Not like you can get chocolate or roses or take her out to a restaurant any day of the year... Oh yeah you can.

Alright, I won't be a complete downer. I think it's great if you put aside a specific day each year to really show your appreciation for the person you love. How about doing that on your anniversary? I can guarantee that if you didn't meet/marry her on Valentine's Day it will be much cheaper and just as romantic. It will be a day that's special for the two of you. Sharing that day with half the world's population doesn't make it special.

For the record I am single and if I did have a girlfriend I probably still wouldn't go out of my way to make Valentine's Day special. I would try to make the anniversary special though, because that's what matters to me.

Five things I would do if I won the Lotto jackpot

The Lotto jackpot here in Sweden is up to 110 million SEK (at the moment that's approximately 10.4 million British pounds, 12.5 million Euro or 16.5 million US dollar) this weekend. So here's a list of things I would do if I won.

1. Get a new apartment.
Because who would not want to live on their own in a brand new apartment?

2. Give some money to charity.
There are many charities that come to mind, but I guess I would be very picky about it to make sure the money actually goes to the cause and not just to the administration. Or even worse given to the rich in the poor country and hope they would not keep it for themselves. If a company is trying to find a cure for tinnitus and other hearing disorders, then I will donate some to them as well.

3. Travel the world to visit friends and see places I've always wanted to see. Also to see more of some places I've already been.
Countries included in that list are among others: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, England, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland.

4. Buy new "toys".
Let's face it. I am going to spend a bit on new lenses for my camera, maybe a newer camera, new computer(s) and possibly a new video game console. Possibly other "toys" as well.

5. Never ever work another day in my whole life.
If I say spend 25 million SEK on the first 4 things and I live for another 50 years I will be able to spend over 1.5 million SEK/year without even considering interest. That's about 5 times more than a normal person makes annually here and I wouldn't have to pay income tax on my money. So why even bother working?

Bonus entry:

6. I might even get a driver's licence.
Nah, probably not.

Birds, bees and bondage (short story)

This is a short story I wrote for fun a while ago after seeing my nephew and his friends joke about birds and bees on Facebook. It turned out to be the kind of story you might read in "men's magazines".

Birds, bees and bondage
Norman couldn't believe that he had actually agreed to this. He had never done anything like this before. Lisa had always been nice to him in the past so he guessed that was the reason why he said yes when she asked if he wanted to come see her bird cages and her beehives.
Maybe it was her friendly smile or maybe it was the thoughts about birds and bees that made him feel all warm inside. It was of course possible that it was the heating in Lisa's car combined with Norman's thick jacket that made him warm.
Lisa had told him that he could take his jacket off before getting in the car. She had taken hers off and had a t-shirt with a cute puppy print on. Norman had a hard time to avoid looking at the puppy. He didn't want her to think he was staring at her breasts.
Whenever Lisa noticed he was looking at her, she turned her head towards him and gave him a friendly smile. That only made him more nervous and he felt his throat getting dry and his hands getting moist. He wished it had been the other way around.
Just as he started to suspect that she was doing all this to make him uncomfortable because, as he believed, she knew he had never been with a woman, the car came to a halt outside a small house in the middle of nowhere.
Norman could see the beehives to the left of the house and Lisa told him that the birds were behind the house. They exited the car and she told him that he could go look at the birds and the bees while she went inside to take care of some things. She gave him a big smile, took her jacket out of the backseat and went into the house.
All alone and a bit lost, both in the situation and his strange feelings, he walked over to the beehives. It wasn't much to look at. Just a bunch of bees flying in and out of the hive. So he got bored and looked at the birds instead.
There was a big chicken wire cage that had lots of birds. None of them were very uncommon in the area. So Norman wondered why she had them all in the cage. Maybe she just like the way they look he thought.
After a while he was starting to notice that it wasn't at all cold out here so he decided to take off his jacket. While he was doing that he wondered why Lisa hadn't come out. He thought he could go hang up his jacket in the house and check what Lisa was up to.
The front door was open so he walked in and hung his jacket. He closed the door behind him without giving it another thought. It was just the way he was brought up. When you entered a house you closed the door behind you.
Since he couldn't see or hear her anywhere he loudly asked if she was there. He heard a reply from the room at the end of the hallway. She told him she was in there and that he could come if he wanted.
He had a feeling that this was her bedroom so he was getting increasingly nervous about it. He hadn't been in a woman's bedroom since... He couldn't even remember. It was probably back when he was 7 or 8 and he was playing with one of the girls in the neighborhood.
The door was ajar so he slowly pushed it open and entered. It smelled so nice. Like lavender and honey. There were posters on the walls. What he considered girlie posters. With unicorns and pink clouds.
Something caught his eye. He stopped and stared. There on the bed he saw what looked like a ski mask made of leather and a red ball attached to two leather straps. He wasn't sure what to think of it.
Then he heard the door close behind him. He turned around and saw Lisa. In her hand she had a whip that she was swinging menacingly and she was dressed from head to toe in rubber. She cracked the whip and said with a stern voice “Bow before your Mistress!”

Memories from my vacations in Scotland (part 2: spring of 2010)

Part 1 can be found here
Fast forward almost 10 years and we're in spring of 2010. Now this time I did have a digital camera so I have a lot of photos. My friend Olívia and her mother came to Europe so I met up with them in London before taking the train up to Edinburgh.I arrived in London the day before that Icelandic volcano erupted and luckily we had gotten train tickets in advance.
We spent four days in Edinburgh. Staying at The George Hotel on George Street. A wonderful hotel with a very, very friendly staff. The restaurant where you have breakfast was also very nice with very nice staff. The waitress who got embarrassed when I asked if the tip was included or not and said yes please, and got even more embarrassed, when I asked if she wanted wanted some since it wasn't, was very cute too. Next time I'm going to Scotland I will be staying at that hotel for sure.

A trip to Edinburgh is not complete without a visit to Cockburn Street and it's small shops. You can find Cockburn Street near Waverley Railway Station serpenting it's way up the hill to The Royal Mile near the North Bridge. I had to take this photo of the street sign because although it's not pronounced like people think it does ('ck' is silent and the 'o' is more like an 'oh'), when you read it the first time it sounds like something you will get from having unprotected sex with a questionable person.

There are many small museums you can visit. The Museum of Childhood Musem of Childhood on The Royal Mile is one of them. It's ok. If you like old toys and dolls you definitely should go! The only other museum that I've been to in Edinburgh is the National War Museum of Scotland. It's located inside Edinburgh Castle and is very interesting indeed.

Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe is a store on The Royal Mile that is a must if you like anything about Christmas decorations. Personally I'm not a big fan of decorations but I did buy some as gifts. It's nice to see that a store like that can survive though. Open almost all year around too if I'm not mistaken.

Again I had some bad luck with Palace of Holyroodhouse. When we finally made our way down there it was closed for the day. I did get to see what the Scottish parliament building looks like after it was finished though. So not a complete waste of time. Also I got to take this nice photo of my friend in front of a gate.

The next day we took a bus tour with Scotline Tours up to the Highlands and Loch Ness. It was a very nice tour and the guide (Sir Peter) was very good. First stop on the way was in Callander. There we got to meet Hamish the Hairy Coo. It's not the first time I've seen highland cattle, but I'm sure a lot of tourists are fascinated by the cow with long hair. Before we got there though we passed Doune Castle very briefly. I wasn't able to take any good photo of it. For those who don't know, Doune Castle is the castle used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's almost every castle in the whole movie. Next time I go to Scotland I will try to go there to see it up close.

One of these peaks is Ben Nevis. I can't say which one because I don't remember which one was pointed out to me. Also the clouds makes it hard to see which one is the highest. However this photo was taken at the second world war memorial. I did take a photo of that too, but I can't post too many photos or else this blog post will never end.

When we had arrived at Loch Ness we got off the bus for a while at Urquhart Castle. After having an hour or so to walk around and take photos we got on the boat Jacobite Queen and went all the way up to Inverness. The photo was taken through the window of the Jacobite Queen.

Edinburgh Castle was our destination the next day. I think we looked at everything they had in there. Seeing the crown jewels are totally worth the entrance fee. Again I can't post all the photos I took there so I decided to pick one from outside the entrance.

Last day in Scotland we started off with a trip to Stirling to see the castle there. It's a very, very nice town and I wouldn't mind living there. On our way up to the top of the hill I saw this sign and thought how great it would be to have that law in Sweden as well. I really hate walking around like if I'm walking in a mine field. Especially at night when you can't really see if there's anything other than the street where you put your feet.

Anyhow, we had a pleasant morning walking around in the castle learning a lot about the history of it and from up there we got a faraway look at the Wallace Monument through the mist. After we had seen everything we could at the castle went down the hill again and found a nice little pub where we had lunch.

In the afternoon, after we got back to Edinburgh, we went for a walk in Princes Street Gardens. It was a lovely spring day with lots of people around and I doubt anyone would actually try to bathe in that fountain. Although I guess they have that sign there for a reason.

Memories from my vacations in Scotland (part 1: summer of 2000)

I've always like Scotland. I don't know if it's because of the beauty of the Highlands or the sexy accent or the red-haired females or the very friendly people. Or maybe something completely different. Like bagpipes?
Anyhow, my mother likes bagpipe music and Scotland and she wanted to see Scotland at least once in her life. So in the summer of 2000 my brother and I took my mom on a weekend trip to Edinburgh.
My mom has always been afraid of flying, but once we were up in the air she was more bored than scared. We had a layover at London Gatwick and when we were on the plane waiting to taxi out on the runway the pilot started talking on the intercom. He said that there was a delay but hopefully we would get to Glasgow in time anyways. At this point some of the passengers started looking around and one person asked the flight attendant if he really said Glasgow and not Edinburgh. The flight attendant said no of course he didn't. Then the pilot started talking again. This time about how the weather was in Glasgow. This time the flight attendant heard it and walked over to the cockpit and yelled at him that we were going to Edinburgh. After a brief pause the pilot said that he was sorry about that and that he had come in from Glasgow earlier and thought he was going back there again. After another pause he said "don't you just hate it when that happens in the morning?"
This was before digital cameras were everywhere so I just had an old 35mm-film camera with me. I didn't take many photos and I have none of them on my computer. We mostly spent the weekend on Princes Street and The Royal Mile. We visited Edinburgh Castle and walked all the way down to Palace of Holyroodhouse but unfortunately the Queen was there so we couldn't go in. The new parliament building was still being built too. Then we went to George Street to buy a t-shirt at Hardrock Café and I almost got run over by a car because I looked left instead of right. Very embarrassed I looked down at the ground (because if I can't see other people they can't see me) and there in large friendly letters it said "LOOK RIGHT".
The hotel we stayed at was Piries Hotel on Coates Garden. A small and cosy hotel about 5-10 minutes walk from Princes Street.
On our flight back home we again had a layover at London Gatwick and while we were waiting for the passengers to get into the plane the flight attendant came up to our row (way back in the plane on row 20 or so) with a small girl that wasn't too happy. The flight attendant told us that to our left was a mother and two kids and this girl was the friend of them but she had gotten a seat up front (row 4 I think). So the flight attendant wanted to know if any of us would be ok with switching places with this girl so she didn't have to sit all by herself up front. I immediatly said sure and asked what seat it was. The flight attendant was almost shocked at my quick reply and the girl had a huge smile that made it worth the trouble of walking against the flow of passengers.
Part 2 can be found here

Poem I wrote a few years ago

Darkness, what beauty can lie hidden in your depths?

For all the nasty things you hold, is there anything else?

Every time I see the tears that you have wept,

I feel my heart ache when I stare into your face.

Long have I known you, tried to figure you out.

You're hiding something from me, I can sense it's near.

What was that? Somewhere deeps inside I can hear a shout!

It's a horrible scream, I'm stricken with fear!

Silence, ear shattering silence grows around my being.

I sense movement, but sound cannot penetrate.

Slowly, very shallow a silhouette I begin seeing.

Coming closer I feel ambivalence, love as well as hate.

A stretched out hand lightly touches my chest.

Beauty in my eyes, a fair lady I see through the dark.

Her lips at my neck, and squeezed against me, her breast.

I feel my life escape, the last thing I hear, is her dog's bark.