Hatchet

A hatchet (from the French hachette, a diminutive form of the French hache, 'axe') is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade used to cut and split wood. Hatchets may also be used for hewing when making flattened surfaces on logs; when the hatchet head is optimized for this purpose it is called a broadaxe.

New Forest Panorama

Photograph Details: Nikon D40, focal length 27mm, exp: 1/125-1/200, ISO-200, f/5.6-7.1

I took this picture a few weeks back in the New Forest. It is composed of 8 photographs taken just by moving the camera to the right each time, without a tripod (you can tell!) It was stitched together using autostitch and cropped in Photoshop Elements.

Fish Eye Milky Way

The Greek philosopher Democritus (450–370 BC) proposed that the bright band on the night sky known as the Milky Way might consist of distant stars. Aristotle (384–322 BC), however, believed the Milky Way to be caused by "the ignition of the fiery exhalation of some stars which were large, numerous and close together" and that the "ignition takes place in the upper part of the atmosphere, in the region of the world which is continuous with the heavenly motions." The Neoplatonist philosopher Olympiodorus the Younger (c. 495–570 AD) criticized this view, arguing that if the Milky Way were sublunary it should appear different at different times and places on the Earth, and that it should have parallax, which it does not. In his view, the Milky Way was celestial. This idea would be influential later in the Islamic world.

Milky Way

One of the main reasons I have not been blogging recently is that I've taken what was once a feint affinity for the stars to a new level. I purchased a small telescope and started looking at astrophotography in a whole new way.

Osborne House

Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Prince Albert designed the house himself in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main façade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847. An earlier smaller house on the site was demolished to make way for a new and far larger house.
(Source)

Rickety Wooden Garden Fence

A fence is a freestanding structure designed to restrict or prevent movement across a boundary. It is generally distinguished from a wall by the lightness of its construction: a wall is usually restricted to such barriers made from solid brick or concrete, blocking vision as well as passage (though the definitions overlap somewhat).

Sugar Plum Fairy

Photograph Details: Nikon D40, focal length 55mm, ISO-200, exp: 1/800sec, f-stop 14

Rouen Cathedral

Rouen has been dubbed the "City of a Hundred Spires," for many of its important edifices are churches. Towering above them all is the highest spire in France, erected in 1876, a cast-iron tour-de-force rising 490 ft above the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen. Claude Monet immortalized Rouen's cathedral facade in his paintings.

History

KC the Punk Ass Dog

This is KC, an English Cocker Spaniel. She’s a gun dog, which basically is a dog which was bred to assist hunters in finding and retrieving game (usually birds). However, if you ask KC to fetch something for you, she’ll turn around and simply look at you with eyes which say “I ain’t getting that – you want it, you get it ya lazy sod”. She is unbelievably dopey and now she has a Mohawk on her head. Either way, the world should be thankful that she is not a Poodle, who may be one of the most intelligent types of dog, but let’s face it – they’re just ridiculous!

Panorama South From Snowdon

My laptop has officially gone to Silicone Heaven, which means all my pictures are not available. Hopefully, the techies in the shop can fix it, otherwise I'm a tad stuffed. Anyhoo, because of my somewhat unreliable posting recently, I felt obliged to post an old image or two until I get it back.

Today's image was taken back in 2005, when I had my bike, lived in North Wales, and generally farted around snapping random things on random rides! 

Good times! On one trip I rode up Snowdon, and parked up at the bottom of Miners Track and looked south. This is what I saw.

Piggy

Taken at St Fagan's Natural History Museum, Cardiff, Wales 26th July, 2008. During the last fifty years, over forty original buildings (including houses, a farm, a school, a chapel and a Workmen's Institute) from different historical periods have been re-erected in the 100-acre parkland.

Photograph details: Nikon D40, 18-55mm lens. Focal length 28 mm, ISO-200, exp: 1/400 sec. F-stop f/10