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Jimmy Stix

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Everything posted by Jimmy Stix

  1. Great to read your blog as ever Isabelle. I love Saturn. Always my fave as a kid and still is! Sorry you have had a setback again, keep smiling (something my Mum always said) and get well soon.
  2. A post by Stolenfeather has prompted me to write about how emotional I can get about the things I am passionate about.
  3. Interesting blog as always Isabelle. I totally agree about the Valentines thing. My wife and I can't be doing with all that commercial guff and the hike in flower prices which we would much prefer to see alive and growing. We don't need a special day to say how much we love eachother. Have fun with the Skywatcher Dob when it comes. Mmmm lonely lakes, loons and the night sky, sounds like paradise to me.
  4. Following on from reminiscing about my childhood I thought I would tell you what I remember about the space race. Nothing.....! Not strictly true, but being born in 1967 I was a little young to take anything in really. I have vague recollections of the last Apollo missions, 16 an 17 I guess, but even then I was only 4 or 5 so it may be that I remember the "wash up" news items if you will. The final reporting on what had been achieved etc. What a shame for kids like me that the program was cancelled. I do recall my eldest brother (11 years my senior) having a massive wallchart on his bedroom wall onto which he stuck pictures cut from a weekly comic he took called "Countdown". I can still feel the thrill of gazing at the huge illustration of the Saturn V and the highly detailed descriptions of the stages. Collecting PG Tips tea cards, for the "Race Into Space" series they produced, also fired my imagination and allowed me to catch up on a little bit of what I had missed. Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, John Glenn and then the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo progams. My first real thrill about what NASA were doing came in 1981 and the first manned earth orbit of the space shuttle Columbia. I can still see now that moment when they touched back down after 2 days. I believe the BBC ran the coverage live and I still recall the lump in my throat. I must pause here to pay my respect and remember the seven crew members who tragically died when shuttle Challenger was lost on January 28th 1986 and the seven when shuttle Columbia was lost on February 1st 2003. Both these tragedies brought home to me just how dangerous their work, and those who continue to work on the exploration of space, really is. In the years since I have dipped in and out of what was happening but I don't think anything could capture the excitement of those who lived through the early days of the race. Oh, to have been watching live when Neil stepped down from that ladder. Books, film and TV have helped me fill in more of the gaps in my knowledge, and I just love watching that NASA footage, but I still wish I had been born a little earlier. It seems as if now we shall have to carry on dreaming about a return to the moon. For a while there my imagination ran riot at the thought of the photos, footage and samples they would bring back this time. Especially given how far technology has advanced since those early days. Here's to all those that made our understanding of what was "out there" so much clearer and gave us a heck of a story whilst doing so.
  5. Beginnings Just thought as I had been here a while I would make use of the blog option. Please be kind as this is my first attempt at any kind of blogging so if it's boring/repetitive/silly/a bit mad, try to forgive. I have already mentioned some of the stuff I intend to write here in one or two of my posts but I thought it better to "blog it" rather than fill up the forums. Well where did it start? My dad was always interested in science and fostered in me and my 2 brothers (I am the youngest) a desire to learn about many things, natural history and astronomy among them. I have very happy memories of cold, crisp nights when he would take us into the garden of the house where we grew up and point out some of the constellations. He had, what he always called, a "deck telescope", a big (perhaps 6" objective) heavy, brass and leather thing on a large wooden tripod. I assume it was made for terrestrial viewing as the image was upright and to focus you turned a knurled brass wheel that moved a draw tube in and out. He would set it up on the lawn and I can hear him now, pointing out where The Great Bear, Polaris, Orion (I never forgot that belt), Gemini and The Pleiades were. After a while, little cold fingers and toes would drive us back inside the warm house to check on what we had seen in his old star map books. Then perhaps cocoa and a biscuit before bed and I would open my bedroom curtains just to check if those magical objects were still there. As the years went by my interests turned more to natural history and birdwatching became my main hobby. I never forgot the stars though and was always pleased to see Orion and give him a nod and a wink for old times sake. My dad passed away in 1997 and I never did get to do any real stargazing with him again. He would be absolutely thrilled that I have come back to something he was so passionate about. It was Brian Cox and his marvellous Wonders of the Solar System that sparked it off again for me. I am not a particularly spiritual person, I don't believe in ghosts or an afterlife, but somehow I feel when I look up now my dad is there with me. Of course he is, in my heart and in my memories, once more showing me the delights of the night sky. I am experiencing all over again that childlike wonder I had with my dear old dad and his deck telescope. Thanks dad.
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