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Anyone seeing Io transitting Jupiter right now?

LeeWilky

By LeeWilky
in Observing - Planetary

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Soak was good thanks :)  Yep horses are messy creatures!  ours all live out in fields not in stables so they think its funny to roll around in the mud then walk into you.  One of our old boys Cass finds it hilarious tipping his feed bowl all over you if you stnd too close when hes eating.  The crack me up they are such characters :)

All my friends live all over world now.  I have kept in touch with a few mates from school but very rarely see them these days and all my Army mates have spread to the 4 winds since we all left.  We keep in touch on Facebook and various computer games but thats it really. 

Maybe this is why i spent a fortune on a huge telescope and DSLR lol.

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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Good good! Yeh horses aren't my best of friends... Been kicked in the face, thrown off, head butted, bitten you name it! I'll ride no qualms, but don't think I could keep one! My closest friends is on this forum and is responsible for getting me into this star gazing malarky :D what department of the Army were you in?

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Haha none of the above injuries for me yet.  Been thrown off a few times but always my fault :)

I was in the Royal Armoured Corps.  The King's Royal Hussars.  Served 10 years until an old injury i picked up in Northern Ireland started giving me issues then when all the redundancies started i was on the list for the chop.  Such is life :)

Ive always been into Astronomy and always looked up on a clear night and after i came into a bit of money i decided to take it one step further. 

I was looking at what scope to buy and came across Marks blog http://astrocasto.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=43

I had a chat with him and he pointed me in the direction of this site and i bought the same scope he uses and been addicted ever since :)  Well for almost a month lol.

Already planning on getting my mount motorised and looking at some better eyepieces etc.  As much as i love observing ive alway wanted to get into Photography too so i killed 2 birds and bought the DSLR also and combined the two :)

I used to Sky Dive and was in the Armed Forces Rally Team aswell as rock climbing and learning to fly so its nice to have a nice "cheap" hobby now that is a little more relaxed.

Whats the skies like down your way? 

I seem to remember that in Newquay the nights where pretty amazing!

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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Candles: check! Log stove lit: check!

It's the snakes heat mats, the fish's heated tanks, the full freezer and the fridges that I'm worried about!!

Wow sounds like you've had quite the active life, I say astronomy is a nice calm way forward! I just got into this a couple of months ago too, I work with someone on the site and he got me completely hooked! The skies are incredible in my part of Devon... I'm out in the sticks so no real light pollution which is great!

I work as a TA manager at an academy for deaf education am studying my L3 British sign language and an undergraduate degree in psychology! So I'm a bit of a book worm at the mo!

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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At least you can put the snakes infront of the fire to keep warm if need be as for the fish and food theres not much i can think of.  What a nightmare!  Hopefully you will be back up and running soon.

Its a shame about the need for power these days because sitting infront of a roaring log fire with a nice cold glass of Jack Daniels would be my idea of heaven right now lol!

Im thinking of spending a long weekend at that Kielder dark site in the summer next year its supposed to be pretty amazing.  Knowing my luck ill book it and get cloud all weekend.

Thats some pretty heavy stuff you are studying but hats off to you its a great thing you are doing.

I work at our local Riding for the Disabled Association on Wednesdays and its great seeing the kids enjoying riding the horses :)

Apart from that i work at a printworks at the moment with a few friends just to earn some cash before i start looking for another job in the new year.  I drove artic lorrys for a while after leaving the Army but hated it so packed that in then i tried my hand as a Court Enforcement Officer but that only lasted a few months before i couldnt take dealing with absolute scumbags anymore so i packed that in too lol!  Struggling to find a job that i enjoy enough to not quit after a few months as being a soldier was the only thing i ever wanted.

Ill get there eventually :)

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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Yeh I'm sure it'll all be fine! There is something seriously cool about not having any electric... Whole family sat around the fire with candles having a giggle, can't beat it!

Your Wednesday job sounds really cool! The academy I work at wants to use horse riding as a form of therapy for some of the more complex students! Finding good work is really hard, especially if you know what you want to do and can't! I hope you find something that suits you soon! :)

I really want to take the scope away to a dark site and just focus on star gazing! When, I don't know but like you say the skies are hard to predict!

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Horse riding is great therapy we have some major breakthroughs with our kids :)

Sounds like its a fun night in your house its great to go back to basics sometimes i just hope your animals and food are ok.

My scope is just about on the limit of being easy to transport so i just load it all into the car and drive off into the darkness for a few hours and its great!  Peace and quiet and time to reflect whilst viewing the best sights going up there :)  I love it!

You may be very busy right now but life will settle down eventually.  It always does.

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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It is reasonable fun in my house... Most of the time :D

I like horse riding... Horses just don't like me very much :D I really really want to go to a local place here, that does treks across the moors western saddle! I think that would be awesome!! A lady I work with is off to work on a ranch in Arizona soon which I think will be an amazing experience, very peaceful and simple life (if not hard work!)

I'm pretty sure my life is pretty easy and chaos free compared to the Army! ;)

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Haha yep it's pretty easy compared to the Army but I think that's part of the problem. I like a challenge lol!

Riding horses in Arizona sounds awesome and clear skies there too so win win :)

We are lucky here in the Wirral as it's horse central so loads of hacking routes everywhere and they all lead to various beaches so you can't take your horse down and canter along the beach :)

You should definitely go for a trek just stay away from the front and back end and you should be fine :p

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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Ah man horse riding on the beach that's got to be awesome! Although I've been bucked off onto reasonable soft turf and that hurt like hell... proper winded me and they thought id broken my hip and i still have limited feeling in the top of my left leg to this very day!! (Cue worlds smallest violin) Hitting wet sand at any speed is gonna smart!! :D

My kind of challenge is more safe, purely intellectual... Nothing to scary or painful! I get my fix of pain from my tattoos and nothing more :D

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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I find the trick is to not fall off lol! It works wonders :)

Been meaning to get a tattoo all my life but haven't found one I liked enough to have on my body for the rest of my life yet.

I get my fix of pain from fencing 'with swords' and airsofting or paintball lol. Although the last two is more dealing pain as I'm a pretty good shot :)

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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Hardy har har... If only I'd of thought of that! I just thought it was a real life game of goddam buckeroo ;P

Well good choice I'm in the process of having a cover up done on my forearm! It's going to look awesome when it's done but the pain of doing layer upon layer of colour over scar tissue is horrific :D and I have a beautiful abstract peacock feather quill writing my sisters name too which is gorgeous!

Note to self: never go paint balling with Anyone from the army!!

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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See I'm full of useful insights :p

Your tats sound nice! Must be hard getting a good peacock. All those colours and detail.

Yeh anything competitive involving an ex squadie and weapons do any type might be best avoided to cause you further injuries on top of your tat cover up and horse related damage lol!

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JessicaFaye

JessicaFaye

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I'm petrified of paint balling I saw the bruises on friends after a session and thought... Nah maybe not!

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There's the feather! It is addictive getting tattoos but I don't want anymore on show once I get my cover up finished! I'm surprised you don't have any after automatically stereotyping you as Army= tattoos! :D

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Very nice :)

Yeh it's the done thing in the Army but mainly in the infantry.

I was originally going to join the inf as I wanted to be a sniper but I always had a fascination with tanks since I was a kid so changed last minute.

Don't regret it one bit!

I was driving a 62 tonne main battle tank when I was 17 lol.

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Sadly snipers work in pairs lol so it would be you and your spotter :)

Yep it was pretty awesome driving the Challenger 2 at 17 whilst all my old friends where in college.

Was a beast of a vehicle!

I was a marksman in my regiment anyway so 2 birds with one stone again lol.

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LeeWilky

LeeWilky

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Ah that's ok then :)

At least you have the log fire!

I'm still trying to build up the courage to get out of bed and put the fire on its so cold here today! Wind is still blowing a mad one outside too.

Going to have a lazy day today I think.

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