Hello from Aussie land (don't hold it against me!!!)

[thing]

My boy lives down at Spring Mountain and apart from some horizon glow to the north east from Bris the sky is spectacular. Whereabouts are you?

I'm not sure where that is. I'm out at Ipswich. I've only been in Brisbane for 18 months but I don't get out too much due to very bad public transport and no private vehicle...

Dave

If you go from Ipswich down the road to the supermall at Springfield there's a road that leads to Greenbank that runs along the side of a military range. Spring Mountain is one of the turn off's down that road, it's a fairly new development. About 20 k's from you (depending which side of Ipswich you are obviously).

[dpastern]

Well, not driving...I have no idea where it is, despite your excellent directions Dave.

Terry, I dimly remember it, but it has been a few years since I read LOTR (I prefer the Silmarillion anyways).

Dave

[glowjet]

Hi Dave

Welcome to SGL from another Tolkein fan in North Yorkshire, nice macro images, hope you do as well with your Astro Imaging.

John.

[dpastern]

Thanks John - I've only been doing macro images for around 3 years, but have learnt an awful lot and progressed nicely. Still not as good as my friend, Brian Valentine aka LordV. Do a Google search for LordV and you'll come across his Flickr account...the man's a genius and a really nice, down to Earth guy, who's ever so helpful. I hope that my astro images become at least as good as my macro images, if not better!

Dave

[James]

Hi Dave and welcome to SGL :wave: I don't hold your origins against you Dave , just your dark skies and interesting objects to view... unless of course you live in one of the cities...?

James

[dpastern]

Thanks James. I unfortunately live on the outskirts of Brisbane, and Australia is not a good place for light pollution. I'd probably have to drive an hour or so South to avoid most of the nasty city lights. Still, it could be worse!

Dave

[James]

I was in Australia a long time ago (2001) staying with some friends in Melbourne. Aside from the weather (it was Christmas but still cloudy, wet and cold) I got a shock when they casually announced they'd had some Funnelweb spiders in the back garden... somehow the idea of observing out in the sticks didn't seem so appealing

At least your weather must be good!

James

[dpastern]

Hey James,

Melbourne can be cold, windy and wet like the UK I believe, although believe it or not, Sydney usually gets colder than Melbourne, and also more rain (yet is known as a far better climate, don't ask me how). Brisbane is just hot, hot and stinking hot. This has also been a very humid summer, in fact, we got flooded 7 weeks ago (nearly 230mm of rain in 90 minutes in our area). I was very lucky to not lose my main PC (quadcore q6600 + 8gb ram and 1.5tb of storage), my old pc (athlon 3ghz, 3gb ram) and PowerMac 1ghz. If water had gotten to them, we'd have all been electrocuted probably. I had a minute to get all 3 computers, all cables, and anything else valuable off the floor onto my bed. I didn't get to bed until 5am that night and was dog tired from "brooming" water out...I had a dental appointment the next morning @ 9.30am lol...so needless to say I didn't feel too well.

Funnelweb spider eh? They belong to the mygalomorph family, which to the layman is 'primitive spiders' (as opposed to araenomorphs, which are modern spiders). The differences between them? Well, most primitive spiders are bigger, and far more aggressive. They are generally far more venomous as well (poisonous is the wrong term to use technically). They are also usually heavily armour plated, ground dwellers, and do not build webs, or climb very well. They also generally don't like bright lights, and thus mostly live under ground. Modern spiders generally can build webs, are smaller, are good climbers, not very aggressive, less venomous (although there are exceptions to this rule of course). Did you know, that in most cases, the female spider is larger, and heavier built than the male, but usually the male is more venomous? Generally, male arachnids are far smaller than their female counterparts. They are truly fascinating creatures and well worth spending some time learning about them etc. Oh, and funnelwebs are probably the most venomous and thus, dangerous, arachnids. Possible the Brasilian wandering spiders is more venomous, it's hard to say. Funnelwebs employ neurotoxins, which attack the brain and nervous system, causing massive organ failure. Thankfully we have an antidote now. Oh, and their toxin is only lethal to primates. Other mammals will get ill, but it's very rare for them to die. Non mammals are generally not affected at all. Interesting, eh?

Sorry to ramble, if you haven't guessed by my avatar, or my website, I'm quite heavily into photographing insects & arachnids etc.

Dave