Last week I had my birthday, turning 35.. I don’t feel older at the moment. I still call myself low-mid 30’s

I’m feeling fit and strong, which is a good thing as I continue preparing for my black belt grading in June! I’m still doing the regular 5km run at Adcock Park, followed by 100 squat kicks, 100 pushups and 100 situps. To push myself, I’m then doing another lap, and then another 100 pushups. It’s feeling good – I’m feeling ready. I’m only doing it once a week at the moment but will be trying to increase it to twice a week in the next month or so. Finding time is the hard part!

The official “prep cycle” for the black belt grading starts in about a month – right after the Sydney All Styles tournament which is on March 7th. I’m really looking forward to getting the prep cycle underway. I’ve been training hard, and the prep cycle is going to be even harder. Bring it on!

From an Astronomy point of view, well, I haven’t really done much. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to get back out there with the Mars image a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it’s been cloudy since then, which really hasn’t helped. The 2010 CWAS “David Malin Awards” have just been announced, and hopefully trying to capture an image for that competition will inspire me to get out there more. I certainly don’t have anything worthy of submitting right now – I haven’t taken a single decent image in 6 months!

I’m motivated for IceInSpace though. With the IceInSpace Community Survey 2010 finishing up the other week, I’ve been busy analysing all the data and making plans for changes to IceInSpace to take us forward for the next 5 years. I have many lofty ideas! Pages and pages of them! I just hope I can get hold of enough of Terry’s time to implement my ideas

On the family front, it’s been very busy! Jacob started at a new school for year 5 – in an Opportunity Class at Gosford Primary School. So far it’s going really well and he’s enjoying it heaps. Abbey also started kindergarten this year! Our baby is now at school! Eliza started year 3 and got the teacher she wanted and the classmates she wanted! So far so good!

Jacob, Abbey and Eliza starting school in 2010

I guess that’s enough for today.. I’ve committed to try and update my blog more regularly this year, but finding the time is proving much more difficult than I imagined.

I’ll keep trying though and hopefully have more updates over the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading.

I’ve added a few new images to my Gallery in the last few days. The first set is of the equipment I use for my astrophotography – both planetary imaging and widefield DSO imaging.

12" newt on EQ6

The photo above shows my 12″ Newt on top of the EQ6, and was taken in early July 2008 at a planetary imaging camp with Anthony Wesley, at Nambucca Heads on the mid-north coast of NSW. It’s the setup I use for planetary imaging. Unfortunately during that week the seeing wasn’t good enough to obtain any really good images, but it was clear sky all week and was still a fantastic week of astronomy.

Deep Space Imaging Setup

The photo above shows my widefield DSO imaging setup on the EQ6, taken from my backyard. It includes the ED80 as the main imaging scope (the black one), with the Canon 350D attached, and the 80mm f/5 refractor (the white one) as the guide scope – with the DMK21AU04 (small blue camera) acting as the guide camera. The guide scope and guide camera work together in combination with software on the laptop to keep the mount tracking accurately by nudging in the appropriate direction when the star starts drifting.

There are a few other photos of my setup there, but I still need to add a few more and properly categorise them.

I’ve also added some new family photos to the Gallery, taken last weekend at Nords Wharf, north of the Central Coast on the way to Newcastle, on the edge of Lake Macquarie. The family and I went there for a picnic lunch, to a nice park/playground where the kids could play. It was a nice couple of hours. We also went to the beach at Catherine Hill Bay afterwards – it’s a lovely spot and was really busy on the hot Sunday.

Mike, Kate, Jacob, Eliza and Abbey

The photo was taken using a timed exposure, with the 350D on a tripod.

Thanks for looking.