Phil's blog

07
Jul

The 'Zero Carbon Australia' Plan

Submitted by Phil

Cross posted from The Oil Drum

I thought I would share the key graphics and information from the synopsis report of the Zero Carbon Australia plan by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE). Note also the launch of the full report in Melbourne on 14th July.

25
Jun

Energy independence. This time for sure.

Submitted by Phil

Jon Stewart of 'The Daily Show': The last eight US presidents have gone on television and promised to move America towards an energy-independent future.

Funny, but sad.

22
Mar

ASV Messier Star Party - March 13th 2010

Submitted by Phil

Every March, the Astronomical Society of Victoria hosts a 'Messier Star Party' at its Leon Mow Dark Sky Site near Heathcote, to celebrate and observe the famous catalogue of deep sky objects that Charles Messier originally recorded as nuisance objects that confused him in his hunt for comets in 18th century Paris.

If you've never heard of a 'Star Party' before, this video will give you a better idea, music and all :-). I recommend enjoying it in full screen glory via philhart.smugmug.com.

astrophotography
27
Jan

Bioluminescence in the Gippsland Lakes

Submitted by Phil

These pictures of bioluminescence in the Gippsland Lakes in my gallery have proven quite popular, so it seems time to provide a story to accompany them. But this is not a short story, rather a convoluted one of fires and floods, of microscopic algae and the inspiring, remarkable and surprising beauty of nature.

astrophotography
gippsland
camp cooinda
night sky photography
bioluminescence
14
Dec

Geminid Meteor Shower

Submitted by Phil

At the end of a very enjoyable three days of astrophotography with a several other astronomers at the Leon Mow Dark Sky Site in Victoria (Australia), I caught a nice display of Geminid meteors. Over two or three hours, while also tending to cameras and telescopes, I spotted about 44 Geminid meteors as well as a number of other 'sporadics'. My camera also caught quite a few. For two hours, I kept a Canon 5D mkII ticking over at ISO3200 with 8 second exposures through a 24mm f1.4 lens wide open, all on a Vixen GP-DX equatorial mount. I stacked that against a single 2 minute exposure to capture the surrounding stars and the milky way through Orion and up to Sirius and Canis Major at the top.

Click for larger size
astrophotography
meteors
15
Nov

Stars in Motion

Submitted by Phil

It's been awhile since I started playing with night sky timelapse videos, but finding a way to share them online with better than YouTube quality has been a bit of a stretch. Enter SmugMug and their video galleries which do the job nicely. Below are the first few videos I've put online. You can even get them in Full HD resolution via the SmugMug 'Stars in Motion' gallery.

Clouds and Stars over the Twelve Apostles
astrophotography
timelapse
20
Oct

The Greens' Safe Climate Bill

Submitted by Phil

As the convenor of the Australian Greens has just said, "perhaps the only thing more despairing than the science is the current politics of climate change". And it looks like Tim Colebatch in "The Age" agrees, with his article "A Race to the Bottom":

20
Oct

Where The Hell Is The Outrage?

Submitted by Phil

Mike Shedlock (aka Mish) is an investment advisor with a popular blog. Despite his conservative political nature, he was not impressed with the Republican handling of the financial crisis and is now even more upset about the Democrat's response. And rightly so. Obama may be winning friends around the world (and Nobel prizes) with his smooth talking, but he is in charge of a ship that is absolutely shafting U.S. taxpayers and, by extension, the economic future of just about everybody else as well.

In his post, Where The Hell Is The Outrage?, Mish recounts some of the incredibly close connections between the White House administration and the top end of Wall St. Here is how he ends:

economics
10
Sep

Back Country Skiing in NSW (2009)

Submitted by Phil

Here are a select few photos from a week of back country skiing on the NSW Main Range:

Whites River Hut

skiing
02
Aug

Green Shoots and other Fairytales

Submitted by Phil

A rather sober tale today.. just in case I need to say 'I told you so'. Here are links to a few posts that show where I think the world is at and where we're headed.

First, Steve Keen, an Australian un-conventional economist, is recognised in a research paper for being amongst a select few to anticipate this credit crisis:

July 2009: No One Saw This Coming? Balderdash!

The cornerstone of Steve Keen's argument is built around the above long-term chart. Credit as a proportion of GDP has rarely been stable - periods of credit (debt) expansion have been followed by deflationary 'busts' in the late 1800's and then more famously in the Great Depression. Increasing credit (debt) as a proportion of GDP is inherently unstable - we've simply been blowing one bubble after another for too long now. The problem is that conventional neo-classical economic theory does not recognise the role of private credit in the economy, but private debt has become so significant that it IS the economy.

economics

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