DaveS

Thanks for the 'links', I'll take a look Dave

Thanks 'Poppy', I'll make a note of that one. The BSS website itself, advises several estimates be obtained. Dave

Thinking ahead, my Boat's BSS cert, expires at the end of March, when the boat will be four years old. From what I've read, it would seem that most BSS examiners are private individuals, who set themselves up as examiners, probably as a second (part time) job. With, of course, the relevant qualification. Also, from what I've heard, the requirements are open to individual examiner's interpretation. In this respect, I've heard of cases where a boat tested and passed by one examiner, has failed when tested by another examiner four years later, on an item that was present at the previous examination, has remained unchanged, along with the regulations relating to it. Thus, alterations were imposed, and the examiner paid for a return visit. I don't like to think this, but it occurs to me, that the system is open to abuse, and 'sharp practice'. I suppose, assuming he is still in business, I could call on the services of the examiner, who examined the boat in March 2006, before it left Viking's factory. A a 'ball park' figure, what should I be expecting to pay for the examination. The boat has gas cooking and water heating, shore power, outboard engine with inboard fuel tank. All factory fitted. Dave

An e-mail and the picture to: info@sealine.com might provide an answer. Given the age of the boat, I know its a bit of a 'long shot', but always worth a try. Dave

Well I'll be starting afresh in the spring, so lets hope mine lasts as long as yours did The boat will be coming out of the water around mid November, and I guess will go back in March/April time. Dave

Thanks for the reponse guys, an interesting read. As you say David, toxicity is the 'key' to the effectiveness of antifoul coatings, and of course TBT was very effective. In fact too effective, in that it was killing off shellfish etc. I believe that copper is a 'key' ingedient, and that boats with copper clad hulls, don't foul up. I think the point the guy was making, rightly or wrongly, was that for whatever reason, the antifouling remains effective longer in broads water. But then, its probably something that he had been told by someone else, and so on............. Dave

I was up at the boat on Friday, doing some 'bits & bobs' on the boat, when I got chatting with another boat owner, in the marina. I happened to mention that my boat was coming out of the water for the winter, and that I was going to get the workshop to jet wash, and antifoul the hull, before putting the boat back in the water in the spring. He said that it then wouldn't need re-antifouling again, for 3 to 4 years, as the water of broads allows antifouling to remain effective for much long than antifouling does in a salt water environment. Possibly something to do with the alkalinity of the water of the broads? Fact or fiction ? Dave

At £45 per head Dave

Wow!!, where do I start . Ok, the 'Goldilocks Zone' is, as you will appreciate, a region space that is the right distance from star, where its neither too hot, or too cold to support life, as we know it. Sorry to use this term again, but maybe somewhere in the universe there is a planet supporting life forms that don't have the same requirements as we humans. Too close to the star and, as in the case of mercury, and the temperature is around that of molten lead. Too far, and the temperature drops to extremely low levels, and I mean extreme!!. Venus is virtually Earth's twin, and a perfect example of what could happen to Earth, if we had a 'run away' greenhouse gas situation. The surface temperature on Venus is in the order of 426C, and caused by the extent of the 'greenhouse gases' in its atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect, and with an atmosphere like ours, Venus could support human life. We now know that Mars was once much warmer than it is now, and supported surface water. However, it lost its atmosphere, and now is a very cold and unwelcoming place. Having and retaining an atmosphere, is all about size (mass), which is key to holding onto an atmosphere. Mars is much smaller than Earth, and hence does not have the mass, to hold onto an atmosphere. Hence our Moon, which is quite small, has no atmosphere. If you stood on the Moon, and looked at the sky, it would always appear black. During the day, the Earth’s atmosphere scatters the Sun’s light, and makes our sky look blue. At night, when the Sun isn’t there, our sky reverts to its natural black. Without our atmosphere, the Earth would be very cold place, even though it resides in the ‘goldilocks zone’. Our atmosphere is also a protective shield, in that protects us from much of the Sun’s harmful radiation. So there we are, my brain aches now. Dave

That is absolutely correct, as when we look into 'space', we are looking back in time. We know that the 'universe' was created during the 'big bang', between 13.5 and 14 billion years ago. With modern techology, we have reached the stage where we can look back (distant galaxies etc), very close to the time of the 'big bang'. As you say, when we look at objects in the night sky, that are billions of light years away, we are seeing them as they were, billions of years ago. Who knows, what they look like now, or even if they are still there. Some of the distances involved are so vast, that astronomers had to revise the units of distance measurement. First off, the Astronomical Unit (AU), which is the distance from Earth to the Sun (93 million miles), next was the light year , then came the Parsec, which is 3.26 light years. Now they talk in Mega Parsecs!! Dave

The answer to that is almost certainly yes, but because of the distances involved, we'll probably never know. There is nothing special about our Sun, as I said it’s a very average star. Planets orbiting other stars, are now being discovered quite regularly. Already well over 100 have been found. Even with our most powerful telescopes, we can't see them, but we know they are there. How?, well when a planet passes in front of it's star (Sun) it causes a minute dimming of the star's light as we see it. We have instruments capable over measuring this. Also orbiting planets, have a gravitational pull on their star, causing it to wobble. Again we have instruments capable of measuring this. Most of the exoplanets (as they are known), that have been discovered so far, are Gas Giants, like Jupiter and Saturn. The rocky planets, Earth and Mars etc, are very small by comparison, so not so easy to detect. However, technology has advanced so that we can now detect the presence of small rocky planets. To support life, as we know it, a planet must reside in the 'Goldilocks' zone. That is not too far (too cold) or too near (too hot) it's star. The biggest problem we have, is that the fastest communications technology we have is radio. Radio waves travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per sec). So if a star say ten million light years away from, has what we believe could be a life supporting planet, and we beamed a radio signal to it, the signal would take 10 million years to get there, and another 10 million years for the answer to come back. Given that radio has only been around with humanity for just over 100 years, then if even the earliest radio signals had headed off into space, they will by now, only have travelled just over 100 light years. So, back to your question. Given the number of potentially suitable stars in the universe, there has to be life-supporting planets out there. Bear in mind, we talk of ‘life as we know it’ (one for the Trekky fans), but to us that’s Carbon based, Air Breathing, Water Drinking creatures, who’s fastest communications technology is that of radio waves. Dave

Ooops!, forgot to answer the question about the bright stars. The really bright one is Deneb, and the other Sadr. They and the Pelican, are in the constellation of Cygnus, which is pretty straight up ovehead. Don't be fooled by the size of Deneb, and many of the smaller stars are far bigger and brighter than Deneb, but much further away. Deneb is the 19th brightest star visible in our sky, and is 60,000 times brighter than our Sun. Dave

Hi Rod Not a numpty question at all. Unless you are 'into' the subject you wouldn't know. The red colour is Hydrogen gas, which gets 'excited' by the electromagnetic radiation (gamma rays etc), from the stars. Hydrogen is the most prolific element in the universe, and in stars. Our Sun, which is very average star, is comprised of 74% Hydrogen. It converts this, in its nuclear furnace at the core, into Helium. When all of the Hydrogen is used up, the Sun will die, swell up into a Red Giant star, and engulf Mercury and Venus, while evaporating all of the Earth's oceans (and the Broads ), before roasting everything on the surface . Before you dash off to say your goodbyes, don't worry, the Sun is now 'middle aged' and very stable , and it won't start to die for another 500 million years!!!. Back to the colours, some nebula contain vast quantites of Oxygen, which shows up blue in CCD images. Dave

APO means Apochromatic, which means that it should be pretty much free of chromatic abberations. In other words, false colour fringing around white point light sources, e.g. stars, and lamps etc. Unfortunatley, a lot of optical gear is sold as being APO, but isn't. Some companies label their optics as 'semi apo', which is nonsense, as there is no such thing. Its either Apochromatic or Achromatic (the cheaper option). I have a Canon 75-300, but this is not the image stabilised (IS) version. However, never had any complaints about the optical quality. I also have two Sigma lenses, but these are from their EX series, and quite a bit more expensive than their standard range. I find the build and optical quaility to be excellent, and on a par, if not better than Canon's standard lenses. Not the Canon 'L' series lenses, which take some beating. Dave

The Earth is a planet, which along with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and millions of asteroids orbit a star. This star we call the Sun The Sun is just a mere 93 million miles away from us, and it's light takes 8 minutes to reach us. Dave P.S. Why no Pluto, well Pluto got demoted to a planetisimal, so is no longer classified as a planet Dave

Hi Mark The camera uses a high grade Sony CCD, which is cooled with a device known as a Peltier Cooler, to minus 20 degrees below the ambient temperature. This keeps the 'noise' very low. The camera, which is specially designed and built for digital astro imaging, looks nothing like a camera as you would know it. It has no view finder, LCD display, or buttons etc, just a power and USB 2.0 inputs. The computer screen is the 'display', and the 'shutter', which isn't isn't actually a 'shutter' as such, is controlled from the PC. These cameras don't come cheap. My mine cost £2k, but you can pay a lot more than that. We tend to break up a long exposures, sometimes up to three hours, into multiple sub frames. For example, that 100 minute exposure used for the above picture, was 10 x 10 minute exposures combined in dedicated software, to produce the final image. The main reason for doing this, is that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of satellites flying around up there, and as they pass through the field of view, put 'steaks' across the image. Also, aircraft navigation and landing lights, completely wreck an image. Therefore, if 95 minutes into a 100 minute exposure, an aircraft flew across the field of view, the whole 95 minutes of data would be lost. So, by breaking the long exposure into a sequence of say 10 or 15 minute sub frames, means that we are likely to maybe lose just one or two sub frames. Dave

One for the 'bird watchers' this one Captured this one last night, under lovely clear sky Its a vast collection of dust and gas, that lays some 1800 light years away from us. With a bit of imagination, you should be able to see why its called the Pelican Nebula For the photographers, it was a 100 minute exposure, at around f/6, with the camera attached to an 80mm Apochromatic Refractor telescope. Dave

A couple of hundred years ago, the French astronomer Charles Messier, specialised in finding Comets. While doing this, he kept finding lots of fuzzy blobs, that weren't Comets. So he catalogued each one of these objects, and their position, so that he wouldn't again mistake them for Comets. He found and catalogued 101 of these objects, and it is known as the Messier list. Today these object are know as M1, M2, M3.......................M101. These fuzzy blobs, we now know as Galaxies. Nebulas, and Star Clusters etc, but we kept Messier's numbers, for no other reason really, than them being historical. Dave

Not as yet Ian, although there are some reasonably dark skies to be found up there. I'm very fortunate to live in village location, that has no street lighting, so enjoy reasonably low light pollution. I'm actually out in the observatory, typing this, while capturing some pictures of the 'Bubble Nebula'. Dave

Made to fit indeed Andy. Very smart Dave

Well captured indeed!! Lovely 'shot's' of a beautiful creature Dave

Shhhh!!, don't let Mrs S hear you Dave

Its called 'The Orion Nebula' Mark , aka M42. Dave

Yes Jonny, I do have an observatory, with an attached control room. Sir Patrick is no longer able to use his telescopes, as he's pretty much wheelchair bound these days, but his brain is still as 'sharp as a pin'. Dave

Yes Martin, you are correct. The telescope mount, is computer controlled, and 'tracks' the object very accurately, to counteract the Earth's rotation. Dave