Roman Ruins

This is the last week of my Future Learn astronomy course "Exploring the Night Sky" and I had to whiz ahead to get it all finished because it was the first week of another Future Learn course "Archaeology of Portus: Exploring the Lost Harbour of Ancient Rome". This will be my fourth FL course, and I have signed up to another three! Perhaps I am crazy, but they are so interesting, and you can participate as little or as much as you want, learning at your own pace. The course is online, and accessible 24/7 with material still available indefinitely after the course is over. The Portus course continues my interest in Ancient Rome which was well whetted by the Hadrian's Wall course last autumn. In advance of getting stuck into Portus I was looking at some previous, relatively recent, Roman ruin site visits I have made. In 2013 while vacationing in Antibes, I made a side trip to Nice to see some Roman ruins. Unfortunately the ruins were only accessible to visitors by viewing from the park outside the archaeological museum, near the Matisse museum. Although I would have loved to actually walk among the runs, they were impressive nonetheless!

In the spring of 2012 I was in Barcelona. Prior to the trip I discovered that in ancient times Barcino was part of the Roman Empire (this is probably common knowledge, but it was news to me at the time!) and I made it my business to see what remains I could. I started my first day by taking a taxi from my hotel to the necropolis. There was a bit of confusion when the driver suggested I wanted to go to the museum and I insisted I didn't. It turned out that part of the necropolis is in the museum and can be viewed from outside and above...

The old city of Barcino is obvious: as well as the bronze letters spelling out its heart, the ancient walls which outlined the old city are evident.

Even where new buildings pop up, as with the inside of this civic office, the Roman heritage is preserved. These columns date from the 1st c AD.

Ancient Interests

By my request, Santa brought me the Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) the 1000  year old Iranian national epic by poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi. I have the Penguin deluxe edition of the book with deckled pages and it is a very readable translation. So far it is reminding me of The Mahabharata (the ancient Indian epic which I only saw in Peter Brook's serial televised form), in that it is very bizarre group of stories. I am struck by the use of the word farr to describe a radiance emanating from a true king's face to illustrate that he has a divine rule. The book to me represents a literary parallel to various pieces of ancient art and architecture which I have always associated with Ancient Persia (that is, the Achaemenid Empire, c. 550-330 BCE). Please forgive me if I am incorrect in my association, I don't mean to step on any toes with my ignorance!

Three days was a short time to spend on Museum Island in Berlin in 1992, but I made the most of it. The Pergamon & Bode Museum was amazing and it was there I beheld the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate. The gate hails from 6th century BCE Babylon, shortly before the Persians invaded that part of the world. The wall sculpture below, also at the Pergamon, identified as being from the Persian palace at Susa and being a depiction of a "Spear-bearer of the bodyguard of Darius I (521-486 BC)" shows how stylistically similar Persian work was to other art in the area.

Other work which I have confused in the past for Ancient Persian, are wall reliefs and sculpture from the earlier empire of Assyria (c. 7th century BCE). The British Museum has a beautiful collection of  artifacts from Assyria, including a dedicated long room full of wall carvings.

Whenever I visit the British Museum (every couple of years), I must stand in fascination in this room. The carvings are stunning.

These photos are from a visit in February 2011. Unfortunately, my young daughter felt uncomfortable with the animals being speared and shot with arrows (depictions of a lion hunt), so we did not spend as long in the room as I would have liked!

Star Gazing

 Last night was a cold, mostly clear night. Perfect for winter star gazing. This is the view from our backyard looking south east around 830 pm GMT.

Yes that is some snow on the storage box! My daughter and I are well wrapped up, trying to see if we can pick out the comet. There are lots of stars visible, but I am trying to locate the dim comet with the binoculars before pulling out the telescope.

We were unable to focus on what we think is the comet -- it just seemed too dim. We looked at The Pleiades through the telescope -- my daughter was amazed as the blur in the sky became at least 20 sharp points of light in the eyepiece. My husband took some photos and we think we identified Comet Lovejoy from other photos and articles online.

The Night Skies

This week I started another Future Learn course - "In the Night Sky: Orion" (the following 2 pix are from the course material). Future Learn offers free online non-credited interest courses hosted by various universities. I have already taken three courses and highly recommend them for fun, interest and educational value! This astronomy course is hosted by the Open University and runs for 4 weeks. I have always enjoyed stargazing but there is an extra dimension added through learning something!

Seeing a picture of the sky so full of stars, reminds me of the amazng night sky that is visible in rural areas that are free from light pollution. I lived rurally in South West Kerry for 3 years in the 1990s and remember well the amazing skies on cold clear nights in winter. In the first house we lived at we would take a star map and a red cellophane covered flashlight out to the humpback bridge beside our house and stare in awe: there were way more stars than the star map showed. One of my brothers visited once and we were looking at the rings of Saturn through my telescope until he pointed out that we could see the shape with the naked eye just as easily. 

Living in urban areas most of my life, this is closer to how I view the night sky. I can still pick out constellations easily enough and can boast that I have seen 4 of Jupiter's moons with the planet from the roof of a Dublin apartment!

An email from my Orion course alerted me to the fact that Comet Lovejoy is visible in the skies near Orion through January, weather permitting. I went out last night to have a look and though I spotted part of Orion, clouds quickly came in from two directions and put the kibosh on any sightings. It is raining today and the sky looks relentlessly covered, but I have hopes as I have a few weeks left to view. When I was looking up information on the comet I came across Terry Lovejoy's computer drawing of Comet Hyakutake; it reminded me that I was incorrect in an earlier posting (from 2013) when I named the comet from my painting "Knockeen Comet" as Hale-Bopp. Although I saw comet Hale-Bopp, it was not until December 1997, by which time I had already moved back to urban Bray. This painting is based on my sighting of Comet Hyakutake in the spring of 1996 when I still lived in South West Kerry, outside Portmagee. I remember that night my husband and I dragged the couch into the field outside the house and, along with a blanket to keep warm, we sat for ages staring at the wonders of the universe -- including the comet hanging in the sky, a brilliant beacon among the jewels of stars.

On the Cusp of the New Year!

New Year's is always a time for both looking back and looking forward. Mostly I like to look forward, but looking at the frost on the fuschia hedge surrounding my tiny front garden, I can't help but look back. I have been in Ireland for 21 years, and my remembrances of snow at winter time do not include being able to see so much greenery! So even with a sugary layer of frost yesterday morning and the morning before I am well aware of my location.

This fuschia hedge was planted twelve years ago, when we moved to this little house in Bray after the birth of our daughter. The hedge was an amalgamation of numerous types of fuschia - cuttings taken from various garden hedges we came across, hybrid houseplants, and cuttings from the wild fuschia hedgerows from Kerry, where we lived rurally for our first three years in Ireland. The wild Kerry fuschia has overgrown the other, tamer varieties and our hedge is quite large. Our daughter has also grown, starting secondary school this year, and certainly developing into quite the young woman. I look forward into a challenging year ahead for all of us. Happy New Year and all the best for a healthy and safe 2015.

Happy Christmas!

The Irish Times had a competition about Christmas baubles, and after we did the tree decorating, I entered this picture. My Mum had given me the pink ball, along with a number of other family decorations, when she and my Dad returned to Ireland in 1983. She had initially received the decoration from her Mum when she emigrated to Canada in 1958 and remembers the decoration from her own childhood -- it has certainly stood the test of time! I brought the decoration with me in 1993 when I firmly moved to Ireland myself and it has been on my tree annually since then. I didn't win the competition, but must have been a runner-up as my picture and blurb were printed in the newspaper on Monday with only a few of the other entries.

Every time I bake something for xmas, I think it is the last thing I have to bake. My traditions though seem to never end! Yesterday I made the butter tarts, which have become an annual taste event for a few years now.

As if we don't have enough Christmas traditions in our house, I have watched a number of candy cane making videos and am seriously thinking of co-opting this as a tradition for future years! I thought this video particularly good as it gave the recipe and the woman is making them in a regular kitchen. They are truly home made!

"Ingredients: (this made 15 decent size candy canes, filled one jar with small candies, and still had some left over)

700g sugar
300g glucose syrup (corn syrup)
1/3 - 1/2 cup of water
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar (can be left out if you can't find it)
1-2 teaspoons of peppermint extract/essence
Red food colouring

Will keep for a couple of days. Keep away from humid spots. I stored mine in the fridge :) "

Happy Christmas and a Healthy & Safe New Year!

My Hero - Col Chris Hadfield, Canadian Astronaut

Last Sunday I went with my daughter and husband to Eason's, Dundrum Town Centre, to meet and get our books signed by Col Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut. Col Hadfield has been up in the International Space Station three times, including being the station commander on his last tour of duty (ended May 2013). Along with millions of other people, I first became aware of Hadfield through his version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" which he sung from the ISS (I have previously posted it). He was really interested in spreading the word about space exploration and posted many short videos to YouTube to answer questions about life in space - here are two of my favourites:

How do you sleep in space?



How do you brush your teeth in space?



A few weeks ago, in anticipation of the book signing, we picked up Hadfield's latest book "You Are Here". It is a coffee-table book of photographs of the earth from the ISS. Apparently it is Hadfield's favourite selection (from 45,000 that he took!) of views that he would like to show his best friend.

Last February I gifted my husband Hadfield's autobiography so we also took it along with us to be signed.

The Irish Times had reported on the book signings of "Ireland's Favourite Astronaut" so the queue was lengthy. Hadfield though is so personable, happily willing to have his picture taken with everyone, shaking hands, and writing personal dedications that it was well worth the wait to meet him and a big thrill! He is donating his profits from "You Are Here" to the International Red Cross.