From the category archives:

Earth and Beyond

The Collection

September 28, 2012 Activities

Our last place was a children’s paradise – an old hobby farm which had been owned by a collector and had two children growing up. It was absolutely covered in stuff. Garden ornaments, knick knacks, marbles, little glass stars (why?), broken wind chimes, bottles, dog toys, old batteries, you name it, it was buried somewhere [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Sun Dial

September 12, 2012 Earth and Beyond

I adore it when things are as beautiful as they are functional. I took this picture with the iPhone that has also replaced my watch. But no matter what cover I put on it, it will never be as beautiful as this sun dial. And no matter how good my phone plan, it will never [...]

Ice Lanterns

June 21, 2012 Activities

For the southern hemisphere today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Most of the winter solstice traditions come from the northern hemisphere where it is very dark and snowy, so they often involve candles and bonfires to make light. I wanted to use candles, but I also wanted some way to [...]

Wordless Wednesday – 7 Super Shots

June 13, 2012 Earth and Beyond

A couple of weeks ago Penny from Wildlife Fun 4 Kids tagged me in 7 Super Shots. I’m not much of a meme girl, but I do like using photos and they’re different prompts to my normal. Plus it was fun going through my thousands of photos, the difficulty was in whittling it down to [...]

Venus Answers

June 10, 2012 Earth and Beyond

And to round off the Venus saturated week, a bit of information on the actual planet rather than just how to watch it. Have a look at the questions if you missed them. 1. The morning and evening stars were known to a lot of ancient cultures as they are fairly obvious – the [...]

Venus Transit – recovering from yesterday.

June 7, 2012 Earth and Beyond

Yesterday I live tweeted/instagrammed/blogged/Facebooked the transit of Venus. All that running up and down stairs, stopping the telescope and screen from falling over, searching for the sun, swearing at Telstra as my mobile internet goes out again, and trying to take photos while balancing everything in the wind was exhausting. Thank whatever deity for fast shutter [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Transit of Venus Live!

June 6, 2012 Earth and Beyond

In my first science live blogging/tweeting/instagramming event I’m attempting to cover today’s transit of Venus. As I get photos I will be adding them here, plus you can follow my tweets. For a slightly more exciting version, I’ve also embedded a video from a live feed from the Exploratorium, but you need Flash to see [...]

Quiz – The Venus Edition

June 5, 2012 Earth and Beyond

What else? With the transit tomorrow it has to be Venus. Who realised the morning and evening stars were the same thing? How hot is Venus and why? What are the two unusual things about Venus’ ‘day’? Why is Venus often called Earth’s sister or twin? What’s the picture up the top? Answers here :)

The Transit of Venus

June 4, 2012 Earth and Beyond

Photo of the 2004 transit by Jan Herold. If your social media feeds are anything like mine, they are currently going crazy about the transit of Venus. I have emails, tweets, updates and more tweets reminding me that it’s the last time this century we’ll get to see it. So for those of you for [...]

Mountain Answers

May 18, 2012 Earth and Beyond

What do you know about mountains? For a look at the questions first, have a look here. 1. The world’s tallest mountain is a little more complicated than it sounds. Mt Everest is the official highest peak, at 8,848m above sea level. But don’t forget it gets a significant leg up by being [...]