Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[RED-DOG]

The telescope details are too complex for me but my point (When I make it) will remain the same.

If we are looking through a powerful telescope, won't we see the light sooner, i.e. so that 20 light years becomes 19.9 light years or something?

Light can only travel at the speed of light. It can only get from where it is to your eye as quickly as light travels, so I don't think so, no

Does that mean that to be able to see a lit match from 20 miles with the aid of a telescope, the light from the match must already be capable of reaching your eye without the aid of a telescope?

[kinboshi]

The telescope details are too complex for me but my point (When I make it) will remain the same.

If we are looking through a powerful telescope, won't we see the light sooner, i.e. so that 20 light years becomes 19.9 light years or something?

Light can only travel at the speed of light. It can only get from where it is to your eye as quickly as light travels, so I don't think so, no

No, it doesn't get from A to B any quicker.  The light that arrives is merely focused more clearly (by lenses and sensors) to create a clearer image. The light is/was there before the telescope was pointed at it, it's just that the right lens and sensors weren't being used to 'see' it.

[kinboshi]

The telescope details are too complex for me but my point (When I make it) will remain the same.

If we are looking through a powerful telescope, won't we see the light sooner, i.e. so that 20 light years becomes 19.9 light years or something?

Light can only travel at the speed of light. It can only get from where it is to your eye as quickly as light travels, so I don't think so, no

Does that mean that to be able to see a lit match from 20 miles with the aid of a telescope, the light from the match must already be capable of reaching your eye without the aid of a telescope?

Yes, exactly that.

[RED-DOG]

Bang goes another theory then.

[Tal]

The telescope details are too complex for me but my point (When I make it) will remain the same.

If we are looking through a powerful telescope, won't we see the light sooner, i.e. so that 20 light years becomes 19.9 light years or something?

Light can only travel at the speed of light. It can only get from where it is to your eye as quickly as light travels, so I don't think so, no

Does that mean that to be able to see a lit match from 20 miles with the aid of a telescope, the light from the match must already be capable of reaching your eye without the aid of a telescope?

Well it always will be. We are seeing images from shortly after the start of the universe, so those radiowaves have made it to our eyes alright, 13 billion years on, travelling at the speed of light.

The light might be too faint for us to detect with our eyes, but it is still there.

[vegaslover]

One final attempt re the astronomy stuff. Wouldn't do this other than there are some mind blowing numbers here:



This little fellow is the Pinwheel Galaxy. You are seeing it about 21 million years ago, because that's how long the light takes to get to us. It is about 70% larger than our Milky Way but has 10 times as many stars in it.

Remember the stat about that nebula where if we stood at either end it would take 2 years for me to see you waving? With this galaxy, it would take 117,000 years for me to see you waving.

It is a spiral galaxy, but we can see it virtually straight on.




This is the Sombrero Galaxy (sounds like an ice lolly). 29million light years away.

It is also a spiral galaxy, but it is side on. It has a ring (like Saturn) that goes all the way round the entire galaxy.

The black hole in the middle has the equivalent of a billion of our suns in it. A billion.

Tal. Are we seeing a magnified view of those galaxies? (magnified from our viewpoint that is, I know they wouldn't fit into the picture at actual size.)

Whilst the telescopes and perhaps more importantly their locations are awesome nowadays, they also enhance and often superimpose the pictures to give us, joe public, a better perspective

[bobAlike]

Just to bring this thread back on track (geddit?), sidings and cuttings are part of the project too.

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

Just to bring this thread back on track (geddit?), sidings and cuttings are part of the project too.

Click to see full-size image.

Cuttings - had not ever thought about that, but yes, they need permanent structural integrity, & if they fail, disaster ensues, so that makes perfect sense.

But sidings? Why sidings?

I can't begin to fathom why sidings would be part of this remit.

Don't get me wrong, I love sidings, spenty half my childhood observing shunters at work in sidings, sorting & assembling the daily freight trains, & I love the clink-clink-clinkety-clickety KABOOM sounds that freewheeling loose shunted freight wagons make when they hit the stationery wagons, but I'm struggling to see the safety relevance, or need for a Database.

If you enlighten me suitably, I may post another Train Video.

[bobAlike]

Cuttings - had not ever thought about that, but yes, they need permanent structural integrity, & if they fail, disaster ensues, so that makes perfect sense.

But sidings? Why sidings?

I can't begin to fathom why sidings would be part of this remit.

Don't get me wrong, I love sidings, spenty half my childhood observing shunters at work in sidings, sorting & assembling the daily freight trains, & I love the clink-clink-clinkety-clickety KABOOM sounds that freewheeling loose shunted freight wagons make when they hit the stationery wagons, but I'm struggling to see the safety relevance, or need for a Database.

If you enlighten me suitably, I may post another Train Video.

I'm not sure why, I imagine it will only be certain sidings where there maybe structural dependencies. I will ask at my next meeting.

[smashedagain]

There was a big landslide between Scunny and Doncaster that will keep the line closed for a while.

http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/UK/74vpdltjv/Martin-Vickers-MP-calls-for-alternative-rail-route.htm

[Doobs]

There was a big landslide between Scunny and Doncaster that will keep the line closed for a while.

http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/UK/74vpdltjv/Martin-Vickers-MP-calls-for-alternative-rail-route.htm

That is the old spoil heap from Hatfield collery.  This is owned by Hargreaves Services, which I have a few shares in.  Of course since I bought them a year or so ago, before they discovered oil in a coal seam, which doesn't work out as well as you might hope. 

Now they have this.  Given the share price movement, I assume not much of the bill will end up with them. 

[tikay]

There was a big landslide between Scunny and Doncaster that will keep the line closed for a while.

http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/UK/74vpdltjv/Martin-Vickers-MP-calls-for-alternative-rail-route.htm

That is the old spoil heap from Hatfield colliery.  This is owned by Hargreaves Services, which I have a few shares in.  Of course since I bought them a year or so ago, before they discovered oil in a coal seam, which doesn't work out as well as you might hope.  

Now they have this.  Given the share price movement, I assume not much of the bill will end up with them.  

Hargreaves? Wowzer, I know them well. If you got the shares a year ago, you should be sitting on a nice profit.

They own two particular haunts that, when I was in CE, I did a great deal of sub-contract work at.

Maltby Coilliery, aka "Maltby Main" is theirs now, though when I was there, it was NCB, who sold it to RJB Mining, who then morphed into UK Coal. Later, they sold it for a pittance to Hargreaves, £27 million I think. It had cost UK Coal & NCB £200 million to develop the Parkgate Seam.  

It was at Maltby that I first experienced going to the bottom of a deep mine shaft - almost 1,000 metres in this case. The first part of the journey was in a "cage", not unlike a hoist on a building site. A sort of working man's lift. That went a few hundred metres down, then you transferred to what was, in affect, a giant circular bucket on the end of a pulley. The correct term was a kibble.

So, I stood in this bloody bucket, the man pressed the signal button - two rings to descend - & down I went. Never been so scared in my life.

When I was ready to return "up", the lads at the bottom thought they'd have some sport with this soft Southerner who was obviously new to mine workings. The kibble, when at the shaft bottom, does not quite sit on the ground, it is a few inches above, & dangling on what amounts to a crane hook. So they twisted the kibble round & round 6 or 8 times, then gave the signal for the kibble to head up. And, of course, as it rose through the pitch darkness, it now started spinning wildly, to unwind itself. Bastards.....

They also now own Monckton Coke & Chemical, which truly is hell on earth. It is adjacent Wombwell which was then (maybe still is) a typically Barnsley-type Yorkshire town. But it stunk of sulphuric acid (?) very much like rotten eggs, & this smell persisted across the Town 24/7. Jeez, what a place.

The "bucket" below is an early kibble, they are a bit bigger now, & can hold 4 or 5 blokes, or could when I had my experience of them.

Click to see full-size image.

[Doobs]

I bought them before they discovered oil at Maltby, so unfortunately not.  The pit is going to be mothballed, as they haven't been able to work out a way of taking coal from the seam.

[tikay]

There was this really weird thing when I used to do CE work in deep-shaft colleries.

If the weather was bad (above ground), the mine could not operate, due to coal gas seepage.

Apparently, the seepage of methane or gas is reliant on barometric pressure.

So, bad weather - which generally arises when barometric pressure is LOW - means the air pressure cannot "hold the gas in", & it seeps put, meaning work had to be abandoned.

Good weather - generally caused by high pressure - means the gas does not seep out, & so work can continue in deep shaft mines.

So, ignorant of all this, I priced up a job to construct some straightforward RC bases....in December. I won the job, & we started in January.

I'd send my 6 lads to the Colliery every day, & have to pay them to sit in the cabin, playing cards & supping tea, because of low-pressure causing underground work to be suspended.

The contract had a value of around £14,000, & it cost over £42,000, so I had some explaining to do to my Chairman, JNK.

He listened patiently, as always, then said "OK you daft bugger, but what did we learn from the experience?"

I doubt, in this day & age, a Chairman could call an Employee a "daft bugger". What a man he was, I idolised him to bits, & he taught me to park my ego at home & leave it there.

He presented me with the traditional gift when I retired, an engraved gold watch, & it has never left my side since that day, not once, it means the world to me.

And yesterday, I somehow lost that watch.

Damn damn damn.

[RED-DOG]

There was this really weird thing when I used to do CE work in deep-shaft colleries.

If the weather was bad (above ground), the mine could not operate, due to coal gas seepage.

Apparently, the seepage of methane or gas is reliant on barometric pressure.

So, bad weather - which generally arises when barometric pressure is LOW - means the air pressure cannot "hold the gas in", & it seeps put, meaning work had to be abandoned.

Good weather - generally caused by high pressure - means the gas does not seep out, & so work can continue in deep shaft mines.

So, ignorant of all this, I priced up a job to construct some straightforward RC bases....in December. I won the job, & we started in January.

I'd send my 6 lads to the Colliery every day, & have to pay them to sit in the cabin, playing cards & supping tea, because of low-pressure causing underground work to be suspended.

The contract had a value of around £14,000, & it cost over £42,000, so I had some explaining to do to my Chairman, JNK.

He listened patiently, as always, then said "OK you daft bugger, but what did we learn from the experience?"

I doubt, in this day & age, a Chairman could call an Employee a "daft bugger". What a man he was, I idolised him to bits, & he taught me to park my ego at home & leave it there.

He presented me with the traditional gift when I retired, an engraved gold watch, & it has never left my side since that day, not once, it means the world to me.

And yesterday, I somehow lost that watch.

Damn damn damn.

Oh that's a bugger Tone.

You may have lost the watch, but you still have the memories.