Johannesburg Centre, Astronomical Society of Southern Africa

Interesting items

courtesy of Tony
Some things you may not know

  1. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.
  2. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
  3. It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."

Tony Golding

 Eclipse Snipperts

Pop along to the following Website and look at the photos of the June 21st Eclipse.

http://www.icon.co.za/~nevyoung/photos.htm

emailed to the editor by Brian Fraser

I popped along - great photos - Ed.

More Eclipse Snipperts

This is a nice collection of eclipse pictures.

Try also click on some of the other sites listed at the bottom especially "Neville Young's site"

http://www.hartrao.ac.za/news/010621eclipse/lusaka/lusaka.html

emailed to the editor by Brian Fraser

Eclipse pics

Hello there,

If you are one of those thought I had dropped off the face of the Earth, let me say I'm still alive and kicking (if only feebly). If I was "quiet", it was due to work, and of course more recently... preparation for the Great Lusaka Eclipse Jaunt. To get a taste of that monumental event, take a look at my little web site:

http://home.mweb.co.za/mw/mwgringa/

Unfortunately the service provider has recently been subject to attack by hackers in other countries (who knows why?), which has lead to a few difficulties in access at certain times. So, if you don't get through, well, try again another time.

Some of the thumbnails link to non-existent pictures. That is because I couldn't ftp through our firewall at work, so had to upload the pics from my modem at home. Where the files were too big, I just gave up on them because it would have taken too long. So, if you are looking at this with a fast link, by all means click on the thumbnails for bigger pics. If you are using a modem, just click on the buttons for acceptable download times.

Someday I shall probably get around to building a better, more varied and interesting site, so perhaps you want to bookmark the URL and check up on it on occasion.

In the meanwhile, enjoy!

Cheers,
Chris Stewart

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