A Darker View

The Moon and Pleiades

Tonight a bright gibbous Moon will be just under 3° from the Pleiades star cluster. The Moon will be 84% illuminated, bright, but the cluster is bright enough to be seen even against a bright Moon. As the Pleiades move to the west over coming months there will be a few more lunar conjunctions, with increasingly smaller crescents.

Perihelion

Today the Earth is closest to the Sun, a point called perihelion. We will be about 147,098,290km (91,402,639miles) from the Sun. Compare this to the 152,098,232km (94,509,459miles) we will be at aphelion on July 4th, a difference of about 5,411,169km (3,362,344miles) occurs throughout one orbit.

It may seem odd that we are actually at the closest for the middle of northern winter, you just have to remember that proximity to the Sun is not the cause of the seasons. The seasons are caused by the axial tilt of the Earth, creating short and long days throughout the year, with a resulting change in the angle and intensity of the sunlight.

2012 Solstices and Equinoxes
	UT		HST
Perihelion	Jan 5	03:59UT	Jan 4	17:59HST
Spring Equinox	Mar 20	05:14UT	Mar 19	19:14HST
Summer Solstice	Jun 20	23:09UT	Jun 20	13:09HST
Apehelion	Jul 4	23:59UT	Jul 4	13:59HST
Fall Equinox	Sep 22	14:49UT	Sep 22	04:49HST
Winter Solstice	Dec 21	11:12UT	Dec 21	01:12HST

Source: USNO Data Services Website and the NASA Sky Calendar

Site Appearance

Yeah, I am not happy with the appearance of the site either.

The current theme just has a number of annoying “features” that just bother me. I am experimenting with another theme, one with an even cleaner and more minimalistic layout. So expect the appearance to change some time. In the meantime if you happen to stop by Darker View late some night to see an entirely different look… It is just me working on another layout.

Some Holiday Diving

Boat dives are always a treat. We generally shore dive, where the only costs are the tank fills and a little gas to drive to the site. Many sites along the Kohala Coast are easily reached from shore. There are a number of great sites that are more difficult to reach, sites for which a boat provides a nice alternative. When going with a dive boat you also have the crew to assist in rigging gear and getting in and out. They also provide drinks, snacks and friendly conversation while you wait through a surface interval between dives. A holiday treat? A mutual Christmas gift? Whatever you want to call it, we booked a dive with Denise and Dave from Blue Wilderness for a day of diving.

Deborah Descending — Deborah descending to the bottom

There were several divers beside Deb and myself. Ben, from London, had left his girlfriend back at the resort for a morning of diving. A family from Saskatchewan was escaping the winter with a couple weeks in Hawai’i and a morning of diving. The wife and daughter were simply snorkeling. The father, an ex-navy diver, was introducing his son Brett to the sport.

Continue reading “Some Holiday Diving”

The Moon and Jupiter

Tonight the Moon and Jupiter will shine brightly high in the evening sky. The pair will be about 5°55′ apart near zenith as the sky grows dark.

Quadrantids

The first meteor shower of 2012 is likely to be a good one. The Quadrantids are a reliable shower, producing 60-120 ZHR, one to two meteors per minute. The Quadrantids are named for the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis, now part of the constellation Boötes.

For viewers in the mid-Pacific the peak will arrive early on the morning of January 4th. The radiant rises around 2am, creating a pre-dawn event. Set the alarm clocks early for this one. While the predicted peak is January 4, 07:20 UT (January 3, 21:20 HST) the show should be quite decent for hours either side of this time. Unlike other showers where activity can occur for days or even weeks, the Quadrantids have a sharp peak, activity falls off rapidly on the preceding and following nights.

The Moon is still a few days short of full, allowing several dark hours before dawn for meteor watching. Moonset will occur about the same time the radiant rises, about 2am, giving observers about three hours of good dark skies to enjoy the event.

Watching meteors requires no more equipment than your eyes and a dark sky, and can be enjoyable for just about anyone. Set the alarm clock, this one should be worth the early morning wake-up.

The Moon and Jupiter

Tonight the Moon and Jupiter will dominate the evening sky. They will be close to each other, about 9°40′ apart. The Moon will be a little over 60% illuminated, with Jupiter shining brightly at -2.6 magnitude. Tomorrow they will be even closer, at only 6° separation.

Darker View is now on WordPress

It has been a decision that has been brewing for quite some time. I have changed Darker View over to using WordPress as the underlying software.

For the last four years Darker View has run on Serendipity (known as S9Y) as the underlying blogging software. The software has served me well, it is easily customizable and has proven quite stable. Unfortunately it is also beginning to show some signs of wear. It is getting slower and slower as the size of Darker View’s databases have grown. Any number of new technologies and features I would like to add to DV are not available.

Serendipity is not supporting the blogging community to the degree that WordPress is. The development behind WordPress has reached such an overwhelming critical mass that it is hard not to make this switch, if just to avail myself of the features and support available from the WP community.

When my father asked me to setup a blog for him I knew I would use WordPress to do it. Using WP to setup NordicQuest.com allowed me to get a good hands-on look at the software. I was expecting a good experience, what resulted was even better. I was consistently pleased with the features and ease of use offered by WP. This cemented my decision to convert Darker View to WP as soon as possible.

This will not be without a lot of pain. There are over 2350 postings, hundreds of images, and a lot of history contained in the databases of Darker View. I have attempted twice to automatically convert the mass of material contained in the S9Y databases to WP. Both attempts were dismal failures, resulting in a couple FTP and SQL sessions needed to delete and clean up the resulting morass. Thus I have simply setup a clean WP install and started afresh. I will probably make an effort to cut and paste the most significant articles over to the new platform.

I will leave the old blogging software in-place for now. All of the old links and articles will remain online. Fortunately the choices I made when structuring the site years ago when installing S9Y will allow me to run both blogging packages in parallel. But for 2012, all new material will be on the WordPress platform.

Watch and Download Full Movie Imaikkaa Nodigal (2018)

A pile of nylon zip-tie fragments litter the deck after running a cable

Imaikkaa Nodigal

Released August, 08 2018|Duration : 2 hours 50 minutes

DIRECTED BY : R. Ajay Gnanamuthu.

PRODUCED BY : C. J. Jayakumar, Chithra Jayakumar.

GENRE : Drama, Action, Romance, Thriller.

VIDEO : 720p.

LANGUAGE : தமிழ்.

MORE INFO

COUNTRY : India.

PRODUCTION BY : Cameo Films.

PLOT SUMMARY

Movie ‘Imaikkaa Nodigal’ was released in August 30, 2018 in genre Drama. R. Ajay Gnanamuthu was directed this movie and starring by Nayanthara. This movie tell story about A CBI officer goes in search of a ruthless serial killer. Things get worse when the murderer targets the former and her family

CAST

Watch Full Movie One Cut of the Dead (2017)

One Cut of the Dead

Released November, 11 2017|Duration : 1 hours 37 minutes

8.8

DIRECTED BY : Shin’ichirô Ueda.

WRITTEN BY : Shin’ichirô Ueda.

PRODUCED BY : Koji Ichihashi.

GENRE : Drama, Comedy, Horror.

VIDEO : 720p.

LANGUAGE : 日本語.

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COUNTRY : Japan.

PRODUCTION BY : Panpokopina, ENBU Seminar.

PLOT SUMMARY

‘One Cut of the Dead’ is a movie genre Drama, was released in November 4, 2017. Shin’ichirô Ueda was directed this movie and starring by Harumi Shuhama. This movie tell story about After an epic 40-minute one-take zombie-movie we get to watch behind-the-scenes of how it came to be: a comedy of errors with overly dedicated actresses, clumsy crew, arrogant directors and a lots of trials and tribulations.

CAST