Morning Queue...

 This is the morning queue to get into the British Library.  Some people are keen to get the best desks!

Medieval Women

Yesterday, we went (for the second time), to the Medieval Women exhibition at the British Library.  Productions by women.  Queens with significant power, visionaries, abbesses and anchorites.

Ii Included some particularly wonderful items - such as a letter with the signature of Jean d'Arc, and the single longform copy of The Book of Margery Kempe, as well as gorgeous illustrated versions of works by Christine de Pizan.

The team that organised the show were supported by a group of academics, including Professor Anthony Bale, who led the Birkbeck MA we at the Trees completed a while back, in Medieval Literature and Culture.  But looking at the Birkbeck site, it appears that the course is no more.  Which is sad.

However, Professor Bale is now at Cambridge, the Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1954).  This was the chair created for CS Lewis, and has included very noteworthy holders in the past (Helen Cooper and Jill Mann, to name but two).  So that, at least, is heartwarming.

Net Zero Good News...

We thought this from the Guardian was good news...

Some Anniversaries in 2025

 There are doubtless many more occasions to celebrate, but these caught the eye of the Trees...

350 years   Royal Observatory Founded (and Flamsteed as first Astronomer Royal)

            Cassini division discovered (by Cassini), in Saturn's rings.

250 years   Jane Austen's Birth

            JMW Turner's Birth

                     

200 years   Royal Institution Christmas Lectures Began

            First Passenger Train Ran

100 years   First TV transmission

Another Kielder Post

 Missed posting this the first time...

See Kielder for more.

Local Sign

 But universal, as well...

Astrofest

Earlier this month, I went to the exhibition at Astrofest, the European show and conference about all things astronomical.  There were big telescopes for sale (very pricey!), and computer controllers, observation domes, and cameras of many types.

I was bowled over.  And almost tempted to buy the new Dwarf 3 astronomical camera (you point it, using technology pre-sets that include a reasonably large star atlas, and off it goes).  That would be a relatively easy way to get some very good images, and is less expensive than a telescope.  Although a telescope would probably deliver better images overall.

But that got me thinking.  What is it that attracts about astronomy?  There is a certain pleasure in setting up the telescope, fiddling and fettling, adjusting it to point in the right place and focusing on your target.  That is all lost, to varying degrees, by the servomotors that point at the object of your choice, and keep it in scope.    And by the use of cameras rather than the naked eye.  When we went to the Kielder observatory in 2019 there was a real thrill in seeing the Andromeda galaxy through an eyepiece.  Not in imaging it.

So I don't know.  

It is tempting, though...