Galaxy Zoo 2

Welcome to Galaxy Zoo, where you can help astronomers explore the Universe

For the past week I have found a brilliant excuse not to get on with the  novel, I have been classifying galaxies, and before you think that I have gone totally gaga let me explain. On the news the other morning I heard a chap explaining how Oxford University wanted 'ordinary' people to look at images of distant galaxies and classify them using a relatively simple set of criteria.  

Apparently this only the second time that this sort of thing has been done on such a large scale - the last project which was called just Galaxy Zoo, had 150,000 volunteer classifiers and the Oxford team were so impressed by the results that they have just launched the sequel, Galaxy Zoo 2.

Now I'm not particularly scientifically inclined (just ask my son!) nor am I a techie whizz (again ask said son) but when Dr Chris Lintott ( a Postdoctoral Researcher in Astrophysics) said that while Astrophysicists seem to have problems following the instructions for new classifiers on the website, the average 6 year old didn't, so it looked like I might be OK.  In fact the only problem I have had so far (apart from spending far too much time on the site and not enough time writing the novel) is that I made a right fool of myself yesterday when I tried to post a message onto one of the forums and couldn't attach an image to it.  (You use the forums to show something odd/strange in a Galaxy you have been classifying)

Now rather than bore you all to death with pictures of my favourite Galaxies and yes I am building quite a little portfolio of favourites, I will just say that while there has been much discussion on the forums about 'muffins' I feel that I might be the first to report a 'chili'.

You might need to squint to see it in the top right hand corner of the picture - I have taken to squinting at all the images - note to self; I really must get better lighting around the computer!

I will let you know if anyone comes back to me on my ground breaking discovery - so far the only messages I've had on the forum are those trying to explain to me how to attach an image - duhh, I don't think that I'm impressing them with my limited grasp of technology...

 

Matthew Street Festival

The bank holiday weekend saw the return of the Matthew Street Festival to Liverpool so what better excuse to photograph the city. We went in early on the first day of the festival and stayed for about 6 hours! We had a great time wandering around all of the six outdoor stages listening to some good music and enjoying the party atmosphere. In fact we enjoyed it so much we went back on the second day and took in the extra stage at the Albert Dock.

Writing for a living - I'm going to write a novel

When I left school I was in a quandary, should I try for a job with our local newspaper or take the job I had been offered with Barclays Bank? On the one hand I love to write and really fancied being a cub reporter with the Bootle Times Herald but without a degree I was told that I would be making the tea and collecting the wages from the bank rather than wandering the streets of Liverpool in a trench coat with a high powered camera slung around my neck.

Barclays on the other hand offered a career. Admittedly any career prospects would only have come in to play after my 25th birthday because as a member of the 'women's' staff it was presumed that before then I would get married and have babies and give up working to to find true fulfillment as a woman - (I kid you not, this really was how woman staff were regarded in 1972). Well at least I wouldn't be making the tea and I would be earning £12.00 a week.

So common sense and a lack of confidence set me on the road to a career in banking. And what was my first job? you've guessed it - making the tea - but it wasn't all bad and over the years I had some interesting jobs, made some good friends and found a husband all thanks to Barclays. I never lost my love of writing though and have always kept holiday journals and have even written school plays and a kids panto (for my sins). I have found writing regularly for Spanish Steps a challenge this year. It is amazing how much research is involved in planning a soap set in Spain, everything from the actual location of the set to choosing names for the characters can take ours of searching, to say nothing of the time spent planning plot lines and character development. But I think that it has been worth it and with a growing number of regular readers I can honestly say that I am a 'published' author.

So what's next? Well obviously I would like to start making some money from my writing and hopefully this will come in time but in the meantime I have a new idea. I would like to write a novel, you know the old saying that we all have one novel inside us? well mine is about to burst forth. Not one to take the easy road and lock myself away and just type in isolation I am planning to write my novel online. Instead of having conversations in my head about how I am going to plan and develop I will be talking 'out loud' to an audience of blog readers. I want to be able to explain why the characters are saying what they are saying and do what they are doing. I want to have this conversation and then write the novel in real time i.e the reader will see the novel grow as I am writing it, all the editing, all the changes and probably some of the foul language when I am sitting there desperately trying to work out what happens next.

I don't pretend that this will be some kind of literary masterpiece. I am after all just someone who loves writing rather than a proper writer but I can promise that it will be honest. I have always been fascinated how books are written, how the authors mind work, where they gather their information from etc and maybe if you feel the same you will enjoy reading about mine.

In the next couple of weeks I hope to get the new blog up and running - when I do - you'll be first to know