My Birthday, Spiderman and Sunspots

Its probably psychosomatic but I always seem to be ill on my birthday - probably the shock of being one year older or something. Anyway, this year I was ill all week but actually feel a lot better today! [apart from having a bizarre episode at the doctors where I tried to faint when they took a blood sample!] 



Got taken out tonight for a meal and watched Spiderman II at the cinema 



 





To cut a long story short - pretty enjoyable - but glad I watched it at the cinema where the effects, sound and big screen made up for some of the plot - though I must say I enjoyed it more than the first film.



Wasn't up to driving to the Lake District for Simon's wedding - instead will have a quiet weekend at home ready to return to work on Monday.



Opened my present from my older brother - it was 'Astronomy Monopoly' - good grief! [how does someone even know to look for this sort of thing?] This means that after 20 years of avoiding playing the game with him, I have no excuse next time he comes over. It's terribly geeky, but I do like the fact that one of the pieces is a Meade telescope (like mine)...



With astronomy on my mind I decided to use my telescope for the first time in 5 months [plus I thought stepping out of the house might be good after a week inside]. I managed to take a couple of photos of the sun through the LX90. Wanted to capture the massive 0652 sunspot region that is currently visible. Will process a couple of the images and post later. Only snag was that I don't have the right mounting ring for the Nikon D70 and I also have a lot of dust/crap in the camera - both on mirror, viewfinder sensor and actual Bader CCD filter - I phoned up Nikon UK in Kingston and they said I can drop it in for a clean next week.