Donal wrote:
The reasons for my absence are Astronomy and the piano. I've been trying to
do astrophotography, and it is much more difficult than I could have
believed. I have also been trying to learn to play the piano.....

The piano requires about 3 hours a night, and astrophotography requires
every single second of clear dark sky that is available.

I'm no good at either yet, but I am sort of getting there with the
astrophotography.


I used to do Astrophotography. It was easy. NASA sent me all the
data from a $250,000,000 satellite, I ran it through several megabucks
of computers (with all the power of about one iPod), displayed it on a
$30,000 screen (now called a VGA), and then took a picture with a 35mm
camera. All I had to do for them is give them about 80 hours a week
of my time.