h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah, that's a tricky one... Something I came across in my Entries about mathematicians - surnames do tend to have a 'masculine by default' connotation (perhaps because of schools referring to male pupils by surname only) so I used first names to emphasise the women mathematicians weren't just their father's/husband's surname. I then also used first names for male mathematicians so as to be fair in relation to potential 'infantilisation'...

I had a quick look in some papers.

Headlines: Main politicians by surname others by full name, Celebs by full name, lesser gods by first name.
The article that follows: Politicians by full name first, ten surname, Celebs by surname, lesser gods by full name once then by first name.

I used to be able to avoid using names altogether.

I guess it also depends by what name the person in question is usually known. The article that prompted me to write, was about Dame Deborah James (Bowelbabe). As there were two friends mentioned, including a husband, when the article kept sayng 'James', quite confusing.

I don't know if this is a petty hate or, for me, a fundamental one, but here goes. I hate the fact that both of my main hobbies require expenditure that I can't afford!

Lots of hobbies have a low, middle and high-end and you can still get decent fulfilment at all levels, but nothing is cheap when you're into astrophotography

I was lucky enough a couple of years ago to be able to put a one-off chunk of cash (modest inheritance and property sale) into getting the basic equipment required, but the thing with this hobby is that it's the very model of capitalism; everything you have bought needs something else to make it work properly or at its best, and these things then require other things to work at their best, and so on

In other words the hobby is an infinite money-pit and you always want/need more to feel that you're getting best value from the things you already have!

It's a bit like having enough money at one stage in your life to buy a Rolls Royce, but then when your income returns to a normal level, discovering that the cost of maintenance and consumables for it are unaffordable.

I know, 1st world problems! OK it is a petty hate then

Great hobby to have! My sympathies. I guess most hobbies do entail a cost, even if modest. Always wanting a better this, or need more supplies of that. Cost mounts up very quickly if you're not careful.

Mr T has a similarly expensive hobby - can be started with fairly basic kit but there's always the temptation to buy more to extend capabilities & make it more enjoyable.

Indeed! Well what you describe is probably more like my other expensive hobby - hi-end audio/audiophilia. But that's not as 'bad' as astrophotography because there's a fairly smooth curve of price correlating to quality, until the law of diminishing returns sets in. Yes, you can easily spend mortgage prices on individual hifi components, but you can also stop anywhere along that curve and be listening to quality that's good enough to satisfy for many years or decades.

Astrophotography on the other hand requires very specific tools to do certain jobs, so it's not so much a gradual improvement as you spend more, rather there are just certain types of imaging you cannot do well or at all, without certain equipment- kind of all or nothing! So that's what makes it so frustrating to have certain avenues cut off unless a spare £thousand or two (or more) is available.

As an example, if I want to be able to do any imaging at all during the summer months when here in the UK there is no astronomical darkness from around May to September, then my only option really is solar astronomy. Yes you can buy cheap film filters that go over the end of a telescope and these produce pleasing enough images in 'white light' of the sun and sunspots. But to do it properly in ultra-narrowband which allows solar flares, provenances and other detail to be seen, you need a dedicated solar-scope or solar eyepiece, both of which start at around the £1k mark

Another simpler and cheaper (but still pricey) example is that you can spend thousands on all the parts that make up an imaging telescope and still not be able to produce acceptable images if you are the 80%+ or so of the population that lives under light polluted skies. No, you need to spend around £200 for a light pollution filter, then another £200-300 for Hydrogen Alpha filter if you want to image nebula and another £2-300 of you want to image other types of nebula with Sulphur emission lines... etc , etc

So yeah it's a money pit alright unless you are happy sticking to the imaging of one type of astronomical object only. And few people are once the astrophotography bug has bitten

Ah! You have GAS.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

A common condition among photographers generally, wow, did you pick an expensive specialization.

Speaking of astrophotography, did you ever hear about how astronaut Don Pettit created a barn door tracker out of spare (and I've heard, some not quite spare) parts around the ISS? It's mentioned in this interview linked below. He used a cordless drill-driver to operate it by carefully adjusting the speed with the trigger to track cities at night as they passed below at 7660 meters/second (4.76 miles/sec). This was totally unscheduled or else they would have engineered one on the ground for him to bring aboard. He decided he wanted to share what the earth looked like at night from space and cludged the thing together.

http://www.space.com/35050-don-pettit-space-photography-interview.html

Oh yeah I've got GAS big time Barely a day goes by when I don't think about how much healthier my bank balance would be if I was just into something normal like football. What's the most you can spend on that? A season ticket, a strip and the odd match abroad? Luxury !

Cool link- always wished I was that creative and handy with tools. I'm very much a lazy astrophotography who wants everything made for him - not good with bodging stuff together.. which doesn't of course help with my expenditure