Sky and the space beyond

Many bloggers around the world are sitting on earth searching for motives in the sky to present on the web every Friday.
Up in the clouds there may also be someone with the face turned to the space and the universe beyond.If the eyes are "good enough" may be the size of things out there in our Solar System can be watched like this:
Adding some of the other planets in our solar system, we can see that the earth is quite small.
and the size of the Sun compared to the Planets shows the huge space out there.
However, the size of other things (Stars) in space outside our Solar System must be added to understand how small we rally are in the macro perspective.
Our Tellus is invisible in this scale.
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky with a visual apparent magnitude of −1.47. At a distance of 2.6 parsecs (8.6 light-years), the Sirius system is one of our near neighbors.
Pollux also cataloged as Beta Geminorum (β Gem / β Geminorum), is an orange giant star approximately 34 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini (the Twins). Pollux is the brightest star in the constellation (brighter than Castor (Alpha Geminorum). As of 2006, Pollux was confirmed to have an extrasolar planet orbiting it.
Arcturus is at least 110 times more luminous than the Sun, but this underestimates its strength as much of the "light" it gives off is in the infrared; total power output is about 180 times that of the Sun. Arcturus is 36.7 light years (11.3 parsecs) from Earth, relatively close in astronomical terms.
Rigel, Aldebaran, and Betelgeuse can be found in the constellation Orion . The Hunter´s stars are found on the celestial equator and are visible throughout the world. Its three prominent "belt" stars - three stars of medium brightness in the mid-section of this constellation - make this constellation easy to spot and globally recognized.
Antares is a red supergiant star in the Milky Way galaxy with a diameter of approximately 700 times that of the sun. Antares is approximately 600 light years from our solar system. Its visual luminosity is about 10,000 times that of the Sun, but because the star radiates a considerable part of its energy in the infrared part of the spectrum, the bolometric luminosity equals roughly 65,000 times that of the Sun. The mass of the star is calculated to be 15 to 18 solar masses.

If we believe in climate changes (and that is not difficult to do), do we really believe that the human influence are the only cause? The size and powers from the things in the sky may be well in-calculated.
Happy watching tonight.

ABC Wednesday = B

This week the beautiful other side of the sunset is my motive. Turning the camera in the opposite direction can give you new experience. The sun is going down in the West making wonderful effects of the nature and culture to the East.
B is for Beautiful. To the south the small trees are bending due to many years of hard wind.
B = Bending in the wind
And if you want another way of looking at the bushes, listen to Bob Dylan and his Blowing in the Wind from 1971.
B is for Blowing

Tuesday facts - Banknotes

The Ecconomist made yesterday an overview over the World's highest-denomination banknotes. I have in previous posts presented some of the banknotes we used in the Middle East and Asia, and here is some of the notes mentioned by the magazine.
First the Hungarian Pengo:Then the German Mark:The Yugoslavian Dinar:And the latest, The Dollar from Zimbabwe:The highest value of the banknote in Euro is 500. I am in favor of using Euro in Norway. But until that is acceptable policy, be happy when shopping during your holidays knowing that plastic cards still are useful world wide.

Monday Odd Shot

The warm summer gives me problems creating or finding really Odd Shots this monday. Hopefully will the photo taken some time ago during Easter be a little ODD this time of the year.If you want another Odd photo this shot of the Scandinavian Women Association Singapore 1996 is odd if you combine it with my wife´s tailor who remembered her 12 years after our stay. He also remembered the lady most left. Good customers?
and may be some of them are bloggers today.And at last as a greeting to anemone on vacation. Hopefully she has come to a conclusion regarding her hair challenge before she return to the blogging world.

Plus 30 C for the 3rd day

Blue sky, no wind, UV dangerous sun and almost 90 F for the 3rd day this week.

Why continue with Blogging

Yesterday my friend RuneE in his blog told about good reason not to blog.

Temperature above 30C --- Yes
Red and Black Current ready for harvesting --- May be.

Here at my cottage in Oslo the temperature ended at 30C so the shadow at by balcony gives me many possibilities to work with canvas and colors. The result may well be called Headmaster because it is the end of Tullen´s holiday this weekend. The upcoming three weeks she has to take days off due to the absence of the pupils.

However, call it what you want, the situation with relaxed days and sunbathing under a blue sky remains.

Within days we also have to clean the red current bush and continue to have raspberries for dessert.

Night, Morning and Friday

Around midnight the moon came on a visit at the eastern sky.
Eight hours later the mist is leaving the green area,
and the summer morning (with 20C) is ready to give us a warm and beautiful Friday.
The Sky is blue, it is Día Nacional de Galicia (English: National Day of Galicia), also Día da Patria Galega (English: Day of the Galician Fatherland).
The autonomous community of Galicia (Spain) celebrates its national holiday. I only have to send greetings to Rachel in Brighton and give her some memories of her last stay in Norway.

Reclining women a favorite motive

I don´t know when it started, but for centuries painters have made thousands of paintings where female bodies lie back in a relaxed position with the back supported. So have I.
Here are some of the works I have done during the last years.
Reclining on a turquoise sofa.
Reclining A la Picasso.
Reclining in a cabin
My last work finished yesterday, Reclining on a sun bed.

All time High for transplantation in Norway

In addition to the ABC Wednesday post today I want to deliver a congratulation to the national hospital - RIKSHOSPITALET - with the All time high record on transplantation during the first half of 2008.
Totally 224 organs have been transplanted. 21 hearts, 38 livers, 17 lungs, 6 pancreas and 146 kidneys.
One important reason behind these figures is that more relatives say Yes to donation.
At the same time 250 organs are still needed to help persons on the hospital´s waiting list.
Make your decision today:
Say YES to Organdonation and tell your relatives about your decision.

Art, Artist, Arne and Acrylic on Canvas

ABC Wednesday has opened the 3rd round and in a New version.
A is for Altered .

Hopefully this version will give us a better way of presenting text and photos under the ABC Wednesday umbrella. Looking back to January 23rd when I joined the ABC alphabet blog meme, I see that I have not moved far away from my understanding of A
A is still Art, Artist, Arne and Acrylic painting

and my last work called Allegro.
Hopefully many new bloggers will find their way to ABC Wednesday and together with the "old" bloggers create a site of interest for all and not only use the meme as a switchboard for marketing own sites.
However, you are always welcome to visit me at Arne´s Bog

Tuesday facts, Weather and ABC Wednesday Round 3

Yesterday at 7pm the rainbow gave a signal about the returning of the sun after many rainy days. The weather forecast for the coming week confirms the natural sign from above.

This morning my wife went out in the garden and cut a rose for my breakfast table, and I gladly pass the rose on to Denise for her job to make the new version of ABC Wednesday up and go from tomorrow.Since the letter last week was Z and Round 3 starts with A, I have to make a short post covering our letters following Z in the nordic alphabet.

Æ Ø Å

Æ is according to Wikipedia a ligatur for AE. We can see the letter in the Greek Mythology (Odysseus) where Aiolos (Æolus) "the wind God" gives Odysseus a bag with all four winds.
Æ we also see in Æsop´s fables

Ø is perhaps the same for OE.
There are two theories about the origin of the letter Ø :
That it arose as a version of the ligature Πfor a diphthong spelled "oe", with the horizontal line of the "e" written across the "o", and
That it arose in Anglo-Saxon England as an O and an I written in the same place, to represent a long close [ö] sound resulting from i-mutation of [ō]: compare Bede's Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon period spelling Coinualch for standard Cēnwealh (a man's name) (in a text in Latin). Later the letter ø disappeared from Anglo-Saxon as the Anglo-Saxon sound [ø] changed to [ē], but by then use of the letter ø had spread from England to Scandinavia.
In English we know the use of the letter in Oedipus.

Å is used for a double A.
Historically, the letter Å derives from the Old Norse vowel á. This was a long /aː/ sound, but over time, the vowel developed to an [ɔ] sound. Medieval writing often used doubled letters for long vowels, and the vowel continued to be written Aa.
My birth town is Ålesund. Before 1917 it was written Aalesund. The city´s football club uses the double A in its name: AaFK (Aalesund Fotball Klubb).

Monday Odd Shots

Since I stayed a couple nights at Copenhagen, my Odd Shots this week must come from this Danish Capital. 

For other Odd Shots visit Katney´s Kaboodie

The most odd within the blogging world last week must however be the numbers of participants in New SkyWatch. My last count was 324 Linkies although only 113 gave Tom feedback by making comments.
Thist week Denise will change the rules for ABC Wednesday, and may be that will be the way to go in the future for blog fellowships.

So on to the Odd Copenhagen: 

The first is the Button Lady at Ripley's Believe It or Not! at "Rådhusplassen".But my preferred Odd Shot is an ordinary Cafe Table. The Odd thing is the Red Tuborg.

Rød Tuborg is a bavarian beer which Tuborg Breweries started the production of in 1875.
They stopped the production of the Red beer at the end of 2002 because of sale declining. Due to many protests it was relaunched 14. may 2007 for a limited period. From 30th April 2008 to the end of May a new limited numbers of bottles was sent out in the market. I got the beer at Hviids Vinstue last week. That´s odd, but: Excellent!

Cheers! or if you are going to a new country this summer, the way to say "Skål" can be found here

Sunday visit at Turids home

My sister in law Turid has invited us to dinner later today. I think she planned for BBQ in the garden, but the weather conditions in mind I believe it will be something around her dining table.
Looking forward to the visit and the family gathering again, and instead of bringing gift at arrival I hereby send her a blog post with the beautiful flowers from the coastal Vest Norway.

The flowers can also go to H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon Magnus on his 35 years birthday today.

Saturday Urban Life - Copenhagen

I promised to go on Photo Safari ( see Petunias sidebar ) during my short stay in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen this week.
The problem is to choose which photos to show. Should they be "family"-photos, Artistic, Photo-technical great (almost impossible by me), or just describe something of what we saw when strolling (between my wife´s shopping) up and down the streets in the center of the city.

The result is:

Leaving Norway at 06.08.38 am catching Sponvika from the new Svinesund-bridgeAt 10.19.04 am (no speed control please) we left Sweden over the Øresund BridgeComing early to Copenhagen we made some strolling prior to the lunch at "The Small Pharmacy" and the dish was described in my thursday post:Then the typical Copenhagen city environment is digitalized:Bicycles can be seen all over the city and some are covered with flowers. The Danes have real bicycle-culture and the cycle-people in Oslo have much to learn by going there. Here they are waitung for Green Light when crossing the road.
Public art is sometimes also playground for children, and since August 15th 2007 Denmark has
a ban against smoking in busses, schools and institutions, locations accessible to the public such as museums, all workplaces, with exceptions possible in one-man offices and the most important: indoor food serving places
Queuing up for the daily RED Hot Dog (mandatory for visitors)
or go to Nyhavn for a beer or/and a "frokost-platte"
Copenhagen´s greatest attraction must be Tivoli. The park is partly an amusement area with horrifying roller coasters etc., bur Tivoli is also a Pleasure Garden with good restaurants, pubs and tranquility areas.
The Tivoli Guards marching,The horrifying Dæmonen rollercoaster features an Immelmann loop, a loop, and a Zero-G roll. Thanks god the tour only takes two minutes.The world's tallest carousel, Himmelskibet, opened in Tivoli in 2006. It is 80 meters high and is built by the Austrian company, Funtime.
The Nimb for posh dinners
Outside Tivoli in streets and squares we can be entertained by Street Dancers and Folk DancersWhen the Photo Safari gives you a break, locate Hviids Vinstue at Kongens Nytorv etablished 1723, and ask for a beer. You are worth it.!