It was a great day overall. It was awesome to see so many Team BBMA there – I reckon about 15-20 people from the BBMA Squad class competed.

As for the results, I don’t have the results of all of our competitors but I do know we had a good showing overall – with many in the top 3 and a few firsts as well.

Personally, I came 1st in my Kumite (Point Sparring), but didn’t place in the Kata. I was really happy with how I fought, despite copping a jarring reverse punch to the nose which now seems to pointing a little to the right

Keep reading for more videos and images.

There were only 3 competitors in my division (Senior 4th-1st Kyu, under 70kg), but we were able to fight it as a round-robin, so we all got to fight each other (2 fights each). My second match was against Chris, a friend from BBMA who did well in one of his first tournaments.

I won my first match 8-4 and my second 6-0 to take out 1st place.

Point Sparring Round 1 - kick to the back

Point Sparring Round 2 - kick to the head (missed)

Kata video and image.

Kata - Heian Godan

In my Kata, I felt I performed it reasonably well but wasn’t as prepared or warmed up as I should’ve been. Nevermind – it’s always good to get rid of some nerves.

Overall I had a fun day – great to hang out with all the BBMA guy and gals. Next time I compete it may be as a Black Belt! After watching the black belts in the Open division yesterday, I’m not sure I’m ready for that division LOL! It will be a whole new world of pain

Sydney All Styles

Thanks to Mark and Kate for videoing my kata and sparring matches.

Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. First Karate Tournament for 2010 on Sunday
   Well it’s been over 5 months since my last Karate...
2. Countdown to Black Belt – My Journey Begins
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3. Journey to Black Belt – My Goal is now end-2010!
   In a continuing series, every so often I’ll write a...

I hope my form from last September can carry into the Sydney All Styles AKF tournament, taking place this Sunday, 7th March 2010.

In 2009, the Sydney All Styles event was really my first proper karate tournament. Unfortunately there was only 1 other guy in my division (who I lost to) but it was a good learning experience. I then went on to compete in three of the four NAS events and the internal BBMA tournament throughout the rest of 2009 – my skills, my confidence and my results progressively getting better each tournament.

Now a full year later, back to the tournament that started it all. The AFK tournaments are a whole other ball game when compared with the NAS events though, so it will be another learning experience I’m sure. Unfortunately the 2010 NAS Round 1 event is on the same day, which is likely to reduce the number of competitors in the AKF event. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of competitors at the Sydney All Styles are BBMA students, since the majority of Shihan Lliam’s squad training class will be competing!

You can be sure I’ll post results and videos here and on youtube next week!

In other Karate news, my Journey to Black Belt now has a timeline! The Black Belt grading weekend is on June 18/19, and Prep Cycle starts on April 28th. Prep Cycle is 7-weeks of very intensive training leading up to the Black Belt grading weekend. The first half of prep cycle they try and break you physically, and the next half is refining techniques in the lead up to grading weekend.

I’m feeling fit and confident – I’ve been doing the run, followed by the pushups, situps and squat kicks every Saturday morning for months now. For the past 4 weeks I’ve been tracking my run data on NikePlus, after getting their bluetooth pedometer thingy (for my birthday) that records data to my iPod Nano. Very cool indeed! I’m regularly getting between 22:30 and 23:00 for the 5.4 km run, and about 9 minutes to do the whole 100 squat kicks, 100 pushups and 100 situps.

From talking to the other black belts who went through prep cycle in the last black belt grading (end of last year), they do make it sound terrifying But I’m really looking forward to it. I’m keen to get started! Bring it on! I know I’ll come out of it fitter, stronger and with more technically correct technique. I just hope I can avoid injury and illness for the next 3.5 months!

As always, I’ll keep an online diary of the prep cycle here on my blog so check back for updates.

Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. Countdown to Black Belt – My Journey Begins
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2. Journey to Black Belt – My Goal is now end-2010!
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3. Karate Update – Training and Competitions
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A month or so ago I was contacted by Essential Media, a production company who were putting together a series on the solar system and the planets for National Geographic.  They were after some video footage of what Saturn looks like through an amateur telescope, and of course I happily supplied the best footage I had!

Well the series is now finished and goes to air soon!

In the US the series title is A Travelers Guide to the Planets, and goes to air on the National Geographic Channel US on Feb 14th.

In Australia, it will be screened as Voyage to the Planets, shown by the ABC some time in May.

I found my name in the Saturn Credits page.

I’m very excited! I can’t wait to see how it looks on screen. I hope I didn’t end up on the cutting room floor

The video I sent them was this one taken back in January 2008, with my 12″ Newtonian on EQ6, with a DMK41AF02.

Below is the image produced from the R,G,B channels after processing.

Thanks for looking.

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I’m feeling fit and strong, which is a good thing as I continue preparing for my black belt grading in June! I’m still doing the regular 5km run at Adcock Park, followed by 100 squat kicks, 100 pushups and 100 situps. To push myself, I’m then doing another lap, and then another 100 pushups. It’s feeling good – I’m feeling ready. I’m only doing it once a week at the moment but will be trying to increase it to twice a week in the next month or so. Finding time is the hard part!

The official “prep cycle” for the black belt grading starts in about a month – right after the Sydney All Styles tournament which is on March 7th. I’m really looking forward to getting the prep cycle underway. I’ve been training hard, and the prep cycle is going to be even harder. Bring it on!

From an Astronomy point of view, well, I haven’t really done much. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to get back out there with the Mars image a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it’s been cloudy since then, which really hasn’t helped. The 2010 CWAS “David Malin Awards” have just been announced, and hopefully trying to capture an image for that competition will inspire me to get out there more. I certainly don’t have anything worthy of submitting right now – I haven’t taken a single decent image in 6 months!

I’m motivated for IceInSpace though. With the IceInSpace Community Survey 2010 finishing up the other week, I’ve been busy analysing all the data and making plans for changes to IceInSpace to take us forward for the next 5 years. I have many lofty ideas! Pages and pages of them! I just hope I can get hold of enough of Terry’s time to implement my ideas

On the family front, it’s been very busy! Jacob started at a new school for year 5 – in an Opportunity Class at Gosford Primary School. So far it’s going really well and he’s enjoying it heaps. Abbey also started kindergarten this year! Our baby is now at school! Eliza started year 3 and got the teacher she wanted and the classmates she wanted! So far so good!

Jacob, Abbey and Eliza starting school in 2010

I guess that’s enough for today.. I’ve committed to try and update my blog more regularly this year, but finding the time is proving much more difficult than I imagined.

I’ll keep trying though and hopefully have more updates over the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. Results and Video from National All Styles Round 3
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2. My First 1st Placing in National All Styles Round 4
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3. Results from the BBMA Intramural Tournament
   On Saturday, 26th September 2009, BBMA held its first intramural...

A combination of bad weather, bad seeing and very low motivation for astrophotography (mainly the latter) has meant I just didn’t have my telescope out for literally 4+ months.

I’m trying to force myself back into it, and with Mars almost at opposition (although still very small at 14 arcseconds and very low in the north) I figured now is as good a time as any to get the scope out and take some images again.

So here is a very ugly Mars from Friday night in typically below average seeing and with the planet under 30deg in altitude.

Mars - 22nd Jan 2010

I didn’t really forget anything, but it did feel a bit clunkier – everything took a little longer to get going and be up and running.

But anyway, it’s a start. It’s ugly, but it’s Mars all the same. And hopefully the motivation can climb a little higher and encourage me to get the scope out again the next time it’s clear (it’s been cloudy since then :)).

Thanks for looking.

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   On the 20th and 22nd March, I had two very...

I setup my telescope last night, first time in 4 months, and I actually used it! I took some video data of Mars at around 12:30am-1:00am, and got up again this morning to image Saturn at 4:30am.

Wow it had been a while.. I didn’t forget anything but everything just took a little bit longer and felt a bit more clunky. The seeing wasn’t horrible, which was nice for a change. But it wasn’t good either.

Unfortunately fog this morning prevented any useful Saturn data – it was really dim even at 7.5fps, so I just captured 1 dim red channel and packed up. I couldn’t believe how high Saturn is already! I was looking for it lower on the horizon but it turned out to be just a star

Anyway I’ll process the Mars data later and see what comes of it.

Once I got into it, I was enjoying it enough – but it didn’t start out that way. At the start, I had the usual thoughts… “please be cloudy”, “please be horrible seeing” – anything to turn around and crawl back into bed.

But I fought through those feelings, and this morning I have that tired, gritty-eyes feeling that I remember.. LOL.

No related posts.

As IceInSpace continues to grow, it’s important for us to learn more about our great community – to see what makes you tick. We want to find out more about your interest in astronomy, the type of equipment you use and how often you use it, where and how you do your observing or imaging, and more.

We’re also very keen to learn more about how you use IceInSpace – how long you’ve been visiting, how often you visit, what sections you use the most, and what you want to see more of at IceInSpace.

We want to make sure we’re providing you with the right content, the right features and functionality, and ensure we provide you with what you need to get the most of our your IceInSpace experience.

To do all this, we’re undertaking our first major market research of our community – in the form of the IceInSpace Community Survey 2010. Your responses will help us make IceInSpace even better and continue to grow even stronger over the next 5 years.

The survey is 4 pages long, consists of 27 questions and should take you about 10 minutes to complete. Your participation in this research is completely voluntary - all questions are optional and you can withdraw from the survey at any point.

Your survey responses will be strictly confidential and data from this research will be reported only in the aggregate. Your information will be coded and will remain confidential.

If you have questions at any time about the survey, please Contact Us at IceInSpace. You can also post any thoughts or discussion about the survey in this thread on the IceInSpace Forum.

Thank you very much for your time and support. Please start with the survey now by clicking on the link below:

IceInSpace Community Survey 2010

Over 500 people have already completed the survey – so please add your weight to the market research so we can make IceInSpace even better.

Thanks

No related posts.

On the last day we were there, my son Jacob and I headed out on the sand dunes with the Port Stephens 4WD company for their 3-hour shipwreck tour – taking in some sand boarding, the Sygna shipwreck, Tin City, a few other local attractions and the Tank Traps.

Click the images for a larger version.

Tank Traps on Stockton Beach Sand Dunes

The image above was taken with my Canon 40D and 24-105mm L IS lens. Please continue reading for more story and images.

The tank traps, as well as a few areas where barbed wire and star pickets are still visible, were built in 1942 during World War 2 to deter the anticipated invasion of the Japanese Army.

Barbed Wire Entanglements on Stockton Beach Sand Dunes

The image above was processed to make it look “older” – added grain/noise and gave it a sepia/black and white feel. The standard (more vibrant) colour version is below.

Barbed Wire Entanglements - colour version

The shifting sands have almost covered all of the tank traps up in the dunes – so much so that there’s now only 6 or so visible. A decade or so ago, there were at least twice as many visible.

However thankfully our tour guide knew of an “off the beaten track” entry down into the bush behind the dunes, where the tank traps extend for another 3km or so into the bush.

Tank Traps in the Bush

The day before, we went for a walk up Tomaree Head, including the Gun Emplacement and Observation Posts that were in place during World War 2. It was a nice walk and some good history, but I didn’t get any photos of the area.

It certainly would’ve been a huge effort deploying it all, ultimately for a battle that (thankfully!) never came.

All photos taken with my Canon 40D and 24-105mm lens. Processed using Lightroom and Photoshop CS4.

Thanks for looking.

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I posted a comment demanding that the photo be removed, but the user deleted my comment and blocked me from posting further comments. I also sent them an email demanding it be removed. I have reported the copyright infringement to the Yahoo Copyright Infringement people, and hopefully they will do something about it.

I’m very disappointed and angered that someone would do this. I wonder what other photos on this users stream are stolen!?

Have you ever had this done to you? What other action can you take?

If you’re a member on flickr and you’re as outraged as me, perhaps consider leaving a negative comment. It will probably get deleted but it might help all the same.

No related posts.

Back in April 2009 over the Easter Long Weekend, my family and I headed out to Dubbo for a couple of night camping trip. The main purpose of the holiday was to visit the Dubbo Zoo.

It was a pretty ordinary holiday in the end, raining almost all the time and we got 2 flat tyres on the bikes that we hired to ride around the zoo!

Click each image to see a larger version.

Majestic Tiger

Anyway I hope you enjoy this selection of photos from Dubbo Zoo.

All shots taken with the Canon 20D and stock 75-300mm lens.

King of the Jungle

Claws

Baby Bongo

Elephant Portrait

Elephant

Koala

Lioness

The King Roars

What's for Lunch?

Tiger Climbing for his Meal

Tiger Climbling

Tiger and his Lunch

Waiting for his Lunch

I think this almost concludes my backlog of images from 2009, finally

Thanks for looking.

No related posts.