I have always wondered about the two types of telescope mounts available, eventhough I have no telescope or intention to get one. These are the Altazimuth and the Equatorial Mounts. Somehow sufficient write was not available in the catalogue, and nor did I try to search for the information. So today I did.

An Altazimuth mount is what you find on your typical camera tripod. It goes up and down (altitude) and left and right (azimuth). Problem is you have to do two adjustments to watch a body in space when it moves away due to the earths rotation.

Then you have the Equatorial Mount, this too has two perpendicular axes, but they are called right ascension (RA, or polar) and declination (Dec). Difference is that you can align it with the earth's motion and follow a body in space by adjusting one axis only.

My friend sent me this sand sculputre gallery link. Absolutely awesome!

700 Indians evacuated from Lebanon

Four Indian Navy warships that were returning back to India from the Mediterranean after a goodwill visit where ordered to turn back (just after they had crossed the Suez Canal) to assist the evacuation of Indians from Lebanon. Our today's paper had a photo of the huge INS Mumbai (sister ship of the INS Delhi) taking on Indian (and other citizens they said). They will be taken to Cyprus from where Air India will bring them back to India.

Does anybody remember the massive airlift by Air India and Indian Airlines after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. All Indian citizens had some travelled by land across to camps in Jordan. From there they were brought back by air. Two brand new Airbus A320s which were being flown empty to India from France were ordered to pick the refugees on their way back.

The Renault R25 driven last year by Fernando Alonso as replicated in 1:18 scale by Hot Wheels is now my new and proud possession. This is the first F1 model car that I have in my scale model collection. I bought it at Rediff.com. Four more thumbnails behind the cut.



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