Wednesday 18th November 1998 3:20am.
Wow ! I have just returned in from the football pitch in front of my flat and it is damn cold out there tonight.The skys are mostly clear, though not as clear as last night, and the frost is thick on the ground. The stars are really awesome.I never really tire of looking at them on nights such as these and they also make me just a little ????,i dont know the word ???? awe struck i suppose and also a little sad and humble mixed in. I went out on this cold night to see the meteor's entering our atmosphere as they burned up.The news said they are little more than cosmic dust erroded of a passing commet.I was out last night and managed to count over 20 "shooting stars" in half an hour but tonight managed to see only 6 or so in the same period.
If i was still a kid i would have a pretty long wish list by now :) and i find that im jaded enough not to bother anymore with such things.
All the same though I am still affected by the sight of those tiny particles streaking across our sky.There ancient "life" finally coming to an end. I started to think of where they came from and where they have been while I stared at the sky tonight and was really quite amazed by it all.To think that a sun somwhere in our skys,just a tiny star,ejected a ball of lava for want of the correct term which may or may not have cooled into a plant or moon.Or then again maybe the force of the explosion may have throwen the matter far enough into free space to break free from the gravitation of its mother sun.If The matter did form into a planet of even just a barren moon,how long did it orbit its sun for? and what happened on its surface? before finally becoming unstable and breaking up into up into a mass of rock and debris? One of which managed to break free of the asteroid belt which would have formed around the sun or nearest large planet.What couurse did the asteroid take to finally reach our solar system?What close encounters did it have along the way if any? And finally where is it headed? All this and more passed through my head in an instant as i saw just one particle of that matter fallen from the passing commet hurled from that star so many millennia ago as it flashed across my vision like tracer fire gone in an instant? I prefer not to use the term "Years" as it somehow does not seem to be correct as it is only a relevent time scale for our planets orbit around our sun. We take so much for granted sometimes i think.Wow!
P.S. I am no astro physisist,pardon the spelling and incorrect use of terminology, and my understanding of how suns,planets and meteors etc form is more than likely wrong.However it is also as correct as any other living human..So there :p :)

Thursday 19th November 1998. 3:37am.
Hello again.I was out again earlier tonight,not to look for metorites but trying to identify actual constellations.I seem to becoming an ametuar astronomer and admit to have always being interested by them since i was a kid.There were only two which i could identify up to tonight.These being Orion and Ursa Major,more commonly knowen as the plough.These constallations must be the two most easily identified in our hemisphere and tonight armed with my Collins Gem Guide to the Night Sky i have located Gemini,Ursa Minor,Cephius,Draco and Cassiopeia. I must admit feeling pleased with myself as i have always wanted a better understanding of the constallations and realise that anybody with two good eyes and the correct Star charts can do the same but that isn't whats important.The fact that i enjoy it is however.Draco and Orion are my favourite constellations at the moment as i associate them with a program 'The Lost Civilisation' which i watched a few months ago on CH4.I will go into this theory and how much it blew me away another time as im going to bed shortly.I suppose that is one bennift of late shifts on helpdesks. You can burn the midnight oil a lot more that you would in a day job. ;) I might go out again tomorrow night and i might not.I would really like a better book or even a map of the skys plus a telescope and i don't know if i am that serious about this renewed interest to spend my money, so tortuosly earned on a helpdesk.:) Anyway.. stop drifting paul.Yes i think its time for bed so untill next time..Cherrio.