My name is Colm Philpott, and I'm autistic. I started this blog to debunk the many, many, many misconceptions about autistic people, we're actually quite awesome when you get to know us! I also talk about three of my biggest interests, music, cycling and astronomy, and also anything else that piques my interest.
Something that has always given me a strong sense of calm, and often a strong sense of wonder, is seeing something that is very far away. Being on top of a hill, or a mountain, and seeing a far off village, or town, or other mountain, that might take as much as a day or … Continue reading Distance
The Asteroid Vesta, For Some Reason It Looks Like A Satellite, Astronomy Sketching Can Be Weird Sometimes I’ve seen many types of astronomical objects over the years, galaxies, open clusters, globular clusters, and a small few nebula. I’ve seen craters on the moon with hills inside them. I’ve seen the surface of Mars. I’ve seen … Continue reading Seeing An Asteroid For the First Time
9th July 2018 These two galaxies had a level of courtesy rarely seen these days in that they are very close together, so you can see both of them at the same time through a telescope. I remember in 2015, the year I bought my first telescope, seeing my first ever galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy. … Continue reading Bode’s Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy, Two For The Price Of One
I remember, and I don’t believe I’ll ever forget it, my first time seeing Saturn through a telescope. There was a small light in the sky, and I wasn’t sure what it was but I thought I’d point my telescope at it, maybe it was Saturn. I looked at the light, and at first I … Continue reading Saturn, the Second Best Planet In the Solar System
So, what do you think is the best thing about Winter? Let me save you time, if your answer was anything other than “The return of the Orion Nebula”, then you are wrong, objectively wrong. We may each of us disagree on anything from musical taste to political issues, but how could anyone in their … Continue reading The Best Thing About Winter
Okay, technically, more stuff doesn’t happen on Jupiter than on Saturn, Uranus, or, what’s the other greenish one, the one with the lions, oh yeah, Earth, but because Jupiter is so big, and relatively (I really stress reletively!), near, you can see a lot of interesting stuff there. So join me (figuratively, no offence, but … Continue reading Jupiter, The Planet Where Loads Of Stuff Happens
11th August 2020. First attempt at sketching Mars at opposition. At least I captured the ice cap, but I would learn a valuable lesson, pastel pencils are good for sketching many things, but not Mars, they are not good for sketching Mars at all! Although this sketch is kind of adorable it lacks the detail … Continue reading The Year Mars Got Really, Really Big
Saw this much detail even with a bright moon spoiling my fun! So it was a clear night last night, though there was a very bright moon. Though one lesson astronomy has taught me repeatedly, even when I won’t listen, is take what you can get! You’ll like a clear night with a bright moon … Continue reading Messier 92, An Old Classic Of Astronomy, Emphasis On Old
Isn’t This The Cutest Globular Cluster You Ever Did See? So it was a clear night last night, and knowing I might not get another clear night for a while, I went into the shed and dragged out my ten inch telescope. Then I got my pencils and sketch pad, and began astronomy sketching! Astronomy … Continue reading The Great Cluster of Hercules
Ponderings Of An Autist 