I have been thinking about a couple of ideas which I’d like to round up: more or less in a hobby-like matter. For some kind of reason, those ideas remind me of the two starmaps I made when I was 15. With the help of a book, lots of cardboard, plastic, knife, pencil, pens and scissors I managed to make a 60 by 60 cm moving starmap (or was that a meter?). Each single star with a respectable magnitude was carefully drawn. Each (northern hemisphere) constellation was carefully lined out. Not to mention the different M-systems. Since I was bored and apparently my brother liked the idea of possessing a giant starmap, I made another one specifically for him. I think it took me a week to finish each of them and they still should be hanging in one of the rooms of my parents’ house (if you read this Alfons: a picture of them would be appreciated). A remarkable achievement: the instructions for the moving part I found in a book, but the specific stars I looked up in encyclopedias (Winkler Prins) and other astronomical books.
By any chance: if you’re living in Nova Scotia, you may just as well take a look out the window and watch the snow. First of the season. Prepare thy shovels and salt.