Swinside and Sighthill in Stellarium

I’ve just made two new stone circle landscapes for Stellarium, the free planetarium software. It’s been quite a while since I created a Stellarium landscape, and I’d forgotten quite how much fiddling around was involved. It does become quite time-consuming, but it’s very satisfying when you do get it to work. This time round, I used two programs that I hadn’t used before, and I actually found the process much easier than previous attempts. There are two main parts to making a landscape – the first is to create a panoramic image from a series of photographs taken from the … Continue reading Swinside and Sighthill in Stellarium

Solstice Blessings

Whatever your faith, religious, spiritual or cultural beliefs; the turning of the wheel at the dark of the year will carry some significance for you. This year has been particularly turbulent for many people around the globe, and it’s always good to reflect on those less fortunate than ourselves at this time of year. War, natural disasters, famine and other upheavals continue to remind us what a fragile jewel our planet Earth is. It is easy to get depressed about the state of things, but it is harder to acknowledge that the best approach is for us to keep on … Continue reading Solstice Blessings

Sighthill Solstice Sunset

I managed to attend Duncan’s talk about the Sighthill stones on the summer solstice, followed up by a walk up to the circle to see the sunset. I’ve certainly never seen so many folk at the circle before, and we were blessed with clear skies for the event. I was keen to see how the real thing compared with my Stellarium landscape, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was pretty accurate. Here’s a picture of things in Stellarium: …and here’s the real thing, taken looking over the centre stone, which of course you don’t see in the Stellarium … Continue reading Sighthill Solstice Sunset