The Oikofuge

An illustrated build log for a brass orrery (model of the solar system), using a kit produced by Eaglemoss.

How dark does it get during a total eclipse, a deep partial eclipse, and a very minor partial eclipse?

Did a partial solar eclipse affect the outcome of the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879?

A discussion of how the Earth moves in the Moon's sky, due to lunar libration. and of the areas on the Moon's surface where the Earth will be seen to rise and set once a month.

An illustrated series of walk reports from a trip to Arran

A review of Isobel Wylie Hutchison's "On Greenland's Closed Shore" (1930)

A discussion of the Spilhaus "World in a Square" projection, used to display all the worlds oceans as a continuous body of water, without interruption.

A discussion of the phrase "brass monkey weather", and a refutation of the folk etymology of "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey".

An introduction to the seventy-ninth edition of The Angry Corrie hill fanzine, published in memory of its editor and cofounder, Dave Hewitt

A description of the components of lunar libration, which allow us to peek a little way into the lunar far side, including some animations of the various effects.

A festive dissertation on the extensive etymological links of the word "stable", and a discussion of why some of use think of Jesus as having been born in a stable.