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Great views from Wokingham in Berkshire this morning. Blooming cold, but worth getting up for. Just had a little scope with me but viewed at x200 for when the planet slid behind the Moon and then reappeared an hour later.

Yes, I read that. Seems a bit cheeky for them to claim ethanol free except for such a large area as Devon, Cornwall, North Wales, North England and Scotland! On that basis I could claim to be alcohol-free except for beer, wine and gin 🙂

If there's still no salt on the roads by Sunday I'll be there 😊

Looks like it's going to be colder than a penguins undercarriage, but I might dig out the heated gloves and come along for breakfast 👍

In Bristol last night approx 1830hrs you could see Moon, Mars, Uranus (very feint) and Jupiter in a line from Moon @ 7 O'clock to Jupiter @ 1 o'clock - my kids loved it! Went to get tripod and headed out to 'dark hill' but cloud front had swept in - booo no pictures

A deposit for a kit car to build together would be great IMHO 😁

I may come along 😊

Greetings from Germany. Capture taken during one of last rides this year. cheers, Udo.

I did that today when I went to fuel up the Westfield, one of the batteries has died, new one ordered and Amazon Prime are delivering tomorrow. it's salty here but it gets rinsed off after a day out

@Greenstreak-Andy D has one brimmed full with 'fresh air' usually! 😉

I always use Tesco Momentum 99, and have run many cars on it. The octane is about as high as you can get anywhere

The Shell station in Uttoxeter (just off the A50) was out of 3 out of 4 fuels a week or so ago, but when I went in a couple of days ago they had more stock.

Home office stuff could be a good shout there. If he's spending a lot of time at a desk, a good chair (I bought a refurbished humanscale freedom a few years ago and it's brilliant), or a mouse and keyboard combination can make a big difference.

The Tesco Momentum 99 octane gets good reviews and is supposedly made by the same people as V-Power, might be worth a try if you are stuck

- I know there are alternative high Octane fuels, it's just I'm mapped specifically for V Power, and one thing the Alpine jaunt showed me, was that everywhere i went, the car always ran well on a V Power tank full, while some of the alternatives could be a bit variable. (One was particularly bad, so much so, it was either very, very old, or possibly even miss-labelled (and charged) on the pump.

[HOONIGAN] Gymkhana 2022: Travis Pastrana Goes Berserk in Florida in a 862HP Subaru Wagon Enjoy!

Not sure if it covers mechanical engineering, but certainly engineering! https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Build-Car-Autobiography-Greatest/dp/000819680X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1670518819&sr=8-1

Thanks for the Birthday wishes. A day gloss painting stairs today.. but a curry tonight. 😁 New seats and belts to fit to the westfield over winter and I'll be back. 👍 Kitchen refurbishment morphed into decorating 2/3 of the house.. 8 months, but finishing it next week. Put fresh gloss white on anything and the old 'white' paint looks yellow.....grrrrrr Regards Lucan

Hi all , 8 months to go , no change with the group , enjoy your Christmas and I will update in January

Well, the snows of have winter have arrived in the Northwest region of the USA and this makes it a good time to look back on this past season of autocross competition in my 2014 Westfield Mega S2000. I had a good set of results this year so I apologize in advance for the following humble-brag. I made some changes to the car before the season started that really made the car quicker and easier to drive at the limit. The biggest single change was the installation of the +35 mm wide track front suspension kit from the good people at Siltech racing. This really made the car easier to drive and more intuitive at the limit…the place it was really felt was that I’m now able to stay on the gas during rapid lane changes or slaloms. In the past I’d have needed to mind the tail coming around and eased off a bit to keep it in line. With the Siltech wide A arms and a ARB that I made the nose turned in very sharply but the tail stayed in line even when on the throttle. Stay on the gas, turn in violently and everything does what one would want it to do. It’s wonderful. I also changed the alignment some to deal with the inherently high slip angles of the wide Avon slicks I’m using. I now run 2mm of toe-out on each front tire, 2mm of toe-in on each rear tire and 1.2° of camber all around. This really aided turn-in without having to keep the tail in line and combined with the new front suspension the car went from very good to great. Here’s a few of this year's stats - 17 days of competition 17 times setting FTD (Fastest Time of Day) 172 runs in total over those 17 days 1 set of Avon A15 compound slicks used to the full 0 mechanical breakdowns 2 times setting fastest PAX time (a handicap factor based on the car’s potential/class so that cars of different classes can be compared) 3 second place PAX finishes 11 top five PAX finishes Largest winning margin over 2nd place - 6 seconds. Smallest margin - .6 seconds Lastly - I set a new fastest ever time on our club’s “Index Course” where we can compare times to those set all the way back to 2012. I held the previous fastest Index time and beat it this year by .4 seconds on a very hot (slow) day. I’ve got some plans to make the car better balanced next year which should help the handling even more. I’ll be modifying the fuel tank so that it will carry nearly all of its load on the passenger side of the car which should benefit the handling. I’m already at the minimum weight for my class (1420 lbs or 644kg for the car with me in it) but I’ll be taking some more weight out of it so that I can bring it back up to minimum weight with ballast on the passenger side to further help with right/left weight distribution…in effect I’ll be shifting weight to the passenger side of the car. And lastly I hope to install Siltech Mirco Adjust rear A arms to get rid of the one rubber bushing left in the suspension and to make toe and camber adjustments more precise and easier. Winter is long in Montana so I have plenty of wrenching time over the coming months. If anyone is interested in Autocross and I can help in any way please let me know. It's so much fun. I'm already excited for next season...it's only 6 months away! Thanks for reading, Dave

Whilst idly looking for something interesting to learn, I came across an amazing thing that I am sure lots of people already know, but I had no idea... The OU offer free courses! They're not long or in depth but none-the-less, they're free. Why am I saying this in here? Well in the Science Maths and Technology section there are several astronomy based items that could well be worth a look. The full list of all the options is here. Click on a banner and wonder at the sheer amount of free learning available. Why this hasn't been broadcast from the rooftops, especially during lockdown, is beyond me. But that's a whole other discussion. I've had to start a new Bookmark folder in my browser...

This is my attempt with my cheap scope and my mobile phone camera. 👍

Hi, I was bought a Skywatcher 130M a few years ago with a few different filters and lens adapters. Very much an amateur and it can do far more than I know what to do with it (same as the westy on track!) Next would be a camera mount but with the scope and a mobile phone you can get nice and close to the moon

This is a bit of a long storey but is kind of a simple question ….. Can anyone advise on the paperwork process for getting a Cat S back on the road? One of my cars ( it's a Mini, I am the keeper but wasn’t the insurer/driver) was involved in a minor (sub 20mph) front offside accident with another car back in early September, front wing dented, bonnet and wheel scuffed. I checked the suspension once it was home and all looked ok but the tracking had been knocked slightly out by 2 or 3 deg. The insurance company were contacted at the scene and also in the following days, their repair company could not inspect the vehicle for 5 weeks. In this time the car was driven a couple of times and also MOT’d as it was due. The MOT was completed by a garage that I have used for many years and trust, I also went in the pit with the tester and we checked the underside and suspension. It passed the MOT with NO advisories as no damage can be found from the accident and nothing else untoward was found. After (finally) collecting the car for inspection they have said the car is a write off, after another 4 weeks of chasing I have the report from inspection (quality is very poor) and they are writing it off as they say it needs full replacement of the offside suspension, hub, shock, wheel, wing, bonnet and therefore it becomes and un-economical repair but because this report mentioned suspension the car has been marked as a Cat S total loss. The updating of the database as Cat S is the ONLY process that has been swift and now cannot be changed/challenged. As the valuation is 55% (ish) of what the equivalent cars are selling at(I know cat s valuation will now be lower) and as I know the car, have seen the damage and now have the report I’m thinking of buying it back from the insurers. Taking the inspection as “truth” I’ve been to my local independent specialist with the report (I don’t have the car back yet for them to see) and asked for a quote for the non-body work to be completed and its 40% of the payout I’ll receive after excess and buyback to get me a worst case cost. Bodywork is really minor and could be done at a later date, ebay has a wing from a breaker in correct colour for £58 and its bolt on. The maths are leaning me to go down this route, my understanding is that the two actions I need to complete are repair and complete a V62 then the car is road legal again. Questions are, 1, Can I do the V62 immediately after buy back or does it have to wait until the repairs are complete? i.e. Parallel to the repair or one after the other and will elongate the off the road time 2, I see no check or validation that the repairs are complete in any process on the DVLA documents, does anyone know if this is the case? i.e. I could drive it straight after repair whilst V62 is processing, however I suspect this will change the car tax status as the v5 ref number will change and current tax become invalid???? The whole experience has been awful, insurance company, claim company, repair centre all hiding behind their individual process seemingly trying to inflate work and cost and not aware of any detail to answer any questions. Thanks in advance for any help Ian