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We are William Hillyard & Deborah Hillyard. Move your mouse over any of the topics to see a brief overview of the content. There are also a few other items to see on this page; like the image of the day that I shall really try to change daily!
Click to go to that topic, or use the Header Menu to access any item on the site using the drop-down sub-menus. If you have not enabled JavaScript, you will see only the basic menus, and will miss out on some of the content of the site! It should still work, though.
The background image on each page is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Credit: NASA, ESA & Hubble Space Telescope. You can find information about it, and the other images on this page, throughout the Science section of this website. The "Planet" images in the Header are © Pixel Perfect Digital. They are decorative, and not pictures of any real planet.











Brief, VERY brief for Deborah, biographies so you have some idea of who we are. She is New York born and bred, while I started in the U.K., initially in Birmingham and then London mainly from 1968. I moved to New York City in the U.S. in 1996. As well as William, which I use now, I have been known as both Billy Hillyard and Bill Hillyard.
The Flame Nebula is an emission nebula in the Constellation Orion, about 900 to 1,500 light-years away. Atlas Image courtesy of 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF
For various reasons, we purchased a dilapidated c. 1860 house that we are trying to renovate on a limited budget. As well as an overview of what we bought, its setting, and our strategy for improving it, there is a room-by-room review of where we started, where we are, what we plan to do, and what we plan NOT to do! There are also pictures of the garden, of some of the critters that find their way into it, and of our pet cat, Mrs Moggie Miggins.
The image is of a young dwarf galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA and ESA.
I have a modest home recording studio where I write electronic music of various genres. I also continue to play guitar, which I started with my first instrument in 1961. Here you will find brief excerpts from some of the tracks I have produced. There is also a description of the studio with several pictures, though this is probably only of interest to other musicians.
The image is of the five galaxies comprising "Stephan's Quintet" taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. Credit: NASA and ESA.
Information about copyright, particularly for content that is external copyright. Please take note of copyright and license information that is dotted around the site.
The very large and very beautiful Pinwheel Galaxy captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. Credit NASA & ESA.
This section comprises pictures of our families from the 1930s and 1940s up to today, and is unlikely to be of interest to anyone who does not know us.
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the star Eta Carinae and the Homunculus Nebula surrounding it. Credit NASA and ESA.
Do you really want to see our vacation pictures? Most are from trips that Deborah and I have taken together in the U.S., plus the cruise we took, with her parents, to the Mediterranean. There is also a set of photos from a 1960s trip to Tresaith in Wales that I took when I was a teenager living in the UK, and a section on the lighthouses we have visited on our travels.
The Antennæ Galaxies are a pair of colliding spiral galaxies. They have been interacting for about a billion years, and over the next billion will probably merge into one elliptical galaxy. Credit NASA & ESA.
A text based, "one click gets you anywhere", index of the entire web-site; by topic, by page. I also highlight major changes and new additions to the site here.
Hubble Space Telescope image of the Ring Nebula, a planetary nebula. Credit NASA & ESA.
News & Views, as well as information about the website with details of the latest changes made.
The image above is of the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula. Credit: NASA and ESA.
Sign the Guest Book and leave us a message.
This section of the site reflects my interest in everything "physics", from Quantum Physics to Astronomy and Cosmology. The section is split into a number of evolving topics starting with Classical Mechanics and the 17th Century through Relativity and Quantum Mechanics right up to the latest insights into Superstrings, "M" Theory, Branes, Parallel Universes and Topological Defects. Not intended for experts; I just want to express my sense of wonder at the Universe around us and hope that some of it rubs off on others. BUT; no pseudo-science, creationism, intelligent design or mystical junk! If this offends you, you should skip this section, or go to a different website!
The image is the Tadpole Galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA and ESA.
William & Deborah Hillyard
William & Deborah Hillyard
William & Deborah Hillyard
William & Deborah Hillyard
William & Deborah Hillyard






February 7th. Deborah has gone up to stay with her mother for a few days to visit her father, who is still in rehabilitation. She left the cat behind, and she is driving me up the wall! Just about finished our 2009 taxes! Just one, corrected, 1099 awaited. Small rebate to come! |
February 3rd. NASA has updated their estimate of the age of the Universe based on more data collected from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. After five years of data, the estimate was 13.73 +/-0.12 billion years. The latest estimated based on seven years of data is 13.75 +/-0.11 billion years. The probe has also confirmed that fluctuations in the intensity of microwave background radiation over larger spatial scales is somewhat larger than those on smaller scales providing further support for the Cosmic Inflation theory. |
January 31st. While it is still healing, the vet has allowed Mrs Miggins, our cat, to go outside. We are very grateful as her cabin fever was becoming unbearable. Although very cold, with snow everywhere, she has been out and about. I am just putting the finishing touches to the "nook" just off the entrance lobby. One more coat of paint to go. It will be a comfortable place to sit and have a quiet read. Am also reorganizing my studio, and have some more bookcases and storage to install. |

We are William Hillyard and Deborah Hillyard, and we started to build this web site in late October 2008. I update it regularly, so do come back to see new content. You can contact us either by signing the guest book, or by sending an e-mail to william@whillyard.com.
Wherever you see this symbol, you can get additional information by hovering your mouse cursor on it; there is no need to click. There are also a few Easter Eggs around the place! All external links and photographs open in a new window; while most internal links open in the same window.
We built the site using WYSIWYG Web Builder, and StartLogic hosts it. Feel free to link to this site, preferably to this page, but please refer to the Terms of Use for important copyright information. No hot-linking to images! Please report any problems to webmaster@whillyard.com. The site is best viewed with a screen resolution at least 1280x900. It is tested with Firefox (my browser of choice), IE, & Opera. There are issues with Opera only if you use the Opera Turbo feature.


News & Views
Latest Website Changes
We have added a new page of Hubble Space Telescope images on the Hubble page. |
As you can see, we have a new home page. Just a little more punchy than the old one. Page backgrounds are now uniform across the site, and I have simplified all the drop-down menus. |
I removed most of the Lifestyle sections, leaving only the pages for family pictures, as well as a few pages from the Science section. It was becoming too time consuming trying to maintain so many different pages, that I decided to cut myself some slack! My sister and her husband now get their own page with a whole load of pictures from their wedding last October. There is a new page for photographs of the McGowan side of Deborah's family dating from the 1930s and 1940s. I hope you enjoy them, and do let us know if you have any photographs of the family that you would like to see on the website. |
I have made a whole range of changes to the website to split out some of the larger sections into a series of smaller pages, or different overlays on the same page. This has meant a lot of work particularly on the Science, Biographies and Vacations sections. This has allowed me to add more content, while reducing the amount of scrolling on the page. I would much rather click the mouse on a couple of links than scroll down a page to find what I want. |
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