1) Astronomy is a subject at the intersection of several interests of mine (mathematics, which my degrees are in, and physics which fascinates, primarily though of course it has had its effect on music, my near-obsession, as such an important subject must. I note that Robert Simpson's 7th quartet (1977) was dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Sir James Jeans- no surprise given Simpson's music and his interests.

*Er-hrm. Note in almost passing: The Planets (Holst) is of course astrology.

*I enjoy contributing to good distributed-computing projects in general, as I can.

Answers to 2 and 3 need to wait on my having been a participant for longer, but so far I find this very interesting, the graphics that can be created during a workunit to be fascinating (also well-designed so far as I am a judge of such things), the error-recovery apparently very good, and am pleased.