Mathmos Astro: too much bubble (hot) in a few hours?

[Luca Lovagnini]

HI! I'm an italian guy so sorry for my BAD english! I bought my first lava lamp this january, a Mathmos Astro. As often happens, the original bulb was broken, so I subsitituted it with a new one: a Philips 42W bulb that you can see in this photo:

However, after a few hours I can see that there too much smal lava bubbles, and I think that's because the lamp gets too much hot! I took some picture to show you what I'm talking about:

This is the lamp as soon as it is turned on:

After roughly one hour there are already the first bubbles:

This is the result after roughly 3 hours from when the lamp was turned on (and I think that there are already too much small bubbles, and so the lamp is already overheating):

And this is the result after 6 hours...I think that here the bubbles are really too much small and too many, and the majority of them is on the upper part of the lamp, so I think that the lamp is totally overheated:

So, my question is: what do you think about it? Is it a normal behaviour or do you think that I'm using the wrong bulb? And if it's the wrong one, which one do you suggest me (remembering that I'm from italy and it couldn't be easy to buy bulbes from outside of Europe!)?

I'm totally new to the Lava Lamp world, so maybe I'm "exagerating" the issue a little bit, but the point is that I'm not totally satisfied of my Lava Lamp, and the Mathmos should be the top of the top! So please help me in any way 

I want to thank the entire community for this amazing forum, and in particular everyone that will reply this post and will try to help my, thank you! 

[Modulo '70]

Hmmmm, interesting. This isn't typical of a Mathmos Astro flow. Maybe, as you say the bulb is too hot. Mathmos Asrtos usually have a characteristic snaking flow or columning of the wax. I think you could fit a dimmer switch in-line, an easy addition a bit like the limited edition flock Astros have. This would cure this issue.