An evening with the 'new' Society C8

This is the 'new' Cotswold AS C8 - kindly donated to the Society.

I had it out on 25th June - it was a clear night, but so near the solstice the sky was quite bright. I mainly wanted to try to collimate the scope so went out as dusk commenced. Venus was bright, setting in the west.

Collimation of a Schmidt Cassegrain is done by three adjusting screws at the front of the scope that tilt the secondary which is mounted in the middle of the corrector. With a medium power eyepiece the airy disk was easy to see, but adjusting the screws needs a bit of patience and persistence. I was getting close, but probably need to spend a while longer, but it was acceptable.

So quite respectable views of Venus and Saturn with Titan nearby. I then went onto Lyra to collimate on Vega a bit more, and then viewed Epsilon Lyrae - the double double.

I was not sure if I would be able to locate it with the still bright sky (full Moon tonight too), but I thought I would try for the Ring Nebula, M57 - actually it was quite easy to locate and see, but there are better views to be had.

To round things off, a stop over at Albireo, one of my favourite doubles, with a tremendous colour contrast between the bright blue and yellow stars.

So a big asset for the Society... gratefully received.

C/2009R1 - at last !

Well last night managed to get my first real view of this comet. The northern sky was pretty grotty really, but managed to spot it in Perseus with 10x50 binoculars without too much trouble.

Tried to image it widefield with the Canon 300D and 50mm lens. First few images were good, but must have knocked the lens as the focus was way off on the 7th onwards. Grrrrrr...

Here is a combined stack of 6x8s at f/2 and iso 1600. Processed in IRIS, with synthetic background gradient removal. Not too harse, as you can see. Hopefully the pic looks fairly natural.

Notice the tail is about 1.25 degrees long, and there is a hint of a second tail too.

Just for the record - taken on 2010 June 16 at 00:50UT.

C/2009 R1 (McNaught)

Created the Stellarium elements for C/2009 R1 - hoping to see it soon..

Here they are - just add to your Stellarium ssystem.ini file.


[C2009R1]
name = C/2009R1 (McNaught)
parent = Sun
coord_func = comet_orbit
radius = 1000
oblateness = 0
albedo = 0.8
lighting = TRUE
halo = TRUE
color = 1.0,1.0,1.0
tex_halo = star16x16.png
tex_map = deimos.png
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2455380.177
orbit_PericenterDistance = 0.405028736
orbit_Eccentricity = 1.000360164
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 130.6996389
orbit_AscendingNode = 322.6221957
orbit_Inclination = 77.0330084
orbit_visualization_period = 600

Mercury & Venus

A nice clear and transparent night last night, for a change.

Just after sunset Venus was brilliant in the west, and Mercury was visible in the binoculars, as it got darker, it popped into view, naked eye.

Apparently its only a small proportion of astronomers (1% ?) that have ever viewed Mercury, which is surprising as its really not difficult.

Mercury is getting fainter over the next few days, but still not too hard to find.

On the 15th there will be a nice alignment of Venus, Mercury and the cresent Moon, but it will be low and a good horizon needed. A nice photo op, though, but may be tricky to get a good exposure to show the three well at the same time.

Also possible on the 16th, though the Moon is not so nicely placed that day.

Comet

Have seen a couple of nice images of Comet 2007/Q3, so thought it would be interesting to see where it is using Stellarium. Ran the elements from JPL Horizons, made a spreadsheet to convert the format, and then copy/paste into the Stellarium ssystem.ini file.
Here is the section to add, for anyone interested...

[C2007Q3]
name = Siding Spring (C/2007 Q3)
parent = Sun
coord_func = comet_orbit
radius = 1000
oblateness = 0
albedo = 0.8
lighting = TRUE
halo = TRUE
color = 1.0,1.0,1.0
tex_halo = star16x16.png
tex_map = deimos.png
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2455111.745
orbit_PericenterDistance = 2.251607298
orbit_Eccentricity = 1.000146688
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 2.082881084
orbit_AscendingNode = 149.4121666
orbit_Inclination = 65.64986316

Cloudy, but the kids enjoyed it

Was really pretty cloudy out for last nights observing evening. Was joined by staff & students from Tewkesbury School's Space Club and GCSE Astronomy class. Although we barely saw Mars, and Capella, and a pass of the IIS was just about visible through the cloud.

Next week is the last evening of this season, so fingers crossed, it may be a good one...

Clear night at WWT

Had a nice evening on Saturday at the WWT Slimbridge, with a substantially clear evening for viewing.

Kicked off with a short talk about the Messier objects, and then Martin Sinton filled a slot on cosmic scales.

Then went out and had some nice views of the Moon, Mars, the Pleiades, M42, M31. Was struggling to find M79, which was low in the mirk, and the scope was dewed up. Hopefull will get another chance before its too late this winter.

Thanks to Martin and Rob Davis from Cotswold AS for helping out on the evening.

Clouded out for the Geminids

Grrr....

More Outreach Activities

Its been a while since i last posted, but there have been a fair few successful outreach activities in the past few weeks.

September 29 saw an evening down in Chipping Sodbury, just north of Bristol. Although the weather was not looking optimistic, the clouds cleared and reasonable views of the Moon, Jupiter and M31 were had.

We had our open evenings at Bredon Cricket Club on the 13th and 20th of October. The 13th was again an evening of dodging round the clouds, but a few sights were seen. Ocotber 20th was clouded out completely, though - however we had Australian astronomer Bob Evans with us, so we were able to open up the clubhouse and Bob gave us a talk about Supernovae - did i mention that Bob has the world record for visual discoveries of supernovae (42). Photo shows, Bob, me (center), and Kevin Taylor (with his Light Bridge).

Last Saturday (24th Oct) - we had an astronomy evening at the WWT Slimbridge - again the weather did not look optimistic, but after the talk, the skies cleared a bit, and it was quite nice between the clouds - as the evening went on the cloud cover reduced. Again mostly the 'chocolate box' sights - the Moon, Jupiter, M31, M13, Albireo, and Mizar - could probably have found a few more things, but getting to grips with the EQ mount over the Dob takes a bit of getting used to.

So, will be nice to have a rest for a couple of weeks - though no doubt there are more things to do - BAA Journal Sky Notes and things for the Cotswold AS newsletter.

Clouded out for the Perseids

Clouded out on both 'maximum' nights for the Perseids. A real pity, but not perhaps really favourable this year with the bright Moon. Roll on October & November with the Orionids and Taurids...

Generally the weather has been poor this summer - can't really recall when last did any 'serious' observing :-(

Cardiff Astronomy Festival

A nice day out at the Cardiff Astronomy Festival last Saturday (25th July) hosted by the Cardiff Astronomical Society, at the Museum of Wales, Cardiff.

Three free talks, which sadly I was not able to attend due to manning the FAS stand.

There were a number of displays there - Telescope Planet had a big display of gear. Keiran McGrath brought alongs his SCS Astro gear. Paul Roche and the Faulkes team had an infrared camera that the kids found quite 'cool'. Martin Lunn had his Aurora Books along, and there were displays by Cardiff AS, Techniquest, and others that I don't completely recall...

However, I'm not sure it was quite the success of the previous festival held a couple of years back. Perhaps it was the time of year, and of course it was a rare sunny day.

Here are a few more pics:

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Last Saturday's CAS Meeting

A really interesting talk by Sam George about work he has been doing trying to detect extra-solar planets using low frequency radio astronomy by their auroral signatures.

Interesting to note that Jupiter's radio 'disk' is about 2.5 degrees, and should be observable from quite some distance off - so the same should apply to extra-solar planets round other stars.

Sadly the work did not provide any positive results - perhaps the frequencies being observed at were too high, or the levels were too low for detection - or both.

It sounds like a really interesting field of work. Sam having recently received his PhD is off to Calgary on a post-doc to do some more work on this - so will be interesting to get an update in a couple of years.

Cheltenham Science Festival - Engineering Apollo

Yesterday, an early start (for a Sunday morning), to see Chris Riley's talk - Engineering Apollo.

This was an excellent talk about the engineering behind the Apollo missions, and struck a real chord with me - remembering the events of nearly 40 years ago. I may have to dig out my copy of "The Dish" again...

A very bright sky after sunset last night too - but no NLC's apparently visible.

Cheltenham Science Festival - Star Party - Take 2

Last night saw our second star party evening at the Cheltenham Science Festival. Another really good turnout of people, and some difficult questions to answer !

Although early in the evening the weather looked promising, it actually turned out worse than the previous night. We were able to see the Moon through the cloud, but that was about it.

Much thanks to those that turned out this evening - Kevin Taylor (& Pauline) with 12" Dob, Peter Burgess with ETX, Tony Ireland with 5" Mak, Rob Davis (not sure what he had!), Steve Darnell - SGL member, with 16" Dob. And Rod Salisbury & Derek Maskell.

In the day I went to a couple of the lectures - one on Rutherford, which was very interesting, and on entitled Copernicus, but was really about the impact of arabic astronomy on western astronomy leading up the Copernicus. So not really not much about Copernicus himself. However, it was not a bad talk and Jim Al-Kalili (not sure thats spelt right) is always entertaining.

Cheltenham Science Festival - Star Party Last Night

Although the weather did not look promising, for those that toughed it out we were finally able to view the Moon & Saturn, and take in Albireo, and even M13.

A short talk to the assembled throng at 9:30 was followed by observing at 10:15 - the cloud thickened and thinned through the evening, but in the end it was quite a successful night.

Much thanks goes to Cotswold ASer's: Kevin Taylor (who brought his 12" Light Bridge), Peter Burgess (with his ETX), Paul Wheat (Binoculars and tripod), and Derek Maskell & Rod Salisbury.

Saturdays CAS meeting

A nice meeting in the 'new' hall. A very good turnout for Bob Mizon's talk about Comets and an update on the CfDS.
Nugget of the week from Bob - the root of the word "disaster" is from the Greek. Dis being bad and aster being star - so disaster is bad star! 'Not a lot of people know that'.

Cotswold AS AGM

Well last Saturday was the Cotswold AS AGM - like most AGMs not entirely enthralling. Elected as Coordinator for another (final!) year.

After the AGM Mark Gibbons gave a brief presentation about astrometry.net
It sounds like magic, but it could really work.
Of course it is not 'Real Astronomy' ...

Comet Lulin on March 1

Well finally got round to processing my comet lulin image. Stack of 10x8s exposures with a Canon 300d on a fixed tripod, and 50mm lens. Well you can see its an extended object, and it does have a greenish tinge. Not much more to say about it, though.

Another astronomy evening washout

Last night was the first of a series of Astronomy Evenings at Cheltenham College. Kicking off the series I gave a short talk about the things I have seen over the many years I have been interested in Astronomy. I was quite surprised by the number of bright 'new' comets in the list.
However, poor weather again prevented any observing. Cleared slightly later on in the night, but not really good for anything serious, so I went to bed instead.

Sunday 1st March - A clear night for once!

But unfortunately I was not able to do much observing. This was really the best night for a long time, but I had to prepare for my talk tonight. I did get out for a while to observe Comet Lulin, with binos and the Borg - a nice little comet ! Also took in the favourites - M45, M42, and Saturn. Was pleased to see some indication of the rings with the Borg at low power (17mm Hyperion, magnification of about 30x). This Hyperion eyepiece is really nice, and is now my favourite for viewing with the Borg 76ED.

Also managed a few shots of Lulin with the Canon. The comet is visible in the raw frames, but will need to do some processing... not sure when I will get the time to do that.