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.