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.

Saturday evening, astronomy night at Slimbridge

Aside from the weather which really made any visual observing impossible, the astronomy evening at WWT Slimbridge went really well, with a big crowd. Some disappointment not be able to see anything, but Martin gave a very nice talk about basic observing, and I followed up with some Sky Notes.

There were actually some stars visible through clear patches in the sky, but the sky never really cleared enough to be worth getting the telescopes out. However, the crescent moon burned through from time to time, and some stars were visible enough to give some people an idea of what was where with the laser pointer.

Clouded out again

Another 'clouded out' observing evening last night. Not a very good run of nights so far in 2009. Medium term forecast suggests Sunday may be promising - will need to keep fingers, etc. crossed.