January 2013 Observation Plans

I’ve spent a bit of time adding events and some things I want to see in Jan and through 2013 to the Google Calendar and the observation plans page tonight.
I do this for my own purposes but if anybody else is interested, feel free.

Patrick Moore’s final Sky at Night

Last night I was working on my astronomy course as I’d got a coursework deadline today. I got it finished just before midnight which was good timing as it meant I could watch Patrick Moore’s final Sky at Night before bed.
It was an enjoyable and fitting tribute. It appeared that part of the show was a planned feature recorded before his death, on setting up a new telescope, where some lucky members of the public were at Patrick’s Selsey home in Selsey, Sussex. This was followed by clips that reminded me what an inspiration and an entertainer he was. Usually Sky at a night isn’t on iPlayer until all the repeats have shown. This month it is up after the first broadcast. His death, combined with this week’s BBC Stargazing Live is likely to mean this episode will pick up a lot more views than usual.
It won’t be the same without Patrick but I do hope the series continues.

Dorset Binocular Observations – Tuesday 1 January 2013

Location : Poundbury, a garden
Conditions: Clear. Mild.
Equipment: Celestron 15×70 Binoculars
Highlights: Jupiter, M45 Pleiades, M31 Andromeda Galaxy, Orion, M42 Orion Nebula

First bit of observing in ages. Weather has been poor recently – wet and cloudy. I’ve also been very busy with the whole Christmas thing. The only times there has been a clear night I’ve either been out or needing to crack on with the online Astronomy course I’ve been doing. It’s frustrating to not be out observing because of it but with coursework and deadlines the study has to take a priority.

We were staying with friends in Poundbury, Dorset for New Year. Being a “model village” designed on environmental ideals, the brainchild of Prince Charles, light pollution is well under control My friends also live on the edge of the village so the skies were quite dark, despite a waning moon a few days past full. We popped out several times during the evening for a quick look. I hadn’t taken the scope down so we were using my 15×70 Celestron binoculars. Unfortunately we had to hand hold them as the tripod clamp had been damaged in flight back from the Oman trip and I hadn’t realised.
Jupiter was up high and bright with all 4 moons visible through the bins. Mike was quite impressed with it. He hadn’t seen the moons before. Jupiter is sitting in Taurus at the moment, very close to the Hyades cluster so there were a lot of stars also visible in the same field of view. I also pointed out the Pleiades nearby, which is a nice and easy binocular object. A little later when Orion was up high over the house we were out again looking at the M42 Orion Nebula which really was glowing. I think this was the best I’ve ever seen it. Giving it a few minutes through the bins also brought out more detail. As a final treat I showed them the M31 Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away. This was trickier to spot as it wasn’t visible to the naked eye so needed a bit of a star hop. Both Rich and Mike found it after a few attempts. Again, with continued viewing it became more distinct and bright. I really enjoyed showing them a few interesting and rewarding objects. I think they were impressed with what they were seeing with just binoculars.

Observations – Wednesday 21 November 2012

Location : Home, next to the bench
Conditions: Clear. Had been raining earlier so damp.
Equipment: skywatcher 130 scope, AsdaCAM
Highlights: Jupiter, Auriga, M36-Pinwheel Cluster, M37, M38-Starfish Cluster

17:30 1st Quarter Moon, Jupiter
As I left work this evening the skies were reasonably clear with a quarter moon shining brightly to the South, after over a week of cloud. While driving home along the dark A38, I also spotted Jupiter up in the East. Was looking forwards to getting out when I got home.

21:00 Jupiter
In and out of the garden setting up while I was doing the tea. Got out to start observing just before 21:00. Spent until about 21:30 imaging Jupiter to the East before it went behind a fir tree. Used the AsdaCam. Used some of what I picked up from the Bromsgrove Astro session on webcam imaging on Monday. Found that I could shoot at 1280 rather than 640. Also ran it at the fasted frame rate I could in Sharpcam. Used the histogram to get the best exposure. Also picked up on the fact that Jupiter rotates quickly so kept my captures down to 45 seconds. I also captured some over exposed video so that I could combine the moons, 3 of which were visible in a line of to the the right side. It’s a shame that it went behind the tree when it did, as a Great Red Spot transit was due between 21:30 and 23:30. I’ll process the images in the next few days.

21:40 Auriga, Capella – Alpha Aurigae
The space to the left of the fir tree to the east was filled Auriga. Another new constellation that I can identify easily to help find my way around the sky. Capella is it’s brightest star.

22:10 Pinwheel Cluster – Messier 36 , Open Cluster in Auriga
I was intending to try for the Double Cluster next between Perseus and Cassiopeia but that part of the sky was right up at the zenith and I couldn’t get the scope there without it fouling on the tripod mount. So instead I used SkySafari+ to find out what was in the vicinity of Auriga. Delighted to find there were 3 Messier objects, all open clusters. So there’s my objective for the evening. I started with M36, the Pinwheel cluster. An easy starhop from Elnath-Beta Tauri via Chi Auriga. This was a rewarding target. It was a bit boring at first in the 25mm but stepping up to the 17mm Plossl eyepiece and spending time at the eyepiece brought out more stars in the cluster. It didn’t have a particularly recognisable or distinctive shape but I think that will come from more time spent on return visits. This is one of the targets in the Sky at Night Deep Sky Tour for November 2012. I also got the Turn Left at Orion book out to compare notes.

22:43 Messier 37 Open Cluster in Auriga
This was a tricky starhop. I tried from Elath first and got lost so tried again from Theta Auriga and found it on the second attempt. I was hopping using quite faint stars and it was pleasing to be doing so with confidence. My starhop skills with the RACI really have improved. M37 was just about visible in the RACI. Moving to the scope and looking through the 17mm Plossl I was struggling to make out any detail other than a fuzzy. There was a bit of thin cloud about but this was reasonably fast moving so not too much of a problem. The glare of the street light was not helping either. I had my baffle screen out but I couldn’t get it close enough to the scope without having to move everything and without it obscuring the sky. It was difficult to resolve individual stars but it was definitely there as I could make out the fuzziness. I was a bit surprised by this as SkySafari+ was claiming it to be quite a bright object. Changing to the 25mm in an attempt to improve the brightness of the image was actually worse and I pretty much lost it altogether. Checking in Turn Left at Orion helped and reassured me that I was looking at M37, 4,600 light years away as it described it as fuzzy and challenging. It also suggested that in a small to medium scope it wouldn’t resolve to individual stars and looks a bit like a globular cluster.

23:02 Starfish Cluster – Messier 38 Open Cluster in Auriga
My favourite cluster of the evening and my 3rd new Messier in this session. Takes my count up to 11/110. SkySafari+ didn’t know why it’s called Starfish but I think it does look a bit like one. It certainly seems to radiate out from a centre. The 17m eyepiece is definitely the eyepiece of choice for these Open Clusters. Again this is a cluster that rewards patience and persistence at the eyepiece. It’s resolving into stars well and there is some nebulosity there. The seeing is quite still now.

23:31 Crab Nebula – Messier 1 Nebula in Taurus
Tried but did not find. Needs to be a target for the next few days. I’m adding it to the general list on my observing plans. It should be just above Zeta Tauri on the lower horn of Taurus but I’m having problems reorientating myself now. Might not have been helped by moving the scope down the garden a bit without going through a full realignment.

23:45 Packing Up and Conclusions
Just before packing up I noticed that Orion was up to the South East. Some treats in store here in coming weeks, I think. I also had a quick look at M45, the Pleiades through the binoculars which is always a treat. I do love the way they glow blue. The nebulous glow is just visible with the naked eye which draws me to them when just gazing at the sky. It was a cold evening tonight but that wasn’t a problem. Was wearing my snowboarding base layer, walking trousers, hiking boots and socks, hoody, body warmer and waterproof. Also had on a hat and scarf and my North Face eTip gloves were essential to working the laptop trackpad and the iPad. Time to pack up as lights have gone on around the house now as A heads to bed. Called to through the window so had to go into the house so my night vision is shot now anyway. One thing I noticed this evening is that now the leaves have gone from the trees there is more sky available but there is much less shade from the orange glow of the streetlights. Making these final notes I notice that the cloud has come in and only Jupiter and Capella are visible now. The cloud has been drifting across all night but with some pace so has not been a problem. It’s been a good observing session. I’m very pleased with the three new Messiers.

Observing programs
Messier: 11/110
Lunar 100 observed: 8/100
Lunar 100 imaged: 8/100

Astronaut Piers Sellers on Danny Baker

British astronaut, Piers Sellers was on the Danny Baker podcast this week. It was a fascinating interview. This is one of the guys who assembled the ISS in orbit while spacewalking. It was fascinating to hear him talk about his experiences and I found it amazing how down to earth (pun intended) he was. There was no arrogance and the conversation flowed freely and easily between them. I recommend you listen to it while it’s still available. I’m going to listen to it again.

Bromsgrove Astronomical Society – Webcam Imaging

Went to a meeting of the Bromsgrove Astronomical Society. I’m thinking of joining. I’d considered Birmingham or Walsall’s groups but they’re too urban. I’m looking for one that gives an opportunity to observe away from the city lights but that isn’t too far.
It was a wet evening so no chance for observing but there was a very interesting talk with a lot of in depth detail on webcam imaging. I learnt a few interesting things that I hope to put into practice.
– Maximum capture times for various solar system objects to reduce blurring due to the speed of their rotation.
– Frame rates
– using the histogram in Sharpcap to optimise exposure
– what gamma is
– which webcams to use. Annoyingly the best webcam still seems to the rare and almost out of date Philips Toucam or SPC900. Ideally I’d like to get my hands on one of them without spending a fortune second hand on eBay. There must still be loads sitting in boxes in spare rooms unused. Otherwise it seems to be the costly dedicated astro-webcams. For the moment I’ll stick with the AsdaCAM I hacked together.

National Space Centre – Leicester

We have a National Space Centre. It’s in Leicester. Given that I’ve always viewed any aspirations we may have about a space programme through the prism of an Eddie Izzard routine “We didn’t have enough money to put a man in a track suit up a ladder!” both these facts surprise me.

The other weekend I decided I wanted to go see a proper planetarium show. I decided against the one at the Think Tank in Birmingham because I didn’t really want to pay to go into the Think Tank again. A quick Google told me that the National Space Centre also had the Patrick Moore Planetarium so that was my decision. One of my friends came with me and we were there for about 6 hours. It was £13 to get in which was reasonable and by doing a gift Aid on it this gives return visits within a year. I’ll be going back again I think.

We took in a couple of planetarium shows. The first was the free one called “We Are Aliens” which was better than I expected being a CGI thing for the kids. For some reason it was a bit dark, kind of like the light loss you get with 3D but we weren’t wearing 3D glasses. It was impressive though being projected across the entire dome and there was some interesting stuff on exoplanets. There was a nice Solar System flythrough that I particularly liked.
We also went to a later proper planetarium night sky show which cost an extra £3. I could have done with a little less about the mythology relating to the constellations and more stuff to look at being pointed out. As it was I drifted off on my own a bit during the legends of Perseus and Andromeda and went did a bit of constellation spotting of my own, looking for other targets that I knew should be there that weren’t pointed out. They had pointed out Cassiopeia, Orion, Taurus, Andromeda, Perseus, Pegassus, the Plough. I also spotted M31 – the Andromeda Galaxy, the Hyades cluster, M45 – the Pleiades, the double cluster in Perseus, Jupiter and quite a few others.

There’s some good exhibition areas too. They’ve a Soyuz hanging over the main ticket area and a couple of rockets in the rocket tower. The Into Space area was one of the best, probably because it had stuff, a lot of which seemed to have been used by the most famous British Astronaut, Helen Sharman.

In the rocket tower they had a display that showed the “Space Race” on a timeline. One of the display objects that excited me was the set of Brooke Bond Tea Cards that I had as a kid. Driving home this evening I was listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage Podcast and Brian Cox was talking about how he’d been inspired by these as a boy too.

Other areas such as Exploring the Universe had to rely on models and information boards. These were pitched at a good level though, understandable to children and those with very little understanding of the subject, but at the same time giving adults and those with greater knowledge something to think about.
There was also a section called Tranquility Base where there were interactive things to play with and some sort of 3D simulator ride that we actually ran out of time to have a go on. Next time.
All in all, a great day out. Just one word of warning. Even though the car park is dedicated to the site, it’s still pay and display. I only realised as we were heading back to the car. I guess I might have been a bit too excitable when we arrived. Luckily I got away with it.

Voyager: To The Final Frontier

I watched Voyager: To The Final Frontier on iPlayer this morning. It’s not available online anymore, just clips of it at the link above. I’d got it stacked up in my backlog of things I hadn’t watched yet. It was another great programme from the BBC. Voyager 2 is in the news again as it’s about to leave the Solar System. It is incredible to think this piece of 70s technology is still going and still sending back valid data. It was interesting to see how Voyager’s technology has remained the same while back here on Earth the equipment that it talks to has changed massively.
It’s caused me to read Murmurs of Earth by Carl Sagan (and others) that I picked up in a second hand bookshop recently. It’s all about the Voyager Golden Record that was mounted on the Voyager space probes. It’s purpose was partly a message in a bottle in the incredibly unlikely ever another civilisation found it, and partly to celebrate the achievements of our civilisation and cultures.

Neil Armstrong – the real Astro Ukenaut

Neil Armstrong played the ukulele.

The original Astro Ukenaut.

Patrick Moore – Yearbook of Astronomy free ebooks

Every year since 1962 Patrick Moore has produced a Yearbook of Astronomy. These excellent books usually contain observing notes for the coming year, a review of the previous year and a selection of articles and essays. I have a few old copies of them and they’re a nice thing to have and are interesting even though they’re out of date in many respects. I’ve just found a load from the first one in 1962 up to 1979, with a few gaps, available as eBooks in a variety of formats on the Internet Archive. I’ve downloaded all they have and stuck them on my Kobo eReader.

Obviously they’re not as good in this format as the real thing so if you ever find an old one in a dusty corner second hand bookshop then it’d be gratefully received. I’m always happy to buy you a pint in return.