Getting back into the swing of things

After what seems like an eternity, this week I've been able to get out - twice! - to do a bit of observing, and dust off my somewhat neglected and rusty astronomy skills.

On Wednesday, on my way home from choral rehearsal (another passion of mine - classical music!), I noticed that the skies were looking very clear and that Jupiter was nicely placed in the south. Until recently, the view of that part of the sky from my garden was obscured by a lot of very big and generally unattractive trees, but fortunately they've been chopped down this summer. Hey presto - an uninterrupted view of the southern sky from my lawn! Out came the telescope, complete with lovely new eyepieces I bought at AstroFest back in February, and after a bit of faffing around trying to remember how to align it I got a decent view of Jupiter at about x60. Three of the four Galilean satellites clearly visible, and the two main equatorial belt on the main disk very prominent. No sign of the GRS, but it could well have been on the other side of the planet - I haven't checked yet! After a couple of quick squizzes at the Ring Nebula and Albireo (always lovely), I stopped for the night feeling satisfied that even after a whole summer off, I've still got the bug!

Then, this Saturday, I got along to the first CAS meeting I've managed since about April. What with work, holidays, weddings, christenings and assorted other (frequently unwelcome) distractions, I've been conspicuously absent from the society for a while - so it was great to get back and see some of the familiar faces again. Mike Hapgood from Rutherford Appleton Labs gave a very interesting talk about space weather and its likely effects on future lunar exploration (note - turns out the Apollo guys were just lucky not to get fried by bursts of solar radiation when they were up there!). After coffee, we went outside and did a spot of observing - in just a short time we saw the ISS passing overhead, and managed to see Io passing in front of the Jovian disk.

All in all, not a bad start to the "season"!

Astronomy article on BBC

Nice to see the Beeb doing a bit on amateur astronomy, complete with a nice little video by amateur astronomer Julia Gaudelli.

Been a while, eh?

Well, it's been a proper long time since I posted anything up here. And not surprising really, given the utterly shocking summer weather we're enduring here in the UK. I'm afraid the telescope hasn't ventured out from the shed for at least three months now...a combination of the short summer nights, sure, but even if we'd had 24hr darkness these last few weeks there'd have been nothing but cloud and drizzle to look at. Very disappointing!!

Ah well - as August draws along we might start to get some better weather, and of course the nights will begin to lengthen again. With any luck I'll have a reason to start writing this blog a bit more frequently again soon. That's if I can squeeze it in amongst the chaos of trying to move house - that's another reason why my spare time has been spent on things other than astronomy!

Until the next time, friends - hope you're all having a nice summer :-)

Stargazers Lounge Star Party, 24-25 April

I'm going to go to the Stargazers Lounge Spring Star Party in a couple of weeks' time - it's being held in Herefordshire, not too far from where I live. Sarah (my lovely lady) is going to come along as well. Should be great, looking forward to meeting some of the astronomers off the forum - and hopefully getting to see some great sights through some big scopes!

I'll be sure to post a report....

All quiet on the astro front

I've been quiet on here of late - mainly due to not being around much (been all over with work, not to mention a nice weekend in Paris!) Haven't got the scope out since the thing at Stroud - and now the clocks have gone forward we're into that time of the year when observing and having to go to work start to come into direct conflict! Hopefully will get some good dark skies this weekend though, as I'm off to Dartmoor. So any clear skies should be a good sight. I'll take the telescope just in case...!

More anon.

Fun night showing the kids the stars

I found myself unexpectedly leading a star party for Stroud High School last night - the Cotswold AS had arranged to show a group of kids (and their parents) a few celestial sights as part of IYA 2009, but our Coordinator couldn't make it at short notice so yours truly stepped up to the mark. It was a great night (despite me being rather strung out after a tough day at the office!) We got my scope set up alongside the school's telescope up on Rodborough Common, just outside Stroud. The kids showed up at about 7.30, and with parents in tow we had a crowd of about 20 people keen to see what they could see.

I kicked things off with an ad-libbed spiel about astronomy, what you can see in the sky, where the North Star is and why it doesn't move etc etc. Having got them interested, we then proceeded to hunt down some showpiece objects - M42, Saturn, M44, The Pleiades etc. All were very well received, with Saturn generating the expected chorus of "wow!"s.

We were also treated to a spectacular transit of the International Space Station at around 2000UT - really nice and bright, and extra special as the Space Shuttle Discovery was docked at the time. That really helped fire the kids' imaginations!

We closed up at about 8.45pm - everyone seemed to have really enjoyed it, including the parents! One guy asked if we could do a similar event for the Cirencester Science and Technology Society, so hopefully they'll be in touch soon. All in all a great night, I think we might have converted a few new folks to astronomy, and I can definitely claim to have firmly done my bit for IYA2009 :-)

Bit too murky really

Just popped out for a bit of an astronomy fix - set up the scope and set myself to the task of making a few variable star observations and a hunt for M97 (the Owl Nebula in Ursa Major). Unfortunately the sky really wasn't transparent enough for M97 - I think I was pointed in the right place but I could see no hint of a planetary nebula in the vicinity. It was pretty murky up there though. Managed to get magnitude estimates for Epsilon Aurigae and Zeta Geminorum (a couple of naked-eye variables), and also Z Ursae Majoris, although the latter might be a bit flaky due to its faintness and the aforementioned murk.

Incidentally, Epsilon Aurigae is a good variable star to be watching out for at the moment...it's a somewhat mysterious beast, which appears to be eclipsed every 27 years by a very odd object. No-one's quite sure what it is, but the current theory appears to be that it's a disk-shaped dust cloud with a hole in the middle. Luckily, Epsilon Aurigae goes into eclipse this year, so there's a great opportunity to make some naked-eye magnitude estimates and submit them to either the AAVSO or the British Society for Popular Astronomy, who are pushing for amateur observations of this star. More details can be found here. Give it a go, and do some real science!