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!

Spreading the word

A bit off-topic, this one, but it's something I feel quite strongly about and Ben Goldacre does a better job than I can of expressing the annoyance and anger I feel when confronted with the misinformation and poorly argued pseudo-science that so often passes for populist scientific journalism in this country.

Take five minutes and watch this clip - it's well worth it.



I shall now get off my soap-box!

Quick lunar fix

Despite a fair amount of cloud around here tonight, I just managed to get a good half an hour at the eyepiece looking at the Moon. I concentrated on the crater Schickard, which was nicely positioned on the terminator tonight. The seeing was only average at best - had to be patient to get nice, steady views - but even so, there was plenty to see and the Televue eyepiece / Barlow combination I recently bought really does deliver the goods. You could even make out the very tiniest tips of sunlight just beginning to illuminate some of the mountains around the dark edge of the crater. Seeing things like that from such a colossal distance reminds you why you enjoy astronomy...it's almost unbelievable.

Needless to say the old grey and fluffy stuff showed up after around 35 minutes and curtailed the fun, but it was well worth getting out there for the time I had. You have to take your opportunities when they present themselves, or you'd never see anything from here!

Successful IYA2009 event

Just got back from the final Cotswold AS Moonwatch event - the third of a series of short talks and observing sessions open to the public at Cheltenham College. Tonight was the only night we had clear skies, but it was worth the wait - got to show a load of people some good views of the Moon and Saturn using my lowly 4" f/5 refractor. Quite gratifying to see what you can do with such modest gear! Plenty of "oohs" and "aahs" as people got their first look at Saturn's rings and lunar craters - always a nice feeling to give someone their first astronomy experience.

Meanwhile, in other news, looks like the professionals have found the best evidence yet for a binary black hole. Well done chaps. Almost as impressive as our exploits this evening!