Meeting videos from the May 31 meeting

Many thanks for doing this so promptly, Nick.

I must say yesterday’s meeting was excellent. The talks by Richard Miles, Richard McKim and yourself were outstanding and showed the BAA at its best. Thank you!

I encourage those members who were unable to attend to watch the videos when they becoming available.

Best regards,

Jeremy

I was just watching my downloaded video of Richard Miles’ presentation and, around 35 minutes in, I was surprised to hear Richard asking me a question, if I was watching the video…..! The question relates to Roy Panther’s comet discovery of Xmas Day 1980 and my activity that night. That was indeed the night that I first used my 14-inch AE reflector in Newtonian mode,
having acquired it a few weeks earlier. I had used it in Cassegrain mode prior to that and, just 2 evenings earlier, took a photo of the Mare Crisium which (somehow!) won the Lunar Section photographic competition 6 months later. But Xmas Day 1980 was the first time I used the 14-inch at f/5. It was the first ever night that I attempted sweeping for comets too (I continued for 4 years). I decided that I would start sweeping near epsilon Lyrae and so swung the telescope to that part of the sky, getting the star in the finder. However, being a big equatorial Newt on a high plinth, the eyepiece position, on a ladder, was too uncomfortable, and so I started elsewhere. Little did I know that at the same time Roy Panther was discovering his comet just a degree or two away! In fact, I did not hear about Roy’s discovery until a few days later when I bumped into my former Physics Teacher, Don Woodhouse, in W.H. Smiths in Bury St Edmunds. He told me that he had heard about it on the radio. I’d not seen Don for more than 4 years! It was only months later that it hit me that Roy had found his comet so close to where I had intended starting sweeping on Xmas Day, on my first ever comet sweep. It sent shivers up my spine…literally!

That is spooky enough, but there is another twist. While watching the video of Richard’s talk, as soon as he asked if I was listening we had a MASSIVE isolated lightning strike here (4.10pm) and the power went off.

Are the astronomy Gods trying to send me a message……….?

Martin

Richard, Excellent GAML. I watched it on BAA Website on the night of your lecture after Nick uplaoded it. What fantastic service this is.

Part of yor talk mentioned the numerous occasions when serendipitous discoveries of comets have been made by VS observers when comets have appeared in the filed of view of the VS they are observing. This has happened on very numerous occasions throughout history. We had an instance of this earlier this year, as you will see form the following emails from John Toone and Nick James:

From: J TOONE [mailto:enootnhoj@btinternet.com]
Sent: 02 April 2017 05:33
To: Guy Hurst
Subject: Comet Object Query

Guy,

At 03:38GMT this morning (2nd April 2017) whilst observing AG Peg, I noted a comet object at the following position:

RA 21h 49.9m, Dec +12d 52m (2000) [0.4 degrees NP AG Peg]

It was perfectly round, well condensed and estimated to be mag 8.7 (equal to K on the AG Peg sequence).

I observed the object again at 03:50GMT and noted no change in position, the sky clouded over 10 minutes later.

Would appreciate you confirming the object’s designation.

Best Regards

John

Subject: Re: Fw: Comet Object Query
To: J TOONE

From: Nick James

John,
It’s C/2017 E4 (Lovejoy). See my pic from this morning attached.
Nick