2024 December 5

Deep Sky Update – November 2024

I suppose November has been an average observing month for me this year, with just the one night clear enough to get the Seestar out. There was a quiet aurora going on at the same time, so I had set up a camera in another part of the garden to be able to capture it if activity broke out – there were some nice rays, but nothing spectacular! One other brief auroral display was captured later in the month but the weather was not good enough to get a telescope out.
Maybe December will be a better month.

Deep Sky Section Meeting – March 22 2025

Arrangements for the Section meeting on Saturday March 22nd 2025 at Goostrey Village Hall, Goostrey are mostly in place. Many thanks goes to Macclesfield Astronomical Society for hosting.

Speakers are as follows (programme to be confirmed)

Callum Wingrove – Nebulae – a potted history
Richard Sargent – Hind’s Variable Nebula
Nick James – Travelling with a scope
Jeremy Shears – David Packer and the discovery of variable stars in globular clusters
Bryan Lawrence – Cepheus Yourself

The professional astronomer keynote talk will be given by:
Prof. Albert Zijlstra – Update on Planetary Nebulae Research

A hot buffet lunch and refreshments included in the price. Tickets are £15 for BAA Members and Affiliated Society Members (use the discount code advised and is also available here when logged into the BAA website), and £20 for non-members. All under 18s are £7.50 but must be accompanied by a paying adult.

You can now book online by following the link on the event page

Double Star Advisor

I am pleased to welcome Peter Morris as the new Double Star Advisor, and much thanks goes to John McCue who has been the advisor for many years. I am not sure we have a list of current active double star observers, but if you are or would like to be, please let me know.

November Object of Interest – NGC 40

NGC 40 has been well observed by members, though I’m not sure the weather was good enough for many visual observations. I managed to capture it with my Seestar on November 5th but it was small and the short exposure time I had probably did not help. It was also near the zenith at the time, and I am not sure how well the Seestar copes with observing there.
Most other imagers fared rather better than me. I was particularly interested to receive this image from Mark Fairfax using his new Celestron Origin e-scope. It was also imaged by Ivan Walton, Iain Cartwright, Paul Whitmarsh, Martin Reeve and Paul Leyland. Checkout the Object of Interest Gallery

December Object of Interest

Our target for December is NGC 1931 in Auriga. An emission and reflection nebula that has some similar features as the Orion Nebula (M 42) but on a much smaller scale. Should be a good challenge for the visual observer and imager.

Deep Sky Picture of the Month

My pick for the Deep Sky POTM is The Bubble Nebula in Cassiopeia by Dean Ashton.

And Finally

The end of 2024 is within sight – my next Deep Sky Update will be due in early January. I will make a New Years resolution to get the update out more promptly at the start of the month (lets see how long that lasts! )

So I hope you have a very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one…

Clear, dark skies,
Callum