Search Results for 'Join'

[Andy Wilson]

Hi Paul,
Welcome to the BAA!
If you are an active observer, then may I recommend joining one or more of the Observing Sections. You don’t need to be highly skilled to contribute. The Sections will help you to develop your skills and are a great way to get to know other members.
Best wishes,
Andy

[Paul Roberts]

Hello,
I have recently joined and just wanted to say hello and happy clear skies to you all!

Paul

[Callum Potter]

I think one of the Education & Outreach section’s aims is to create such a repository.

Would be best to contact them or join their mailing list to get involved
https://britastro.org/sections/education-outreach

Callum

[Stewart John Bean]

AAVSO have agreed to start observing DI Uma.

It is not particularly bright object and there is a bright star close by so need to be careful with the photometry aperture selection.
However, it is an interesting object in that it does appear to be a dwarf novae at the period minimum with a brown dwarf secondary. Today, results from the TESS mission, processed in Lightkurve, seem to confirm its orbital period is only 0.0545 d. Its behaviour is very similar to RZ Lmi in that it spends most time in superoutburst and its super outburst period is small – only 20 -30 days. They might be considered twins.

If anyone can join in an observe DI Uma it would help. It is in the evening sky at present and observable for most of the year.

Stewart

[Stewart John Bean]

Hi ,
I have been looking into IX Dra and its status as a “period bouncer” reported by Olech, A. et al 2004.
Their Fig 12 places IX Dra as a period bouncer. It turns out that decision is based upon an accurate understanding of the difference between P(sh) and P(orb). Determining P(orb) has not been easy. Thorstensen has recently (2020) determined P(orb) accurately and to check I looked at the TESS results for IX Dra. TESS date from the normal outburst sections of the light curve agrres with Thorstensen. So IX Dra can be moved to the upper branch of the curve in the attached figure and join its ER Uma cousins.

Stewart

Attachments:

1. 

   Olech-A-2004-Figure-12.png
   

[Callum Potter]

For members that might want to attend the funeral of Allan Chapman here are some details:

Funeral of Allan Chapman: Tuesday 3 March, 2 pm
RSVP request from Christ Church Cathedral

Further to our previous notice, we can now confirm that the funeral of Allan Chapman will take place here at the Cathedral on Tuesday 3 March at 2 pm. All those who knew Allan and wish to honour his memory are very welcome to join us. If you’d like to attend, please RSVP to us on cathedral@chch.ox.ac.uk.

mailing address is:
Christ Church Cathedral
St Aldate’s
Oxford
Oxford, Oxon OX1 1DP
United Kingdom

• This topic was modified 3 months, 2 weeks ago by Callum Potter.

[Jim Verner]

Just an update on the above post regarding Reflect Orbital and the Earendil-1 prototype satellite.

Their application for launch is currently before the FCC. If you are not aware of Reflect Orbitals plans a very basic summary is that they intend to launch a satellite constellation that will provide “sunlight as a service” – basically large space mirrors that will sit in an orbital shell at 625 km. The purpose is to reflect sunlight onto the dark side of earth to provide near 24hr illumination on areas where subscriber’s to their service pay for it. These will track across the sky shining a beam of light on, for example a solar farm and its surrounding area. There is no clear method stated as to where this beam of light goes as the satellite reorientates onto its next target. This is of course a very short and simplistic overview of their project.
There are many impacts and risks to their proposal, the key ones for astronomy being the launch of intentionally bright satellites and the risk of retinal damage if you are unfortunate enough to be looking through a telescope or binoculars when one of these satellites passes directly into your FOV.

There are of course other significant impacts on ecology, and atmospheric pollution, aviation and so on, and also its worth noting the US military have seen the potential applications and have gave the project financial resources to explore ‘novel uses’ of the technology.

I would like to encourage any and all within the BAA to have a look at this project and join in lodging objections to the FCC. I am happy to provide details as to how to do this, and you do not need to be a US citizen to lodge an objection. All objections are equally valid, whether from individuals or organisations.

Clear skies,
Jim

James Verner
Director
Dark Sky UK
IAU-CPS Member

[Jim Verner]

Hi All,

There is no doubt that the application by SpaceX for a 1 million satellite strong mega-constellation has the potential to be a devastating blow to astronomy at all levels. Yet, the economics of such a venture are alot less clear and some within the industry are already casting doubt on orbital data centres as both uneconomical and a significant risk to data security.

Whether or not this ever becomes a reality remains to be seen, though, as we have seen before with Musk / SpaceX never underestimate their ability to make even the improbable possible.

There is however, another potentially serious threat looming in the sidelines in the form of the Earendil-1 prototype satellite from Reflect Orbital. Their application for launch is currently before the FCC. If you are not aware of Reflect Orbitals plans a very basic summary is that they intend to launch a satellite constellation that will provide “sunlight as a service” – basically large space mirrors that will sit in an orbital shell at 625 km. The purpose is to reflect sunlight onto the dark side of earth to provide near 24hr illumination on areas where subscriber’s to their service pay for it. These will track across the sky shining a beam of light on, for example a solar farm and its surrounding area. There is no clear method stated as to where this beam of light goes as the satellite reorientates onto its next target. This is of course a very short and simplistic overview of their project.
There are many impacts and risks to their proposal, the key ones for astronomy being the launch of intentionally bright satellites and the risk of retinal damage if you are unfortunate enough to be looking through a telescope or binoculars when one of these satellites passes directly into your FOV.

There are of course other significant impacts on ecology, and atmospheric pollution, aviation and so on, and also its worth noting the US military have seen the potential applications and have gave the project financial resources to explore ‘novel uses’ of the technology.

I would like to encourage any and all within the BAA to have a look at this project and join in lodging objections to the FCC. I am happy to provide details as to how to do this, and you do not need to be a US citizen to lodge an objection. All objections are equally valid, whether from individuals or organisations.

Clear skies,
Jim

James Verner
Director
Dark Sky UK
IAU-CPS Member

[britastroperson5dadbeb40b915a437ec113c1]

I have a book on amateur radio astronomy from the 1960s which describes hydrogen line radio observing as “only for the [really] advanced amateur” & mapping the Milky Way as an exercise for those who are at nearly professional level…..and here we are – all doing it, only a few decades later! And doing it for such a cheap cost – long gone are the £thousands required for such projects.

So now – we move forward – some of us are mapping the Milky Way in 3D(Wow!), demonstrating dark matter(Wow! Wow!), weighing the Milky Way(little Wow!) and maybe even contributing to the advancement of science(Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!) – but perhaps most incredibly we can all walk in the scientific footsteps of those who came before us, and travel that journey of scientific discovery that leads us to understand the universe through eyes not our own, in wavelengths we cannot see, at distances we can hardly comprehend, over time periods that reduce our civilisation to a tiny pin-prick in the history of the universe!(Lots of Wows!)

……I am trying to encourage everyone here to give this all a try – it is NOT difficult!

AND if anyone would like to get help on your journey or just talk to others about their (proposed or actual) projects on H-Line then there is a joint BAA/SARA members H-Line meeting on Monday night (under auspices of BAA RAG). Log in details =

Microsoft Teams: (UTC+0) 19:00 on 5 Jan 2026:
Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 360 212 052 639 56
Passcode: Jr36E8dw

Any problems joining contact me on andrew (at) thornett (dot) net or +447770841767.

Drop me an email if you would like to be added to the mailing list for future meetings.

Andy

[britastroperson5dadbeb40b915a437ec113c1]

I have a book on amateur radio astronomy from the 1960s which describes hydrogen line radio observing as “only for the [really] advanced amateur” & mapping the Milky Way as an exercise for those who are at nearly professional level…..and here we are – all doing it, only a few decades later! And doing it for such a cheap cost – long gone are the £thousands required for such projects.

So now – we move forward – some of us are mapping the Milky Way in 3D(Wow!), demonstrating dark matter(Wow! Wow!), weighing the Milky Way(little Wow!) and maybe even contributing to the advancement of science(Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!) – but perhaps most incredibly we can all walk in the scientific footsteps of those who came before us, and travel that journey of scientific discovery that leads us to understand the universe through eyes not our own, in wavelengths we cannot see, at distances we can hardly comprehend, over time periods that reduce our civilisation to a tiny pin-prick in the history of the universe!(Lots of Wows!)

……I am trying to encourage everyone here to give this all a try – it is NOT difficult!

AND if anyone would like to get help on your journey or just talk to others about their (proposed or actual) projects on H-Line then there is a joint BAA/SARA members H-Line meeting on Monday night (under auspices of BAA RAG). Log in details =

Microsoft Teams: (UTC+0) 19:00 on 5 Jan 2026:
Join the meeting now
Meeting ID: 360 212 052 639 56
Passcode: Jr36E8dw

Any problems joining contact me on andrew (at) thornett (dot) net or +447770841767.

Drop me an email if you would like to be added to the mailing list for future meetings.

Andy

[Nick James]

That is an impressive Scotch mount.

I think that the Scotch mount (aka barn-door mount) was first described by G.Y. Haig in JBAA Vol 85, No 5. I’d only just joined the BAA in 1975 and this was the first paper that I found really interesting. I built a basic copy and used it for many years to take night-sky photos using a manually driven screw and a stop watch (things were hard back then). In the 1980s I built an advanced one which had a crystal controlled stepper motor drive and took this to Tenerife to photograph C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake).

[Alex Pratt]

The southern Taurids continue into late November and the northern Taurids have now joined them, visible up to the first week of December.

Both Taurid streams are linked to comet 2P/Encke. Their meteors have relatively slow geocentric velocities of 27 and 29 km/s and produce low ZHRs of 5, at best. Not very inspiring, but it is impressive to see a bright Taurid trundling across the sky and the IMO’s Meteor Calendar for 2025 suggests this year could bring a “Taurid swarm” of brighter meteors, some fireball class.

Here’s a mag -2 NTA that I recorded on Oct 31. It exhibited multiple flaring during its duration of 2.2s (travelling L to R).

Throughout November we also have the Leonid meteors, the swiftest of the major showers, with a Vg of 70 km/s. Maximum is expected on the evening of Nov 17, although ZHR could only be 15. The IMO’s Meteor Calendar notes there might be activity from a number of dust trails:

Nov 09, 22hUT (1167 dust trail)
Nov 15, 03hUT (1633 dust trail)
Nov 17, 10hUT (nodal maximum at sol long = 234◦.95)
Nov 17, 18hUT (nodal maximum at sol long = 235◦.27)
Nov 17, 19hUT (1699 dust trail at sol long = 235◦.341)
Nov 17, 22h40mUT (1699 dust trail at sol long = 235◦.482)

Expected rates are uncertain.

Spoiler alert – annual Leonid activity should increase as we approach 2031 when parent comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle returns, although meteor analysts tell us not to expect meteor storms such as in 1999, etc. They might only rival the Perseids or Geminids, nothing more.

Alex.

Attachments:

1. 

   20251031_035011_Leeds_N.jpg
   

[Grant Privett]

I eventually beat MS Teams into submission and I’ve sent out invitations to all those who responded to my gjprivett@dstl.gov.uk email address.

Please note: I shall be reading my emails up until Saturday night, so anyone still wanting to join in, can contact me.

I will send the pdf out to those who expressed an interest, whether they attended or not as weekends seem pretty busy in most households. 🙂

See you all on Sunday morning.

[Jonathan Peter Barker]

Hi Richard .., just off the phone with Joy Heyworth ref the 80mm ED Apo refractor but she knows v little about it but was happy to chat in general terms… lovely lady!
I’m really interested in the refractor…. do you know the make? What is the f/xx please as I would be interested in adapting an external H-alpha filter (Daystar?) to it and am happy to offer £200 or more for it unless it has gone already.
I understand from Joy that you are travelling up on Friday & bringing back the smaller items? Perhaps the refractor too? I’m in Reading Berkshire & Lincolnshire is a bit far for me but not impossible!

Looking forward to hearing feom you.

Best regards

Jonathan P Barker (Reading Astronomical Society)
(Recently re-joined the BAA).

[Grant Privett]

Oh, I don’t know. I think I joined for the first time when I was 12.

Lead counterweights were quite common then. My 4″ Newtonian had one.

I’m really not sure when I grew up enough to assess risks accurately and mitigate them. Brain development is supposed to stop at about 24 isn’t it? 🙂

[Robin Leadbeater]

Here is some further information from Alexander on the spectroscopy side which I have been asked to also distribute to the wider spectroscopy community. It is similar monitoring to that requested by Paul Roche which covered mainly 2018-2021 and was reported on the ARAS and BAA forums
https://www.spectro-aras.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2128
https://britastro.org/forums/topic/request-for-monitoring-of-x-per

————————————————————————————-
Call for Spectroscopic and Photometric Monitoring of X Persei (4U 0352+309)

Observers are invited to join a monitoring campaign on the Be/X‑ray binary X Persei, which is currently in an unusually low X‑ray state.

The campaign is coordinated by Alexander Salganik, PhD researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, whose work focuses on the Swift/BAT X‑ray light curve of the system. Since 2001 X Persei has shown three major X‑ray outbursts roughly every seven years. The next expected outburst has not occurred, and the source now sits at its lowest X‑ray flux in more than twenty years. Optical monitoring will help determine the current state and physical properties of the Be star’s disk, including whether it remains present or has dissipated during this faint phase.

Spectroscopy: priority is high‑resolution Hα (6563 Å). Additional coverage of He I 6678 Å, He I 5876 Å, or Hβ 4861 Å is welcome. Target cadence is one observation per week.

Photometry: UBVRI is very welcome. If limited, R and V bands are most useful, with R particularly sensitive to disk emission.

Data can be sent directly to Alexander Salganik (alsalganik “at”gmail.com), who will provide regular feedback and campaign updates.

[Callum Potter]

Members might be interested in this event which is being held at the Royal Institution on Sat 28 June from 7.00pm – 8.30pm

In this talk, astrophysicist Niayesh Afshordi will explore the fierce scientific debates over cosmic origins, revealing how modern cosmologists are rethinking the Big Bang itself. He will discuss the latest theories, including his own leading-edge research, that challenge the traditional narrative: was the Universe born from a black hole? Does time extend before the Big Bang? Could our cosmos be part of a vast multiverse or an eternal cycle of rebirth?

Science is not just about equations – it’s about people, rivalries, and radical ideas. Join Niayesh and colleague Phil Halper for a journey through the evolving frontiers of cosmology and the search for the true origins of our universe.

Full details at: https://www.rigb.org/whats-on/battle-big-bang

[Grant Privett]

I would also add in the period when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland saw aircraft grounded too – that saw an unusually long run of blue skies too.

It might take some of the fun out of the discussion for the journalist, but by looking at VIIRs imagery for London over (say) the last 10 years you should be able to see what has happened in recent years as the measured upwelling radiance would need to be constant before you could safely attribute more stars to NO2 levels and the ULEZ.

Something like…

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=9.00&lat=51.5156&lon=-0.1763&state=eyJiYXNlbWFwIjoiTGF5ZXJCaW5nUm9hZCIsIm92ZXJsYXkiOiJ2aWlyc19UUkVORCIsIm92ZXJsYXljb2xvciI6ZmFsc2UsIm92ZXJsYXlvcGFjaXR5IjoiNjAiLCJmZWF0dXJlc29wYWNpdHkiOiI4NSJ9

The website now actually offers the option for trend analysis on the light pollution levels. Impressive how dark some of the Motorways have become.

Perhaps upwelling blue light is scattered more strongly and never reaches space and so gives a false impression.

By comparison my home location has seen a small rise in light pollution as new house builds seem occupied by people afraid of the dark (despite every phone having a torch inbuilt) – even out here in the boonies where a crime is a major event!

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

At this time of year, a 24h coverage would be possible again just with night observations if there were enough observers around the planet. If I look at the AAVSO database, there are calendar days when we have up to ca 50% coverage: after someone in Europe observes for most of the night, someone in the US takes over … and then we get a gap.

I wonder if there are actually no active T CrB observers in that longitude range? Perhaps there are observers who just don’t bother to submit the data in the absence of an outbreak?

Imagine what it would be like to catch the actual nova outbreak in a high cadence photometry data set! I don’t think this has ever been done for a nova this close.

E.g. there must be tons of Seestar smart telescopes in China that could join the T CrB watch and help close the observation gap. How can we reach out to them?

Cheers
HBE

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein.

[Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein]

Next meeting: 8th of April:

FWD:========================================================================

This is a REMINDER for our WEBINAR on Tuesday, April 8th at 1700 UTC/1900 FR!

NOTE THE NEW TIMES!!!

Date: Tuesday, April 8th
Time:

12:00 PM CDT / 1:00 PM EST / 7:00 PM FR Time / 5:00 PM UTC
1200h CDT/ 1300h EST / 1900h FR / 1700h UTC

Zoom Link: https://umn.zoom.us/j/8068498577

Guest Speaker:
We’re excited to welcome Dr. Marion Pillas, a postdoctoral fellow at Liege University in Belgium. Dr. Pillas is also the chair for GRANDMA’s GRB Working Group and has written the GRB observing strategy for the collaboration.

She will be presenting on her research and on her paper:

“Limits on the Ejecta Mass During the Search for Kilonovae Associated with Neutron Star-Black Hole Mergers: A case study of S230518h, GW230529, S230627c and the Low-Significance Candidate S240422ed”

This paper focuses on how neutron star–black hole (NSBH) mergers are expected to produce kilonovae (KNe), but none have been confirmed despite extensive follow-up of four NSBH candidates detected via gravitational waves during O4 (May 2023 – July 2024). This study evaluates why no KN was detected by analyzing multi-messenger observations and the observational coverage from over 50 instruments. Simulations show that most NSBH KNe peak around one day post-merger in g, r, i bands – often outside follow-up coverage. For some candidates, faint KN luminosity, large distances, or poor sky localization significantly limited detectability, and in one case (S240422ed), the lack of a KN supports a non-astrophysical origin.

This is a GRANDMA/KNC paper led by Dr. Pillas and Dr. Antier. It can be found on the KNC forge, here.

This event is just our webinar, so we hope you’ll take the opportunity to join, ask questions, and learn more about cutting-edge research in fast transients and the science community!

Don’t forget to check out our Youtube for past webinar events and monthly meetings!

See you there!
Cristina Andrade
Research Professional | MN Institute for Astrophysics
The Kilonova Catcher Core Team
http://kilonovacatcher.in2p3.fr/
=============================================================================