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Search Results
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Topic: Telescope for planetary work
Posted by Tom Moran at 20:23 on 2010 Sep 13
Hello.I have recently joined the BAA and wonder why I didn’t join ages ago!I am a keen solar observer and use a skywatcher 120mm refractor, herschel wedge and continuim filter for white light and a pst for hydrogen alpha. I am interested in planetary work but I feel the 120 refractor is not quite up to it. I, like most people, have a limited budget and I was considering the skywatcher pro 180. Does anyone have experience of this telescope? Would it be adequate to make contributions to the Jupiter, Mars and Saturn sections of the BAA?Kind regards.Tom Moran
Topic: BOINC Einstein@Home Team
Posted by Kevin Holmes at 10:56 on 2010 Aug 13
Hello all. I’ve just joined the Einstein@Home programme which in their own words "is a program that uses your computer’s idle time to search for gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO gravitational wave detector. Einstein@Home also searches for radio pulsars in binary systems, using data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico." More information can be found at http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/Einstein@Home used the Berkley Open source Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) software which you download to your local PC and analyse and compute data sent from the Einstein@Home project. It can be set up to use your computer during idle times (when it is switched on) and analyses the data in the background. Once each data package is complete it accesses the project site and uploads the results. So far, two users have found a pulsar called PSR J2007+2722. It is a 40.8 Hz isolated pulsar, 17,000 light years distant in the plane of the Galaxy, and is most likely a Disrupted Recycled Pulsar (DRP). If so, it is the fastest DRP yet discovered.I would like to set up a British Astronomical Association team so multiple computers can contribute to the project and the results be shared amongst the team members. If you are interested then please respond and I’ll create the team and post out the information.Regards,Kevin Holmes.
In reply to: Makeing a white light filter for my 10″ Dobsonian
Posted by Paul A Brierley at 17:32 on 2010 May 21
Cheers Callum,I will use the dust cover I have for my ZS66SD. I have been a casual solar observer on and off for a number of years, and I hope that with my new 10" Dob which is, after all so easy to set UP. It might encourage me to do more in the way of Solar observing.I might even be tempted to join the solar section!
In reply to: White LED street lighting
Posted by Dale Holt at 13:29 on 2010 May 10
Thanks to David for outlining some of the lesser known facts around LED street lighting. It does sound very worrying and already happening if David can witness deterioration from his NW London location.I have often wondered why more of the low level bollard type lighting isn’t used by local authorities as the units must be considerably cheaper that full lamp posts, especially for pedestrian only applications.Movement detection is also a good idea but with the energy usage being that much lower with LED’s the cost & environment cards will have already been satisfied to a greater extent, the advantages to residents & councils will not be so attractive.I think the serious option for many astronomers trapped in light polluted areas will be to concentrate or areas of astronomy that are less effected by the scourge of poor lighting, i.e. Lunar, Solar, Planetary. Double stars etc or to join the increasing number of UK astronomers accessing scope remotely under really dark skies. I appreciate that theses means imaging and not visual observation but what else can a small group of astronomers realistically do to prevent it?Dale Holt
In reply to: Welcome to the new Forum
British Astronomical Association
Supporting amateur astronomers since 1890
