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Search Results
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In reply to: A possible cosmological paradigm?
I agree with you Richard, thank you Paul and Paul for your replies, I just have to try and fully understand them now!
I had an enjoyable career working for Philips Research from 1973 to 2008, mainly in silicon device physics (to 1993) during the time when computing power was rapidly expanding. However, I have always had an interest in the more exotic fields of Cosmology and Quantum/Particle Physics and over the years have tried to
improve my knowledge in these areas. So now that I have completed my stellar spectroscopy project (BAA Forum topic “Spectral Line Modelling – please would somebody review the work) I think my winter project will be to try once again to improve my cosmological knowledge.In the past I have tried to work my way through quite a few books on GR (getting a little further each time) more recently I have worked through the “Theoretical Minimum” books by Lenoard Susskind and got to chapter 10 (before running out of steam!) of “Quantum Field Theory for the gifted amateur” by Tom Lancaster & Stephen j. Blundell, I have also bought “Covariant Physics” by Moataz H. Emam. It’s difficult working alone so would anybody like to join me in studying these books? Are there better books?
One last comment on this topic and I appologise if it sounds a bit mystical, but I don’t think we will get a “theory of everything” until we can fit “free will” or at least the illusion of free will into the picture something that I thought might be possible with my suggestion of a variable Planck “Constant”.
In reply to: Bob Mizon
David – What a tale! – I know that windy road well but had not realised that you and Bob were joint partners in crime over there. very nice. If only Bob were here to give his side of the story!
In 2019 I acquired a car full of books from the late Peter Richards-Jones, in my role as Librarian for the Society for the History of Astronomy. Many of the books have joined the Library and others have been sold on. Amongst the books, were a couple of boxes of old slides and film reels of various formats from the 1950s onwards. Earlier this year I finally got around to sorting through these boxes. After consulting with a number of people, I decided I would have to study the films in case there was anything of astronomical significance. I purchased a second hand projector from the 1970s which could play Super8 and regular 8 film, and once I’d worked out how to use, projected the films onto my dining room wall and watched them. Most were family videos of holidays abroad, and using my DSLR camera I recorded video of the film being projected on a white wall. I have since sent these digital copies to the son of Peter who is overjoyed to see the footage he has never seen before of his family and of himself from the 1960s and 1970s. There were several films of the Moon and of the Sun in eclipse, but there were also three films of historic importance. The first is a film showing what I believe is the construction of a building at Ewell Observatory; I’ve messaged them but no reply yet. The second is a 10 minute long film of the 1973 eclipse of the Sun as viewed from the Monte Umbe – the last 30 seconds or so of the video show people onboard and once I’ve edited the eclipse I will share this. The third is a 3 minute video of a Winchester Weekend at King Alfred’s College in Winchester. There is no date, but with the help of Richard McKim and Martin Mobberley we are pretty sure it is the 1972 Winchester Weekend, held in July 1972. The write up of this meeting by Charles Wise and the accompanying group photograph is posted here and taken from JBAA 1972, 82, 6, pages 440-441. I showed the video at the Winchester Weekend just and promised to share it on the BAA Forum. We are keen to know if anyone was at this meeting and would love to know who the people are who appear in the video. It would also be valuable for the BAA Archives if others had videos of past Winchester Weekends, or other BAA events from the past. There is no sound to this film.
In reply to: Using ASTAP for comet measurements
There’s a conversation on the ASTAP forum about adding a circle / ellipse and how to measure the sky background. Perhaps others who know more about comet photometry than me (most people!) could advise and join?
https://sourceforge.net/p/astap-program/discussion/suggestions/thread/b1c1be085c/
Han has added the option to measure inside a circle / ellipse now in the development version (right mouse drag while holding down the Ctrl key).
Thanks
MarkIn reply to: Historical Section Newsletter 27
Over the last few years I have been imaging asteroids named for people I follow Twitter and then tweeting the results.
I encourage others to join me in imaging asteroids named after (ex-)BAA members who have been likewise honoured. Over time we should be able to complete a comprehensive gallery.
If anyone is at least remotely interested I could add the ones already taken to my personal gallery.
Topic: Evening Stars
Jupiter and Venus are in the evening sky just now and on this evening (2023 February 22) they were joined by our Moon. Image captured at 18:00UT with Jupiter at upper left and Venus at lower right, simply using an iPhone.
Over the next week the planets will appear to move toward each other until being only 0.5 degrees (Moon’s apparent diameter) apart on March 2.
Attachments:
The people of the world come from a variety of social, educational, and cultural backgrounds. This means that even though they are looking up at exactly the same stars that you are, they see different patterns than you. Even within your own culture there will be differences. People have used the sky as:
• A calendar, and/or
• A divination system, and/or
• A navigational tool, and/or
• A weather prediction system, and/or
• A place to honor:
o Their deities
o Their ancestors, or
o Their culture.
This is a practice that continues to this day.
This World Asterisms Project is a living project started in June 2021 by the Inclusivity and Diversity Committee of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada as a celebration of the sky cultures of the world: It continues to grow as the process of naming the stars above is an ongoing process. It is also growing as ethnoastronomers and researchers investigate old records and interview elders and recover previously lost sky cultures. The World Asterisms Project has so far examined over 481 of the world’s cultures and recorded 11,326 asterisms including 1,322 telescopic and 428 names of the Milky Way. We have separate lists for names of the Sun, Moon, and Planets from various cultures: 1,567 so far.
We are stewards of these records and are using the “Two Eyes Seeing” approach pioneered by members of our Halifax Centre of the RASC in their ongoing partnership with the Mi’kmaq people to recover their sky lore: the shared perspectives of astronomers and knowledge keepers. We are doing our best to avoid exonyms and use the names these people use for themselves. We are identifying the asterisms here and whenever possible directing people to representatives of the cultures involved for information on the sky stories or dream lines related to those asterisms.
This project has six parts which you can download for free:
Volume One is the World Asterism Project Handbook that lists the more than 11,000 asterisms alphabetically by subject so that you can see how these subjects cross cultures. Whenever possible we describe the star patterns in detail, describe the history behind it when we can, list all the variations in spelling that we have encountered, and list all the names and spelling in the language of the people when possible. We identify the people who first recorded or named these asterisms when possible.
Volume Two is the World Asterisms Project List which lists the more than 11,000 asterisms with their exact location in the sky (right ascension and declination) with some basic notes on the stars involved. This is provided in both PDF and Excel format so that you can search the lists and create your own lists.
Volume Three is the World Asterisms Project Sky Cultures Resource List which identifies all the sky cultures that we’ve examined, gives their location in the world, and lists all resources available which can be used to learn more about them.
Volume Four is the World Asterisms Project Milky Way Names list.
Volume Five is the World Asterisms Project Solar System Objects Handbook describing the names of the Sun Moon, and Planets.
Volume Six is the World Asterisms Project Solar System Objects List.
You can download these for free here: https://rasc.ca/world-asterism-project
We are making this free to facilitate access for researchers, students, and educators.
This is a work in progress as we add new discoveries and update current ones. We periodically update these volumes on our website as they continue to grow. We have also created a World Asterisms Project Google Drive for researchers involved in this project as partners and supporters. In this drive we keep the current drafts, shared asterism files, and a “new” page which describes current work.
We are reaching out to the people of the world: If you have information on your sky culture to share, please share it with us. If you are interested in joining our team, contact us and we can add you to the researchers who have access to those lists. If you have any questions, suggestions, or corrections, please contact us and we’d be happy to assist you. This information is being provided free to all, but we encourage you to donate to the RASC to support our work.When I heard about UK Spaceports I envisioned mini versions of the Kennedy Launch Complex. I believe that the Scottish spaceports will be vertical launches, whereas the Cornwall spaceport will release a rocket from under the wing of a 747 aircraft. These first launchers are for putting CubeSats and similar small payloads into Earth orbit, joining the growing number of launch service providers.
It’s good if this provides training and careers for UK engineers and scientists, although we’ll have to rely on NASA, SpaceX, ESA, et al for mainstream heavy lifting to the ISS, the Moon and deep space.
A recent manned flight to the edge of space was investigated by the FAA as to whether it deviated from its approved flightpath. Let’s hope we don’t start dropping any debris onto our friends in France, Portugal, Norway…
Alex.
In reply to: Partial solar eclipse of 2022 October 25
And hello to Duncan again!
I didn’t have my BAA Handbook at hand when typing my previous replies last last night but now I have I can perhaps shed some light on the eclipse diagram to which you refer.
Diagrams such as these are taken from the NASA eclipses website rather than being generated by the BAA, and there is an explanatory page about them at https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplotkey.html which might help you. It is, unfortunately, worded in very technical terms but the last part should help you understand the various numbers and times around the map. But basically the blue lines are lines of equal eclipse magnitude and the green lines join places where maximum eclipse for that place occurs at the same time. A larger and clearer version of the magnitude/time plot for the UK appears on page 273 of the current version of the Journal, where the text clearly says that the numbers are magnitudes rather than obscurations.
Hope that helps!
In reply to: New variable star charts
Yes Duncan. If the chart is on the web, then observers are encouraged to upgrade their charts to include the new revised ones.
I haven’t yet been notified of your request to join the alert group. If nothing happens in the next 24h, drop me an email and I’ll do it manually.
Gary
In reply to: Exoplanets On-line Workshop
This is the last chance to register for the Exoplanets Online Workshop. Registration closes on Eventbrite at 10am this morning (Saturday 12th November).
https://baa-exoplanets-2022.eventbrite.co.uk
Registration is required as we are holding this as a Zoom meeting, where attendees can talk or share their screen, so we will not be making the Zoom join link public.
Andy
Topic: Hello
Hello, I’ve just joined and wanted to see if I could post properly. I’m strictly a visual amateur astronomer and I am also physically disabled. I have several telescopes ranging from a 60mm refractor to a 235mm SCT.
Telescopes: One Newtonian, three Maksutov Cassegrains, seven refractors, and a large SCT.
Hello everyone,
my name is Andrea and I’m from Italy.
This is my first post on this forum since I’ve joined the BAA this spring. I hope my message finds you well.
I’m not really sure if this is the best section to make a post about this topic or if it would have been better to put it on the “History” forum. Anyways I’ll give it a go here.I’d like to know more about an antique Steinheil Muenchen refractor telescope that I’ve recently found on a local website for buying and selling astro-gear. I’m really interested in buying it, as I’m quite fascinated by its history, but I have to admit that I’m not an expert in ancient telescopes (this would be my first one) and so I hope that some of you can help me!
Under this message you’ll find attached some photos that the seller has shared.The instrument is 70mm in aperture and bears the serial (I think) number 8915. We don’t know in which year it was made. It comes with several accessories and in particular three eyepieces of different (and unknown) focal lengths. The telescope is complete with a lens cap and a removable black mounting block has been added to allow its use with some modern mount, since the original one is absent. The seller has told me that the instrument is usable, but probaly in need of some cleaning and restoration. I haven’t personally seen it yet, because it’s a two and a half hours drive from my hometown to the seller location.
The seller doesn’t know how much he should ask me for it (he has received wildy different quotes) and I don’t know how much to offer. Can you guys give me a quote?
Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you!
Kind regards,Andrea
Topic: Globular Cluster Marathon
Many of you know that I have been imaging small planetary satellites of the gas and ice giants. My stamp collection is now almost full in that the remaining ones are below magnitude 22.0 at best. Some of you may be aware of https://britastro.org/section_information_/deep-sky-section-overview/observing-programmes/globular-clusters/the-gc-marathons-part-i-galactic-globular-clusters which I wrote a couple of years back. Unfortunately, a couple of links there were broken when the BAA site was updated but http://www.astropalma.com/Projects/GC_Marathon.html still works.
Accordingly, I have now started imaging GCs and will eventually put them in the BAA gallery and my personal web pages. I have only managed 14 out of 158 so far but hope to pick up a few more in the next week while Sgr et al. are still visible. At least twenty are too far south for a telescope in La Palma and a few more are visible only in the IR. To summarize: only 10% have so far been done.
I urge others to join in this escapade.
In reply to: Rev T.E.Espin’s Calver telescope :action needed
Hi Denis,
Thanks for this. Very interesting.
I have a personal interest insofar as I was a Geology PhD student in Newcastle 1976-1979 and my supervisor was the late Dr M. Hugh Battey. I seem to recall that he was one a select few who used the telescope for their own devices – he frequently invited me to join him in observations but, alas, I never was able to. This failure I have always regretted.
I believe the observatory was located at the Closehouse Estate to the west of Newcastle – at the time this was the University’s main sports centre and I often played football there. I believe the University sold off Closehouse some years ago. I always wondered what happened to the observatory/telescopes. A few years ago at a BAA meeting in Newcastle I was told that the observatories were no more and that the telescopes were in store (= lost). Believing this, I felt the University had committed a gross act barbarity.
Closehouse is now, I think, some sort of luxury hotel. It was suggested to me that the hotel now owned what was left of the observatory but my informant was not sure. I haven’t been able to find much information about it.
Are we talking about the same place? Or has my age-addled memory failed (again)?
I would be very keen to see these items at least preserved if not restored. I would help as much as I can, but I fear this would be not much in a practical sense.
Best Wishes,
Trevor
In reply to: Two Large Sunspots Groups
Thank you Denis and Mark for your images of AR2993 and AR2994, now archived. Another large sunspots has joined the show over the north-east limb.
Topic: VSS Meeting
Are there any plans for VSS meetings? It seems a long time since the last one (The joint BAA/AAVSO meeting in 2018?)
In reply to: Information about G.F.Kellaway needed.
Have you seen the obituary in the BAA Journal? Vol 74 pp79-80 Feb 1964 RLW
Purchased 7.5 inch photovisual by Cooke. Obtained 5.5 inch Zeiss photographic triplet of 28 inch focus for which he built a camera. Mounted it on 7.5 inch equatorial. Later bought 12.5 inch Calvin reflector which previously belonged to Hallowes. Became FRAS in 1920. Joined Varaiable Star Section in 1922. A keen musician running his own string quartet Played violin and piano. Sailed his own yacht.
In reply to: New website feedback
Multiple wrongly directed links from
https://britastro.org/section_information_/equipment-and-techniques-section-overview/spectroscopySpectroscopy workshop at the Norman Lockyer Observatory October 2015
Alpy 600 Spectrograph workshop, Kintbury, October 2016
Observers’ Workshop on Variable Stars, Photometry and Spectroscopy, 29 Sep 2018
Using low resolution spectroscopy to confirm and classify supernovae (video from BAA meeting January 2018)
Starting in Spectroscopy (video from BAA/AAVSO joint meeting on variable stars, July 2018)
Pushing the limits using commercial spectrographs (video from BAA/AAVSO joint meeting on variable stars, July 2018)
Towards full automation of high resolution spectroscopy (video from BAA/AAVSO joint meeting on variable stars, July 2018)
HST CALSPEC calibrated absolute flux spectra for converting relative intensity to FLAM unitsEDIT No idea where the graphic came from, I just entered the address of the page
“https://britastro.org/section_information_/equipment-and-techniques-section-overview/spectroscopy”With the release of the new BAA website we have unified the logins with the BAA Membership Database, Sheep CRM.
Many members will have created a Sheep CRM login when joining or renewing. If you haven’t already created a Sheep account then you can do so by following this link:
https://app.sheepcrm.com/britastro/login/
You have to use the same email address you use for your membership and be a fully paid up member, so the system recognises your membership. Once you have created the login you need to separately login to the BAA website using the login button.
This same login created in Sheep CRM will then work as your login to the BAA website. Note you have to authorise Sheep CRM during the login process and your username is your email address.
The logins will not work with some older browsers where they have unresolved security flaws. Even if you are using an old computer then you may be able to install a modern browser such as Chrome or Firefox.
Google Chrome: https://www.google.co.uk/chrome/
Mozilla Firefox: https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/new/The very first time you login, you will be taken to a WordPress page. You click British Astronomical Association in the top left to get to the main website. After this first login, you will always land on the BAA website.
If you get stuck then please contact the BAA Office using the form found at https://britastro.org/home/about-us/contact-us. If you are able to login then you will get a quicker response by posting a message on the forum.
Andy Wilson
BAA Systems Administrator-
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