Search Results for 'Join'

[Bob Dryden]

Excellent meeting.

Missed last years stream so I was looking forward to this one and wasn’t disappointed.

At the end of the first lecture I even twitched my arms as I went to join in with the applause before I stopped myself when I realised I wasn’t actually there.

Very good news that all the BAA meetings will be streamed.

Well done to every one involved.

[Alan White]

I was unable to join my fellow club members at our CPAC transit get together, work got in the way.
But I was lucky enough to sneak a scope out and get a look, sadly missing first and second contact due to an unfortunate timing of a work phone call.
Observed and enjoyed, then had a go with my phone hand held and struggled as always.
But I did get something, which was better than normal.

[Eric Watkins]

 Derek,

a nice capture.  I’ve just acquired similar equipment with the help of William Stewart and I’m in the process of setting it up. I  Just need  to get a nice focus, and settings but the weather is against me at the moment.

Hope to join the team any night now

Eric

[Derek Robson]

The beams look like they are not parallel between zero and 1st order. But I thought that’s the way the physics worked – the light is diffracted through an angle relative to the incident light.  I’ve done a series of repeatability tests by firing LASERs at roof tops and aerials (in the dead of night) and will be looking at the spread of the distances from the zero order. But this is on dots, not the beams.  I’m looking at the target as the source of the LASER light coming back to the sensor. Some images on the wide angle lens show the beams at angles. But we know even parallel roads will join together in the distance (perspective).  I’m measuring the position of the diffracted dot relative to the zero order dot. That should show if there is any non linearity in the wavelength range I guess.  Another problem is, the diffraction gratings are plastic, so they are not rigid, and can bend, causing curved spectra (curvature along the wavelength axis). But despite that variation, I hope that will be insignificant and not interfere significantly, or at all, with identifying elements. 

[Tim Haymes]

Observers who may be hoping to see a graze in 2020, will find the predictions in the download area under Lunar Section. https://britastro.org/downloads/17673   Here i have prepared the information for each event on page 42-43 of the BAAH 2020. The grazes listed are in prediction order and star name. The zip files can be downloaded to your computer, and unzipped to reveal thee files.  An explanation is given on the downloads page.  

On a related topic, the UKoccultations Yahoo Group i set up in 2013, has been moved to https://groups.io/g/UKoccultations  The reason is that the Yahoo Groups host is not being supported now.  You are welcome to join the new group.

Please report any graze attempts or even results, to the Lunar Section or the discussion group.

Wishing you good observing – and thank you to the Lunar section Web Manager for assistance.

Tim
(Lunar Section Graze Coordinator)

[Robin Leadbeater]

I am not a member of the “12a Collaboration” but there must be some of the VSS Section who are on here. If not, I am sure an email to Dr Matt Darnley at LJMU would bring you up to speed if you want to join the collaboration.

Cheers

Robin

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Have you downloaded the complete GCVS?  If so a preliminary selection based on a minimum Dec, a plausible range of RA and a type of EA, EB, … will give you an initial range of candidates.

What do you consider high-cadence? Minutes, seconds or milliseconds?

My 0.4m telescope (located only about 100km from El Teide) could manage a very few millimags precision (unfiltered CCD, so approximately Gaia G band) down to mag 11.5 with a cadence of around a minute as demonstrated with an observation of an exoplanet transit.

In fact, why don’t you try for an exoplanet transit?  Not only do you get your differential timing data, you also add to our knowedge of exoplanets.  The minimum may be wide but the ingress and egress events are short-lived and it’s generally possible to observe both in a single session.

Would you like me to join in perhaps, weather permitting?  It’s been unusually cloudy in these parts of late.  I also need to get the new camera commissioned first but I hope that doesn’t take too long.

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Jeremy’s recent update on the HR Lyr campaign prompted me to explore the VSS pages in greater detail.  Over there is a link to a fascinating article on the observation from the UK of variables with a declination more than 30 degrees south of the equator.  This got me thinking …

My observatory is at a latitude of 28.64 degrees north so, in principle, I could reach a declination of 90 – 28.64 – 0.5 = 61.9 degrees south, where the 0.5 allows for atmospheric refraction.  In practice, I don’t have a perfectly flat ocean horizon to the south.  Far from it: it’s very lumpy indeed.  However, omega Centauri, at 47.5 degrees south has been imaged successfully from here.

I’ll see what I can do.  Anything below -50 will be nice and, who knows, -55 might be possible.

Of course, other observers are encouraged to join in the fun, and should choose targets appropriate to their latitude.  I remember seeing a photo of the Big Dipper taken from northern Queensland where a couple of the stars were only two or three degrees above the horizon.

P.S.  The classical risque answer to the question posed in the subject is “Chihuahuas”. 😉

[Jeremy Shears]

We are now one month into the campaign and, whilst it’s still early days, it’s good to see the first data coming in. Many thanks to: David Boyd, Walter Cooney, Sjoerd Dufoer, Ian Miller, Ken Menzies, Martin Mobberley, Roger Pickard and Gary Poyner.

The star has varied between mag 15.4 and 16.2. Time series photometry by Roger Pickard and Ken Menzies has shown various humps and bumps in the light curve, but it’s too early to determine if they are periodic.

With Lyra becoming more accessible in the evening sky, I hope that further observations will begin to flow in. Do feel to join in the campaign. We are looking for nightly snapshot photometry to determine the overall shape of the light curve and well as some multi-hour photometry runs to look for short-term periodicities.

Further details about the campaign can be found here.

[Roger Dymock]

Astrbiology seems to be generating considerable interest these days. Is it possible that professional exoplanet research will concentrate more and more on characterising exoplanets in particular searching for biosignatures ? If so this would give us amateurs greater opportunity in actual discovery of exoplanets. Asteroids and comets are mainly, but not always, discovered by professional surveys but perhaps exoplanets will go in the opposite direction. Come and join us !!!

[Jeremy Shears]

Since the campaign was launched, the star appears to have been systematically varying by ~0.4 mags every ~9 days. A light curve can be seen on the BAA VSS website, which also has a link to further details on the campaign.

There have been a few gaps in data over the last 2 weeks as poor weather conditions have hit parts of Europe and the US.

Many thanks to Richard Sabo, Gary Poyner, David Boyd, Dave Smith, Ian Miller, David Storey, Sjoerd Dufoer and Martin Mobberley for their observations.

Please do join the campaign if you would like – we need one (or two) measurements per night.

[Jeremy Shears]

Since launching the campaign, we are getting some very interesting data submitted which so far shows two small outbursts separated by ~9 days. In fact we are now in the third cycle. Far too early to draw any conclusions, but it certainly looks like continuous stunted outbursts or oscillations similar to what has been observed in some nova like stars. The amplitude is ~0.4 mag, between mag 13.9 and 14.3.

Many thanks to Richard Sabo, Gary Poyner, David Boyd, Dave Smith, Ian Miller, David Storey and Sjoerd Dufoer for your observations.

Keep up the good work!

Other observers would be most welcome to join in.

All the best,

Jeremy

[Jeremy Shears]

Hello John,

I’m running a campaign on a far northerly cataclysmic variable over the next 3 months. This is photometry, rather than spectroscopy, but you’d be welcome to join.

Jeremy 

[Kevin Gurney]

Has anyone tried to join this recently? I have tried to register at least twice now with no response… Perhaps I am blacklisted!

Kevin

[Andy Wilson]

Hi John (and anyone else who is following this thread).

We have identified the problem. It was related to family membership where the first person to join the BAA is not the person who currently pays the subscription. We will be requesting a change to our systems to cope with this scenario. In the interim we can get around it for any affected members. I will be running a check later in the week to see if there are any other members who may be affected.

Kind regards,

Andy

[Dr Richard John McKim]

The Moment magazine now carries a short interview with me about George. The magazine now gives details of the lecture, which I have added below:

Peterborough’s Astronomer
Tues 23 Oct, 7.30-9pm
Peterborough Cathedral Visitor Centre
Tickets: £5
To book: 01733 355315, http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/events
George Alcock was a prolific Peterborough-based amateur astronomer, commemorated by a memorial tablet in Peterborough Cathedral. Join Dr Richard McKim – a member of the British Astronomical Association – for an illustrated talk about Alcock’s life and work.
 

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Phil Charles, a recently retired professional astronomer with an interest in X-ray transients and a long-time friend of mine, drew my attention to MAXI J1820+070 which is presently in outburst and has been for an unusually long time.  Kevin Hills and Joan Genebriera have been providing me with photometry data.  I’m about to buy Joan’s observatory in La Palma later this month, all being well.

The object is roughly 13th magnitude and is expected to vary by 0.2 magnitude with a period of somewhere between 2 and 8 hours, that being a plausible orbital period for a star in close orbit around a black hole.  Present data is noisy and, because of the limited visibility of Ophiuchus at this time of year, is only for a couple of hours or so each night.

We would welcome more data to tie down the behaviour of these rather unusual objects.  Please contact me for more information if you wish to join in.  My role is to be the principal point of contact and to perform the initial analysis.

If you prefer email, I’m paul @ leyland . vispa . com

Thanks,

Paul

[Ian Kahler]

Thanks  for  your input James. I have a  5 inch refractor that is missing a tripod right now, so I use binoculars to look around at this time. I live  in Seattle WA, USA, and  the  Seattle  astronomy society is … according to the  research I have on them…. a  rather  good  club. I may join, but I am terrible  in social situations so it is  not a  priority for  me. I have  always  been interested  in the  history and  advancement of  astronomy, so what I really need to do is  stop charging around  like  the bull in a  china  shop,  haha and pick a  direction. Once  again, thx for your  input.

[Alun Halsey]

 Jack

 Not had this happen with either motor (Skywatcher or JMI) so not sure what has gone wrong to cause the double lines. Clutching a few straws here, seems there could be the possibility that distortion is somehow introduced between the collimator body and its support. How tight have you got the tension on the belt? Only need a small amount,just enough to allow belt to grip the collimator body and turn it but feels slack if you pinch belt either side of the cog. Have you used the white screws in the support to alleviate any possible side to side movement, lastly did you have to join the belt, if so have you watched the lines as the belt turns and noted where the join is (being as the belt will be slightly thicker in the region of the joint tension on collimator body will increase slightly).

  Hope you get it sorted!

    Regards

      Alun

[Alun Halsey]

 Jack,

    That belt looks ideal for the job. To join my belt I made sure that each end was in the middle of a tooth to ensure ample area to bond, slid a length of heat shrink tube on belt then used Araldite rapid (sets in 5mins) to glue the joint. Held the belt in place until glue held but was still slightly tacky then slid tubing in place over joint and added heat to shrink ensuring a good strong bond 🙂

  Regards

   Alun