Search Results for 'Join'

[Callum Potter]

Thanks for alerting us Bill – actually the CPRE got a little ahead of us, as this is a joint BAA / CPRE project that we have been working on for the past couple of months. Helpfully the CPRE kindly offered to host the website submission forms and process the results.

I hope members will take part, and spread the word to their local societies, forums, and encourage friends and families to take part too.

Clear skies

Callum

[Dr Paul Leyland]

On 2018-11-30 I was imaging HL CMa, which many of you know is uncomfortably close to Sirius.  It’s essential to place the latter outside the field or it dazzles both CCDs and eyeballs.  However, at least there is a bright (far too bright) guide star nearby.  A SBIG-8 camera has a small CCD for guiding purposes and it was used with the minimum possible exposure time of 0.11 seconds.  Sirius was still over exposed but, to my surprise, the Pup showed up occasionally in the autoguider window.

After taking the science data another 100 images at 0.11s were taken of Sirius.  The one from the moment of best seeing appears here.  The blooming from Sirius runs from top to bottom on the full frame, of which this is only a small crop.  It’s fortunate that the camera was orientated at a good angle to the line joining the stars.

[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 

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Welcome aboard!  I’m a newbie on the forums and only re-joined the BAA a few months ago after a 30-year hiatus.

Your image looks pretty impressive to me.  Much better than I could produce given my (present) incompetence at driving my newly acquired equipment.

[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

[Andy Wilson]

Hi John,

First of all my apologies that you are experiencing problems with your renewal.

That is clearly not right. I am just starting some testing to try to identify the problem but please bear with me as I will only have intermittent access to the BAA systems for the next couple of days.

I can see one thing that might explain it to do with joint membership and a shared email address. The system should be able to cope with this, but I suspect it does not. I will email you about this separately so we can try out a few things without posting every detail on the forum.

Kind regards,

Andy Wilson

BAA Systems Administrator and Web Content Editor

[Kevin Gurney]

I thought I would ask this in a separate thread as its a matter of principle and nothing to do with tweaking the kit.

So, with the Alpy, we are enjoined to take the spectrum of a nearby reference star (typically in MILES database) and use this to obtain an instrument response (IR). I can see this works for low resolution, because it makes sense to talk about the  continuum response  (smooth curve, ignoring line features). However, with high resolution, its quite often the case that the bulk of the spectrum is a line feature (I am thinking of Vega’s Ha line, for example).

So, how do we define the continuum respone in this case? And should we be trying to replicate the IR calibration step using a companion reference spectrum, as per low res (Alpy etc)?  Could you get away with some stock spectra you have taken at different air-masses? Or just rectify the spectrum and obviate the problem at source, as it were?

Cheers

Kevin

[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.
 

[Andy Wilson]

Videos are now available to view online of the BAA Summer meeting – Exploring Solar Systems Near and Far: 

https://britastro.org/video/13861

And the joint meeting of the BAA and AAVSO on Variable Stars:

https://britastro.org/video/13862

They may be accessed via the above links, or by selecting Events and then Videos of meetings from the website menus.

Thanks to Dominic Ford for his hard work in getting all 27 meeting videos processed and uploaded within a week of the meeting.

Andy Wilson

BAA Systems Administrator and Web Content Editor

[Dr Andrew Smith]

I attended the joint BAA/AAVSO meeting stream and enjoyed a wide range of stimulating input. Made some new contacts and generally had an excellent time.

Regards Andrew

[Robin Leadbeater]

I see the author of AIP4WIN is jointly presenting a poster paper at the BAA/AAVSO meeting this weekend. Not sure if he is attending in person though

Robin

[Andy Wilson]

Please note there is only 1 week left to book places on the BAA Summer Meeting and the joint BAA-AAVSO Meeting on Variable Stars. We need to give the final numbers of attendees to the University of Warwick by the end of next week so you will need book in the next few days if you wish to attend. Please follow the below links for more details.

BAA Summer Meeting

BAA-AAVSO Joint Meeting on Variable Stars

Andy Wilson

BAA Systems Administrator and Web Content Editor

[Callum Potter]

I am sad to report today the news that Maurice Gavin passed away this morning after a short period of illness.

Maurice joined the BAA initially in 1950 and re-joined in 1971. He was a member of Council for many years and President 1995 – 1996..

He will be well remembered for his experimental and pionieering approach to observing, developing spectrograhps, home-constructed observatories and his videos of meetings and observing sessions. He was very engaged on internet forums where he was usually known as Nytecam.

He will be sorely missed.

Callum

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[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.

[Ian Kahler]

Hello Everyone

Let me  start with the  word…. overwhelmed. Yes  I am feeling like  I have  been let loose  in a  candy store… except the  candy is  the overwhelming amount of information available on SO many aspects or areas of  astronomical principals, or  phenomena.

Do any of  you guys feel like  this sometimes??? I walked away from astronomy several years ago, and  all but gave up on the  science. Yet at the back of  my mind… in some  dusty corner… I was aware of this inescapable curious little  monster that wanted  me  to come  back. I have  always been interested in binary and multiple stars, and  stars clusters, but lately; since  joining the BAA, and buying the  first of a  series of  books entitled, Annals of  the deep sky, I feel like  my poor old  brain is  just going to explode.

What do you guys do?? Do you focus on, or find yourself drawn to one  particular aspect of  astronomy? Do you find yourself spinning out of  control with a need to absorb everything? Or is it common to encompass everything?

I need to establish a  pattern and  stick with it… right now  I find myself feeling overwhelmed and  wanting to find  SOMEWHERE to start. What I DO like  about this new  series of books  is  that they choose  one  constellation  and  focus on EVERYTHING of  interest in that constellation. SO perhaps  this  is  the  direction I should  pursue. Perhaps  I just answered my own question…. what are your  thoughts? Why do some of us focus on a  particular area of this amazing and  complex science… and  how do you do it???

Ian 

[Andy Wilson]

It is now just 2 months until the BAA Summer meeting on Exploring Solar Systems – Near and Far. We have a great line up expert speakers from the professional community covering topics from our Solar System to Exoplanets.

We are making the most of the University of Warwick venue by holding the 2-day joint BAA-AAVSO meeting on campus that same weekend. Full details are given on the meeting book page, noting the Summer meeting is at the top, with the BAA-AAVSO meeting beneath.

https://www.britastro.org/node/10727

You can book the meeting via the BAA online shop:

https://britastro.org/node/11997

Andy