Search Results for 'espin telescope'

[Ronan Newman]

Hi

Details have just been released of the 2020 Galway Astronomy Festival taking place at the end of this month , This event is one of the many superb Irish Astronomy gatherings, our astronomy scene is quite small with 15 (busy) clubs throughout the 32 counties linked to IFAS https://www.irishastronomy.org, and we have lots of dark skies, especially to our west where we have a Gold tier Internationally recognised Dark sky park and reserve.

Thanks to the local club for putting together a  line up of fantastic speakers in this the 17th year of the event. 

January 24th 7.30pm
Festival screening of ‘Apollo 11’ – Eye Cinema

January 25th 10am

1. Megan Schwamb (QUB): ‘Tales from the Solar System’
2. Mike Redfern (NUIG): ‘The E-ELT, Biggest (and best) eye on the sky’
3. Lána Salmon: ‘EIRSAT-1: Ireland’s first satellite’
4. Luke McConnell: ‘Particle Physics – what really goes on at CERN’
5. Julie McEnery (NASA):‘Exploring Nature’s accelerators with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope’
6. Mike Foylan ‘How to set up a meteor capturing camera system & the Nemetode network’

http://www.galwayastronomyclub.ie/astrofest-2020/

Ronan Newman

[Denis Buczynski]

Some of my observing statistics for 2019 at Tarbatness Highland Scotland are as follows:
Comets:
Number of nights astrometric images were taken and measured 65 ( over 600 individual comet positions submitted to MPC)
Monthly nights when comet imaging was undertaken, ( nights of full or near full moon condtions did not allow comet imaging)
Jan 9, Feb7, Mar 4, Apr 7, May 2, August 6, Sept 9, Oct 8, Nov 6 Dec 8.

Meteors;
Number of meteors recorded on two cameras were 3937 ( there are duplicates in these as the fields overlap)

Number of nights on which meteors were recorded 214 ( this is a rough measure of when some clear sky allowed meteors to be recorded. On some nights are only there are only short periods of clear but other nights have long clear periods. The cameras are not operating in the months from mid May- mid August due to all night twilight at this lattitude 58d N.

Monthly nights on meteor cameras; Jan 24, Feb 26, March 22, April 15, May 10, August 20, Sept 24, Oct 25, Nov 20, Dec 28

Hours at the telescope, in the observing room at the computer. imaging for aurora and noctilicent clouds were not recorded.

Denis Buczynski

[Gary Poyner]

Here are my observing details for 2019. Usually it’s Jeremy Shears who leads this topic off at the start of the new year, but I’ve beat him to it this year!  I look forward to seeing details from other observers.  Certainly for me in Brum, it’s been a pretty grim year for observing.

Gary

Observing statistics for 2019

Gary Poyner (Birmingham)

2018 in ()

Clear nights (less than 50% cloud) 29 (44)
Partially clear nights (50% or more cloud) 61 (69)

Total observable nights 90 (113) with 39 of these nights having Moonlight interference. I made VS observations on 85 of these nights.

Total hours at the telescope 189.8 hrs (237.3)
Best month August with 12 nights (9 partially clear and 3 clear). (May 18)
Worst month November with 4 nights (3 partially clear and one clear) (March 4)

Birmingham Met office gave incorrect information on cloud cover for 72 nights (19%) during 2019

Total VS observations for 2019 is 6,820, down by 2,193 on 2018. CCD measures using remote telescopes COAST and the AAVSO SRO-50 were up slightly on 2018 – 1,903 for 2019 against 1,767 for the previous year.

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Yup.

All the professionals are going to be bugging us amateurs for telescope time because it saturates the detectors on all their equipment.

[Dr Paul Leyland]

I see Robin and I posted pretty much simultaneously.

The neutrinos from SN1987a came in a clump a few seconds long.  The telescope wasn’t very sensitive and the SN was at quite a distance so it’s likely that it saw only the very peak of the neutrino curve.

However, core collapse is a very rapid process, on the timescale of a minute or so (hence my prediction), and there is no obvious intense source of neutrino emission afterwards. Once the neutrinos get outside the core everything else lying in our direction is essentially transparent so they will not be scattered as is the initial burst of photons.

[Dr Paul Leyland]

It depends entirely on how you look at it.

Neutrino telescopes will notice a great increase in brightness on the scale of seconds to a minute or few.

Optical telescopes will take a day or few, if the many thousands of other SNe which have been observed are anything to go by.

Betelgeuse already shows a disk if your telescope is good enough. It will show an ever bigger disk on timescales between days and millennia.  Compare SN1054, the outside of which is now big enough to have been seen by Messier.

[Stewart John Bean]

I obtained this image using the T30 500 mm telescope at Siding Spring Observatory . It is the average of three 600 s exposures with a luminance filter.

[Peter Gudgeon]

I have Wil Tirion’s Sky Atlas 2000 (brought years ago when it was much cheaper), which I’ve found OK when using just a camera with a medium to wide angle lens. But with a telescope mounted camera there are often not enough bright ( mag >8.5) stars in the field of view, so I resort to Stellarium, not just because of the extra detail but also because I find it much easier not having to mentally convert black dots on a white background to bright dots on a dark background. Ideally I imagine a photographic atlas would be better, but I’ve no experience of one. 

I don’t know if it’s do-able, I’m running on Linux, but it would be much easier if you could plug (say) a TV into the PC’s HDMI socket and display your photo on that while adjusting the Stallerium view on the PC screen.

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Seconded!  A superb atlas.  I used it on the last session at the telescope.

[David Swan]

I really like my Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas – you could get the Jumbo version which is simply larger format. I also have the Cambridge Star Atlas fourth edition by Wil Tirion. If you want me to send you representative pics of the charts, let me know.

[Derek Robson]

If I wanted a large page star map atlas/book, which would you recommend? What I’d like it for is when I take an image and print it off, I can place it near the map and make a quick comparison – at the right orientation. I even try printing onto acetate film and overlaying onto a printed map (if I can match the scale size and aspect ratio in the PC).   I find rotating a paper or book easier than trying to compare my image on screen with a map on the PC (star program or one of the resources such as World Wide Telescope) – usually one window ends up closing unless I resize it. Besides, it is convenient to flick through a few pages of a book’s maps. Uranometria comes to mind, down to mag 9.75. But I’m confused as to whether I would need volumes 1, 2 and 3, or just volume 3. I think there is a companion book that goes with it, but unsure if it’s essential to get the companion as well (which I can’t remember its title offhand).

I have an old eighties copy of Norton’s Star Atlas, which I still use.  But because of a printing error, it contains some duplicate maps and some are missing.  I didn’t spot that until sometime after buying.  I also have Turn Left at Orion.  PC programs: Stellarium, C2A and Aladin Lite.  Thank you.

[David Salmon]

During Callum’s presentation at the recent Equipment and Techniques meeting there was reference to Raspberry Pi computers being used for telescope and equipment control using the INDI and INDIGO packages that are developing rapidly. During the discussion that followed some issues with power and overheating were noted with the most recent and significantly more powerful Raspberry Pi model 4 that was released a few months ago. There is a detailed article in MagPi magazine issue 88 that has just been published that goes into some depth on thermal testing and the improvements that have been made recently to the RasPi 4 through fine tuning and updated firmware. This (and other issues) of MagPi can be downloaded without cost as PDF documents via the web-site linked above.

Incidentally, this issue also includes an article on constructing an astrophotography autoguider that may also be of interest.

David

[Robin Leadbeater]

Hi Derek,

>I have a suspicion that I’m going to get slightly different dispersion distances for n = +1 and n = -1, possibly because of the grating, being plastic, it’s not completely flat but is curving. Depending on where the dot occurs, if it’s on a part that’s more curved, relative to the opposite side of the zero order image, we might get discrepancies there.

That would be really strange, I think.  The light from the laser dot on the distant object illuminates the full grating (just like a star illuminates the full aperture if the telescope.) The grating then produces a number of beams at different angles according to the spectrum order, which are then brought to focus by the lens. Distortions in the grating could blur the spectrum because the effective line spacing varies across the grating but I don’t understand how it could affect the +- orders differently. If you are seeing different dispersions in +- orders I suspect It would be more likely to be due to aberrations in the lens (eg barrel/pincushion type distortions for example.

Cheers

Robin

[Peter Carson]

Hi Tim,

I can’t help you with an observatory visit I’m afaid but would like to make a comment.
I was considering the purchase of a pulsar dome some time ago but decided the opening aperture was too narrow and didn’t go far enough over the zenith.
Other dome manufacturers provide much wider opening slot apertures and go further over the zenith so are more useful if you’ve got a telescope with a piggyback guide or second scope.
Just thought I’d say!

Peter

[Dominic Ford]

This would be my entry for the “alternative” category. It is more colourful than the other images, at least.

This is what you get if you hold a phone camera up to the eyepiece of a telescope rather incompetently, so that it’s misaligned and not very much of the Sun is visible.

I almost chucked the picture away, but if you look closely at the full-resolution attachment, Mercury is clearly visible! I’m not sure you can see it in the low-resolution version below. Taken about five minutes into the transit.

[Stewart Moore]

Heavy rain most of the morning with a brief glimpse of the Sun at 10:15.  Then clouded again and cloudy at first/ second contact with light rain falling.  Cloud became lighter at 12:45 but unable to get clean projection (62mm Zeiss Telementor).  Wind became too strong so gave up trying to project as telescope acting like a wind vane.  Then used 70mm f/6.0 refractor with Baader film filter. for direct viewing.  Suddenly cloud disappeared giving a nice image at 13:51.  Always surprised just how small Mercury appears in transit.  Watched for around 14 minutes before cloud returned.  By this time Sun was moving behind trees.  Considering the state of the weather this morning I feel satisfied to have at least seen part of the transit.  Sorry to have missed ingress though.

[David Swan]

The Hyperstar is out, secondary mirror in, focal reducer/corrector attached, telescope collimated & imaging of sun tested. Yes, I know where the north, south, east and west are now! Hope the weather cooperates…

[Denis Buczynski]

This message below from John Briggs of the Antique Telescope Society gives the latest information regarding the future of Yerkes Observatory. John W Briggs <john.w.briggs@gmail.com> 5 Nov at 16:42 Here (below) is the announcement relayed by Dianna Colman of Yerkes Future Foundation. The University of Chicago and the Yerkes Future Foundation (YFF) are pleased to announce an agreement in principle for transfer of ownership of Yerkes Observatory and related property located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin to the Yerkes Future Foundation. Over the next several months, both organizations will be working closely on all aspects of the proposed transfer. Additional information will be made available as appropriate. YFF’s objectives include restoration and refurbishing of the telescopes and building, reopening the space for visitors and establishing educational, research, seminars and various additional opportunities for students, astronomers, astrophysicists and others. Students and faculty in the University of Chicago’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics have continued to do educational and research work at Yerkes Observatory in the past year. The transfer to YFF will mark the conclusion of the University’s historic affiliation with Yerkes, allowing the University to make further investments in the future of the field, including projects such as the Giant Magellan Telescope. Both the University and YFF would like to express their appreciation for the support shown by the Yerkes family, the Village of Williams Bay and many educators and scientists.

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[Jeremy Shears]

I’m thinking of attaching a smartphone to a telescope eyepiece to image the transit of Mercury afocally.

Many such adapters are commercially available at a range of prices.

Might anyone have a recommendation?

I’d be using an iPhone 6 or X. 

[Dr Mark Salisbury]

Hi

There was a great deal of interest in the ARIEL mission at the ARPS and Exoplanet meeting on Sunday so I thought this webcast may be of interest.

Tuesday 8th October 2019 at 7.30pm

Prof Carole Haswell, The Open University

Exoplanets and Space Telescopes

“We live in exciting times: we have recently learned that our Galaxy contains more than one planet for each human being on planet Earth! I will show how we are able to say this, despite the fact that we have only directly imaged a handful of exoplanets. I will discuss some recent highlights and preview the scientific breakthroughs we anticipate from forthcoming space missions.  These are, with expected launch dates: the CHEOPS mission (2019), the James Web Space Telescope (2021) and ESA’s PLATO and ARIEL (2027).”

The live-stream will be available at the link below

http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?whichevent=3319&s=1