Search Results for 'espin telescope'

[Robin Leadbeater]

Note that although an early spectrum of sn2019np was taken by the Li-Jiang telescope, the official confirming spectrum was actually taken several hours earlier using Faulkes Telescope North and uploaded to the Transient Name Server (As it happens 4 minutes before the Atel #12374 was issued, though since 2016 the TNS has been the official IAU system for recording supernova discoveries and confirmation) 

https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2019np

There are also three amateur spectra of this SN in the BAA Spectroscopic database

 https://britastro.org/specdb/data_graph.php?obs_id=3641%2C3594%2C3640&multi=yes&mix_flux=no&plot=Plot+up+to+20+Spectra

and more spectra on the ARAS forum here covering the evolution up to currently 17th Feb

http://www.spectro-aras.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2205

Cheers

Robin

[Mick Crook]

Many thanks for the link Dominic, a fascinating read!

[Dominic Ford]

Back in 2000, the RAS published an article about Pepys’ astronomical activities in their magazine A&G.

You can read it online here: http://adsbit.harvard.edu//full/2000A%26G….41d..23W/D000023.000.html

As I understand it, telescopes of this era were always measured by focal length, rather than aperture. So “12 feet” does indeed refer to the length (similarly, Herschel’s “40-foot” telescope had that focal length). The instrument apparently cost Pepys the small fortune of £9.

The article also points out that Pepys’ activities with optical glass went beyond astronomy… 26 May 1667… “I did entertain myself with my perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great pleasure of seeing and gazing at a great many fine women…”

[Mick Crook]

I came across the following entry in Samuel Pepys’ diary dated 19^th August 1666, in which he writes of observing Jupiter with some friends later that evening after dinner. Pepys notes that “We did also at night see Jupiter and his girdle and satellites very fine with my 12-foot glass, but could not Saturne, he being very dark.” It struck me that Pepys refers to Jupiter’s girdle in the singular; was only one belt visible due the observation coinciding with a possible disappearance of the south equatorial belt? Are there any other contemporary observations which could possibly confirm this? Also, by “12-foot glass” was Pepys referring to an actual focal length of 144 inches, or just 12 inches? If the former, it must have been an extremely substantial instrument!  

Mick

[David Arditti]

The night after my previously reported observation, on February 22, I managed to get my C-5 (127mm SCT) mounted where I could get Sirius with it. I first had to cut down much of a giant weed in my elderly neighbour’s garden, that was in the way. I seem to do most of my gardening at night. Anyway, despite careful collimation, I certainly could not see Sirius B. There is no possibility with a telescope that gives such a messy diffraction pattern as this. But using a refractor of the same aperture, particularly a relatively long focal length one, would be a very different proposition, and I’d like to someone give this a go on a number of occasions from the UK.

[David Arditti]

I looked for the first time tonight for the pup from my observatory in Edgware, Outer London, Lat. 51N. I did not read the Observers’ Challenge and deliberately did no research in advance to tell me where it should be, in terms of PA, so as to get an unbiased result.

I looked for the Pup at culmination with a C-14 at 300x and 480x. I tried normal monocular observing, I tried using two eyepieces with a Denkmeier binoviewer, and I tried the addition of a dispersion corrector, set to correctly remove the spectral dispersion for the altitude. In all cases I could clearly see what I thought was the Pup, and I estimated its PA as 75 deg. by eye. It was easiest to see at the higher magnification, but once seen with that, could be seen at the lower magnification as well. It could be seen as well with one eyepiece as with two, but less well with the dispersion corrector: I imagine the the loss of light from the prisms in the corrector negated any benefit of concentrating the light better, but with the binoviewers, loss of light was countered by the benefits of binocular viewing.

My C-11 is always used for CCD imaging and has a Hyperstar system in place, so for visual purposes my next telescopes down in size are a 10″ Newtonian and a C-5, but they are on a mounting in a location from which Sirius is obstructed by a fence, so I could not try to see it with them.

I did try with my Celestron 100mm f9 ED doublet refractor that is mounted with my C-14. Using a magnification of 346x, having identified the Pup through the C-14, I intermittently thought perhaps I could see something at the correct PA, as an enhancement of the diffraction rings, but at other times I thought not, and I could not convince myself ultimately.

So my conclusion is that from London the Pup is very clearly visible with 356mm aperture, and would certainly be visible in a smaller telescope – maybe, at a guess, down to 200mm.

It’s now occurred to me that as I have my C-5 (127mm SCT) mounted on a dovetail, I can move it to the mounting I have the C-14 and 100ED on, so I could test the C-5 on the Pup in future. Past experience has been that the C-5 is less effective on doubles than the 100ED, because of more light in the diffraction rings due to the large central obstruction, so, despite giving a brighter image, it seems unlikely it would show the Pup.

[David Arditti]

I long ago decided as policy always to keep my C-11 in Hyperstar mode permanently, and the secondary resides unwanted in a drawer. It’s such a faff getting the Hyperstar alignments just right, as you say, it’s not worth going back to long FL imaging after prefecting it. Better to get another telescope – good 2nd hand C-8s go pretty cheap – and swap them on the one mount.

[Nik Szymanek]

I certainly agree with many of the opinions here regarding Sky & Telescope magazine. Like many, I stopped my renewal for the magazine shortly after it was taken over.Sky & Telescope for me was at it’s best in the ’90’s under the editorship of Leif J. Robinson (who I had the pleasure of meeting once….he was a real gentleman). Writers such as Dennis di Cicco, Roger Sinnott, Alan M. MacRobert could be relied on to cover interesting topics (especially astrophotography) with style. I have a huge collection of the magazine dating back to the ’50’s and whilst it had lost the charm of the earlier decades it was a very comprehensive magazine and was in my opinion the best available. Sadly, it was all downhill from the buy-out. When I saw a feature in it on ‘how to use a finderscope’, coupled with the smaller format and less pages it was the end of the road for me and signified a significant shift away from more-specialist articles.

As a long time collector of the US’s ‘Astronomy’ magazine I think something similar happened to that. My introduction to that magazine in 1981 was when Richard Berry (who I’ve also met!) was editor and what a capable editor he was. The magazine was really good at covering items of current interest (again, the burgeoning field of amateur astrophotography) of which Berry was a world leader. 

I think the UK’s two leading astro-mags, The Sky at Night and Astronomy Now, which themselves have improved over the years, outperform those once-mighty magazines.

[Paul Anthony Brierley]

I have to say I don’t like the way S&T gets sent out to Subscribers, well in advance of the published date.

January I received March. And yesterday. A letter to renew my subscription which isn’t due until August. 

[Robin Leadbeater]

Hi George,

There is another one classified by me last October which was then also confirmed by professionals

https://britastro.org/node/15857

but I dont know of any others.

It would be nice to have a higher SNR spectrum to confirm the presence of other features (eg Fe curtain  or He, N lines) but that would  need a larger telescope. The  spectroscopic evolution  of an initial blue continuum with a strong H alpha emission emerging over time with around this velocity is characteristic of a nova though.

Cheers

Robin

[Denis Buczynski]

As a complete side track to this issue. I wonder if Phillip or Mike have ever visited the Temple Observatory at Rugby School. It houses one of the first Alvan Clark refractors. I visited there in the 1980’s and I understand the observatory (telescope) has had some refurbishment work done recently. Any information wold be useful.

Denis

[Philip Masding]

In June of 2018 I saw Venus with the naked eye at about 16:00 UTC when the Sun was at an altitude of 30 degrees. To do this I used my GOTO telescope as a guide as to where to look. The sky was particularly clear and a deep blue which suggests not much of the usual milky haze we get in the UK. Even so spotting it wasn’t easy if I looked only a degree or so off target then finding it again was tricky.

I’ve never seen Jupiter with the Sun in the sky.

By the way I grew up in Rugby and have many happy memories of observing there. Attached picture is Venus (barely visible!) from Rugby in 1983. 

[Paul G. Abel]

Hi Mike,

I think I’m one of those lucky chaps who can see Venus in the daytime sky without optical aid- indeed, most of my Venus work is done in the daytime as the bright sky greatly reduces the glare from the disk.

As the planet heads towards superior conjunction, it drops in brightness and can be hard to see, so another technique is to offset from the Sun.  To anyone reading this: Only try this if you’re an experienced observer- if you’re not sure, don’t do it!  

First make sure your telescope is capped.  Next, project the sun on to some white card/paper with your finderscope so that it is in the centre then cap your finderscope.  Lock the telescope into position then rotate your RA and Dec circles so that they read the RA and Dec of the sun.  Next move your telescope to the coordinates of Venus.  After making sure the sun is nowhere near the field of view (again using projection with your finderscope), use a low power eyepiece and you should see the planet in the field.  

I have used this method for a good few years now on those days when it is slightly hazy and pick,ing up the planet in the daytime sky can be harder.  I should say that anyone who doesn’t feel at least 110% confident should catch the planet in the dawn or dusk skies instead rather than trying this method!

Cheers,

-Paul 

[Denis Buczynski]

When I was younger in my 30’s I was able, on many occasions in the afternoon whilst the Sun was well up not at dusk, to look in a clear sky in the area of sky where I knew Venus was located and see it quite easily Once located it could be seen again for the rest of the afternoon if it stayed clear. My eyesight was good then, not so good now though. I seem to remember that I could see  about 13 stars in the Pleiades.I have never been able to see  Mercury with the unaided eye in the daytime but occasionally Jupiter coud be seen in really clear daytime skies. I remember the afternoon of the day after the SL9 impact pointing my telescope at Jupiter during the daytime, without circles or goto, just pointing the finder at Jupiter, which I could see with my naked eye, then to get an unexpected surprise when I looked through the eyepiece and saw the jaw dropping sight of the impact scars on Jupiter.

Denis Buczynski

[George Carey]

Nick James and I spotted this just after 6pm Monday 28th.

The Liverpool telescope has it on their list but have bad weather and M31 is getting rather low in the sky for them.

The nova is quite close to the core so may be a very difficult target for amateur spectroscopy.

https://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/object/2019agt

Attachments:

1. 

   AT2019agt_annotated.jpg
   

2. 

   AT2019agt.jpg
   

[Paul Anthony Brierley]

Joseph Ashbrook was the editor back in the day when Jeremy got his first Sky and Telescope.

I started collecting mine in 1978. It was an excellent magazine. When JA was the editor, and it continued to be so until the new editor took over.

I am not saying he isn’t a good editor. But I do wish there was more content, and they didn’t just focus on the US population.

[Tom Moran]

Hi.

There seems to be circulating information about a possible lunar impact during the recent lunar eclipse. Sky and Telescope is reporting the impact in the region of Mare Humorum at 4.41.38 UT. One of our Newcastle astronomical society members has an image which he feels could be an impact, timed at 4.42.01 UT.  Anyone else find anything from their images? I have looked through my images but so far haven’t been able to spot anything.

Regards.

Tom Moran

[Martin Mobberley]

I agonised about renewing my S&T sub when it was due to expire a few months ago. I was very close to letting it lapse.
As others have said, it simply is NOT the quality publication it used to be.
This was not helped by having the same experience as Jimmy: renewing online did seem to be impossible from the UK.
I e-mailed the publishers and got an acknowledgement from a robot, but nothing from a human.
Eventually, my unbroken paper mag collection since 1981 swayed me to renew using the renewal card.

BTW, on the subject of The Astronomer magazine I recently informed Guy Hurst that there is a public house named ‘The Astronomer’ near Liverpool Street!

See    https://www.theastronomerpub.co.uk/

Guy was amused by this ‘rival’ organisation, fittingly part of the Fuller’s chain!

Martin

[Paul Anthony Brierley]

I like S&T and have copies dating from 1978, when I first brought a copy, at JBO here in Cheshire. I have subscribed to said S&T, ever since.

It used to be a very high-quality Astronomy publication in 1970-1980-1990. But it is not as good- now there is a new editor and they have reduced the number of pages. I much prefer the book style Sky and Tel of the 1990s.

[Nick James]

Clear in Chelmsford at the moment. Live images from my telescope appearing here.