Search Results for 'espin telescope'

[John Nichol]

 If you have read through my previous posts you will have some idea about the man and his achievements. Dave was a character and left a lasting impression with those who had the good fortune to meet him. As well as working at was the cutting edge of astronomical optics he also devoted time to popularising astronomy. He was a great talker, it has been said that he could have talked for England. He always had time for people giving freely of his knowledge and experience.

 By the time I met David I had already made my first telescope mirror; his enthusiasm inspired me onwards and upwards. Optics became an important part of my life and still is today.

 If you would like to read more about David, or indeed his beloved Grubb Parsons, please have a look at my webpage:

 

 https://sites.google.com/site/grubbparsons/home/grubb-parsons

 

It is a great shame that the national astronomy magazines have missed the opportunity to celebrate David’s life and achievements.

David Sinden 1932-2005 RIP

[John Nichol]

Here is a list of some of the instruments David worked on at Grubbs……

48-inch reflector, Victoria, Canada, 1961

40-inch reflector, Pic du Midi, France. Optics only 1962

The 40 inch Elizabeth telescope. S. Africa 1963

74-inch reflector, Helwan (Kottamia), Egypt, 1963

30-inch reflector, Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, 1966

16/24-inch Schmidt, Castel gandolfo, 1967

The 98 inch Issac Newton Telescope at Grubb Parsons. 1967

72 inch (182cm) Mirror for Padua, Italy. 1973

48/72-inch Schmidt, Siding Spring, Australia, 1973

154 inch Reflector, Siding Spring, Australia. 1974

48-inch reflector, Athens University, Greece, 1975

150-in mirror, UKIRT, Hawaii, 1976

60 inch Reflector, La Silla, Chile 1976

[Andy Wilson]

Hi Bill,

I might give meteor spectroscopy a go sometime, but probably not just yet. I’m in the final stages of getting a new telescope and observatory setup for spectroscopy, so that is taking up all my astronomy time at the moment. I’m guessing you use a grating in front of the camera lens? Apologies if you posted above in the thread. I’d be interested to see a picture of your meteor setup.

I’ve been using a mix of BASS and ISIS. I’m gradually moving more to ISIS now as it is highly automated but a steeper learning curve.

If I’m trying to get an accurate corrected spectrum then I’ll crop off the areas I can’t properly correct. However, if I’m just looking and measuring the lines which are in the spectrum then I’ll usually keep the whole spectrum.

Cheers,

Andy

[Robin Leadbeater]

Hi Andy,

Hmm.. getting an even enough flat might take some arranging. I think you would need to go back to a flat light source in front of the telescope rather than rely on the internal flat lamp, to take into accout any vignetting before the spectrograph.  You could perhaps test it though by taking a daylight sky spectrum which over the small field should give  the same counts independent of position along the slit, once flat corrected.

Robin

[Andy Wilson]

The latest edition of Sky & Telescope has an article on the Ashen Light by William Sheehan and Klaus Brasch. I openly admit that I am no expert on Venus, so I am not sure if the Ashen Light has now been dismissed as an observational effect, or if it is still a genuine possibility.

The gist of the article is about the possibility of global aurora causing the Ashen Light, including a brief reference to The Planet Venus by Patrick Moore. Although Venus has no magnetic field they think global aurora may be possible. Indeed observations from Apache Point Observatory showed a green line for oxygen emission after there had been large solar flares pointed towards Venus.

If this were at all possible, then it sounds like an ideal target for amateur spectroscopy. Any light from the dark side of Venus just visible to the eye should be within easy reach of low resolution spectroscopy.

Of course this may be a wild goose chase! With my interest in spectroscopy I felt I had to put this up on the forum to canvas opinion from those with more knowledge of our nearest planetary neighbour.

Thanks,

Andy

[John Nichol]

The Espin Telescope

Thomas Henry Espinall Compton Espin was vicar of Tow Law, Co. Durham, from 1888 until his death in 1934, aged 76. He was a keen astronomer with an interest in double stars; he went on to personally discover and map an amazing 2,575 of these and was helped in his work by William Milburn, his assistant observer. Espin’s main telescope was a 24 inch reflector by the famous maker George Calver. After Espin’s death the telescope fell into disuse, it is said that chickens took up residence in the tube! The telescope was eventually rescued and fully restored by David who then presented it to the Newcastle University observatory at Close House. In August 2004, one year before David’s untimely death, Newcastle University sold Close House mansion and golf course which were redeveloped as a hotel. As a result of this the observatory fell into disuse and the 24 inch telescope suffered once again from neglect. The latest news I have is that the telescope has been removed from the leaking dome and is now in storage. Perhaps a fitting tribute to this historical telescope would be relocation to Beamish museum where it could be enjoyed by the many visitors.

John

[Nick James]

Hi Andy,

Depending on what you are doing it may not be relevant here but I’ve always found it much better to put a cheap headless PC by the telescope pier. You can then connect all of the telescope/camera USB cables to this directly and remote desktop to it over a network from anywhere.

Nick.

[Martin Mobberley]

Hi Andy,

Back in 2003 I faced the same issue with my C14/Paramount/SBIG ST9XE system, some 35 metres from the indoors PC I wanted to use. The Paramount was controlled via a serial port in those days, and the JMI focuser was just voltage controlled. I simply extended the wires by 100 feet! However, the camera was USB 1.1 so that was the real problem…. I solved it by purchasing a USB extender manufactured by Icron and marketed by Scene Double. This consists of two boxes, named REX and LEX. LEX sits indoors by the PC and REX sits on the telescope plinth. The LEX box is powered, the REX is not. They are joined by a single Cat 5 cable under the lawn. There are 4 USB ports on the outdoor Icron REX so 4 USB inputs can be used, although I usually use just one. Of course, USB 1.1 is very slow these days, but, the system still works, after 12 years outdoors and with the outdoor REX box a bit rusty now! Icron still make these units and Scene-Double still sell them. They are not cheap, BUT, when something has worked flawlessly for 12 years, in all weathers, that’s pretty good. The current webpage can be found here, with USB 2 and 3 systems now:

http://www.scene-double.co.uk/USB-extenders/

Of course, you are just talking about a distance more than 5m, whereas my system is 35m, so you may not need such an expensive overkill solution, but, that’s the system that has proved reliable for me.

Martin

[Andy Wilson]

I’m in the process of setting up a new observatory. This is larger than my old one and so I’ve had no option but to go for 5 meter usb cables. Not too surprisingly I’ve been getting problems with my main and guide cameras loosing connection.

I understand the solution is to get a powered usb hub. I have a couple of questions on how to use these as I expect other BAA members have similar setups.

1 – Does it matter whether the hub is next to the computer or the telescope?

2 – Would I link both my main and guide cameras to the hub with a single cable linking to the computer? I’m guessing the hub has a single computer connection to multiple devices. So I’m not sure if I’d need separate hubs for high transfer rates to avoid putting too much data through a single usb.

I’m sure I could work this out by trial and error, but if anyone has any advice then that would be most helpful.

Thanks,

Andy

[John Nichol]

Sorry about the picture David, not too sure what is going on there!

At last autumn’s Kielder star party an excellent talk was given by Professor Andy Newsam highlighting the work of the highly successful Liverpool telescope. The secondary mirror for the telescope was made by the Sinden Optical Company, it is about 60cm in diameter and is convex in shape which makes it very difficult to test as such a mirror does not form a real image. In addition the surface has a shape described as hyperbolic. Such optical components are renowned for being difficult to make. Had David been sitting in the audience that day he would have had good reason to be satisfied with his contribution to the Liverpool Telescope and its part in the advancement of astronomy.

 

For more information about the Liverpool telescope look here.. http://telescope.livjm.ac.uk/

John

[David Pettitt]

Hi John, I dont see the picture but I remeber a BAA meeting in Newcastle when we visited Grubb Parsons and saw the Isaac Newton telescope after it had been refurbished ready for its move to La Palma. The mount had to be modified for the different latitude, etc.

[John Nichol]

Here is a picture of Dave with the original 98 inch mirror for the Isaac Newton Telescope….

[John Nichol]

29^th August 2005 saw the passing of David Sinden who was the last chief optician at the word renowned telescope making firm of Sir Howard Grubb Parsons: better know simply as Grubb Parsons. This year is the 10^th anniversary of David’s passing away and in commemoration I would like to make a few posts this month highlighting some of his achievements. After leaving Grubb Parsons David went on to set up the Sinden Optical Company which ceased trading after his death in 2005. He was a long standing member of the BAA.

The Anglo Australia Telescope (AAT)  was the largest telescope that David worked on; he was responsible for overseeing the manufacture of the 3.9 m diameter mirror. The telescope was inaugurated in 1974 and began making observations in 1975. The telescope has the distinction of being one of the last 4m class equatorially mounted telescopes ever made. Subsequent large telescopes adopted computer controlled alt-azimuth mounts. The telescope has a superb reputation both for the quality of its optics and its productivity. In 2000 the UK withdrew its involvement in the telescope (surprise), which is now called the Australian Astronomical Telescope (AAT).

 

More to follow…….

John

[Andy Wilson]

I am selling my Meade 14-inch LX200R for £2200 including the below accessories.

It is in excellent condition and has just today been serviced, cleaned and collimated by Steve Collingwood of SC Telescopes.

Note this is just the tube and as it is a 27kg telescope it will require a heavy duty mount.

The price also includes: 8×50 finder, parallax tube rings, tube heater band, dew shield.

I’ll also include a Moonlite electronic focuser, although it is only partially operational. I’ve not had it communicating with my computer for a while, and the manual operation buttons can be temperamental.

Andy Wilson

[Andy Wilson]

Yesterday I had both the BAA Journal and Sky & Telescope arrive through my letterbox. The first thing that struck me was the cover of the BAA Journal showed recent images of Pluto and Charon from the New Horizons spacecraft. Though the BAA Journal had the advantage of no transatlantic voyage I was very impressed that it could be produced with such an up to date front cover.

The content also has a good volume of very current news with plenty of articles about astronomical events from June, July and other recent months. A good balance to the papers with analysis of past events.

Well done to those involved in the production and writing contributions!

Andy

[Paul Anthony Brierley]

Good morning Donald,

Welcome to the BAA. It is a great organisation to be a member of.

Reading your message- It looks like you are well on your way, with the equipment you own, to making serious contributions to a section of your choice.

You have already had some good advice from the members on here.

I think the ED 80 would be an ideal telescope to use for white light solar observing.

I am a member of the BAA solar section, and submit my observations in white light and Ha, using my PST. 

William has also mentioned “Luner” observation. Your telescope will be very good for this purpose. 

There are many, many, more sections within the BAA that I could mention. But I hope I have given you some pointers.

[Bill Leatherbarrow]

Hi Donald,

Welcome to the BAA from me too – it’s a great organisation and will offer you much in the way of advice and support. The key thing is to get in touch with the directors of the sections that interest you most and take a look at their websites.

You have had some good suggestions already for the sort of observational work you can do with the equipment you have, but I note you have asked about lunar observing too. Your ED80 is an ideal telescope for finding your way around the lunar surface – indeed, it is similar in size to the first telescope used by Patrick Moore. It will show you a great deal without overwhelming you with excessive detail. Along with a good lunar map and some clear and steady skies, it will offer you many hours of exploration.

The ED80 is a serious telescope and it will allow you, should you wish, to do some serious lunar observing. For example, you could contribute to programmes of study devoted to possible changes on the Moon or the distribution of different types of surface formation. Occultation observation is also well within the reach of your telescope. You will find further details of the Lunar Section observing programme on the website at http://www.baalunarsection.org.uk/ (you can download a PDF of the programme from that page). You will also get further ideas from the monthly section circular. This is distributed by e-mail as a free PDF attachment, and I’d be glad to add you to the mailing list if you wish.

Send me an e-mail if you would like me to do that, or if you have any further questions about lunar observation.

Very best,

Bill

[Stewart Moore]

Hello Donald,

Once again, welcome to the BAA, and I hope you find your membership rewarding.  I’m not a variable star observer (although I do try and estimate the brightness of comets and the brighter supernovae).  My particular interest is deep-sky and I was Director of the Section until a couple of years ago.  Of course this is not a good time of the year to start deep-sky observing – particularly when you live as far as north as you do, but in a month or so you will have some dark sky to enjoy.  Most deep-sky observers want bigger and bigger telescopes to play with and I must admit to going partly down that route myself, but there is a lot that can be enjoyed in small telescopes or even binoculars. Some open clusters are too large to fit comfortably in a telescope view but are ideal for binoculars with their wider field.  Also some objects can be visible in binoculars but not in telescopes.  The local group spiral galaxy M33 in Triangulum is easy in 10×50 binoculars but very difficult, because of its low surface brightness, in even quite large telesccopes.

Very few people are now doing deep sky observing in small telescopes, so you could really have something to offer (but do expect to get bitten by aperture fever at some point!).  If you live in a dark sky area most of the Messier objects should be visible in your telescope and that would make an interesting personal project. And one that I’m sure the Section would be interested in.

If you want to start out in deep-sky observing one book I can thoroughly recommend is Deep Sky Observer’s Guide published by Philip’s. If you are buying secondhand make sure you get the revised edition published in 2013. The author is Neil Bone. Neil was the BAA Meteor Section Director and unfortunately died from cancer a few years ago.

Most amateurs have a general interest in all aspects of astronomy but also find that there is one particular area that interests them the most.  If that turns out to be the deep sky then I hope you find it as rewarding as I have.

Clear Skies,  Stewart

[Andy Wilson]

Hi Donald,

May I also welcome you to the BAA. I became seriously interested in astronomy at around the same time as you, just over 30 years ago when I was 11. Jeremy has given you some excellent advice which I completely agree with. I find being involved with observing sections to be the most rewarding part of my BAA membership. You certainly don’t need to be an expert and there are plenty of people in the sections willing to offer help and advice.

As a variable star observer myself I concur with Jeremy that your equipment is ideally suited to making variable star observations. Although much useful work is done with CCDs and DSLRs, variable star observations made by eye are still of immense importance and value. Indeed the Variable Star Section has more active visual observers than CCD/DSLR observers.

Using binoculars or a small telescope to observe variable stars is a great way to use and improve your knowledge of the sky. I have a few variables that I follow with binoculars when I don’t have the time to do imaging or just want a relaxing observing session looking at the stars.

I’m sure any other section would welcome you too. The Comet and Deep Sky Section spring to mind with your equipment.

It is worth pointing out that next Saturday, 27th June, is the Exhibition meeting in Cardiff. If you are able to attend then it is a great place to see the work of the different observing sections and discuss how best to start contributing observations. That is how I started out in variable star observing, when I attend an exhibition meeting at Cambridge back in 2001, if my memory serves..

Best wishes,

Andy

[Nick James]

Richard,

The McDonald data is very nice. It shows what can be done with a 2.1m telescope and a specially designed photometer running with a 2s cadence. The Argos photometer is described here.