Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I get these intrusive trails on my meteor cameras predominantly in the morning before dawn. Here are two images close together on the morning of March 12. As astronomers we record what ever is going on in our skies, these man made events will be part of that. We were all excited to see Sputnik in 1957, it heralded a new era for mankind, this latest development in part of the same era. Let us hope that the effect of these on our images can be diminished in the future by making them less reflective, but don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen!
My latest image of this spectacle is now posted in my members page and in the recent images section of this website.
Denis
It is interesting that the LSST is to be named after Vera Rubin.Her interest in astronomy has been life long and she has always been an active observer. Here are two pictures of her as a young woman one with her homemade telscope and the other using the refractor at Vassar College. So from humble instrumental begginings to the largest telescope in the World. There is progress for you!
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
Paul give Henry an email at this address in France, he is looking for SBIG cameras etc.
; he says : I am still looking for exactly those parts, I am not sure how to leave a message – I would be grateful if you could pass on my interest and details. I would like to chat with Paul.
Send the query to the Antique Telescope Society at this link:
ADDRESS:
Antique Telescope Society
Walter H. Breyer, Secretary
1878 Robinson Road
Dahlonega, GA 30533E-Mail:
whbreyer@gmail.com
or to:
Bart FriedHi Andrew I used a book called Moon Mars and Venus A concise guide in colourpublished by Hamlyn in 1978. It contains the Rukl map in small sections and is very easy to use at the telescope Attached is a one of the sections which I have scanned. It is available from Amazon as a used book for about £20
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moon-Venus-Concise-Guides-Colour/dp/0600362191
Hi Nick, You showed an image of Arend-Roland taken on Oct 24 1957 by Waterfield, any chance that the trial across the comet image was Sputnick launched on Oct 4 which survived for 21 days?
Probably wishful thinking but worth the ask!
Denis
I remember the late great Harold Ridley used to measure photographs on film of objective prism captured spectra of fireball taken with his own equipment and also those of Henry Soper whose equipment was on The Isle of Man. I think some of these results will have been published in the JBAA. I may be wrong but I seem to remember that Harold was the first person(in the UK?) to record a fireball spectrum on film. He measured the films using plate measurments techiniques.
I have collected S@T from 1950 to 2012 and stopped taking it when it became so much poorer than it used to be. The highlight of my postal month used to be when S@T dropped through the letterbox. Then it became a huge disapointment as I looked at the reduced number of pages and the loss of serious observing advice by experts such asthat given in John Bortle’s Comet Digest. The relegation of the ATM telescope making pages to a single page was a big loss. The editorials seems to be concentrated on what the editorial team was doing rather than highlighting the latest developments in astronomy. Can S@T survive and become a popular magazine for amateurs and regain some of the prominence it once held. I hope so, but I am not holding my breath!
Owen, shame you are not going to make it to the meeting. Your presence will be missed. Can to tellme any city in England that is not too expensive to travel to by train and where parking a car is not a problem. Perhaps we can hold the next meeting there!
Denis
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
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
Hello all, I was able to observe on around 100 nights in 2018, this does not include the months of June Aand July where bright all night twilight stops me observing.So around a third of the nights have been used for observation this is simliar to other years I have been at Tarbatness. I reported 1540 astrometric postions of comets to MPC. An average of 3 positions for each comet gives around 500 comets (many are the the same comet observed on different nights). My two automatic meteors cameras (12mm and 3.8mm fl) recorded at total of 4891 meteors. Strangely there was only 1 digit differnce between the two cameras over the year (2445 , 2446).
Observational astronomy is a nice pass-time isn’t it?
Denis Buczynski
I seem to remember that visual double star measurments were the main use for this telescope, am I correct/ it is a dual reflecting telecope with 12 and 10 inch mirrors mounted in parallel fashion.
Hi Helen, here is a preliminary ephemeris by Nakano published on CBET 4569
Nakano provides the following preliminary ephemeris for the comet:
2018 TT R.A. (2000) Decl. Delta r
Nov. 5 12 06.22 -02 26.5 1.549 1.013
6 12 10.91 -02 21.2 1.549 1.012
7 12 15.60 -02 15.7 1.550 1.011
8 12 20.29 -02 10.2 1.550 1.011
9 12 24.97 -02 04.6 1.551 1.012
10 12 29.64 -01 59.0 1.552 1.012
11 12 34.30 -01 53.3 1.553 1.013
12 12 38.95 -01 47.6 1.555 1.014
13 12 43.59 -01 41.8 1.556 1.015
14 12 48.22 -01 36.0 1.558 1.017
15 12 52.84 -01 30.2 1.560 1.019Hello all,
Talk of large eyepieces made me think of the thread on Antique Telescope Forum about the Great Melbourne Telescope and the low power eyepiece used on it. Here is a picture of the eyepiece with a field lens of 8 inch diameter! That is a large eyepiece.
Hi Erik,
Why do you need to adjust the uprights for levelling. Just use bolt down supports like these from Wicks (4″x4″) and cut them the correct length and use a long spirit level to get them true before fixing them. I have used these on a good few observatories that I have built over the years without problems.
Best of luck.
Denis
Hi Gary,
Great image of this comet in outburst. Lovely colour image with plenty of the tail detail recorded. I have saved this image for inclusion in the BAA Comet Archive. It would be appreciated if you would send any further comet images you take to thie BAA Comet Section at
Denis Buczynski Secretary BAA Comet Section
