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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
Hi Jack,
I do not see a picture of McClean in my copy of Analysis of Starlight, only descriptions of his work.Jeremy’s request was for a reference to a picture of him.Attached is a picture of him from the PDF I referred to in my earlier post.
Best wishes
Denis
Hi Jeremy, There is a thumbnail image of Frank McClean in this PDF
http://www.saao.ac.za/~isg/poster_mcclean.pdf
Denis BuczynskiSad sad news. Maurice was a pioneer for amateurs a great observer and always a pleasure to work with. Nick James and my self were able to confirm his SN discovery in 2011 , he was pleased about that. His London home observatory was always active and ever changing as he incorporated new technology as it became available. he will be sorely missed by all in the BAA who knew him. Rip Maurice.
Denis Buczynski
I have been able to get observations on a good few nights since outburst occurred. I can get to the area of sky where it is located but it is in bright twilight for me here at Tarbatness. The 15th mag companion star just to the north of the nova is now showing on my images. Just to blow my own trumpet I got a reference in that Darnley/ Starrfield paper as being one of the first to report photometry. I seem to have good luck with getting onto nova quickly after outburst is announced.
Hi Adam,
I don’t know if I can help but I have a series of my own drawings of Saturn made during the edgeways ring plane passege of 1980. The moons are identified on 7 of my drawings. If these are of any use I can scan them and email them to you. Let me know.
Denis
Hi Eric,
I never watched the programme, although I knew about it. I will catch it at some point on utube. One disapointing aspect of the aftermath of Roy passing was that no one seems to have rescued any of his own build telescopes, including the 10 inch with which he made his comet discovery, nor any of his astronomical papers etc. Surely some one in his home town of Northampton would have known about his death at the time.
Thanks for posting this published obituary of John, it was an interesting read about a very interesting man.Sad that he is no longer with us.
Denis
Hi Gary ,
Interesting to see this new version of the VSS Circular. It seems to be the way that things are going these days. The BAA digital subscription will be good news for those groaning book shelves.
Denis
