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John Glasby’s 1971 ‘Variable Star Observers Handbook’ was a treasure to me in the years between my first VS observations (1975) and joining the BAA and the BAAVSS (1978). Lots of controversy about Glasby of course, but I found this book invaluable.
Sidgewick’s 1971 edition ‘Observational Astronomy for Amateurs’ rarely left my side in my early observing days too, along with his ‘Amateur Astronomers Handbook’ of the same year. I still treasure those books.
My 1965 Ladybird book of Astronomy remains in pristine condition, and I guess this must have been the first book I used with my first telescope in 1965, closely followed by Nortons 1950 epoch star atlas.
Gone very nostalgic now…
Gary
Good meeting you yesterday Wayne. I don’t get to too many BAA London meetings myself, so I find the Kings Head a good place to catch up with old friends. Hope we bump into each other again at another BAA event.
Cheers,
Gary
Majority of cloud cleared here 10 mins before start. Managed this photo – hand held mobile phone with 14mm Radian eyepiece on 22cm dobby stopped to 10cm using ancient solar screen. Time 11.41UT
Gary
Many congratulations Bill. It looks like your ever so slightly variable! Made my day that has 🙂
Gary
Some cracking images there Dave. Thanks for the link! Shame about the ‘robotic’ commentary though.
I still think the Moon should be painted black however 😉
Gary
Have to agree with Tony on the quality of the meeting (although not the other issue) – it was great! Been a BAA member for nearly 40 years, and this was my first Christmas meeting. Hope it won’t be my last! Good fun in the pub afterwards too.
Gary
Latest news is that it could be a normal outburst, so no lovely superhump profiles on the light curve. However sometimes these normal outbursts can trigger superoutbursts (never been seen in HT Cas though), so worth following after a return to quiescence. Of course you still get eclipses during a normal outburst. Last night (Oct 25.9 UT) it was still bright at 13.2.
Gary
Michael,
HT Cas has just entered outburst – it may be a superoutburst. Good opportunity to have a go at time series. HT Cas is an eclipsing UGSU star, so your light curve through an orbital period or two will look quite spectacular. There is an eclipse ephemeris on my web page (http://www.garypoyner.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/HTCAS15.txt). It’s quite old and needs a tweak, but it will give you a good idea as to when to expect minimum.
Good luck,
Gary
Mick,
There is no such thing as a “typical Nova”. As an example – two Novae V2467 Cyg & V2468 Cyg, both discovered by Japanese observers Tago & Kaneda. Both have a similar absolute magnitudes Mv -8.7, similar apparent magnitudes at maximum ~7.5V and similar t2 values (the time to lose two magnitudes) of 9 days, yet the former has a distance of 2.5kpc and the latter 6.5 kpc.
Gary
Clear in Birmingham after a hazy start. Nice to see ‘Old White Face’ covered up (deep copper colour), so that I could make the most of the opportunity and observe Variable Stars. What a pity something like this doesn’t happen every month 😉
Cheers,
Gary
It’s been many years since I’ve had to worry about Polar Alignment (thankfully), but I do know that Stellarium software gives the hour angle for Polaris as well as RA/Dec for J2000.0 and for the current date/time for your location. If you have Stellarium simply click on Polaris. If you don’t have it, then it’s free to download and isn’t a bad bit of software to have! There are other ways to get this information, but this seems to be a simple method to me.
Gary
Crikey Martin. I can see myself with dark hair! No grey in 1995! It was my first year as Director of the VSS, and there I am setting up the VSS stand. Brought back a few memories seeing that. Nick James looks a few pounds lighter too 😉
Many thanks for sharing! Great fun!
Gary
We’ve had them around my area for several years now, with my own road being one of the remaining few to still have sodium. I have to say that (to my eyes) my sky brightness has increased slightly since the LED lights were fitted, not decreased.
It’s Birmingham City Councils hope to convert around 750,000 streetlights to LED in the coming years. At one time I thought this would be a good thing, but now I’m not so sure. I live in hope that our Council is so strapped for cash (and it really is) that they will eventually turn them all off at midnight. However the voices of the “we’ll all be murdered in our beds” brigade have already starting shouting from their padded cells, so who knows what will happen!
Didn’t mean to sound so grumpy. Hope your sky is the better for it Steve!
Gary
Wonderful stuff Jimmy. Many thanks – and thanks Martin for the correction!
What happened to Kohoutek indeed 🙂
Gary
chi Cyg was visible to the naked eye last night (July 15) at 4.6. Could be a bright maximum this year as we still have a way to go to it’s predicted date for maximum brightness.
Gary
Had 90 mins of sky last night, and was able to see short term variations (minutes) of 0.5 mag. I don’t recall V404 Cyg doing this in 1989. I certainly didn’t make any notes of short term variations. Pretty sure I would have recorded them. Still can’t believe it’s been 26 years since I last ‘saw’ this beast (except on BRT images of course) 😉
It’s possible that these variations are caused by the jet as well as the disc and other phenomenon in the active area. I’m pretty sure we’ll know a lot more once this outburst is over!
Gary
