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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
Hi Alex,
The VSS spreadsheet (downloadable from VSS web page) will convert UT to UT decimal and calendar date to JD.
You can batch upload observations to the database using the aforementioned spreadsheet, which takes a few seconds from beginning to end. Entering the data individually takes longer of course, but a single observation only takes about 30 seconds or less to enter.
It doesn’t matter how old your data is – we would very much like to have it.
Good to see you back!
Gary
Thanks for another good link Martin. Doesn’t matter if there is any Astronomy in it. If it’s about Will Hay, it’s worth a listen.
Gary
Yes Howard it’s ‘nearly’ back after 8 years below maximum brightness. It currently seems to be stuck around the mid-7’s, with perhaps a suggestion of a very slight fading trend. Perhaps this year we will see it back at it’s maximum brightness, but I wouldn’t bet on it!
Gary
Just watched your video Nick, and it was terrific. Well done! Even a few ‘whooo’s’ a North American would have been proud of!
Gary
For once the Sun shone on the centre of the known universe – Birmingham! Clear skies from beginning to end with some high stuff about at times, but didn’t spoil the fun. Visual for me of course with a 22cm stopped to 10cm and (ancient) solar screen. Then took BAA eclipse viewer to my community library where I give IT classes and showed a lot of people the second half of the eclipse. I also bought some BAA viewers for my grandchildren, who took them to school and at mid eclipse, all the school (small school ~75 kids) was in the playground passing them around and seeing it in real time. A bit of a result all round I would say!
Gary
Hi Jeremy,Here are my Birmingham stats. Last years numbers in brackets!Observable nights (not counting brief gaps) = 112 (93)37 (59) clear and 75 (34) partially clear (50% cloud or more). Of these 112 nights 53 had Moonlight interference.Best month – Feb & July with 13 nights each (April with 12 nights)Worst month – September with 6 nights (January with 3 nights)Number of hours spent at eyepiece = 247.27 hours (191.18 hours)The weather forecast (for Birmingham) for cloudy/clear nights was incorrect on 53 (60) occasions, so a slight improvement for the Met. office!The sky conditions continue to deteriorate here in Birmingham, with increased light pollution and the clarity of the sky worsening year after year – for reasons which I can’t explain. The Milky Way was ‘glimpsed’ on just one occasion in 2014 – Aug 4th.Look forward to seeing other members stats for 2014.Happy New Year!Gary
