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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!GaryThanks for the greetings Paul. Have a Happy Christmas yourself – and everyone in the BAA too of course 🙂
Gary
R CrB is now visible with binoculars for the first time since 2007. As of the evening of Oct 11 it could be seen with 10×50’s (from Brum) at magnitude 8.8. The rise at the moment is ~0.1 mag every 2 days, but this could change of course in the coming days/weeks.
This looks as if it could be the recovery we have waited 7 years for.
Gary
Indeed Howard. The recovery started around April/May this year, and R CrB is now at it’s brightest level for 15 months or so. The previous partial recovery was slow, taking around 18 months to complete 4 magnitudes. This one is rather steeper, taking just over 3 months to cover the same magnitude. Might this mean that R CrB will get brighter this time? We will have to wait and see.
I’ve uploaded an up-to-date light curve from BAAVSS observers to the front page of the VSS web pages. Unless anything else interesting happens I’ll try to keep this plot updated weekly and post to the web site, so that we can all see if this recovery is the real deal or not.
Clears skies,
Gary
Hi Martin,
Thanks for the tip. As a big Will Hay fan I’ll be recording it (although I have seen it).
We had a Will Hay night at the Heart of England AS last year – DVD’s shown on big screen, with the support act being several episodes of Shaun the Sheep. Astronomy can be fun in many ways, especially at the HoEAS! The room was full too 🙂
Gary
