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At the end of the piece which contains Grant’s excellent image, there is a photo of a chap looking through a fully automated scope, in silhoutte against a background of the Summer sky, and the heading “You should be able to see the meteors with a naked eye – if the weather is good”.
Good ‘ole Beeb.
Gary
I too am approaching the 50 years membership, and if/when I reach it, I will feel very proud that I’ve achieved this milestone. And that’s it! I don’t really need the BAA to give me a free membership.
What would be nice though, is a small gold lapel BAA badge, given only to 50 year members, which will make us immediately recognisable at BAA meetings, allowing for cups of hot cocoa to be brought to us during the interval.
Gary
In VS observing (and Comets too), it’s normal to give the decimal of the day following the days date. So Jul 20.82 is July 20, 19h 45m UT.
The time is written down in hours and minutes at the telescope, then the spreadsheet works out the decimal of the day when the observations are typed up. To obtain the decimal of the day, my spreadsheet multiplies the hour by 60, adds the minutes, then divides by 1440. This has been normal practice in VS observing for many years – particularly CV’s (although some observers still do report in hours and minutes).
I tend to report everything in decimal of the day these days.
Gary
Thanks Ian,
OJ was guaranteed to fade once I put an alert out – sods law! I had it 14.7 visual this morning, and 14.6C a couple of hours earlier with SLOOH.
Keep at it if you can, as sometimes these flares can vary a bit.
Gary
The binary black hole OJ287 has been rising in brightness slowly since leaving solar conjunction in late Summer, and is currently at its brightest level since May 2020 at 14.29V (Oct 13).
What might happen next? Please monitor regularly if you are able, and submit your data to the VSS database at the earliest possible time.
OJ287 lies in Cancer at 08 54 48.88 +20 06 30.6 (2000.0) and there are charts on the BAAVSS website.
Gary
Hi David,
Yes, it’s nice to see this star active again. I’ve had it rsing from 12.7mv on Sep 15 to 11.8mv by Oct 8, with 0.5 mags of that in the last five days.
The VSS doesn’t have a chart for V426 Sge (also known as VEND47), but you can download one from the AAVSO web site and configure it to your type of telescope.
Gary
V1500 Cygni (Nova 1975) reached magnitude +1.7 at maximum on August 30th 1975, having been discovered the day before at magnitude 3.0. It faded very quickly after that – t3 = 3d (then the fastest Nova on record and still has, I believe, the largest amplitude of any known Nova ~19 magnitudes). I saw it myself, and the event put me on the VS path.
The brightest Nova ever recorded is V603 Aql – Nova Aql 1918, the ‘Victory Star’. This peaked at magnitude -1.4 in June of 1918, and you can still see it today in small telescopes, varying slightly around magnitude 12.0. I wouldn’t think there is anyone around now who witnessed this spectacular event though.
Gary
Certainly looks like it Ian. My efforts attached. Getting difficult now from home, as the observatory roof will soon be in the way. Hope to continue remotely.
Gary
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Indeed it is. Our speakers were made of aware of this several days ago, and fortunately we haven’t yet had any drop out – including Mark Kidger, whose travelling from Madrid to speak at the meeting.
Gary
I think ALL subscriptions are due on (or before) August 1st. I’ve always paid mine early, so I can’t say for sure whether a reminder is sent out.
Log into ‘Account’ on the web page, and you’ll find all the information there.
Gary
Unfortunately I was just too young to go on the Monte Umbe trip (15y), but I was old enough to go to Earls Court to see Pink Floyd in May of ’73 to hear the whole of Dark Side of the Moon live. An eclipse is just an eclipse, but this gig will never be forgotton! I have no regrets.
Interestingly, EMI gave a press reception at the London Planetarium in February 1973 just after the release of DSOTM, but only Richard Wright of the band attended. The others were not happy with the inferior sound system brought in by EMI. Fussy lot these rock gods 🙂
Gary
I just don’t see the problem with the DB telling you that your observation hasn’t been checked. It’s an important piece of information to pass on if your DB prides itself in attempting to check the data that is entered into it.
Sorry Paul, but I just don’t get it.
Cheers,
GaryPaul,
Why do you think you are being admonished? The sequences for the BAAVSS visual charts have all been entered into the database. When you try to upload a visual observation, it’s checked against the sequence. If there is an error it finds it and doesn’t allow you to enter the observation. The AAVSO DB doesn’t do this. It just goes in – error and all! Our system is far superior.
If you use an AAVSO chart, our DB doesn’t have any sequence information for these charts. They don’t use a lettered sequence of course, and their chart ID is dynamic – and there are thousands of charts. So, our DB sees the chart reference, doesn’t recognise it, then informs you that the chart is unrecognized and that it can’t perform the check for errors. And thats it! The observation still goes into our DB. Most of my observations are made with AAVSO charts, and my data sits happily in the VSS database.
I just don’t understand your concerns!
Gary
Wonderful. Many thanks Denis.
I’m sure John Bortle used an observatory similar to the ‘merry-go-round’ observatory.
Gary
Captured this photo yesterday evening (Feb 23) with a hand held iPhone 12. Had to brave the dodgy hill opposite my house though, but a nice view visually.
Gary
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My wife and I observed this too – from Morrisons car park in Walsall. There was fog, and the blue sun strip on my windscreen helped too. It was very obvious. Time 11:30 UT Jan 21.
Not the most exotic of locations to make an astronomical observation (no offence to my black country neighbours).
Gary
Observing statistics for 2022.
Gary Poyner (Birmingham)
A record year – the most observing nights from my location in Kingstanding, Birmingham since I began to record weather data in 1978. Admittedley most of the observing opportunities were with broken cloud, or mere breaks in cloud, but a record is a record.
The year seems evenly split for clear skies before and after the Solstice. Clear skies from dusk to dawn were rare with just 14 during the year, but slightly better than 2021 which recorded 11. Most of these were in the shorter Summer months.
2022 (2021 in parentheses)
Clear nights (less than 50% cloud) 41 (19)
Partially clear nights (50% or more cloud) 103 (100)
Totally cloudy nights 221.
Total observable nights 144 (119) with 74 (82) of these nights having Moonlight interference. I made observations
on 139 nights.Total hours at the telescope 303.67h (227.7h)
Best month August with 17 nights, 9 clear and 8 partially clear (April – 16)
Worst month November with 8 partially clear nights and 0 clear (December -3)Birmingham Met office gave incorrect information on cloud cover for 77 nights during 2022 (73). They remain consistantly dire.
Total visual VS observations for 2022 is 12,005 (8,201), an increase of 3,804 on 2022. CCD single measures using remote telescopes COAST, SLOOH and the AAVSO SRO-50 and MPO-61 are 2,996 (3,527), a decrease of 531 on 2021 – mainly due to a long Monsoon in the SW of the USA and prolongued down-time with COAST.
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Yes Duncan. If the chart is on the web, then observers are encouraged to upgrade their charts to include the new revised ones.
I haven’t yet been notified of your request to join the alert group. If nothing happens in the next 24h, drop me an email and I’ll do it manually.
Gary
Hello Duncan,
News of the latest chart updates will be announced in the December Circular, which is available from December 1st.
John Toone also announced an update to the chart for BL Lac on our BAAVSS-Alert mail group on October 31st, as BL Lac is currently undergoing a rare bright state, and the sequence needed to be extended somewhat.
regards,
Gary
