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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,
GaryVSnet seems to be back. I’ve received lots of observations from Japanese observers this morning (Oct 31).
Gary
Hi Robin,
It must be down. My last message from vsnet was Oct 20, and since that date my observations posts to vsnet have been bouncing too.
Gary
Those of you who have been monitoring OJ287 during the last few weeks will know that the ‘flare’ did not happen at the predicted date, and it doesn’t look like it will happen in the error margin either (Oct 20, see above). This looks like being a rare failure for the OJ team in their predictions for disk impacts/flares, and more information will be posted here when it becomes available.
Thanks to those who have reported observations over the past few weeks, and those observers (and others of course) are asked to continue monitoring OJ287 to see what the next few weeks or months bring with it’s optical behaviour.
Please report your data to the VSS in the usual way.
Gary
Definitely brighter, and unlikely to be an RCB dust event on this occasion…
Sep 03.202UT 7.644TG +/- 0.001 SLOOH Chile.
Gary
Hi Tony,
I’ve had Ian’s photometer in my care since April. When we have our next VSS section meeting, I’ll bring it along.
The device is currently in the possesion of my old friend Rob Januszewski, who knows a thing or two about these things, and he’s hoping to fire it up and test it at some stage in the near future. I’m sure Rob will report back through this forum when he’s had a go.
Gary
Thank you for sharing the link Ronan. I’ve searched far and wide for years for a likeness of him without success.
Gary
Not a chance from North Brum (even if clear), but SLOOH C2 captured an image on June 8…
June 8.052 9.461CV (0.002)
June 8.053 9.468TG (0.008)So it’s already nearly two mags fainter than it’s peak on June 7 (AAVSO light curve).
Gary
Thanks for mentioning it Nick. I’m looking forward to watching the meeting on YouTube over the weekend.
V482 Cyg seems to have paused in it’s decline at the moment (according to V, mv values), but it’s worth keeping an eye on over the next few weeks to see what happens.
I assume it will get redder as it fades, but it’s been so long since it did anything that there are only visual data covering the fades. Looking at the AID, the first V measures occured in 2000 and after.
Gary
Cloudy here in Birmingham last night/this morning, but clear at SLOOH Tenerife…
V482 Cyg May 24.149UT 11.84CV
V482 Cyg May 24.149UT 12.02TGObservations should be made every night if possible please, and reported to the BAAVSS as soon as possible. There is no way of knowing how deep V482 Cyg will go if it continues to fade, but observers should be careful of a close 13.7 mag star 7″ to the SW if V482 Cyg approaches mag 14.0
Gary
Looks like a false alarm – which is very disappointing. Thank you all for taking the time to check. Really appreciated.
Gary
I obtained an unfiltered CCD image from SLOOH Chile on May 3.006UT and measured it at 12.540CV +/- 0.004 using a nearby A2 star. There currently isn’t a sequence with the AAVSO chart, although I suspect that will appear before too long.
Gary
I had it at 12.5 visual on March 14.085 UT. It was a tad brighter in April 2020 at 12 4, and then 11.9 in April 2013 – the brightest ‘outburst’ for a number of years. I have a light curve here… https://garypoyner.wix.com/variablestars/markarian-421
Gary
I first met Ron at the Winchester weekend of 1978. I was in awe of his ‘astro-photography’, and can still remember those stunning photo’s of M42 which he used to display in the reception area of King Alfreds College. He turned up to a few VS meetings over the years, along with those held by the Deep Sky Section. It was always a pleasure to see him again and have a chat. His search for perfection in his telescopes was always a source of amusement to me (and others I have to say), and I would often ask him what telescope he had taken apart since we last met. Each year that he attened Winchester, he would invite me to break my journey home to Birmingham to visit him and see his observatory set-up. An offer I never did take up, and one which I truly regret now. My thoughts are with Pat at this sad time.
Gary
I can’t say I like the new site very much. For me it’s too ‘loud’ and crowded even on my large desktop monitor, but especially so on a laptop and phone. Much preferred the old layout.
I do appreciate all the hard work that’s gone into it though, but I’m not a fan of change for changes sake (I do realise that the web site needed to be upgraded behind the scenes though, so well done to all involved for that).
Recent forum posts definitely need to be put back on the home page please! That was always my first stop when I visited the old site, and as Nick says above, this is probably true for a lot of other visitors too.
Gary
This Nova (V606 Vul) is brightening once again. Looking at the VSS database, it can be seen that the Nova has been slowly rising from mid December (Mag 18.9V on Dec 6), through January where Nick James was able to follow it to mag 14.76CG by Jan 31. I’ve just measured an image taken by SLOOH this morning (Feb 23) at mag 14.6C.
If you can get to the field at this time of year, please report your observations to the VSS.
Gary
