[Alex Pratt]

Hi Nick,

 

Many thanks for your data.

 

Combining it with William’s data we have a nice Geminid, of absolute mag -2.8, duration 1.62s, detected at an altitude of 101km and extinguished at 58.9km. Its Vg of 32.8km/s and orbital elements are fully consistent with the Geminids stream.

 

Clear skies,

 

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi William,

Congratulations on recording the fuel dump ‘comet’.

I also captured that meteor on my Leeds_SE camera. UFO Analyser categorised it as a -2.1m December alpha Aurigid, although it was well aligned with the Geminids radiant. I’m sure our dual-station analysis will rank it as a Geminid.

The faint object to the RHS of my meteor trail is not the glow of the fuel dump, it is a ghost image of the Moon, lying outside the FoV.

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Robin,

I think my Leeds_SE meteor video camera recorded the early phase of the same event.

It timed its appearance at 20:00:05.3 UTC but of course the start of the trail was swamped by Moonlight.

The UFO Analyser software gave it a magnitude of -0.4 as it left my FOV. Yet again, the bright sky will have affected this estimate.

I’m sure that other video stations will have recorded the meteor, so that we can identify its shower membership, ground track and solar system orbit.

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Sheridan,

I am very sorry to hear that Graham has left the Association. He contributed a great deal to the Computing Section, for the benefit of all.

As mentioned by Nick, the Letters column in the Journal gives recourse to reply to any comments about a paper, review or observation. Graham could take this route to support his book and his imaging techniques.

In the latest ‘Sky at Night’ Pete Lawrence demonstrated how beginners can take aesthetically pleasing images of the night sky with a ‘standard’ camera. Oh dear, but he didn’t explain how to take and apply dark frames and flat fields, etc. Should those scenes be re-shot with this vital information? Of course not!

We all started on that path, were pleased with our results, then found out that we could improve our images by stacking them, applying calibration, etc.

I hope Graham stays with us.

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for that advice. It’s probably the largest of the individual videos.

Will try again this evening.

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Nick,

I downloaded the videos (MP4) to my Win 7 laptop and viewed them OK with Media Player, except for Lyn Smith’s talk. It gave a Player error and failed to run. Please check if you encounter the same problem. I downloaded it a couple more times, to no avail.

Thanks,

      Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Nick,

I’ve downloaded the videos and had a brief look at the talks. I look forward to viewing them in full. They are a great record of a most memorable meeting.

Many thanks to you and Gill for your hard work.

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

This rare event occurred at a difficult time for mid-northern latitude observers, with the asteroids very low down in the SW in the summer twilight.

Local obstructions blocked the view from my observatory, although I managed to record them by setting up a portable mount in another part of the garden. July 5/6 was bright and sunny, then as the twilight darkened the forecast ‘clear sky’ turned into thick cloud.

 The night of July 6/7 was better, which produced the attached pic.

 Clear skies,

      Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Nick,

Thanks to your efforts we will have a valuable audio and visual record of this key meeting.

Re the slides – my preference from PowerPoint is ‘Save as PDF’ so that I can read any accompanying text, but as an alternative the JPGs are fine.

Yes, just before I had to dash I caught Allan’s comment that Patrick was an accomplished raconteur, placing him in good company along with Galileo and Newton.   🙂

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

I agree – congratulations to the organisers and speakers for a most enjoyable day.

I look forward to the recording of the meeting, because I had to leave at 5:35 for my train, whilst Allan was still in full flow!

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi Nick,

Yes, I read Rob’s summary that was posted on the TA website.

It will be interesting to see if any CAMs are observed worldwide by visual, DSLR, video or radio techniques, and if the comet produced a trickle or a storm of meteors.

Cheers,

    Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

HI Bill,

That’s a spectacular image from Tenerife.

Was it taken in the Mt Teide caldera near the Parador?

Cheers,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Hi,

I can’t find the ‘Writing for the Journal’ guidance notes on the new website.

Is the link staring at me and I can’t see it, or are the notes being rewritten and will be made available in the near future?

Clear skies,

     Alex.

[Alex Pratt]

Congratulations to Denis and Nick on building the Comet Image Archive.

Very easy to use.

Clear skies,

     Alex.

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