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I never eat anything as substantial as a pie during a night’s observing, perhaps just a hot chocolate drink to warm me up. I’ll go get a slice of humble pie…
Alex.
I’ve just watched the BBC1 lunchtime news about this flyby. Under the name of each astronomer interviewed about this NEO, the BBC gave them the title ‘Astrologer’.
Argh! 🙂
Alex.
This topic is a good incentive to attend the BAA Spring meeting in Cardiff
https://britastro.org/event/baa-spring-meeting
Alex.
Hi James,
As Peter commented, your blurry stacking might be due to a nearby star. I had no problems using the comet stacking workflow in the DSS User Guide for my C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) series of exposures
https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20200716_224500_72d8be81be01185c
I zoomed in to each image and click / registered the bright centre of the coma.
The sky motion of the comet will also be a factor, which is more evident in narrow field images rather than wide-angle views. The exposure duration and number of images in the stack can exaggerate the trailing. For my recent images of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) I took 20 x 4s exposures through my C11 and just used the default ‘star field stacking’ in DSS.
Alex.
https://www.imo.net/the-atmospheric-trajectory-of-2023-cx1-and-the-possible-meteorite-strewn-field/
Fragment of meteorite found in France
https://globalmeteornetwork.groups.io/g/main/message/8551
a la Winchcombe!
Alex.
Hi Andy,
I’ve had no problems logging in to my account, editing my web profile ‘preferred name’ and changing it a couple of times. After screen refresh the changes were displayed OK.
I’ll let you know if it reverts to displaying middle names.
Thanks,
Alex.Combining the data from Nick James and Nick Quinn we provisionally find that the meteor was a slow sporadic (Vg ~10 km/s) with an absolute mag of about -2.
Plots of ground track, radiant and orbit attached.Alex.
Almost a successful delivery of a payload to orbit by the American company from the host launch site in Cornwall.
Alex.
When I heard about UK Spaceports I envisioned mini versions of the Kennedy Launch Complex. I believe that the Scottish spaceports will be vertical launches, whereas the Cornwall spaceport will release a rocket from under the wing of a 747 aircraft. These first launchers are for putting CubeSats and similar small payloads into Earth orbit, joining the growing number of launch service providers.
It’s good if this provides training and careers for UK engineers and scientists, although we’ll have to rely on NASA, SpaceX, ESA, et al for mainstream heavy lifting to the ISS, the Moon and deep space.
A recent manned flight to the edge of space was investigated by the FAA as to whether it deviated from its approved flightpath. Let’s hope we don’t start dropping any debris onto our friends in France, Portugal, Norway…
Alex.
The website – aided and abetted by SheepDip? – reverted to displaying my full name (again, again,…). After several attempts to access my online profile and getting “Oops…” error messages I logged out, rebooted my computer, logged in and after two more attempts I was able to edit my profile and reset my Display Name.
Let’s hope it doesn’t start displaying a member’s date of birth, bank account details, etc.
Alex.
…and the BBC did it again this morning, showing some nice circumpolar star trails but failing to point out the single meteor in the image(s). Rather misleading for the general public.
Alex.
My C11 at f/10 and Watec 910HX camera caught the tiny ghostly disc of Uranus up to about a minute before disappearance at the dark limb, then it was swamped by the thin cloud and glare from the gibbous Moon.
Alex.
Jeremy, thanks for the reminder.
I’ve attached the worldwide list – from Occult software.
Cheers,
Alex.Hi Andy, all,
Yes, I also typed in a couple of paragraphs on another thread, then made the fatal mistake of clicking on Edit to correct some typos – and whoosh, my posting had gone – although the thread header had added my invisible contribution to the count of the voices / replies.
As others have advised, take copies as you write to the BAA Forum in case your text vanishes when using this award-winning website – or hope for a time machine to take us back to the old website…
Clear skies,
Alex.
Orion capsule returning to Earth for splashdown off the west coast of the USA. Coverage on NASA TV
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#public
Alex.
Hi,
This is my third – and final – attempt to post a comment. During my two previous attempts I vieweed them, clicked on Edit to change some punctuation – and my messages vanished! Argh! (Gone to a parallet universe?)
Try again…again…
The human eye and brain combine to help us perceive scenes with wide ranges of brightness and contrast. My 8-bit video of the occultation is a low quality representation of the view recorded by my biological sensor. I pondered whether to expose for the limb (and have a faint Mars) or for Mars (and have a washed out limb. I chose the latter.
Most observers who submitted composite images (bigger well depth, etc) mentioned that in their Comments. Almost all publicity images from HST and JWST are nothing like the original – we expect that and accept it. Likewise, many submissions to astrophotography competitions have been heavily processed – a combination of good seeing, a well-collimated ‘scope and the observer’s skills with image processing software.
It’s also nice to see members’ images that are ‘straight out of the can’.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Tip – Save a copy of your message to the Forum before clicking Submit.
