[Martin Mobberley]

I had so many BAA responses (via e-mail) to my Monte Umbe ‘video’ that I dug out a few old Patrick audio tapes today, and, after a bit of work on the sound, uploaded them. None are as entertaining as the Monte Umbe performance, but they are still a nostalgic trip back to the late 1970s and 1980s, which seems like yesterday. The Kettering Grammar school prog may be particularly interesting to amateur radio astronomy enthusiasts, at least I would imagine it would be…..?

 

The other recordings cover Patrick as a Radio 4 birthday guest (just before he turned 56) in 1979 and Patrick talking to John Dunn on Radio 2 in 1989…….with quite a few Halley memories, plus other stuff.  Sound quality is far from perfect, but then they were made from old audio cassettes that were almost falling apart………   Enjoy!

 

Midweek 1979

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NWgVg-NGxY

 

 

Kettering Connection 1985

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mk6mSoSjBo

 

 

John Dunn 1989

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOb6WT3LLhA

 

 

Martin

 

[Martin Mobberley]

Indeed! It’s hard to get the song out of your head once you’ve listened to it a few times.

I’m sure a modern performance would win Britain’s Got Talent hands down…..

Maybe a new band will form to make a cover version?

I can see Boris Johnson on vocals/piano, an extra guitar riff by Brian May, and Nigel Farage on Bongos…….

But maybe that’s just me…..?

Martin

[Martin Mobberley]

Windbag the Sailor was filmed just after Hay went on an eclipse cruise and I’ve often wondered if he got some good ideas from that trip! I only realised how funny Hay’s films must have been in their day when I was invited to the launch of Graham Rinaldi’s biography of Hay. I’d helped with some astronomical data and managed to get a copy of Hay’s ‘Inkstain Theory’ comedy script to Graham (it was hidden in the RAS library!) So I was invited to the book launch in May 2009, at the BFI, which included a cinema screening of ‘Where’s that Fire?’ in front of an audience of about 200 people.

Hay’s films on DVD are highly amusing, but in front of a cinema audience they are hysterically funny. I’d simply not appreciated how funny they were just watching the DVDs, but they were clearly designed to trigger uncontrollable fits of laughter in front of a 1930s (and 2009) cinema audience. The chap in the row in front of me at the BFI was laughing so much he was in physical pain!

Clearly Hay was a master at making cinema audiences roll with laughter, something that I’d not fully appreciated until I had seen a Hay film shown to a cinema audience, as opposed to watching a DVD.

Martin

[Martin Mobberley]

Yes Grant, that sounds like the chap. He also involved Patrick in a Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ‘spin-off’ radio series.

Although the Patrick thing is fiction, loosely based on facts, they seem to have gone to amazing lengths to get the sound effects right. They even recorded John Mason using one of Patrick’s typewriters to get the Woodstock typewriter key pounding correct! There’s a picture of this taking place here:

https://twitter.com/dirkmaggs/status/569932017321828352

Regards,

Martin

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Martin Mobberley]

Further to my earlier post I have just received a preview copy of the broadcast from the director, Dirk Maggs.

I can’t really say much as the programme has not been broadcast yet and the recording was marked ‘For your ears only’.

However, as I suspected it is a fictional play, but very loosely based on the events leading up to the first ever Sky at Night in April 1957. But, to make it entertaining for the masses, conversations have been invented between various people, in the BBC and the BAA. Also, various events that occurred between 1954 and 1957 have been stirred and mixed in a dramatic way so the chronological sequence of events is not preserved at all. But I guess the listening public, keen on radio drama, will not mind the factual innaccuracies…. Think of it as the events of Patrick’s life in the 1950s, but in a parallel universe! I imagined I would cringe a lot more than I actually did. It is quite amusing in places and I feel that Patrick’s general character has been captured well and the voice is very ‘Culshaw-like’ even if it isn’t Jon Culshaw doing Patrick’s voice! Even so, it is a work of fiction. But I did find it quite entertaining…….

Henry King wrote a number of BAA book reviews, but his reviews of Patrick’s ‘Suns, myths and men’ and several of Wilkins’ books were very scathing indeed….one could even say, dripping in sarcasm. The Radio 4 fictional Henry King is pretty much like I would imagine him to be, although the conversations between him and Patrick have been invented…..

I can’t really say any more as it has not been broadcast, but if you have an open mind and are a Patrick fan I think you will find it amusing in the same way as a Jon Culshaw impersonation of Patrick is entertaining….

Martin   

[Martin Mobberley]

Hello Jeremy,

 

I can shed a tiny amount of info on this. On October 23rd last year I was contacted by the

producer of this production, David Morley. He explained that he wanted to produce a ‘drama’

surrounding the creation of The Sky at Night and the events of April 1957. Reading between

the lines I think the emphasis here was on ‘entertainment’ rather than solid facts. As most

of us who have been involved with the media re. astronomy know well, when contacted by

TV and radio people you realise that hard facts are going to fly out of the window at the

first opportunity, to be replaced by half-truths and even fiction! Anyway, it was clear

from the first contact that this was to be a radio ‘play’, for amusement, not necessarily

sticking to solid facts…….

 

After exchanging a few e-mails with David he then brought the writer, Sean Grundy, into

the conversation, and after a few e-mails with Sean he told me that he now had a copy of

my ‘RAF Blazer’ book which he was engrossed in….and could he speak to me about

Patrick on the phone please? Anyway, I spoke for a couple of hours to Mr Grundy about

Patrick’s character (on October 28th last year) and he confirmed my belief that this

was going to be a radio drama, but written primarily to entertain a Radio 4 afternoon

audience.

 

Five months have elapsed since then and I have heard nothing more from either of them!

I doubt my help will be acknowledged and I have certainly not received any payment

for my help, but then, I’ve never received any payment for anything I’ve done for the

BBC in this way before! Although they have taken more than £1,000 from me for BBC

figures permissions in the last few years (the BBC charge about 3x the going rate

of other agencies such as the Press Association!)

 

Interesting that the title of the show sounds disturbingly similar to my next book,

out in May!! Hmmmmm……

 

I’m not sure that I dare listen to what they have produced when it is broadcast,

but I did try to steer the writer in the direction of the truth about Patrick’s

highly entertaining character…….

But I think it is likely to be, at best, about 50% fact and 50% fiction… like many

BBC ‘biopics’. For this reason I hope they do NOT acknowledge my help in any way!!

 

Regards,

Martin

 

 

 

[Martin Mobberley]

Hello David,

There is a book in the BAA shop entitled ‘Introduction to DSLR Astrophotography’ which may well be worth you acquiring, see: http://britastro.org/product/881
I have no experience with spectroscopy, but I would suspect the difference between the cameras cited would be very subtle. The Canon 60Da is optimised for astronomy as it has extended red sensititivity, but it costs about £750. The Canon data is here:
http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_60Da/

H-alpha regions will need far shorter exposure times with this camera, but if used for terrestrial subjects any red objects will come out far redder than their visual appearance. The normal cameras you mention both have 30 second and Bulb exposures so clearly can be used for astronomy.

Not sure what you mean by steered and unsteered? If you have a small equatorial mount, and there are some quite nifty ones around, such as the Vixen Polarie:
http://www.vixenoptics.com/mounts/polarie.html
…then you can take wide field shots with standard lenses that are several minutes in duration, quite easily.

However, for prime focus telescope work you need either a great equatorial mount or some form of guiding/autoguiding…. Without somehow guiding the exposure your shots will be limited to somewhere between 15 seconds and 2 minutes on the celestial equator, depending on whether your drive is poor or excellent, and what focal length you are working at. You can stack multiple short exposures using software such as Registax or Deep Sky Stacker. There are numerous handy videos on Youtube explaining how to use this type of software. For an astronomical telescope with a drive you need a camera to drawtube
adapter that will fit a Canon EOS bayonet mount, such as this:
http://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/Canon_EOS_T_Ring.html

You may have a 1.25 or 2 inch telescope drawtube so you also need a compatible T adaptor to mate with the T-ring. For prime focus photography one problem often encountered with old Newtonian telescopes is not being able to rack the camera in close enough to achieve focus, but if you have achieved focus with a film SLR then you should not have a problem. As for eyepiece projection, well, this is usually used for lunar and planetary work, although most 21st century imagers use Barlows and Powermates for this purpose. For high resolution planetary imaging most imagers would not use a DSLR at all, but a high frame rate USB/Firewire camera that can shoot at up to 100 frames per second to give thousands of frames that can be aligned and stacked in Registax or Autostackert. An example of such a camera is the ASI 120MC, such as sold here (colour and mono versions are available):

http://www.365astronomy.com/zwo-asi120mc-colour-13-cmos-usb20-camera-with-autoguider-port-p-3536.html

There is also a BAA Observers workshop on September 20 which may be of interest if you are thinking about planetary imaging, although I’m not sure if DSLRs will be included:

http://britastro.org/meeting_render/3542

But I would definitely consider buying the aforementioned BAA book.

Other forum readers who have more experience with DSLRs may be able to give better advice about the specific Canon  cameras you have mentioned.

Martin

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