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Re the reporting of NLC Here in Crawley West Sussex I maintain a constant Naked eye watch through out the NLC season. Not the best sight in the world ; 12 street lights impact the garden and also all the Lights from Gatwick and associated parking facilities to the NE are not very helpful. I however; over the last 30 years of observation I have achieved quite a few sightings each year. In the beginning I was encouraged by my friend the late Neil Bone and latterly by Ken Kennedy and Sandra Brantingham. I post images when good enough on the BAA Gallery and send them to Ken And Sandra also Space weather.com. Space weather has a dedicated page for NLC which is good guide to activity as seen from Europe and the USA.
NLC are slippery bests emerging and vanishing as you watch .
The forum is useful for an exchange of ideas and information .
The Launch certainty added a new dimension to cooking Xmas lunch, dashing between Kitchen and Nasa TV on Computer.
Its the best Xmas present the Astronomical Community could wish for lets hope that it continues to deliver its potential as it slowly deploys.
Thank you for the heads up Nick. The 26th looks an interesting point to start this imaging project.
I plan to get some new reference images of Orion’s Belt using a 85 mm F1.4 Samyang lens for semi wide angle shots and also some other frames of a narrower angle perhaps the 500mm F 5.5 Star Sky weather permitting and hopefully with the launch on schedule and clear weather possibly spot the JWST on the images as an interloper . .
Well here is another observing challenge. The best way to find out is to look and record. Perhaps come up with a rule of thumb as to how long we have to take down our equipment and scuttle back indoors.
Images from last evenings event . Initially set up the Tripod mounted Camera with Polaris Centre Frame. However the Rocket Plume just sprang into view much lower than Polaris so a mad scramble to move the equipment to a spot in the garden a few feet away with a lower Horizon. Hence some tripod shake . An amazing sight over in a brief minuite
Just seen it and imaged with samyang 85mm F1.4 800iso 4.00 sec rather over exposed as was expecting something around 2 nd Magnitude.. Just absolutely took me by surprise and brilliant double delta shaped plume. Will process images and post tomorrow on Members pages.
I also have a Seymour Solar filter used on a C 90 and 90 mm F5.5 Refractor. bought from Rother Valley Optics , some fairly long time ago. The Instructions give advice on checking for Pin holes (Hold the filter with the inside towards you and outside towards a 60-100 watt soft white light bulb.two feet away from the bulb. Any pin holes can be blocked using a fine point felt marker , small drop of paint or typing correcting fluid. AS many as 20 touch ups per clear aperture inch can be made with no adverse effect on performance). Seymour’s then say that pin holes are rare in their quality products. Hope this helps
This morning the BBC Weather reporter was blaming our very poor sky conditions on high altitude smoke from the USA wild fires. For the last two nights ie 21/22 July and 22/23 July the moon has looked as if it was in Eclipse and very few stars dimmer than second Magnitude were visible naked eye. Thunder Storms in Forecast for the next 48 hours .. So not much chance of getting an upto date image of this long lasting Nova.
Thank you for posting the link . Surely a must see Video. NLC season 2021 started very well for views from Sussex at 51 N but the weather has broken now and the last few days have been very cloudy . I hope that the Jet stream will shift position before too long and give us some clearer Sky. Good Luck with your Observing from Northern |Scotland..
Brilliant news !!! Congratulations to every one who contributed to the tracking and recovery. . Fantastic that the meteorite was recovered uncontaminated. Better than the cost of a sample return mission , a rare items delivered free!!! Now the science can begin to see what this rare meteorite cam tell us regarding the beginnings of the Solar System.
Hello Robert If you can find a contact number for Daiman Peach he may be able to help as he wrote an article published in I think it was astronomy now a few months ago.. He was describing how he and a team went to the Observatory to take high resolution pictures of the Planets. Hope this helps.
Neil Morrison
Great little Video Should be required viewing for all Science classes to show that Space science is not dull and has a great sense of humour. .Well done Brian May & Co
I have a book Lessons in Astronomy by Norman Lockyer first printed in 1868. My edition is the revision of April 1889.
There are two plates in it Page115 paragraph 256 “”Let us begin with Mars .. We give in Plate IX two sketches taken in the year 1862. ,Here at once we see that we have something singularly like Earth. The shaded portions represent water , the lighter ones land , and the bright spot at the top of the drawings is probably snow lying round the south po0le of the planet which was then visible. The upper drawing was made on the 25th september ,the lower one on the 23rd In the upper one a sea is seen on the left , stretching down northwards ; while , joined on to it as the Mediterranean is joined on to the Aatlantic, is a long narrow sea , which widens at its termination. Paragraph 259 Mars not only has land and water and snow ‘but it has clouds and mists, and these have been watched at different times. The land is generally reddish when the planets atmosphere is clear ; this is due to the absorption of the atmosphere, as is the colour of the setting sun with us. The water appears of a greenish tinge.
Paragraph 259a A very curious feature of the surface of Mars was detected in 1877, when the planet made one of its nearest approaches to Earth. the so called “continents” were then seen to be divided into innumerable islands by a network of ” canals”, or long and narrow arms of the seas, some times running almost in a straight line for 3,000 or 4,000 miles. It was on the same occasion that the moons of Mars were discovered by Professor Hall at Washington
There is no credit given as to whom the observer was who made the drawings “The book was prepared as a Science text book for schools. Very interesting to read the ideas of 1862 and what we understand today with our modern in situ exploration of Mars.
Have you looked at the web site of Rother Valley optics. under the listing of Mounts their own section under Rother valley lists a mounting plate at £125.00. . Hope this helps
Just a thought Perhaps we need to be more imaginative and have a cover that encompasses as many of the Sections as possible. ie Variable Stars, Solar System Planets, Comets, Meteor, Aurorae, Radio, Instruments. Historic. A montage .
Regards
Neil
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Clear in Crawley after two nights of Cloud Set up Sky watcher Star adventures with Sony 65a slt and Minolta Rokkor 200mm f4.00 Lens. . It took some time to find the Comet as the electronic view finder struggled. Changed to Samyang 85 mm F 1.4 and the view finder lit up brilliantly. Centred Comet and replaced the 200mm Rokkor. . First results attached lots of work to do to get an acceptable result but B/W frame at 200 mm shows the size of the Tail The second image is a cropped image from the 85 mm lens. Lots of work to do to refine images
Just down loaded images from morning observation night of 5/6 July. Although nothing could be see either naked eye or in 10×50 Binoculars The Camera has caught the Comet . So am now as pleased as a Comet with several tails. Camera Sony 65a Slt with Samyang 85mm F1.4 Lens 200iso 1.25 sec Spot metering Crop of frame.
