Nick James

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Viewing 20 posts - 561 through 580 (of 971 total)
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  • in reply to: Winchester Weekend, Sparsholt, April 2016 #582220
    Nick James
    Participant

    As long as that only involves virtual money that’s fine.

    in reply to: Winchester Weekend, Sparsholt, April 2016 #582219
    Nick James
    Participant

    I do have some Thatchers too although it is running out.

    in reply to: Winchester Weekend, Sparsholt, April 2016 #582212
    Nick James
    Participant

    Great memories and I’m already looking forward to next year when hopefully things will be back to normal. I’ll really miss it this year though. Such a shame given all the effort that Ann and Alan and others put into arranging it.

    Perhaps we should set up a virtual meeting in the bar on Saturday night. I have plenty of beer since my local brewery is making home deliveries and I’m trying to keep it in business.

     

    Nick James
    Participant

    Mine from Chelmsford is here (attached in full res). It was taken at 19:32 since clouds were coming in. I have a less overexposed one if that helps. I do have an image at 19:52 which is the closest to 8pm I have.

    in reply to: BAA Sky Notes #582150
    Nick James
    Participant

    I’ve just added another video from John. This one is about observing the ISS. Go you our Youtube channel to watch it.

    in reply to: observing during the covid-19 crisis #582144
    Nick James
    Participant

    Try the two comets C/2017 T2 and C/2019 Y4. They are both well placed and around mag 8. I know that they are fuzzy and that they move but I’m sure that go-to mount will find them!

    in reply to: Since I’m at home more…. #582123
    Nick James
    Participant

    It is definitely worth a trawl around the Section pages. There is loads of interesting stuff to read on this site. The old Lunar Section publications are definitely worth a read, particularly if you knew or know of some of the characters therein. Can I also put in a plug for the old Comet Section circulars to from 1973 onwards. They are here.

    in reply to: Huge atmospheric experiment starting #582117
    Nick James
    Participant

    Yes, me too on my meteor cameras. The number of aircraft in the south east of England is falling rapidly. A very small positive amongst a sea of negative. It looks as if we will have several months of this.

    in reply to: Starlink-3 photobombs 29P #582109
    Nick James
    Participant

    If they cross Denis I would be really worried since the spaceport is on the north coast and they will be aiming north on the one day a year that it is calm enough to launch…

    in reply to: Starlink-3 photobombs 29P #582108
    Nick James
    Participant

    Grant. Not a lot of sign of that at the moment. I guess they are mostly rather empty.

    in reply to: Starlink-3 photobombs 29P #582105
    Nick James
    Participant

    At least the next 60 have been delayed a bit by today’s Falcon 9 post-start launch abort. So far I’ve not found the trails troublesome on my meteor cameras. The satellite motion is too slow to trigger them and I only pick of the trails if something else does. Denis, I know it is not a problem where you are but I have many more problems with aircraft trails. I guess that problem might decrease a bit over the next few weeks.

    in reply to: Twin meteors #582088
    Nick James
    Participant

    Certainly if there is no confirmation from another camera this would be the most likely cause. I get quite a lot of nocturnal birds/bats on mine illuminated by streetlights but they don’t tend to fly in straight lines.

    in reply to: Twin meteors #582084
    Nick James
    Participant

    That’s an impressive capture. I’ve seen many examples of dual, and even triple, meteors with the same radiant on my video but never anything quite like this where there are two objects so close. It was clear here last night and my NW cam points in your direction but I didn’t pick anything up at that time.

    I’m playing around with RMS using a Pi4 and a cheap IP camera but haven’t had much time to sort out the various problems that have arisen so still rely on the old UFO Capture/902H2 setup.

    in reply to: Royal Mail stamps issued for the RAS bicentennial #582019
    Nick James
    Participant

    Nice stamps. That plural is certainly correct in the original latin (where they had strict rules about such things) but I doubt if many Engish speakers would use it now. Reminds me of the Romanes eunt domus skit in the Life of Brian…

    in reply to: Satellites in collision ! ! #581980
    Nick James
    Participant

    That would be a sad end for IRAS (famous for the discovery of C/1983 H1 Iras-Araki-Alcock). The predicted time of close approach is 23:39:35 UTC tonight according to LeoLabs.

    in reply to: BAA meeting livestream #581965
    Nick James
    Participant

    Gary, yes the sound levels were a bit low although fine if you have a big volume knob on your amplifier it seemed OK. It partly depended on the speaker’s voice and where they were standing. I’ve just had a look at the recordings (which are now on the meetings page BTW) and I can turn it up far enough. I’ll discuss with the IoP whether we can push it up next time.

    in reply to: Comet approaching the Double Cluster #581936
    Nick James
    Participant

    Andrew. Many thanks for that observation. This is a good opportunity for visual views as well as imaging.

    in reply to: Comet approaching the Double Cluster #581925
    Nick James
    Participant

    It’s now close enough that I can fit it in the field of my wide-angle imaging system. This is an image from Chelmsford tonight.

    https://britastro.org/node/20462

    in reply to: Observing stats for 2019 #581853
    Nick James
    Participant

    This is an update of the plot I posted last year. It is the count of meteors from my two cameras since this is the only objective measurement of sky conditions that I have. The sporadic count is probably the one to use since it is not dependent on conditions at the times of shower maxima. This shows a slight deterioration on 2018 and my lowest detection rate so far. Note that  2015 was only a partial year (from June) but most meteor activity is in the last half of the year so it is not easy to scale.

    in reply to: Mystery comets #581828
    Nick James
    Participant

    David,

    I think these are definitely Burnham. Stefan Beck has suggested dates and times. I’ve updated the page with the latest info although I may have missed some. Independent confirmation would be good.

    Nick.

Viewing 20 posts - 561 through 580 (of 971 total)