Nick James

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Viewing 20 posts - 861 through 880 (of 937 total)
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  • in reply to: V404 Cyg #576899
    Nick James
    Participant

    I’m observing V404 Cyg again tonight this time using 30s exposures in Ic. The lightcurve so far tonight is attached. The mean Ic mag is around 10.4 and there are variations of a few tenths of a mag. Nothing like as spectacular as a few nights ago.

    in reply to: V404 Cyg #576895
    Nick James
    Participant

    Richard,

    The McDonald data is very nice. It shows what can be done with a 2.1m telescope and a specially designed photometer running with a 2s cadence. The Argos photometer is described here.

    in reply to: V404 Cyg #576891
    Nick James
    Participant

    I managed a very short run of less than an hour last night in a short clear patch. There was a lot of variation (> 1 mag). Peak mags were 9.8 in Ic, 11.8 in V.

    in reply to: V404 Cyg #576887
    Nick James
    Participant

    Here’s the updated lightcurve covering the whole of last night.

    in reply to: Total Solar Eclipse: MD-83 over the Faroe Islands: #576833
    Nick James
    Participant

    Michael,

    I’ve never seen an eclipse from an aircraft but it clearly gives a completely different perspective on the various wide-angle phenomena, particularly the shadow. Thanks for posting these images. It looks like you had clear windows. I know that some of the eclipse flights had real problems with ice on the windows.

    Nick.

    in reply to: Far Side of the Moore #576827
    Nick James
    Participant

    Just listened to it. It sounded like a radio adaptation of the early part of Martin’s book with several of the facts changed for dramatic effect. I liked the quote “Does anybody actually read the BAA Journal?”. It’s not every day that you get something like that on Radio 4!

    in reply to: Far Side of the Moore #576825
    Nick James
    Participant

    And he did a very good Radio 4 adaptation of Steven Baxter’s alternative history of the Apollo programme, Voyage. I’ve set my recorder for Monday afternoon.

    in reply to: Today’s solar eclipse #576819
    Nick James
    Participant

    Council on Wednesday agreed that the BAA should produce a DVD of this eclipse. This will include video and stills of the total and partial. We would particularly like to have material from groups around the country who set up public events to observe the partial.

    I’ll make a more detailed announcement shortly which will include details of how to submit material.

    Nick.

    in reply to: Today’s solar eclipse #576818
    Nick James
    Participant

    Mike,

    That’s a great interview. Do you think they worked out the acronym for your travel group’s name? Remind me to get an autograph next time we meet!

    I agree that the shadow bands were very prominent. I did help that there was a very large expanse of white “sheet” to see them on but I’m sure that the very clear atmospheric conditions helped too.

    Nick.

    in reply to: Today’s solar eclipse #576807
    Nick James
    Participant

    Thanks Grant and Gary. It does seem that it was rather hit and miss in the UK but many people saw it.

    I’ve just watched my recording of the BBC’s Stargazing Live coverage. I wonder if I can charge them for the cleaning bills that resulted from me throwing stuff at the TV. It seems to me that it would be a good idea for the BBC to actually have someone who knows something about  what you see during a total eclipse so they can explain it to the audience rather than having celebs sprouting total nonsense. Perhaps that is too radical an idea?

    I’ve spent the day processing my video and stills. Here are some links to stills and video captured in Svalbard on Friday. I apologise for the commentary on the video. It was -21C or so and my brain had died. I do get the impression that the eclipse was “incredible” or “amazing” though.

    Nick.

     

    in reply to: Sky at Night March 2015 #576798
    Nick James
    Participant

    David,

    I think it has been suspended for a month while Stargazing Live is on. It’s due back in April.

    Nick.

    in reply to: filters #576795
    Nick James
    Participant

    Stan,

    The key point is that any filter must go over the front end, or objective, of the telescope. It is not safe to use filters at the backend, i.e. near the eyepiece.

    I have a C6 and observe the sun using a full-aperture filter made from Baader Solar film. You can buy this film from a number of UK suppliers and make it into a filter that fits over the objective of your telescope. I made a suitable filter using cardboard and tape as shown in the picture below. Make sure that this fits snugly over the objective so that there is no danger of it coming off when you are looking through the scope.

    Let me know if you need any more info.

    Nick.

    in reply to: Potential visibility of a fuel dump from a rocket booster #576792
    Nick James
    Participant

    William,

    Michael’s pics are excellent. Seeing it in a wide field really shows how bright it was. I wish I’d seen it!

    Nick.

    in reply to: 2004 BL86 flyby #576789
    Nick James
    Participant

    Mike,

    I think the adopted rotation period is 2.6 hrs with a lightcure amplitude of around 0.2 mags. That means that I should have two rotations on the image set that I took on close approach night but I haven’t managed to find the time to do the initial analysis yet. Richard Miles has been helping me with the details and we hope to have something soon. The lightcurve may even show the effects of the small moon. Keep an eye on the ARPS page for more info.

    You’re right that the motion was fast but the asteroid was so bright it was detectable with small instruments. Most of my images were made using a 72mm f/6 WO Megrez refractor and CCD tracked at sidereal rate. The wide field makes photometric reduction easier since there are lots of suitable reference stars visible.

    Nick.

    in reply to: 2004 BL86 flyby #576787
    Nick James
    Participant

    It’s still visible tonight around 12th mag and moving much more slowly.

    Nick

    in reply to: 2004 BL86 flyby #576785
    Nick James
    Participant

    Peter,

    Good to see your results too. I think we were very lucky with the weather for this event. Hopefully we should be able to extract a good light curve from all of this data.

    Nick.

    in reply to: 2004 BL86 flyby #576782
    Nick James
    Participant

    Thanks Gary. Here’s an animation from some of the frames.

     

    in reply to: C/2014Q2 Lovejoy 20150108 ongoing tail disconnection event #576774
    Nick James
    Participant

    Here’s another comparison of the tail from two stacks of images taken tonight around 6 hours apart.

    in reply to: C/2014Q2 Lovejoy 20150108 ongoing tail disconnection event #576771
    Nick James
    Participant

    Last Saturday night, January 10, I left a camera running taking 60s images of this comet. I have now stacked these into groups of 20 and made an animation from the resulting 8 frames. The mid-times of these frames are from 2015-01-10 17:54:38 to 20:27:34 so just around 2.5 hr. The FoV is 68’x52′ with approximately N up. If you look carefully you can see motion of features down the tail over this short period.

    Nick James
    Participant

    The tail of this comet really does change dramatically from day to day. One of the advantages that we have now is that we can get images taken from around the globe and this allows us to get really good time resolution. The images below are all from the last night and they show tail changes over a matter of hours. Please, please, please, if you are submitting images include field of view/scale and orientation info. Without this we need to do a lot of guessing when we rescale images to look at things like this.

    Nick.

     

Viewing 20 posts - 861 through 880 (of 937 total)