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It could have been the lion that was spotted a few years ago but which was never traced. The police deployed many resources including the helicopter to find that.
Anyway, much clearer tonight so some real meteors showing up in the images.
Paul,
Thanks for the visual report. It was also seen from Portsmouth and another NEMETODE camera at the South Downs Planetarium which is operated by John Mason and Russ Slater. William Stewart and Alex Pratt analyzed the SDP data and we have produced a ground track that show that the concrete cows in Milton Keynes should have had a very good view as it went overhead. The original orbit was cometary with e=0.91, i=80, q=0.97au.
Nick.
Gary, Can you download one of the MP4 movies and then just play it in Windows Media Player on your Win 8 machine. The coding of these videos is nothing special and they should play on any modern system, even Windows 8. If still no joy with WMP then contact me offline and we can try to investigate further.
Alex,
I’ve just downloaded the MP4 of Lyn’s talk and it plays OK for me (Windows Media Player under Win 7/64). The downloaded filesize is 65,875,977 bytes. It is possible that it is stuck in a cache somewhere so that your repeated attempts to download it keep giving you the same result. Hopefully time will fix this if you are patient!
Nick.
The meeting videos are nearly done and they should be up on the site early this coming week. I’ll post an announcement here when they are up.
If anyone has any good photos or video clips from Saturday and would be willing to (potentially) have them included in the meeting video please send them to me on ndj@nickdjames.com.
It would be good to see a few thumbnails posted here too. I’ll start the ball rolling with the attached.
Nick.
Alex,
The audio and slides are loaded on my PC so the recording should be up on the site in the next few weeks or so. All the talks were very good but Allan’s stood out as he put Patrick’s life in the context of other astronomy popularisers of the past. He also did a good job of putting some of Patrick’s taller stories in context. Patrick was in a good company since apparently Galileo and Newton did the same thing…
Nick.
Those were the days when comets were real comets not the puny little fuzzballs that we have to put up with now!
Here’s a direct link to the Youtube Vid that Bill mentions. Nice NLC. I haven’t seen any myself so far this year.
Nick.
Mike,
Very nice image and that is one hell of a telescope but it certainly burns through the points! I’m planning to have a go at this object during the Webb Society meeting in a few weeks time.
Nick
Hi Cameron,
Very nice image. I observe from a light polluted site too and it can be a challenge but modern imaging equipment can do a lot even from very bright sites. Feel free to post some more images on this forum when you’re ready and if you have any questions please ask.
Nick.
Gary,
Here’s an image from tonight. I assume the SN is the brightish thing around 3 arcsec SE of the core but it is difficult to separate it from the core and I don’t have any comparison pics to check.
Nick.
Alex,
There’s a good summary of the prospects for this shower by Rob McNaught here. This is an updated version of the presentation given at the recent The Astronomer meeting. David Asher also has a very good summary on his page here.
There are some images of the parent comet (a real pygmy) in the BAA comet archive here.
Nick.
That is sad news. Dud was certainly a great character and great entertainment. His Fullerscopes telescopes really looked the part too. I had a 12-inch Newtonian on a MkIV mount for many years and it did a pretty good job although some of the mechanical engineering was novel. That was never Fullerscopes’ strong point. I also used the 18″ f/7 at Charterhouse, Somerset when I was a lad. It looked very impressive in the 1975 Handbook photo shown below and was even more impressive close up although it was a brute to use and I think Jeremy Shears had broken it before I got there…
Nick.
Robin,
Getting a spectrum with that dispersion of an object that faint is very impressive stuff. Do you know if there is a central database of amateur spectra anywhere?
Nick.
Yes, a very good meeting, well attended at an excellent venue with a nice lunch too. Thanks to everyone involved in the organisation. I’ve got recordings of the talks and the speakers’ slides so I’ll upload these soonish so that those who were not there can get a flavour of the event. In the meantime here are a couple of photos from the event.
Prof Andrew Norton talking about Gamma Ray Bursts
The OU Meade 16-inch in a Norman Walker floating dome
