Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Alan with the demise of Willmann-Bell Emil made Megastar free to use and made a 500Mb download of the program available. It has been hosted here https://www.ladyandtramp.com/megastar/
When you try and access this it may give a certiicate error but I believe you can proceed to the site with no issues.
There is also a piece on George and Nova Del 1967 in the latest Annals of the Deep Sky Vol 8. I believe Martin Mobberley contributed some of that.
Unfortunately due to weather conditions the launch is delayed until at least Saturday and from what I have seen the forecasts for Korou do not look much better then. Not sure how this impacts where it can be seen. Bit of a shame with the rocket and satellite now ready the weather throws its usual spanner in the works.
They are in the process of moving to new distributors as well as trying to digest the WB inventory. I think the hope was this will be sorted by the end of October. We will have to see.
Assuming this was the one we say from Bradworthy in Devon it must have been one of the brightest I have seen and had a strong bright green colour. It did not seem to leave a train but lit the ground up from the dark sky site we were at.
My understanding is that Vol 9 is pretty much completed although I believe it mostly deals with the Magellanic clouds so may have limited appeal north of the equator. Vol 10 I think is a long way down the writing line as well.. However from the point of view of a vendor that tried to sell these they were a hard sell to people.
Grant you might try asking Martin Meredith who has written the Jocular EAA software in Python and I know it talks directly to some SX cameras and uses Anaconda Python. He might have some ideas. See https://transpy.eu.pythonanywhere.com/jocular
Well two things. CUP decided to stop publishing books on amateur astronomy last year and Willmann-Bell have also closed last month. These were two of the few providers of quality books for the amateur astronomy market. I don’t think anybody could call Springer a publisher of quality amateur astronomy books due to the poor quality of the printing/layout and the poor quality of the content of the majority of their books. It seems that we are going to face more self published books.
As always your mileage may vary.
Hopefully next year Wolfgang will bring out his definitive book on Herschel’s observing methodolgy. I know he is still looking for a publisher given the collapse in the quality publishing market for amateur astronomy books.
Yes I had forgotten the O’Meara series and there is some good information in them. Also in the Annals of the Deep Sky series from Willmann-Bell there is extensive coverage of some planetary nebulae, as well as many other kinds of deep sky object.
Hi James, the list I would have is
Webb Society Deep Sky Observers Handbook Vol 2
Night Sky Observers Guide Volume 4
Hynes Planetary Nebulae
Wallace – Visual Observations of Planetary Nebulae – available from Webb Soc
Hartung – Astronomical Objects for Southern Telescopes.
Cosmic Butterflies – Sun Kwok
Eicher – Deep Sky Observing with Small telescopes
Historical
Burnhams
Webb Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes
Smyth – Bedford Catalogue
Deep Sky Wonders – Houston
Could not recommend
Planetary Nebulae and how to Observe Them – too many errors.
Observed from Oxfordshire about 03:10 (BST) as the streamer of cloud to the north cleared. Great view in 7×50 binoculars which I followed until about 03:40. Long tail and the comet appeared a golden colour. Certainly one of the better comet views of late. Shame that the forecast now clouds me out for the rest of the week.
Hi Peter the 90″ talked about was a professional telescope no longer used for that purpose and bookable by amateurs. The other telescopes are amateur ones. I have not heard of anybody in the UK seeing this Having said this of course M87 is a lot higher in the sky for them than it is for us and they have high altitude sites to observe from rather than sea level as we have here. There is a lot of difference with an extra mile of polluted crud on top of you. I suggest that at the next Kelling you try and persuade Andrew with his driven 24″ to have a go.
This Forum post has been deleted.
We remind BAA Forum users of the Terms of Use. This includes a request for users to “be respectful, polite and welcoming to others”
Nice image from Gemini https://www.gemini.edu/node/21240 something for Pete, Nick and Denis to aim for 🙂
Owen
Try using something like SkyTools that will generate a list that you than then order by azimuth or whatever. Theer are other planning applications out there as well that may/will also do this.
Owen
The magazine has become increasingly banal, hiring editors with no skills in the area they are supposed to be running. The website is often behind the curve with information and is increasing prone to hyperbole, especially the chap that writes the observing bits. The editor seems increasing detached from the running of the magazine and writes puff pieces.
