Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Alan,
Yes there are several members who have made the transfer in that direction. Make contact with the BAA Office during working hours (as Dominic’s message above) and they will make the change for you.
Peter
Peter Carson
Membership CoordinatorHi Jeremy,
I use a 15 year old Sbig camera via USB 3.0 and it works OK. Cable lengths up to 5m are Ok if you’re using a USB 2 device on a USB 2 or 3 port but be careful if you move to a USB 3 camera. It won’t work if the cable is longer than 3m or if the cable is of poor quality. I’ve had all sorts of issues with USB 3 camera and cables types and lengths at my remote observatory. (All working fine now)
Peter
Hi Jack,
I built up a library of dark, bias and flat frames for my CCD camera that I reused many times over. Provided your light and dark images are taken at the same camera temperature and duration then darks and bias images can be reused for a long period. I refreshed my library about every year, not that I needed to but just thought I ought to. Flat frames can be reused provided the focus position remains the same and the camera has not been re-orientated or moved in any other way.
I’ve just moved on to a CMOS camera and am re using the darks and flats. Does any have an opinion about the re use of CMOS calibration frames?
Peter
Better luck this morning. I watched this comet rise in binoculars and followed it until daylight. Lovely sight. It was just visible to the naked eye as a point of light.
Very lucky with the weather.
Peter
Hi Nick,I gave it a go. At around 03:00BST all looked good but by the time the comet had cleared the horizon it was behind the only lump of cloud in the sky!
Oh well, back to bed.
Peter
I watched the Venus Moon Occultation this morning from sunny Spain.
See my images here
https://britastro.org/node/22733
https://britastro.org/node/22732
https://britastro.org/node/22731
Venus was brighter than I had expected and is a little over exposed. I couldn’t make the exposures any shorter as the camera was already on its shortest setting.
I operate a meteor camera as part of the NEMETODE network. My camera is aimed NE from my home in SE Essex and the main incoming continental air lane crosses it’s field of view.
Because the detection software can’t distinguish between the movement of a meteor and an aircraft I usually get over 200 false detections a night. Last night I got just 25!!It made this morning’s weeding out of false detections much quicker. Can’t think of many advantages of a pandemic but lack of “sky clutter” has got to be one.
Peter
Three of us from my local atsronomy club went to a fairly dark local site to view the Quadrantids between 04.00hrs and 06.00hrs. The weather was mixed with quite long periods of total cloud cover. Despite the cloud we recorded 49 Quadrantids which I class as a success.
I recorded 41 Quadrantids on my home meteor camera.
I’m a bit tired now!Peter
After a happy hour or two with Astrometry.net and JPL Horizons I’ve come up with these solutions:
Print 2
Comet C/1969Y1 Bennett
1970 May 23rd at around 00.00hrs + or – 1hr UT
Up is 7.61 degrees E of N
FOV 12.8 x 9.21 degsPrint 3
Comet C/1969Y1 Bennett
1970 May 6th at approx 04.40UT
Up is 358 degrees E of N
FOV 13 x 9.18 degPrint 4
Comet C/1969Y1 Bennett
1970 May 4th at approx 01.15UT
Up is 358 degrees E of N
FOV 13 x 9.18 degWould someone like to check out my conclusions?
Can’t help with observers though!Peter
A friend and I went to a dark site at 4am for around 70 minutes. The sky was a perfectly clear on our arrival but it soon degenerated into patchy cloud then clouded over completely and started raining about the time of the predicted maximum.
I did see a couple of bright sporadics and one very bright meteor through the clouds that could have been an Alpha Monocerotid, its path was about right but no stars were visible for reference. It must have been bright to have been plainly visible through the clouds.
My meteor camera didn’t pick up anything.
Peter
Hi Tim,
I can’t help you with an observatory visit I’m afaid but would like to make a comment.
I was considering the purchase of a pulsar dome some time ago but decided the opening aperture was too narrow and didn’t go far enough over the zenith.
Other dome manufacturers provide much wider opening slot apertures and go further over the zenith so are more useful if you’ve got a telescope with a piggyback guide or second scope.
Just thought I’d say!Peter
Here’s my image of the transit using a Motorola phone held over the eyepiece of BAA member Dave Smith’s 75mm refractor.
Thanks for passing on the good news. At one time it looked like it would get bulldozed by greedy developers. That would have been a crime.
An excellent observation. Luck plays a part but so does knowing what you’re doing! Unfortunately like Alex I was under cloud. Hopefully there will be someone in the NEMETODE group with clear skies to provide data that will help will an orbit.
Very well done.
Peter
I agree the weekend meeting in Armagh was excellent, thanks to the organisers and attendees. The private tour of the observatory was a highlight which I followed up with a trip south to visit Birr. (In the pouring rain!) It was very interesting to see the work that linked the two sites.
Peter
Hi Jack,
Looks like a very attractive observatory facility and worth the trip.
So you’ll be all fired up for the Spectroscopy software training workshop on the 24th Aug.
Peter
I take flats, made up of about 50 averaged images, each time something in the optical train changes, like moving the camera or a new blob of dust appears or I use the camera at a different set tempetature. I redo the flats if the season changes but nothing else has changed. However apart from that I keep using the same ones. I’ve experimented and can’t find any decernable improvement if I take flats every time I slightly tweak the focus.
Like that helps?
I’ve only got a vague idea how big a Queen size bed is, I assume the Queen needs a bigger bed than the one I sleep in. I’ve only seen a giraffe at a zoo when I was a kid and that’s a distant memory.
I’ll stick with metres, kilometres and miles, I know how big they are.
Fortunately where I live an observatory is considered permitted development by the Local Authority providing it’s single storey with maximum eaves height of 2.5 metres and maximum overall height of four metres with a dual pitched roof or three metres for any other roof.
I had planned to elevate my observatory in the centre of the garden which would have made it taller than 3 metres so modified my desires. Unfortunately my wife’s conditions required that the building not be on view from any window at the back of the bungalow, which was a far more serious constraint. Our garden does extend around one side of the properly so that was the only “permitted” location. This placed it in amongst the greenhouse and other sheds which was not ideal because they caused restrictions on the amount of sky viewable, but there it was erected. However, that was 25 years ago, now most of my neighbours either have bright garden floodlights or illuminate their gardens at night so having the observatory tucked away in the shadow of other buildings has proved very useful indeed.
I have since thanked my wife for being so farsighted!
