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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!
Yes, C/2018Y1 has turned out well, even better that it was discovered by an amateur. I’ve been imaging this one since its discovery. It’s now got too large for the 36’ x 27’ field of view of my 315mm reflector so it’s about time I turned to my 200mm lens and DSLR as I did with 46P.
I could see C/2018Y1 in my 7×50 bino’s two nights ago even with all the light pollution. Here’s my image from the that night.
I’ll check out the 105 images I took during a mostly clear but very frosty night here in Leigh on sea Essex. See my montage below.Even at its brightest I had great difficulty in seeing 46P from my light polluted back garden with binoculars or a telescope, but it was easy to image. There was one time when I ventured to a reasonably dark site and could easily see it naked eye only to come home and then couldn’t find it with binoculars.
46P was a really strange comet that required unconventional observing techniques.
I take the S&T and can’t say I’d noticed.
Perhaps S&T thought the UK and Ireland are constantly shrouded in cloud so wasn’t worth putting them on the map.
Peter
I’m not sure I would have been quite as blunt as Owen, but I do agree that if the BAA is to remain the leading organisation in amateur astronomy it must be careful what it publishes. I’m not suggesting there is anything wrong in John’s observing challenge but in a wider context the BAA’s output does often get quoted in the general world of astronomy. If the BAA publishes something inaccurate, misleading or open to being misconstrued this downgrades the Association and the wider amateur astronomy world.
Perhaps the more expert and experienced amongst us need to come forward and volunteer to assist with what the BAA does?
To get back to the reason John issued the observing challenge, lets all encourage as many observers as possible to hunt out the pup before the chance of seeing it diminishes for the best part of a lifetime. (Seems Gary above is into his 2nd lifetime!)
Peter
Hi Owen,
About a year ago I observed Sirius B visually using a friend’s good quality 200mm APO refractor. It wasn’t easy but it was definitely observable. The refractor I was using had good contrast and colour correction which helped. Telescopes of poor contrast will struggle to show it because Sirius is magnificently bright in any aperture telescope.Peter
My records show I made 281 comet observations of 50 different comets over 72 nights. My worst month was March and the best was August. 72 nights is a lot less than 2017 when I was out on 118 nights.
A clear morning followed by a clear night on the same day counts as one clear night, whereas a clear spell in the evening that spans midnight I count as two clear nights. During last year I changed my observing habit to avoid observing until after midnight because of my neighbours’ nuisance lights that generally go out after they go to bed. This change has probably reduced the number of nights I record as being clear.
I also reported 821 comet astrometric positions to the MPC during 2018.All the best for 2019
Peter
Nick, You must have a good unobstructed SE Horizon to catch C/2018Y1. I worked out that at that AZ I can see down to 12 degs Alt from my observatory. I would have needed to wait until 06.50UT for the comet to clear next doors roof, 10 mins into nautical twilight by which time the sky would have been just too bright… but perhaps I should have tried.
Peter
This morning (2018 Nov 13th) the C/2018V1 is showing a nice long thin tail. My image is showing a tail over 23 arc minutes long extending out the field of view of my camera.I’d been away for a short holiday and was due back Monday evening. My return journey plans were running late but I returned home with time to spare before the event. The sky was lovely and clear and I started scrabbling about making preparations for the observing run only to realise there was too much to set up in the time available.
I then decided to have dinner put my feet up and plan how to make the observatory more pre-prepared for the next similar event.
Oh well.
PeterHello Michael,
I’m interested in the workshop. I’m in the process of setting up a meteor camera, so i’m keen to learn all I can. Please let me know when details of the event are available.
Peter
The LED streetlight change over is complete in my area. I understand the LED type in the lanterns are a mixture of 5700K and 4000K. Most LED manufacturers refer to 5700K as cool white, 4000k as natural and 3000k as warm white. I wasn’t aware of the implications of blue rich light when the change over first started in my area, by the time I became educated it was too late. Unfortunately the LED street lights have a service life of about 25 years so they will probably see me out!!
Hello David,