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Andrew’s right to point out the clash. The choice of a meeting date is never going please everyone but in this case many of the potential attendee’s will choose Kelling…..I’m afraid I will!
Peter
Nick, Thanks for posting those pictures of Mike’s instruments. He had some lovely equipment and I do like that brass eyepiece with what I assume are moveable crosshairs or a bifilar micrometer.
Peter
Hi,
I’ve never used USB over Ethernet but I do know some who’ve tried but run into problems.
My observatory equipment is hooked up to a local cheap PC in the observatory and can be controlled via Real VNC by any device on the home wired network or even using my smart phone via the house wifi. Real VNC will enable control over the internet and I have been known to start the observatory going and then monitor it using my phone when I’ve had to go out in the car for a short while.My first observatory PC lasted 7 years and the replacement PC’s power supply blew up after a year but has been going for about two years since. The PC just has a plastic bag over it but no other precautions except that the observatory is regularly dehumidified.
Peter
Hi Lars,
The forced ventilation kit will help move the air around and reduce condensation in humid weather. It will also help flush out warm air after hot days so your telescope will reach night time temperatures more quickly.
However I find I get the most condesation problems when the mount and telescope have been cold for a long period, say after a prolonged period of cold weather, then the weather suddenly warms up. The warmer air carries more miosture and this condenses on the cold metal surfaces and even the optical surfaces. Additional ventilation at this point only makes things worse by supplying more moisture laden air to condense on the cold surfaces. Heat or dehumidification is the only way to resolve this situation. I said in an earlier post that I previously used small tubular heaters to reduce the condensation issues but have recently reverted to dehumidification which works perfectly and for a cost lower that the ventilation kit in your link.
Peter Carson
Hi Dominic,
I purchased an AstroTrac about a year ago without any trouble, perhaps things have changed recently.
I went for the AstroTrac after some research and experimentation with other DSLR star tracking mounts. Many of the small lightweight star trackers are fine for a DSLR and lens up to about 100mm in length. I wanted to use a 200mm lens and found most were just not up to giving really good results. My nearest contender was the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer which was very convenient to use but had a large periodic error which showed up in 200mm lens shots.
The Astrotrac is expensive but you are paying for good engineering…if they still make them.
PeterHi Nick,
For many years I used to run two small 60w tubular heaters located close to the mount and telescope which was covered with a large cotton sheet “tent”. The heaters where controlled by a time switch that put them on for a few hours generally before dawn when the equipment was at its coldest. This worked well in most situations. However in the late autumn when weather conditions can change rapidly between near freezing temperatures to a mild south westerly maritime airstream I still occasionally suffered condensation problems.
Last summer I reduced the ventilation in the dome and installed a desiccant type dehumidifier which I run manually for a couple of hours on occasions when I think the conditions are likely to produce condensation or after I’ve shut the observatory up following an observing run.
Since installing the dehumidifier I’ve not noticed any condensation problems even during weather conditions that would have previously been an issue.
It’s important to purchase a desiccant based dehumidifier as the refrigerant types do not work at cold temperatures. The dehumidifier need not be large and can easily be purchased from most domestic appliance suppliers.
Peter
In 2017 I observed on 118 nights from home. I count observations in the morning and evening of the same day as one clear night but an observing session that spans midnight as two clear nights. In 2016 I only managed 99 clear nights. I don’t keep a record of how many clear nights there are when I’m not at home or doing something else (tut-tut) but I was under clear skies at astrocamps or other observing sessions away from home on 6 occassions last year that are not in my stats.
The best month was a tie between March and November and the worst month was June.
Things have started well this year with a 100% clear sky record…but it is only Jan 2nd!Peter
Attached is my image of PNV J00425895+4126279 taken on the night of 2017 Sept 10th at 22.06UT. I measured its brightness as mag 16.0. R UCAC4
Hi All,
20 years ago I would have said astronomers were not genuine unless they got frozen at their telescopes and had light going into their eyes that had travelled across space for millions of years. Today I still call myself an astronomer even though like Nick and Andrew S my telescope can do its own thing while I’m doing something else. Sometimes the camera never comes off the scope for months at a times.
However I’m best satisfied when I’m out under a really dark sky with my binoculars and and a sun lounger. Perhaps all this technology is really a substitute for a good honest non light polluted night sky.
Peter
I led a party of 13 observers from my local atsronomy club (Castle Point Astronomy Club) to a dark site on the east Essex marshes near Dengie. I was mainly clear when we arrived, but as it went dark and the stars began to show so did the clouds.
We gave up at about 11.00hrs BST as it didn’t look like things were going to improve.
However back at home in Southend I had my all sky camera going and later in the night a few holes in the cloud appeared and I caught two decent Perseids. One at 01.38UT, the same one as Nick recorded from Chelmsford and another 6 minutes earlier at 01.32UT. The hole in the cloud was short lived and the rest of the night was clouded out.
Images attached.Nick mentioned in the previous post that I got some astrometry of C/2017K2 after I arrived home from yesterday’s meeting at
Burlington House. I’ve attached the image I took of the comet in the hope that in 2023 you can all laugh at it whilst gazing in awe at the bright naked eye comet hanging in the sky that C/2017K2 will turn into….maybe!!I remember Patrick giving that talk at Saville row all those years ago…..I must be getting old!
Worth a listen again though.
PeterI’m a regular user of FocusMax. I’ve not had any problems downloading or using it. It does a much better job of focusing than MaxIm or manually focusing the scope. I did have an issue with the last software upgrade which had a bug in it. Steve Brady, its creator, was on the case and resolved the problem within hours.
Hi Graham,
I’m driving down and back on the day…but it’s not as far for me. I’ll see you there.
I might be tempted to an after meeting quick beer.Thanks Callum, I’m usually logged in when I’m browsing the site so obviously wasn’t able to see the link.
I’m happy now.
PeterHi,
A group of us using Andrew Robertson’s Mak-Cass telescope observed Venus at around 15.45hrs yesterday afternoon during an astro camp at Haw Wood farm in Suffolk. Venus was at Inferior Conjunction at the time and I was really suprised how easy it was to see in the telescope set again the pale blue sky.
This was a first for me and something I will remember …thanks Andrew.I have a fibreglass dome and walls containing my 315mm reflector on a Paramount. I’ve got a built in damp proof membrane in the floor and the building is completely watertight. However my dome is not draught proof enough to dehumidify the building, I would be dehumidifying the whole world, so I cover the telescope and mount with a cotton sheet and use two 60 watt tubular heaters to warm the air space and raise the dew point. That works most of the time but occasionally when the ambient temperature warms rapidly I do get condensation on the Paramount and sometimes the telescope mirror, so I should really try to cure that. I leave my PC out in the observatory and have only had one failure in about 10 years.
Here’s my image of 45P taken at the same time as Nick’s (2017 Feb 3rd 06.03 UT), but from my observatory. The comet was only 10 degrees altitude and in all the light pollution and murk over Southend Airport which is about a mile away. From my observatory there is only one small section of sky that I can view down to a low altitude and the comet was nicely placed in it!
I was expecting 45P to be much brighter. Lets hope it improves over the next few days.Here in Essex there were 99 clear dates in 2016. I count clear dates, so a morning and evening observing session on the same day count as 1 clear date, but a nights observing session that spans midnight counts as 2 clear dates. (It would be easier if I used the Julian calendar).
January, February and August tied first with 11 clear dates each, June was the worst with just 2.
I made the largest number of comet observations in November (58) although there were only 9 clear dates, presumably because of the long nights.
I achieved 410 comet observations in total via CCD. Those observations generated about 1200 astrometric measure submissions to the Minor Planets Centre.
