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Good idea, Grant. If you do do a video, you might want to turn the sound off at those tricky points 🙂
Certainly the transparency over the last few nights has not been 100% in this part of Cheshire. Something like a very thin veil that means the sky lacks that sparkle. this shows up in my CCD images as a high background. Even this morning the sky, though blue, lacks that deep blue.
This reduces the naked eye limiting mag, although Megrez has always been clearly visible to me.But I suspect this is a meteorological situation independent of lockdown
I too am sceptical about those V-band variations in the KWS, Robin. In spite of the tight errors bars.
The interesting thing is there whilst there are many photometric surveys of faints stars, there are very few surveys of bright stars like Megrez.
I think we should all take a leaf out of Alan’s book (me included!) and look up at the sky with our naked eyes to check if there is something out of the ordinary. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that Betelgeuse was observed to be dimming.
These are excellent videos. Many thanks to Richard and John for producing them and to Nick for making them available online.
In addition to new observing opportunities, another option might be to write that paper, or other contribution, for the Journal that you’ve been intending to do, but haven’t quite got round to next…..
Paul, another place to look at is Stargazers Lounge for sale.
I think you need to be logged in to actually reply.
Thanks for that Denis.
Actually I was thinking what other opportunities being forced to spend more time at home might bring.
I’ve decided to do a bit more visual observing, for example. Yesterday afternoon I set up a portable 10 cm refractor to look at Venus (which was excellent, but the way). But I left it out so that when I took a break from CCD photometry in the obsy later in the evening, I was able to take in some of the brighter galaxies in Leo and Virgo. It must be years since I’ve seen the likes of M65, 66 and 104. And I’d forgotten just how pleasurable it could be.
Is anyone else making different observing plans in the current situation?
Dear Richard,
excellent blog and thanks for the info about the dust storm.
Might we tempt you to speculate on how the dust storm might progress, if indeed it’s confirmed? I hope you have arranged for there not to be a major dust storm around opposition, unlike last time?
Jeremy
PS: well done to Clyde on his stunning images!!
Hello David,
Good to hear about your interest in DSLR photometry of variable stars. One major application of this technique is in the observation of Eclipsing Binary (EB) stars, especially to measure their times of minimum accurately. The Variable Star Section’s EB Secretary is Des Loughney, so a good place to start is Des’s Journal paper on the subject. Des also contributed to the AAVSO handbook on DSLR photometry, so do contact him if you need to know more. He has a column in every VSS Circular, the latest of which is here (also includes his contact details).
Also, do have a look at James Screech’s members page as it has many examples of DSLR observations.
Hope this helps. And good luck with your DSLR photometry.
Jeremy
Sounds a really interesting and worthwhile project, Eric. I hope you’ll document it and share how you get on with members.
Good luck!
Jeremy
A couple of weeks ago I shared some thinking from Constantino Sigismondi about the current fade of Betelgeuse. He’s written a piece on the recent events from both a professional and an amateur perspective. You can read it in the March edition of AGB News, lower half of page 1 to page 2.
There is an excellent article by Mark on “Supernova Betelgeuse?” on page 10 of the current VSS Circular. Well worth a read!
The star has been gradually brightening since mid Feb and is currently magnitude 1.4. Do keep on observing it until the end of the season.
Constantino Sigismondi has sent me the link to the international workshop on Betelgeuse.
This is a “virtual” workshop in which Most of the speakers are beamed in via telecon, so the quality is a bit variable….
Constantino Sigismondi has sent me the link to the international workshop on Betelgeuse.
This is a “virtual” workshop in which Most of the speakers are beamed in via telecon, so the quality is a bit variable….
Indeed, it’s sloppy calling aurorae “auroras”. I wonder if it has anything to do with the Latin motto being dropped from the new RAS logo.
On the other hand, it’s gratifying to see astronomy featured on Royal Mail stamps.
A workshop was organised by Prof. Costantino Sigismondi in Italy a couple of weeks ago to discuss Betelgeuse’s dimming. I’m told that a video of the event will be posted on its website, but it’s not there yet. Worth keeping an eye out for. In the meantime I have asked Constantino for more info…
According to a very recent paper by Constantino Sigismondi, his analyses of its light curve variously predict minimum sometime between Jan 22 and Feb 1. Time will tell whether reality bares this out.
