Richard Miles

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Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 94 total)
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  • Richard Miles
    Participant

    Matt,

    Well then where do I start??
    I met Prof. Brian Cox at a BBC event in London to celebrate 55 years of The Sky at Night and strangely enough I mentioned to him that my school prize in 1963 was The Observers Book of Astronomy, which I read from cover to cover during a train journey heading off on holiday that year. He of course mentioned his encounter with ‘TOBOA’ which might also have been in 1971 like you. So you, me and Brian C. have that one thing in common!

    I cut a lot of the colour plates out of TOBOA (together with some from the non-PC “Boys Book of Astronomy” by Patrick) and stuck them on the front cover of my school scrapbook, which I carried around with me to the various lessons. I still have it somewhere ….

    in reply to: 1429 Pemba lightcurve #620725
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Thanks Wayne – I saw your latest note on ARPS’ groups.io
    This asteroid is well placed for evening sky observation so we should keep observations going over the next month or two at least.

    Richard

    in reply to: 1429 Pemba lightcurve #620703
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Thanks Wayne for flagging this need.

    A few questions – given we are December 12, can you indicate at what Phase value that corresponds with for the two possibilities?

    Another is the magnitude system used. The plot does not show this. I imagine it is either V, R or G?

    Cheers,
    Richard

    in reply to: Dark Skies – General Interest #619615
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Paul, That ‘node/12028’ link took me to: ‘https://britastro.org/2018/finding-the-way-part-1’. Is their a typo in your last note of October 10?
    Richard

    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Read all of the article – fascinating accounts of the life of these two ladies. Well done to you and to the Historical Section. The article also helps keep the BAA’s name in the public eye and helps our mandate to highlight the roles of women in astronomy, hopefully encouraging others to sign up as members of the Association.

    in reply to: Variable Star Section Meeting, Sept 2 #619053
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    A meeting video will be appreciated by me too.
    See where folk are up to VS-wise.
    Richard

    in reply to: A possible cosmological paradigm? #617550
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Good to have the two Paul’s potted descriptions of facets of cosmology. Makes for a nice read on a Saturday evening!

    Richard

    in reply to: Comet 29P occultation success from GB #617358
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Thanks Tim.

    I have updated our MISSION 29P News page to illustrate what was found. See:
    https://britastro.org/section_information_/comet-section-overview/mission-29p-2/mission-29p-centaur-comet-observing-campaign

    Richard

    in reply to: Bob Mizon #617230
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    David – What a tale! – I know that windy road well but had not realised that you and Bob were joint partners in crime over there. very nice. If only Bob were here to give his side of the story!

    in reply to: Bob Mizon #617220
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Thanks Howard, David, Paul, etc. on recollections of Bob.

    Whenever local lighting issues came up, Bob was always the person we relied on for guidance and wisdom.
    I feel that the UK and anyone with aspirations to improve the lot for nature and dark skies have lost one of the country’s leading ambassadors for dark skies.
    Who amongst the younger folk will pick up the baton and run with it like Bob has done these past 30+ years?

    in reply to: Dark Sky Plan #617219
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    All the talk of saving the environment and that’s what it usually seems to be just talk.
    People action’s tend to obey some other law, by which they see little if any obligation to change what they do themselves that may have a bearing on societal aspirations. Or in many cases people know not what they do!

    Are young people in schools made aware of this issue by their teachers, I wonder?
    I’ve seen this:
    https://greenspacedarkskies.uk/learning/

    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Alex – Well done for trying. At least you didn’t miss a positive from your observing site!

    I have had two similar experiences; one when a few minutes before the predicted time, a cloud appeared from nowhere in a clear sky and prevented any timing. And another occasion when I had to travel 12 miles to get to my observatory so by the time I got there the sky had started to cloud over badly. I set up and managed to have enough sightings of stars to set up pointing the telescope in the right direction and, low and behold, some minutes before the due time a sucker hole appeared allowing me to achieve a timing.

    Richard

    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Thanks Nick for monitoring this event. The weather forecast was borderline and with such a low altitude it was likely to have been affected by clouds towards the local horizon. That’s what happened with Alex Pratt just 3 minutes before the predicted time but I must say I did not expect Alex to have a clear sky full stop. I see that Phil Denyer also recorded a negative observation from somewhere in London. His result may shift the position of the shadow track further west than yours does. The shift has a bearing on the exact prediction for the forthcoming May 21 stellar occultation involving 29P, that will be visible from across Spain but at a similarly low altitude in the sky. See:
    https://astro.kretlow.de/cora/occultations/da2f2c54-7d6c-4f12-a56e-8aeeaf7efd0b/
    This involves quite a bright star (~9.8R) so fast video should be possible provided the sky is clear.

    in reply to: Constellation British Crown #617178
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Cheers Giovanni.

    We have Corona Borealis, Corona Australis, and now temporarily, Corona Britannia !

    in reply to: Using ASTAP for comet measurements #616532
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Interesting – I see there is a fairly bright star mixed up with the inner coma.

    I can do absolute photometry on the coma using a capsule aperture.
    I have first subtracted stars manually from within the coma using SalsaJ on the non-offset FITS image.
    Using AstPhot32 I can go up to an aperture 200 pixels across and many hundreds of pixels in length.
    This way I would not use the offset stack, which I am suspicious of because the stars are not completely eliminated.

    Can you suggest what size aperture encompasses all of the coma – similar to what the eye would record?
    I can make sure I go beyond that with the multi-aperture photometry.

    Richard

    in reply to: Using ASTAP for comet measurements #616347
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Mark – Thanks for signalling that ASTAP might be suitable for comet photometry. Please pursue this and see where it leads.

    Paul, yes – circular apertures are just a special case of elliptical ones, which can also be adjusted for any tilt angle. Interestingly, there is also another form of photometric aperture used by pros called the ‘capsule aperture’, which is like a rectangular aperture but it has a hemispherical form at each end of the narrower sides of the rectangle. It is used for the photometry of trailed images.

    in reply to: Peranso #616282
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Roger,

    Can you expand a bit about your phrase, “to process exoplanet phase curves”?

    The software aims to identify periodicities in data, so it needs lots of data spanning many cycles. It might be helpful if you take everyone’s data going back several years and search for the periodicity that way.

    Richard

    in reply to: For Sale : Astrodon Photometric V Filter 1.25″ #615520
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Steve Arnold may be looking for a V filter. Have emailed him just.
    Richard Miles

    in reply to: Star Count results #610483
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Alex – Yes exactly that. Urban areas that are badly light polluted (i.e. counting 10 or less stars is the criterion) seem to have improved somewhat.
    I suspect that the darkest skies may have deteriorated slightly.
    I have some peripheral involvement with the CPRE Star Count and we know that the weather badly affected reporting in 2022 cf. 2021.
    I know that National CPRE used paid ads on Facebook to help spread the word in 2021 and several local groups also promoted it.
    I intend to get actively involved in promoting the 2023 effort.

    in reply to: BAA Telescope Time? #609537
    Richard Miles
    Participant

    Good to have this update on that particular aspect of remote telescope time.

    Another possibility that Grant is well aware of (he has used this for variable nebulae studies) is the Europlanet Telescope Network.
    Early last month I had an online meeting with several interested parties closely involved in the ETN, and I am planning on progressing the BAA’s further involvement after several weeks delay on my part – That will be an offline discussion once I’ve submitted a report to Council on the subject.

    Richard Miles

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 94 total)