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14 December 2023 at 3:41 pm in reply to: Photo of Sir Patrick Moore meeting Shane McGowan of the Pogues (RIP) in 1971 #620758Richard MilesParticipant
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 ….
Richard MilesParticipantThanks 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
Richard MilesParticipantThanks 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,
RichardRichard MilesParticipantPaul, 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?
Richard10 September 2023 at 1:07 pm in reply to: Article in today’s Observer about BAA pioneers Annie Maunder and Alice Everett #619092Richard MilesParticipantRead 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.
Richard MilesParticipantA meeting video will be appreciated by me too.
See where folk are up to VS-wise.
RichardRichard MilesParticipantGood to have the two Paul’s potted descriptions of facets of cosmology. Makes for a nice read on a Saturday evening!
Richard
Richard MilesParticipantThanks 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-campaignRichard
Richard MilesParticipantDavid – 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!
Richard MilesParticipantThanks 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?Richard MilesParticipantAll 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/8 May 2023 at 12:44 pm in reply to: Two interesting occultations within 24Hrs: evenings of May 06/07 #617215Richard MilesParticipantAlex – 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
8 May 2023 at 10:35 am in reply to: Two interesting occultations within 24Hrs: evenings of May 06/07 #617212Richard MilesParticipantThanks 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.Richard MilesParticipantCheers Giovanni.
We have Corona Borealis, Corona Australis, and now temporarily, Corona Britannia !
Richard MilesParticipantInteresting – 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
Richard MilesParticipantMark – 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.
Richard MilesParticipantRoger,
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
Richard MilesParticipantSteve Arnold may be looking for a V filter. Have emailed him just.
Richard MilesRichard MilesParticipantAlex – 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.Richard MilesParticipantGood 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
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