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Very sad news. A great character and always fun and interesting to chat to. He must have used hundreds of feet of dexion angle in his constructions – not to mention Reliant Robin back axles!
I built my current 10ft x 10ft roll-off roof observatory about 12 years ago. This was built from the ground up and not based on an existing shed.
For the runners I used angle iron from a local agricultural blacksmith (I live in a rural village, so easy to obtain). I suggest angle rather than channel to avoid side pinching. For the wheels I used 75mm Non Marking Wheels from B&Q, 4 on each side. These are plastic wheels with a hard rubber tyre and 8mm central hole. I though these might fail under regular use so I bought some spares but have never needed to replace them. Reference numbers on the package (whatever these might mean) are H29566 and 9436701. The biggest problem was transporting 20 foot lengths of angle home on a car roof rack. I’ve been very pleased with the observatory and would do the same again.
Good luck, Stewart
My first book, a school prize, I think. Introducing Astronomy by J B Sidgwick. It was that book, along with growing up at the start of the space race, that got me hooked. After that Starlight Nights and, of course, Norton’s. Particularly the earlier ones that opened flat. The little paperback Artificial Satellites by Michael Ovenden, bought on holiday in 1960 on the Isle of Wight for 5 shillings was also a great read.
Sorry I couldn’t join you for a drink Wayne but I hope you find your BAA membership worthwhile and useful. We are all here to help if you ever need any advice on anything astronomical.
Stewart Moore, BAA Council
After days of wall to wall sunshine the cloud today was, i suppose, predictable. Sky clear for ingress with a few bits of high cirrus but raher more expanded con-trails. Observing visually using 300mm f/5.3 Newt changed to f/14.5 by reduced aperture home made Bader filter. Seeing very poor (Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex). Even though knowing where Mercury would appear the limb distinction was so poor I could not be sure I was seeing Mercury until 11:15UT when it was on the disk (I had intended to time first contact). By 11:30UT it was well on the Sun as a jet black disk looking really beautiful. After about 45 minutes I got bored… so had lunch. It was not visible in Bader filtered 10×50 bins.
By 14:00UT the seeing had improved slightly but there was more haze around. Sky finally clouded around 15:00UT so stopped observing and did a major spider/ cobweb clearance from the observatory – the first time it had been opened for many months following knee problems.
Geoffrey Perry / Kettering Grammar School would almost certainly have taken this Newsletter. Although the school is long closed I wonder if there was an archive that has been passed on to a local record office.
Good luck in your searches,
Stewart
Here in Thorpe-le-Soken, (east coast) not far from Nick in Chelmsford, the only cloud was at the start of the partial phase where the first 4 minutes were missed. There was some concern at the end of totality, but the cloud melted away almost as soon as it had formed. I found the eclipse very dark (other than the bright southern – IAU – limb). Being colour blind I tend not to comment on colour but my wife, who observed the eclipse with me, thought it ranged from brown to grey to tarnished silver to the colour of dirty washing up water (is that a new colour term?. I continually asked her if it looked red or copper coloured but she said no.
I observed naked eye and with 10×50 bins and even with bins was unable to see Aristarchus. During totality the Milky Way was very obvious as was a naked eye Messier 31. Whereas most birds go quiet during a total solar elclipse I was surprised how much noise a pair of Tawny Owls made during totality. I often hear owls when out observing, but never making this much noise.
All in all an excellent eclipse.
Stewart
Yes, I use the Unihedron (unihedron.com) regularly from my back garden observatory. They are an excellent way of assessing observing sites but the night to night variation from a single site can obviously vary significantly depending on conditions. If you are a deep sky observer searching for faint objetcs they are a good way of checking how likely you will in seeing your target.
Stewart
3 clear nights in a row (although last night involved dodging patchy cloud) so was able to show visiting non-astronomers this naked eye appulse event over 3 nights. They were thrilled to see the nightly movement. Just shows how these simple events can capture the public imagination.
Stewart
Hello Donald,
Once again, welcome to the BAA, and I hope you find your membership rewarding. I’m not a variable star observer (although I do try and estimate the brightness of comets and the brighter supernovae). My particular interest is deep-sky and I was Director of the Section until a couple of years ago. Of course this is not a good time of the year to start deep-sky observing – particularly when you live as far as north as you do, but in a month or so you will have some dark sky to enjoy. Most deep-sky observers want bigger and bigger telescopes to play with and I must admit to going partly down that route myself, but there is a lot that can be enjoyed in small telescopes or even binoculars. Some open clusters are too large to fit comfortably in a telescope view but are ideal for binoculars with their wider field. Also some objects can be visible in binoculars but not in telescopes. The local group spiral galaxy M33 in Triangulum is easy in 10×50 binoculars but very difficult, because of its low surface brightness, in even quite large telesccopes.
Very few people are now doing deep sky observing in small telescopes, so you could really have something to offer (but do expect to get bitten by aperture fever at some point!). If you live in a dark sky area most of the Messier objects should be visible in your telescope and that would make an interesting personal project. And one that I’m sure the Section would be interested in.
If you want to start out in deep-sky observing one book I can thoroughly recommend is Deep Sky Observer’s Guide published by Philip’s. If you are buying secondhand make sure you get the revised edition published in 2013. The author is Neil Bone. Neil was the BAA Meteor Section Director and unfortunately died from cancer a few years ago.
Most amateurs have a general interest in all aspects of astronomy but also find that there is one particular area that interests them the most. If that turns out to be the deep sky then I hope you find it as rewarding as I have.
Clear Skies, Stewart
Hello James,
The latest list I have was publised in 1995 July 31. To be honest it is probably not very useful for your needs as it’s long, very tiny font, and as it’s in in surname order difficult to go through searching for towns. Yes, an online list would be ideal but I doubt if there’ll be one for the reasons stated.
Stewart
