Jupiter and the Juno mission: the amateur’s contribution
NASA’s Juno spacecraft went into orbit around Jupiter on 2016 July 5: the first spacecraft to orbit the giant planet
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Archives
Patrick Henry Hepburn (1873−1929) – Part I: Solicitor, Eclipse-chaser and Major
The life and times of one of the BAA’s most extraordinary Presidents and eclipse chasers is described, including his fascination with the rings of Saturn, his remarkable physical and mental stamina, his complex home life and (in Part II) his tragic demise.
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SN2008S – A new class of optical transient in NGC 6946: an amateur discovery
The purpose of this paper is to bring to the attention of the amateur astronomical community the writer’s discovery of a previously unknown class of object, the significance of which does not appear to have been reported in amateur publications.
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Rømer revisited: A modern estimation of the speed of light from observations of Jupiter’s Galilean satellites
Ole Rømer (1644−1710) is remembered today for establishing, from observations of eclipses of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, that the velocity of light is finite. This paper describes the use of amateur timings of Galilean eclipses observed during 2012−’14 to recreate Rømer’s work, together with a theoretical investigation of the accuracy of such approaches for estimating the speed of light.
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A BAA spectroscopy initiative
Spectroscopy is now a practical possibility for amateur astronomers motivated to produce scientifically useful observations. The BAA is therefore launching
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Recalling the 2003 transit of Mercury
As described in the previous Journal, Mercury will cross the Sun’s disk on Monday May 9. The timings for the
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Gerhana Matahari Total – 2016 March 9
Where does Mata Hari come into this? The famous exotic dancer and courtesan, executed as a German spy in 1917,
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The International Astronomical Youth Camp comes to Somerset
The International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC) first began back in 1969. The camp was the first of its kind, with
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The transit of Mercury, 2016 May 9
On Monday May 9 there will be a transit of Mercury across the Sun’s disk. This relatively rare phenomenon is
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Interim report – Neptune in 2015
This interim report of the 2015/2016 apparition of Neptune is based on observations made by Paul G. Abel (UK), Abdul
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