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Alex Pratt

2020 Dec 2
2020 Nov 29
2020 Nov 26
2020 Oct 23
2020 Oct 21
The weather forecast of 'partly clear skies' gave me a glimmer of hope to do some video astrometry of last night's fast flyby of 2020 UA. I got my C11 on its field at around 21:00 UT when the NEO was at an altitude of 16 degrees in the east. Sky conditions were poor and I could only reach mag 13, whereas the asteroid was then mag. 14.6 and moving at 245"/min.
I waited patiently, in case I could get a clear view. By local midnight the NEO had brightened to mag. 14.0, moving at 570"/min, but the sky was fully overcast and remained so throughout the night. Yet another nice target eluded me.
2020 Oct 17
2020 Sep 28
2020 Sep 24
In the early hours of this morning I hoped to obtain some video astrometry of 2020 SW. Mars was a bright red beacon in the SW but lots of menacing dark clouds were moving across the sky and the intermittent gaps weren't very transparent. My C11 was on the right fields but sky conditions in the west were too poor to record the mag. 15 to 14 NEO.
In contrast, the sky to the east had some clearer spells as I watched Venus climb the sky.
2020 Sep 23
2020 Aug 31
Had a busy and enjoyable weekend attending ESOP XXXIX (39th European Symposium on Occultation Projects) which had to take place online via Zoom. Attendance was consistently over 100 with a maximum number of about 114.
PDFs of the talks will be available soon, followed by videos (pending speakers' permission).
2020 Aug 13
2020 Jul 26
2020 Jul 21
2020 Jul 19
2020 Jul 17
2020 Jul 14
2020 Jul 12
2020 Jun 23
2020 Jun 18
2020 Jun 14
CalSky informed me that the ISS would cross the Sun today at 13:29:30 (BST) from my location. I've recorded a few of its solar and lunar transits on previous occasions, so this time I decided to observe it first hand.
The oppressive cloud cover started to break and I set up the 5-inch f/12 Taylor-Mak with mylar filter, 90-degree star diagonal and 25mm eyepiece. This gave me a full disc view. Varying depths of cloud were racing in front of the Sun, which appeared to be spotless. Thankfully, at the appointed time I saw the familiar 'H' silhouette of the ISS take about 0.5s to shoot across the field.
It's nice to do some observing without being detached from the event by technology.
2020 Jun 5
2020 May 25
2020 May 22
2020 May 21
2020 May 17
2020 May 7
Lovely views of crescent Venus in the 5-inch Taylor-Mak at x60 and x167.