2023 January 3

Deep Sky Update – December 2022

Well I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Good New Year. The weather here was not particularly kind for observing, though we did have one good night when I had a go at just a few constellation shots (once the aurora had diminished from the scene).
Hopefully 2023 will be rather more productive, and I am looking forward to getting the C11 running in the observatory again. Though I expect that will be just around the time of our midnight sun period! Anyway, just a brief note this month, but a few things to highlight.

Section Meeting 2023

Speakers are now confirmed for the section meeting in Bedford on 19th March. Exact programme is still to be confirmed, but the line-up will be:

Alan Snook – Renovating a 14-inch reflector
Martina McGovern – Orion and beyond: First Steps in Astrophotography.
Nick Hewitt – Variable Nebula Update
Mazin Younis – In Search for Dark Skies
Prof. Michael Merrifield – Update on the Extremely Large Telescope

Bookings will be open shortly, via Eventbrite. I’ll send a message round with the link. The price for the day will be £7.50 which includes lunch in the school refectory and refreshments.

Albireo – double or binary?

Christopher Taylor sent me an interesting analysis of the stars that make up Albireo which I have uploaded as Deep Sky Note #3. I hope you’ll have a read.
https://britastro.org/section_news_item/albireo-unbound

Annals of the Deep Sky Erratum

If you have been collecting books in the series Annals of the Deep Sky you might be interested in the following Erratum that has recently been published.
https://bit.ly/3yULEHQ

December’s Object of Interest

It was nice to see the images of NGC 2194 that you captured. Above is one from David Davies who managed to nicely capture the star colours.

January Object of Interest – NGC 2683

For January I have chosen NGC 2683, the ‘UFO Galaxy’, in Lynx. It is a nice edge-on galaxy about magnitude 10. It should not be too hard for the visual observer or imager, but it does not seem to be a very popular target, but there are three observations in the Members Albums – here is one of them from Brian Scott.

And Finally

Many thanks to everyone for their observations direct to me as well as those that post to the website. I do try to keep up with all the fantastic images, but inevitably from time to time I might miss something. BTW if you do see any deep sky news stories that might be of interest please send them to me, and I can include them in the update.

Clear skies,
Callum

And finally, finally – And finally, finally – I thought I would include this splendid image from Luigi Morrone of the Cone Nebula in Hubble palette SHO, “captured some months ago and reprocessed.
Setup: C14Edge HD with Hyperstar System F1/9. Camera ASI 1600MM Pro, filters Baader High Speed f/2 Ha, SII an OIII,. Mount Fornax52.”