This was taken with a Panasonic Lumix GF3 Compact System Camera @ 42mm, F6.3 Exposure 6secs at 800ISO.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Venus Moon Conjunction
Got a great image of the crescent Moon, Venus and Jupiter(top left).
This was taken with a Panasonic Lumix GF3 Compact System Camera @ 42mm, F6.3 Exposure 6secs at 800ISO.
This was taken with a Panasonic Lumix GF3 Compact System Camera @ 42mm, F6.3 Exposure 6secs at 800ISO.
New Meade Telescope Series LX80 and LX800
Meade have produced a new series of telescopes LX80 and LX800. First impressions of the LX800 at Astrofest this year, it looks as though Meade went back to the drawing board and had a complete rethink in what a telescope mount should look like.
The LX800 is a heavy duty mount that does not come cheap, it is almost $6000 (£6000). It comes with a built-in CCD camera which assists with the aligning and high precision tracking called StarLock(TM).
For more details see the Meade website. http://www.meade.com/lx800.
The LXD80 on the other hand is designed for the intermediate astronomer. Prices start from $799 (£799). The design is based upon what I can only describe as a 'square block'. The iOptron is similar in design.
The mount can be elevated at an angle to turn it from an altaz mount to an equatorial. The Meade AudioStar(TM) is included.
These telescopes are certainly a far cry from the LXD series which have been going for ten years. It will be interesting to see how many telescope owners will swap their old LXD/ETX models for this one. I am certainly considering getting the mount alone which is available. For more details see http://www.meade.com/lx80
Check out a preview of the LX80 on YouTube.
The LX800 is a heavy duty mount that does not come cheap, it is almost $6000 (£6000). It comes with a built-in CCD camera which assists with the aligning and high precision tracking called StarLock(TM).
For more details see the Meade website. http://www.meade.com/lx800.
The LXD80 on the other hand is designed for the intermediate astronomer. Prices start from $799 (£799). The design is based upon what I can only describe as a 'square block'. The iOptron is similar in design.
The mount can be elevated at an angle to turn it from an altaz mount to an equatorial. The Meade AudioStar(TM) is included.
These telescopes are certainly a far cry from the LXD series which have been going for ten years. It will be interesting to see how many telescope owners will swap their old LXD/ETX models for this one. I am certainly considering getting the mount alone which is available. For more details see http://www.meade.com/lx80
Check out a preview of the LX80 on YouTube.
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Astrofest 2012
For images of the event click here.
I attended both days with tickets for all four lecture sessions so I could cherry pick the lectures I really wanted to see. In the end I managed to see at least two lectures from each session, including the whole of the Saturday morning session.
Lectures spanned across both days were split into four sessions. Topics were varied and included Stars and the Sun, Climate Change, Cosmology, Lunar exploration, Extrasolar planets and even the discovery of an object named Hannys Voorwerp! However, I would have to say that Solar astronomy was the most prominent theme in this year's series of lectures.
Lecturers included Noah Pedro, Dr Lucie Green, Dr Stuart Clark, Carlos Frenk, Hanny van Arkel, Dr Allan Chapman and journalist and science popularist Simon Singh. Unfortunately former Member of Parliament Lembit Opik could not make it due to personal commitments.
The quality of talks this year were excellent. I especially liked Dr Stuart Clark's talk giving a historical account of the 'alleged' connection between Solar activity and the changes in Earth's climate. Hanny van Arkel's talk about her serendipitous discovery of a new object in the Universe was an inspiration for all those thinking of signing up to the social network website 'Zooniverse'.
It was the first time I have ever attended a talk by Simon Singh. It was about the Big Bang which by coincidence was the title of one of his books, that was published a little while ago. It was very good and informative...he even did a physics experiment on the stage where he 'electrocuted' a gherkin. His anecdotes were extremely funny especially about his encounter singer-songwriter Kate Meluah. At the end of the talk Simon Singh was signing his books. In fact the queue was so long he (actually I think it was Ian Ridpath) had to run to his car to get more of his books!
As usual early on the saturday afternoon there was a book signing frenzy which seems to nowadays become somewhat of an Astrofest tradition. This year it was the turn of John Mason, Patrick Moore and Brian May. Brian May has made a regular appearance every year since 2007. It took about an hour in the queue to get to the room where the three was signing their books. I got Brian to sign the latest Queen book which celebrate 40years of the band in the music industry.
The sky at night team were also there, Paul Abel, Peter Lawrence and celebrity impressionist extraordinaire John Culshaw who makes a regular appearance on the show as he has an interest in Astronomy. (off topic!) John Culshaw does a great impression of my cousin Robert Peston. So when I introduced myself to him he immediately launched into an impression of Robert! It was genuine pleasure to meet him.
This year I had a list of items I wanted to purchase, unfortunately I only ended up with one item which was a Vixen two inch 42mm Lanthanum wide-field eyepiece. However, I did end up purchasing several books and getting them signed by the authors Dr Stuart Clark, Simon Singh and Brian May.
Once again both days seem to fly by so quickly. On the whole it was a great Astrofest and am already looking forward to next year's event.
Stargazing Live 2012
Dara O Briain and Prof Brian Cox returned to our screens on BBC2 on 16th January for three nights. This time topics included, the Moon, Black Holes and even Aliens!
Guests included a live interview with Lunar Astronaut Eugene Cernan, impressionist John Culshaw, comedian John Bishop, Dr Lucie Green and even Patrick Moore made an appearance, although his was pre-recorded. Reporters were Mark Thompson from Norwich Astronomicsl Society who was out and about in the UK and Liz Bonin who was at the South Africa Large Telescope (SALT).
After each of the episodes there was an additional episode which essentially was a cosy chat amongst the hosts with an audience from an astronomy society standing behind them. A similar format to Top Gear. In fact there were one or two people in the audience standing at the back that I recognise from Astronomy conventions.
Best moment was Brian Cox giving away the answers that Patrick was asking, I dont think he could help himself as comes across very passionate about the subject. I also was very impressed with John Bishop who actually asked pertinent questions which wasn't from of point of view of taking the mickey out of the subject. Astronomy is becoming cool after all!
Overall I found the format and topics better than last year. I also liked the extra episodes. It certainly generated at lot of interest from the public at my local astronomical society during open evenings
Friday, 3 February 2012
Equinox SkyCamp 2011
Bit of a belated report...anyway...
The equinox skycamp took place in the latter half of September 2011. With the weather forecast not looking too good I decided to spend most of the time observing rather than taking images like last year. This year my family and I could only stay during main weekend rather than spend a whole ten days like last year.
Friday night was unfortunately not clear so I could not set up the telescope for polar alignment...having said that as a veteran of these skycamps I can set the mount up in the right direction with just a compass. In fact The mount wasn't far off Polaris when I started to observe on the Saturday evening when was clear enough to allow me to precisely align the mount.
Saturday during the day was sunny and bright. There were fewer trade stands in the yellow field than previous years. However, there were quite a few people in the fields privately selling their equipment, including what I think was an eight inch refractor! I would love to know if someone purchased it, how on earth they got that home. It looked more than three metres long! Talks were going on during the day, including bob mizon .... The prize raffle took place in the early evening. The raffle seems to be getting more popular than ever and the tickets were all sold out by the time the raffle took place. First prize this year was a Nagler kindly donated by David Nagler of TeleVue worth £400.
Saturday late evening was a mixed bag of stars indispersed with patchy cloud. It apparently cleared in the early hours, but by then I was back in the lodge tucked up in bed!
Sunday was the traditional trip to Cromer. It was a sunny day and we did our usual walk by the beach. By the time it was getting dark it looked like it was clouding over again. However, I thought I would stay up a bit longer than the previous night and wait it out. By about 12:30-1am most people retired to their tents. However, in the south-east high in the sky I saw a small clear patch just where Jupiter was poking through. Over a period of an hour or so the clear patch grew until the whole sky was clear. I manage to satisfy my observing craving from the past few days and indulged myself with the delights of the Autumn sky. By three am I decided to call it a night as I had a long drive back to London the next day.
Despite the skies not meeting up to expectations it was a relaxing and enjoyable skycamp. Can't wait for this year's skycamp where I will hope to be doing some imaging by trying out my new Panasonic GF3 compact system camera.
The equinox skycamp took place in the latter half of September 2011. With the weather forecast not looking too good I decided to spend most of the time observing rather than taking images like last year. This year my family and I could only stay during main weekend rather than spend a whole ten days like last year.
Friday night was unfortunately not clear so I could not set up the telescope for polar alignment...having said that as a veteran of these skycamps I can set the mount up in the right direction with just a compass. In fact The mount wasn't far off Polaris when I started to observe on the Saturday evening when was clear enough to allow me to precisely align the mount.
Saturday during the day was sunny and bright. There were fewer trade stands in the yellow field than previous years. However, there were quite a few people in the fields privately selling their equipment, including what I think was an eight inch refractor! I would love to know if someone purchased it, how on earth they got that home. It looked more than three metres long! Talks were going on during the day, including bob mizon .... The prize raffle took place in the early evening. The raffle seems to be getting more popular than ever and the tickets were all sold out by the time the raffle took place. First prize this year was a Nagler kindly donated by David Nagler of TeleVue worth £400.
Saturday late evening was a mixed bag of stars indispersed with patchy cloud. It apparently cleared in the early hours, but by then I was back in the lodge tucked up in bed!
Sunday was the traditional trip to Cromer. It was a sunny day and we did our usual walk by the beach. By the time it was getting dark it looked like it was clouding over again. However, I thought I would stay up a bit longer than the previous night and wait it out. By about 12:30-1am most people retired to their tents. However, in the south-east high in the sky I saw a small clear patch just where Jupiter was poking through. Over a period of an hour or so the clear patch grew until the whole sky was clear. I manage to satisfy my observing craving from the past few days and indulged myself with the delights of the Autumn sky. By three am I decided to call it a night as I had a long drive back to London the next day.
Despite the skies not meeting up to expectations it was a relaxing and enjoyable skycamp. Can't wait for this year's skycamp where I will hope to be doing some imaging by trying out my new Panasonic GF3 compact system camera.
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