Having woken at 4am this morning a quick glance through the window showed stars is abundance. There aren’t many things that will get me up at ‘Stupid O’Clock’ but Comet ISON is one of them. However…..the wheels started to come off from the start! The mount decided to loose its alignment model, so did a cold start and tried to rebuild it. Unfortunately, the Red Dot finder batteries were dead, so it took two…
Geminid Meteor Scatter Observations: 29, November – 18, December
Having had a problem with the data collection during the Leonids in November, I’m glad that my Geminid observations over the last two weeks seems to have been successful.As I mentioned in my entry on 3, November, I wanted to use the output from the Plotter rather than the scripted output of SpectrumLab. The reasons for this are : The Plotter output can be set to record a minimum and maximum power reading every…
Observing Session 21, November
Its seems like an age since I was able to open up the observatory and look through a telescope….and I’m right. The 3, November was the last time . Even more amazing was that the technology didn’t go tits up. I fired everything up, slewed to my first star and the target was well within the FOV of a 40 eyepiece. Apparently, I was not the only one who’s first outing for a while went…
What Balmy Autumnal Evenings?
Well apart from one session out at the scope in early September, the weather these last seven weeks has been dire. I’ve got to go back to December of last year when I was only able to get out once during a month. November looks as though it’s going to be even worse, with not one clear night so far. While we have had lots of clear skies during the day, the relatively high…
DIY Radio Astronomy: Perseids 2013
For a number of years, my -not so local any more Astronomy Club – Kernow Astronomers, have held a BBQ on the eve of , or very close to the eve of, the Perseid Meteor Shower. The weather on most of these occasions has generally been poor and at worst we’ve been clouded right out. When it has been clear we have seen a lot of cloud about so have had to resort to…
Observing Session: 3, September
Now, that’s much better. With August now behind us, the transparency seems to have returned and this evening it was good to be able to see some galaxies again.Finishing of all the objects in Sagittarius is still proving to be a problem. I only have M55 to go, but every time I’ve tried to observe it, either trees are in the way, or the ground hugging murk that M55 lies in impossible to make…