Moving

I'm not physically moving (at least I have no plans to) but this blog is. I have imported the whole lot over to my host in order to keep my website and blog under the 'same roof'. I am using a Wordpress template in any case, so I decided that moving was the easiest option, rather than maintaining two different sites.
Please come and visit! You can find the blog at www.fjastronomy.com.
This one will remain 'live' but not updated, unless some disaster befalls my main site.

Sweet Pea

Last year, while I was in Texas, I got a chance to observe with Jimi Lowrey, Alvin Huey and Jimi's huge 48" dob up at Limpia Crossing, near the ranch where TSP is held. While we were talking over dinner before heading up to Jimi's observatory, Jimi and Alvin told me about a discovery that Jimi had recently made while looking at the Sloan Digital Sky Survey images; Alvin had also been there at the time Jimi found it on the Sloan image. It was a small round green object in Draco and, due to its colour, Jimi nicknamed it the Sweet Pea. The Sweet Pea's status isn't certain at the moment although it's believed to be a planetary nebula. The strange thing about the Sweet Pea is that it is in the galactic halo and not the disk, meaning that it could be an object captured when the Milky Way galaxy consumed a neighbour that came too close. Most stars - and planetary nebulae - are in the disk of the galaxy.

Later that night, May 11 2010, when we were observing, Jimi asked me if I wanted to see the Sweet Pea and, naturally, I said 'yes'.

Sweet Pea, planetary nebula(?) in Draco - The Sweet Pea was round and fairly faint. I didn't sketch it, although I wished I had now! I initially saw it without a filter and it was tough, seen as a round brightening against the sky. It was definitely fuzzy, not stellar and a UHC filter helped a bit. 48" Dob @ 488x. Jimi and Alvin had already seen the Sweet Pea before, so that apparently made me the third person ever to visually see it. That's pretty amazing and what hard-core deep sky observing is about.

So, why didn't I mention the Sweet Pea when I wrote about the TSP way back last May? Well, Alvin and myself were sworn to secrecy as, understandably, Jimi did not want anyone else to nip in and steal the discovery for themselves, until the astronomers up at McDonald Observatory had studied it and confirmed it. It has now been confirmed, using the Hobby Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory (although the co-ordinates are not yet released), is now in the public domain and Jimi was awarded the Lone Stargazer Award for the discovery at this year's Texas Star Party.
I understand that the Sweet Pea was a major target for Larry's 36" and others at TSP this year, although I don't know if anyone saw it or not. It was tough with a 48" under dark and transparent Texas skies, it will probably be impossible with an 18" or 20" from the UK.

Jimi and professional astronomer Steve Odewahn from the HET feature in a program on Marfa Public Radio, talking about the Sweet Pea. Click here to listen. Go to Jimi's Page on Dark Skies Apparel for more about the Sweet Pea and some of Jimi's other observations.

I am hoping to catch up with Jimi and Alvin, as well as my other friends, at TSP 2012...

Summer observing

As those of us stuck at high latitudes know (I'm at 50° North), the long twilights of summer aren't that conducive to deep sky observing. When it does get 'dark' it's only astronomical twilight as the sun is less than 18° below the horizon. But while it may not be good for the really faint fuzzies (and here, I admit that webcam users and imagers have an advantage over us eyeball-only types) it's still dark enough for the bright DSOs. Even Messiers you've seen countless times before are worth repeated looks and, as it is really the only observing you can get during summer at these latitudes, it's better than nothing.
The good news is that sunsets started to get earlier from July 1st and from the 16th true darkness returns, only for 36 minutes on the first night but the hours of darkness soon get longer. With a reasonable 30-day forecast ('reasonable' meaning average for this time of year - warm sunshine, some showers, average/slightly above average temperatures), I should hopefully get in more observing later this month, good news as I am hoping the new 18" will be finished in around 3-4 weeks' time.
I did a little observing last night, going after the supernova in M51, which is still on show, and a little open cluster-hunting in northern Cygnus. There are several on the Herschel II list and real little gits they are too. NGC 7031, NGC 7067 and NGC 7082 were on my list as well as the bright nebula NGC 6857. I also took a look at M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra.


My notes are as sparse as the clusters themselves were!


Date: 2nd July 2011
Conditions: Cloudless, cool (12° C/53.6° F), some dew
Seeing I-II (later)
Transparency: II
NELM: Around 5.5-5.8 due to the astronomical twilight. Definitely less than 6.0. Milky Way visible all the way to Sagittarius but lacking contrast
Equipment: 12" f/5 Dobsonian; Televue Panoptic 22mm (69x), Televue Radian 8mm (190), Televue Radian 5mm (304x)

SN2011dh in M51 has got a little brighter recently. It was definitely easier to see than last time but that's probably as much to do with no Moon in the sky as it is to do with the brightness of the supernova - M51's spiral arms were certainly easier to see this time out. I didn't make a sketch this time.

NGC 7031, open cluster in Cygnus - Small and quite poor. Compressed. 69x, 190x
NGC 7067, open cluster in Cygnus - Faint, adj to 9th mag star. In rich surroundings. 69x
NGC 7082, open cluster in Cygnus - Scattered, large, cluster. In rich area. Not that great and looks more like a richer portion of Milky Way. 69x

I'll come back to these on a darker night, and the same goes for NGC 6857 which I looked for, a little over-optimistically, but didn't see. It was at this point, around midnight, that the observing was interrupted by the kids in a house the other side of the footpath putting an insecurity light on, which encroaches on our garden - although it's worse in winter because of the lack of leaves on the hedge and trees. They'd gone out into the garden do do some camping (I assume they were camping as I heard what sounded like a tent being put up and a tent zipper being opened and closed) and obviously wanted to see what they were doing. I wish they'd used torches though. I decided to pack up, an hour earlier than I'd intended, as the light was a nuisance - and I didn't want to disturb them with 'funny noises' from across the way (it's strange how loud switching eyepieces and moving around can be in the dark) and, more importantly, I didn't want them disturbing me!
At least, when I get the new scope, it will be easier to move to another location in the garden, as it will break down and have wheelbarrow handles on it. I'm intending to move my observing spot further down the garden, although the 'observashed' will remain where it is, although I can move around depending on where I am looking at the time.
I shoved the 12" back into the shed and closed the doors on it. This morning, when I went up there to put it away properly, I found I'd left the Telrad switched on. Fortunately, a Telrad reticle uses up hardly any power so the batteries were far from flat. It's not the first time I've left a Telrad on and I guess it won't be the last!

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Collimation's one of those weird things that has a reputation for being awkward, annoying and downright difficult and it's viewed almost as being akin to witchcraft, with 'The Knowledge' being available to only a select few individuals. However, observers need to know how to collimate their scopes properly in order to get a decent image in the eyepiece and to achieve focus at high magnifications. There's no real risk of buggering it up as the mirrors, even if they end up miles out of alignment, can easily be put right again. My current scope, a 12", is a real git when it comes to going out of collimation and I have to fix it before each and every session. I am hoping my new 18" won't be as temperamental.
For me, cleaning the mirrors holds far more trepidation than merely aligning the things. That's where things can really go wrong...I've managed to scratch a mirror attempting to clean it in the past.

For those who can't quite 'get' collimation - and in the past I have been among those people - check out the brilliant video tutorial on the website Andy's Shot Glass, which explains visual and laser collimation, simply and perfectly. Click here to see it. I have no association with Andy or his website but it's the best and most simple explanation of the process I have ever seen. Just reading about the process doesn't make it immediately clear and it may take several re-reads in order to make sense of it; seeing it, though, makes it much clearer. There are loads of websites which offer help with collimation, and there are threads about it on Cloudy Nights, but nothing is as helpful as actually seeing something demonstrated such as in the video.
The way to do it (and the best way for a lone observer such as myself) is to use the sighting tube to centre and tilt the secondary mirror, then use a laser collimator to get the beam right into the centre of the primary. Then you go to the back of the scope and adjust the primary mirror itself, getting the beam in the centre of the laser's display window, meaning everything is centered nicely when you look in the sighting tube again and your collimation is spot on. It's not hard and takes a couple of minutes. Pure visual collimation without a laser is more awkward, as that requires two of you to perform the procedure, unless you have arms like Mr Tickle, which most people including me, don't!

Visit to Cambridge

I was asked to do a talk at the Webb Deep Sky Society's AGM, about my 'Experiences at the Texas Star Party'. The meeting was originally scheduled for December 2010 but, thanks to deep snow and dangerous travelling conditions, it was postponed until 18th June 2011.
I arranged to travel up with Don Miles, who met me at Portsmouth's Wightlink Gunwharf Terminal. It was an early start, as Cambridge is a three hour drive, at least, from the South Coast. After an uneventful drive up, with a brief stop at Clacket Lane Services, we arrived at Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy at 0930. I hadn't been to the Webb Society annual meeting since 2005, when it was held at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, simply because of the awkwardness of getting to Cambridge, where it's been held ever since, and back in a day from the Isle of Wight. It's the Solent crossing that makes life difficult, more than anything, as it adds at least an hour to travel times and in the late evening, if you miss one ferry there isn't another for two or three hours. I left home at 0430 on Saturday morning and didn't get back until 0300 this morning, but despite the negatives of the location from a logistical point of view, the IoA is a lovely venue and has plenty of astronomical interest - not least the historic telescopes in the grounds and spectacular posters of galaxies, planets, nebulae and clusters lining the walls of the Hoyle Building.

The meeting was held in the IoA's Hoyle Building

After coffee and chat with people I hadn't seen in ages, it was time for the meeting to get under way. My talk wasn't until the afternoon, scheduled that way in case of any problems getting to Cambridge. The talks were Wolfgang Steinicke - The M51 Mystery: Rosse, Robinson, South and the Astonishing Detection in 1845 of Spiral Structure; Robert Kennicutt - The (Very...) Improbable Universe; Mark Hurn -  Star Atlases; Martin Griffiths - New Developments in  Planetary Nebula Research; Andrew Robertson - Telescopes and their Capabilities; then me with Experiences at the Texas Star Party and finally David Ratledge - New Developments in Astrophotography.
Of the talks, my particular favourites were Wolfgang and Andrew. Martin was also very good. Andrew's talk was right up my street, with plenty of pictures of large dobs and his sketches, as he is purely a visual observer but I will disagree with his assertion that we visual observers are a dying breed, though! Andrew is a member of Norwich Astronomical Society and they sound like a very active club with a thriving deep sky observing section. Not only that, they mostly have large dobs of between 16 to 24 inches, with one person with a 'minnow' (my description) 14 incher - a few years ago I wouldn't have described a 14" scope as a 'minnow', such is the rapid pace of telescope development - and are among the most active and keenest deep sky observers in the UK. As a committee member of a local society struggling to get our own membership off of its collective arse and out observing, it sounds perfect to me and made me wish I lived in Norfolk - I'm envious! Later, in conversation, Andrew claimed to me that Norfolk has better skies than the Isle of Wight. They're probably a bit drier (depending on the season, our problem here on the island is often sea fog which wipes out the southern horizon as seen from the southern coast) but I doubt they're darker although it does depend on local conditions at any given time.
My own talk went well, I was more fluent than I thought I would be but when you're speaking to like-minded people it's easy. Certainly easier than practising the talk on uninterested relatives and bewildered pets! I even managed to get laughs with stories about skunks and hazards.

I got outside and walked round the grounds at lunchtime. I joined a group having a look round the telescopes but we only had time to see the 12" Northumberland refractor before having to go back inside for the afternoon session.
Here are some photos of the grounds and domes (excuse the poor photos, I was using my Samsung compact whose image quality is not the best).

Statue of Fred Hoyle

Northumberland telescope dome

12" Northumberland refractor

Close up of focusser and eyepiece. Note brass fittings - including the eyepiece! An Ethos or UWA would look totally out of place here. To observe at or near the zenith the observer needs to lie down - sounds like my kind of observing!

Diagram of the 12" Northumberland telescope

Picture of the original Northumberland dome

The observatory housing the 8" Thorrowgood refractor; the pillar at right is one of several for Cambridge AS members to mount scopes on for public observing sessions.

The Institute of Astronomy Observatory Building, which now houses the Library.

There were a few vendors at the meeting, among them Cambridge University Press, Green Witch, a secondhand book dealer (who lost a potential customer when he said 'Faith, Hope and Charity' on learning my name. It may sound trivial and an overreaction but it is guaranteed to piss me off every time someone says it, especially when you've heard it for what seems like 54 billion times since early childhood! Don't do it, it's old, boring, unoriginal and insulting. How would people like it if I made fun of their name? 'Scuse the rant!) and the Webb Deep Sky Society themselves.
I was tempted by Wolfgang's book Observing and Cataloguing Nebulae and Star Clusters but was put off by the retail price of £90. The 'show special' was £72 but that was still very expensive so I will wait until I have a bit more disposable income. I am also probably going to get Philip S Harrington's Cosmic Challenge at some point as it looks like an excellent book.
I did, however, buy the Webb Archive DVD which has scanned copies of every Quarterly Journal and Deep Sky Observer since 1968. It also contains the Observing Section Reports. As for the OSRs, I have quite a few back copies of these but when I saw the IoA was offloading two bound volumes of them for a fiver, as part of a clearout of the Library, I couldn't resist them and snapped them up before anyone else could, so they're now sitting happy and loved on my bookshelf. The Library was also getting rid of the Millennium Star Atlas for whatever offer you made but, as it wasn't just the Millennium Star Atlas but the entire Hipparchos Catalogue, I decided against it. Despite being sorely tempted, there's no way I could have carried that lot on and off the ferry!
Something else that came out of the meeting was me agreeing to revise and update An Introduction to Visual Deep Sky Observing. I wrote the original in 1998 and a lot of it is now dated and in bad need of revision. I plan to rewrite a lot of it, plus add more content, including more sketches and photos. I also have another Webb book project (as editor, rather than author) in the planning stages, of which more nearer the time.

When the meeting finished and we'd packed up, the committee and speakers headed for a local pub in Girton for a meal and chat, eventually going our separate ways at 2130. Don and I headed back to Portsmouth, timing it so I didn't have a long wait at Gunwharf. After a mercifully brief wait (it was raining, the Wightlink waiting room smelled bad and there was a tramp asleep on the seats inside! I don't want to be rude but I don't think the tramp and the smell were unconnected!), I got the 0130 ferry home across a stormy Solent, collected my car from Fishbourne ferry terminal and got home just before 3 am.

It was an enjoyable day and it was good to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a while. Out of the people I have known for years I'd only seen Owen Brazell since 2005, at the Isle of Wight Star Party, and this May's VAS monthly meeting when he was the speaker. I would like to go next year, but I will definitely have to sort out more sensible travel arrangements because leaving home at 0430 one morning and not getting home until 0300 the following morning is just stupid. Next year, I will see if I can stay with my sister in Newbury for a couple of nights and go from there, rather than a round trip crammed into 24 hours.
Many thanks to Don for the lift up to and back to Cambridge from Portsmouth. It was a pleasant trip, where we talked about astronomy, life in general and cricket, of which I am also a fan. Don's involved with women's cricket, as photographer, selector and chairman of Sussex Women's Cricket Association. I am more of a fan of the men's game, especially Hampshire and England, but it was interesting hearing about the women's game.

After my blog post about how the UK weather isn't quite as bad as often perceived, it's done nothing but rain and blow a gale since early June and May was also fairly unsettled. I think we can blame Owen for this, as he's bought a 22 inch Obsession UC! Oh well, summer is yet young and June is often unsettled - and is probably the best month to have rotten weather as it's not much use for observing thanks to the twilight!

Supernova SN2011dh in M51

Despite my knee problem, I decided to get the scope out and look at the supernova in M51. I didn't want to wait until the knee was better (it's improving all the time) or until the Moon was out of the way as the supernova might have faded by then and I didn't want to miss it.

Date: 8th June 2011
Conditions: First quarter Moon, all-night astronomical twilight. Milky Way visible. No dew, breezy.
Seeing: II
Transparency: II
Equipment: 12" f/5 dob. Televue 22mm Panoptic (69x), Televue 8mm Radian (190x), Televue 5mm Radian (304x) and Televue 3mm Radian (507x)

I observed the supernova under less-than-ideal conditions, thanks to first quarter Moon and the all-night astronomical twilight we're cursed with at this time of year - and I have certainly seen M51 better than this. However, the Milky Way was visible and the transparency and seeing were both good. The supernova was best seen at medium to high magnifications. It wasn't immediately obvious but after a minute or two with averted vision, popped into view as an extra star. I made the sketch without a photo to guide me and checked it against a photo of the supernova's position later.
The best views were at 190x and 304x. The view at 507x was terrible, it was just smeared all over the place.

The supernova is arrowed on the sketch.

You what?

*I had made a post under this title yesterday, but I accidentally deleted it when trying to delete something else! So here it is again, or what I can remember of it*

Being less than mobile recently, thanks to a knee injury, I have been doing a bit more reading than usual. I have been looking through my collection of Deep Sky Magazine and an article by Jeffrey Corder in DSM #6 Spring 1984, titled 'Observing Low Surface Brightness Objects', contained a sentence that caught my eye. The sentence in question read: "The reason old Reverend Webb described M33 as "Large, faint, and ill-defined" was more because his notoriously damp homeland of England is a generally poor site than because M33 is especially difficult".
Er, "...generally poor site"? That's a sweeping statement if ever I saw one and, like all sweeping statements, is actually not entirely true. Okay, England isn't great, but neither is it a 'generally poor site' and, apart from the north-west, a lot of it isn't 'notoriously damp' either, especially in the south.
Arizona is 'great', West Texas is 'great' (when it isn't on fire), the outback of Australia is 'great', Chile's Atacama Desert is 'great' and so on, but most observers - most people - don't live in these observational nirvanas, they live in areas that are as cloudy and as light polluted as England, so it does kind of annoy me when I hear and read remarks such as Jeffrey's and 'Soggy little Britain', which an American friend said to me on Facebook recently.

I used to be under the impression that people in the US, especially, had pristine home skies and spent all their spare evenings observing, so I was a little jealous! My visits to the Texas Star Party, and also reading forums such as Cloudy Nights, actually proved otherwise as most people live in areas which are cloudy and/or light polluted. People have to live in or near towns and cities for work, unless they happen to be rich or retired, and really only get dark sky observing opportunities around new Moon if the weather co-operates and they can get out of town for a night or two.

While 300+ clear nights a year would be nice, we don't do too badly here, with over 100 nights a year, give or take a few, that are observationally usable - if we ignore the Moon's phase - most particularly here on the South Coast where high sunshine levels translate into a decent amount of clear nights. I've been keeping a record of nights that are usuable for observing (partly clear as well as 100% clear) and, so far, in 2011, we've had 69 nights out of 155 that have been clear or partly clear, despite the coldest and cloudiest winter for 40 years. That's 44%, not too shabby for a 'generally poor site'. Out of those 69 nights, 52 have been totally clear. 2010 was 46% clear or partly clear (33% totally clear). Anything less than 50% clear goes down as cloudy! 50% clear is usable and I often observe on partly clear nights, as long as the Moon isn't in the way. I have to admit that even I don't observe as much as I could, as it isn't always possible, particularly in the summer when nights are very short and in mid-winter when sub-zero temperatures make it a test of endurance, and at the age of 41 I'm beginning to find that several nights in a row is hard going, particularly when I am also working during the day.

That said, the weather does have a habit of being inclement when there's an astronomical event on. Planning a public session to view an eclipse? You can bet it will probably be cloudy! However, the same goes for the USA, outside the dry and clear south west, and other countries, too. If you plan your observing around weekends because of work, particular dates or events, then there is a risk it will be cloudy or wet, as such a narrow window of opportunity means the perspective will be skewed. It doesn't mean that it's always or even mostly cloudy and wet.
Even the Texas Star Party this year wasn't an observational success, as they were clouded out for all except two-and-a-half nights. Nearby range fires, caused by lighting strikes, haven't helped either. A few past TSPs have been a bit hit-and-miss, too with 1992, 2005 and 2007 being pretty bad.

It's a bit of a ramble but what I am trying to say here is that people tend to criticise England (and Britain in general) rather unfairly, when the truth isn't as bad and it does annoy me, particularly when it often comes from people who are no better off than we are. It's true that we British do love to complain about the weather but as whingeing is a national pastime here (and, yes, I can moan with the best of 'em!), that doesn't mean much, as sunshine and 90 degree temperatures here bring as many complaints from people as any other type of weather! In short, while we don't have the best observing conditions here by no means do we have the worst either. England is probably about average in the grand scheme of things.

Light pollution is more of a menace than clouds. The UK, especially England, is overcrowded and, as such, is quite badly light polluted and we have a big problem here in that respect. Public ignorance is a major factor in this as they tend to think that turning night into day is somehow a 'good thing' and prevents crime. It isn't and doesn't. It's wasteful, adds to carbon emissions and isn't proven to reduce crime - and criminals need light to see, they don't have superior night vision compared to the rest of us!
Local council street light switch-offs, due to austerity measures, have been greated with bleating about 'blackouts' and claims of increased crime (although that's not supported by facts) and one woman in Northamptonshire claimed she fell over in the dark and injured herself. You don't just 'fall over' in the dark unless you're not taking adequate care and using a torch, unless you have a problem. It's the same with pedestrians walking along unlit roads at night - if they wear light or reflective clothing then they have far less chance of being run over, unless they do something really stupid.

The battle against light pollution is slowly gaining some ground with a lot of councils, including the Isle of Wight, beginning to put new LED lamps in. Apparently, these shine downwards and little or no light actually goes into the sky. I have read reports where amateur astronomers in areas where these have already been installed say that there is a big improvement. It's a step in the right direction and, if these lights shine where they are supposed to but the sky remains dark, then everyone will be happy. Light trespass is now an offence, so badly shielded and directed security lights have to be adjusted if a complaint is made.

Returning to Jeffrey Corder's article, as for M33 itself from here it's certainly large but it's not a hard object to see. It's a naked-eye object on a good night from here and is not that faint or ill-defined, being a nice sight in binoculars. Telescopically there's lots to see such as HII areas and, with a large enough scope, globular clusters.
Rev. Webb's impression of it was more likely down to the quality - or lack of it - of his scopes rather than any shortcomings in the quality of his sky. I daresay that telescopes back in 1984 were superior to those of the 1800s, which was Webb's era.

The sky is clearing, the good weather is returning...

...and I can't observe thanks to having done some damage to my left knee. It got twisted round at an unnatural angle yesterday morning and I felt something snap inside accompanied by an excruciating pain at the same time. I decided to ignore it in the hope it was nothing serious only for it to get worse and keep me awake last night. So, it was off to A&E this morning for them to take a look. I was in there four hours and, out of that four hours, I was actually only being seen by a member of staff for a grand total of about 10 minutes.
Anyway, when I eventually got seen, they X-rayed it, proclaimed it to be a possible ligament or cartilage tear and sent me on my way with crutches (which have to be the work of diabolical forces, I hate crutches), instructions to keep the knee up and an appointment to see a specialist next week.
This week has not got off to a brilliant start, I already have a slight bad case of the 'I wish I was somewhere else, that somewhere being the TSP' blooz and now this. It also means I can't work this week and no work means no pay. Anyway, I'll keep off it for a few days and see what happens.
Still, it's probably the best time of year to do yourself a mischief - nights are too light for any serious observing, and I was only planning to do some sketching of the brighter Messiers and DSOs anyway. Knee damage definitely rules out using the big scope but I can probably still do something with my little scopes and binoculars. Small scopes can go in bags, although I don't know what can be done about carrying my tripod outside...I must have a spare camera strap somewhere.

While feeling sorry for myself this afternoon, I browsed through some of the astronomy stuff I have gleaned from the net and other sources. There's plenty of material for observing projects when I want a change from the Herschel 2500. I've downloaded some of the TSP observing lists and I already have Larry Mitchell's Advanced Observing Lists on computer and in a paper file I brought home in 2008. I am getting an 18" f/4.5 dobsonian from David Lukehurst, thanks to a tax rebate a couple of months ago (that paid half the cost and my aunt is lending me the other half), so I have a good chance of doing Larry's lists, apart from the stuff that's too far south to be easily seen from here. An interesting project would be to sketch each of the objects on the 'easier' lists. Ok, I won't get an 'observing pin' for it, as the lists have to be completed in situ at the TSP, but it'll be a fun project to do.
The dob, by the way, should be completed by the end of July, just in time for the return of the dark skies after mid-summer. Like most deep sky observers, I have always wanted a big scope >16 inches. Life got in the way of me getting one last year, as the savings I had needed to be spent on something else but the chance came round again, thanks to the tax refund and my aunt lending me money, and I took it.