Amateur astronomy in Cheltenham, Gloucester and environs
Not as big as the originally proposed Overwhelmingly Large Telescope, downsized to 40m (from 100m) the E-ELT looks to be on track for building to commence next year.
At our October meeting, Professor Michael Merrifield of Nottingham University told us all about this planned instrument and some of the science that should be possible with it.
More information can be found on the ESO website.
At our September meeting, BAA Variable Star Section director Roger Pickard will be giving a talk “Making Astronomical Observations”.
The latest edition of Mercury is also available to download from the Members | Downloads page. (password required)
This months issue includes:
Our next meeting is on Saturday 10th August, is a members’ night at which the programme planned is:
1. John Hope – “Path of Sun – 23.4 degrees and all that”
2. Ian Gray – “Apochromatic Refractors”
3. Eddie Carpenter – “Collecting Astronomical Memorabilia”
Break for tea/ coffee and biscuits
4. Peter Cadogan – “VERY recent meteor impacts in the solar system”
5. Callum Potter – “Learning how to set up and use the society’s Celestron C8 loan CST”
Although the ‘holiday season’ the Members’ Night is always entertaining and instructive, so hope many will be able to attend.
Members enjoyed Bob Mizon’s talk last month – ten targets for light polluted astronomers. In case you did not manage to remember them all – these are the ten targets:
Congratulations to Sally Bywater and Bill Beere, winners of the Society awards which were presented at the July meeting of the Society.
Sally was presented with the Robin Townley trophy (for contribution to the work of the Society), and Bill with the Dan Turton trophy for best astro-photograph (considering the equipment available for use).
The July/August issue of the society newsletter Mercury is now available for download. Choose the Members | Downloads page.
Note the password for access has changed. If you have renewed your membership you will have received an email with the new password.
Also available for download on this page is the latest FAS Newsletter.
It was a mixture of Sun and clouds at this years Cheltenham Science Festival.
A couple of lunch-time solar viewing sessions during the week were followed by a very sunny Saturday – Fun Day – where a large number of visitors came to view the Sun by projection and in H-Alpha scopes.
Sadly our Friday night ‘Star Party’ was clouded out, but we had a lot of optimistic visitors to chat with, but sadly no stars or planets to be seen.
Here are a few pics….
Last night (or this morning to be precise) a splendid display of noctilucent clouds was observed from Gloucestershire.
Cotswold AS member James Weightman captured this image from Cirencester. The bright star visible is Capella.
Details:
Lat 51.7N Long 1.9W
Time: 2013/06/03 2:00UT
Az 14 Alt 9 (by ref to Capella at this time)
Photo Canon EOS 7D + 85mm lens @ f/1.2; 0.3secs ISO 640; 2 adjacent photos merged using Photoshop.
Tony Ireland managed to capture the triple conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter shortly after the sun set on May 26th.
