Category: News

Postscript: After some further analysis, Rik has decided he is not now confident in claiming this is an image of the asteroid. What it is, we will probably never know…

Although the weather was generally poor over the Cotswolds for attempts to observe this near earth asteroid on Friday evening – Rik McRae in Gloucester managed to capture one enigmatic frame with a trailed object – perhaps this could be it!

Rik writes:

I set up my camera with a 50mm lens on a polar aligned tracking mount, pointed it at the predicted path given by the BAA at the prescribed time and fired of 2min exposures for an hour. On one frame through a gap in the clouds, in the right area at the right time and moving in the right direction there is a short streak, where the stars are all round. Nothing else like it shows on any of the other frames due to cloud cover, so I can’t track it frame to frame and prove it, but this is as good as I could manage this evening.

It was with great sadness that the Society received the news of the passing of Sir Patrick Moore.

Many members have met Patrick over the years, and he was a truly inspirational figure in the world of amateur astronomy.

For one member, John Fletcher, it is particularly sad occasion. John had become great friends with Patrick over the years, and was a regular visitor to ‘Farthings’, and became one of his personal carers in Patrick’s later years.

Patrick Moore was a larger than life character, and will be sorely missed.

Our Coordinator, Peter Cadogan, is currently holidaying in Australia, and has now arrived near Cairns for the eclipse.

Peter writes:

It is all a bit iffy for Wednesday, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. There are lots of eclipse chasers here and one astronomer helped me to find my way about the Southern skies last night This is not easy at this time of the year, as the Milky Way is on the horizon and most northern constellations are a bit nondescript as well as being upside down.  But 57 Tucana was magnificent – much brighter  than m13.

This was the view on Monday morning from our beach at 6 am, so the sun is well up. But it’s raining at the moment

Today (October 1st) the new website has gone live.
Most of the content is the same as the old site, but we will have new content and features coming soon.
If you find any problems, or have any comments or suggestions please email webman@cotswoldas.org.uk or leave a comment on this posting.

Congratulations to:

Ian Sibley; winner of the Dan Turton trophy for “best astro-image”.
Angela Cresswell;  winner of the Robin Townley trophy for “contribution to the work of the Society”.