Amateur astronomy in Cheltenham, Gloucester and environs
The March/April issue of the society magazine Mercury is now available for members to download from the Members | Downloads page.
This months contents includes:
Society member Rik McRae managed to capture the new supernova (now designated as 2014J) recently discovered in M82, through gaps in the cloud last night.
The supernova is quite bright, around magnitude 11.7 at discovery and may be brightening, before it will inevitably dim from view.
But it should be easy to see for at least the next couple of weeks – though a small telescope will probably be needed (6″ or more).
To find M82, you can use this useful finder chart from Astronomy Now, and read more about it here.
It’s with sadness to report that John Dobson passed away yesterday at the age of 98.
He invented the telescope design that became to be known as the Dobsonian – and was a leading light promoting observational astronomy to the general public with his Sidewalk Astronomy.
Always a keen visual observer, having said “I like to look at those photons with my own eyes, not on a picture or screen”.
Some of our longer term members might remember when John came to the society to give our 20th anniversary talk in 2002. You can read the Mercury following that visit by clicking on the cover pic below.
The January/February issue of the society magazine Mercury is now available for members to download from the Members | Downloads page.
This months contents includes:
As demonstrated at the CAS Xmas 2013 meeting, 100,000 Stars is an interactive visualization of our stellar neighbourhood created for the Google Chrome web browser. It shows the real location of over 100,000 nearby stars in 3D.
http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/
Using this 3D map is a bit like using Google Maps. Zooming in reveals the major named stars and our solar system, with associated details.
Note: This does work (slower, with some colour issues etc.) in some other browsers, like Internet Explorer , but you really you need Google Chrome to run this visualisation at its best.
Interesting information on how it was built is at:
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/casestudies/100000stars/
Cotswold AS member Alan Mason managed to capture both Comet 2012 S1 ISON and 2013 R2 Lovejoy this month.
Lovejoy has been a relatively accessible object, being fairly high in the morning sky.
Comet ISON has been a bit trickier, being fairly low. If there are any clear mornings this week, it may be worth trying to observe for ISON in the early morning, 30 minutes before dawn. It will be at perihelion on November 28 (and un-observable for the couple of days around this), and will probably become visible in the morning again from December 1. What will we see then ? Well we just don;t know – it could be spectacular – it could be a damp squib.The only way to be sure will be to get up early and have a look!
The November/December issue of the society magazine Mercury is now available for members to download from the Members | Downloads page.
This months contents includes:
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.