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Skywatcher say on their Support pages... Feedbacks are appreciated: app@skywatchertelescope.net Looks like it's time to send Skywatcher some feedback

Same here - but I also find I can't enter the catalog number for Deep Sky Objects such as Messier 32. Is it the same on your phone?

If you've already got Version 1 of any of the apps, you can get the full suite with an additional 25% off - so £71.99 for Photo, Publisher and Designer (plus a bunch of extras). Might be tempting. The only thing that concerns is when they might be thinking of releasing Version 3 (as, once again, there won't be an upgrade path).

The shower is known as the Andromedids, and there's a decent Wikipedia article about them https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromedids

Wasn't that a good evening* at the Autumn AstroCamp! Those walkers really appreciated your showing them the highlights. * though it turned out the only really outstanding evening of the weekend, it was still a great time. I hope you enjoyed the impromptu talk I gave the next evening.

This Friday's talk at the Mid Cheshire Astro Group is being given by one of our best astrophotographers, and you'll be very welcome. We meet at Norley Parish Centre which is near to Delamere Forest. Doors open at 7pm, for a 7:30 start. It's not the closest astro group to Stockport, but it's not too far. Though the M56 can be busy on Friday afternoons. https://www.midcheshireastro.co.uk/ Owen

For those not on Facebook - the dates for the 2024 Spring Astrocamp have been announced as April 6-9th This is the weekend after the Easter weekend. Bookings haven't opened yet - but if you're interested, it's a good one, taking place in the Bannu Brycheiniog National Park near to Crickhowell. No guarantees of course, but the 2023 Spring Star Party enjoyed a rare auroral display. Details, and booking when opened, on the Awesome Astronomy website https://www.astrocamp.awesomeastronomy.com/

if you're a Android user, the DSO Planner app (various versions exist) has a built in voice recording capability as part of its observing list functionality. This allows you to link your recordings directly to the targets. I'm pretty sure that neither Sky Safari nor Stellarium have this direct connection to audio recording available. You'd have to work out your voice to text process at a later date.

We bought next door to Astrofarm and attempted the Messier Marathon from there last spring*. Being at 46° N makes it a lot easier to see the low southern ones. *No great success I'm afraid - we started with some cloud, and then had a lot of dew falling out mid evening, which then tried to freeze up towards midnight. My commitment didn't survive the cold. We'll try again as we're there again next April. This might be useful though - it's a Google Sheets list of the Marathon in order that can make it do-able in a single night. It should be viewable, and you can download a copy for your own use/records - Credit to Dan Machholz who originated the sequence here . https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L2jp_22MnaoI4cD_hnvzZvcM8z2pLOATz35xKsvpAwE/edit?usp=sharing

When I tried to Run the exe (Win 10 machine), I got the 'woah, this might be dodgy' pop up warning, but there is a 'more information' link, and that gives you the 'run it anyway' option to install the programme.

I find they're there anyway - presumably background refreshed from the MPC - at least, I haven't done any downloads and yet, if I search for (for example) C/2023 T2 (Borisov) it locates it. I'm using Stellarium Plus.

If you read the book "First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time" by Emma Chapman, one of the questions that needs to be determined about the very first stars (the Population III stars) is what was the Initial Mass Function of stars formed when the primordial gas clouds collapsed. As there's only Hydrogen and Helium (and possibly a very little Lithium), only 1 molecule (H2) can exist to be implicated in the cooling required to allow collapse. The Initial Mass Function gives the size distribution of the stars that were produced - and the larger the stars that were formed in the first generation of stars, the more rapidly heavy elements can be created and (importantly) dispersed back into the interstellar medium to form the next generation of stars.

Croeso i gymru cymylog (as they say)

The egress was clouded out, but I got a moody view a few minutes later

Told you so! 😃

My tracking wasn't perfect, and my trees were getting in the way, but I just about managed to capture the start of the occultation Occultation 720p 2.mp4

The sky cleared just as I thought I'd not have any chance of seeing it. Now tracking to hopefully capture the egress later

It does seem likely that many of us will struggle to see both ingress and egress, but if you're in the UK in a location where the weather deities aren't paying attention, the Moon will be more or less due South at about 9:20 with an altitude of ~40 degrees above the horizon - the Occultation starts some time between 9:30 and 9:40 depending on where you are.

Thanks for those references. I'd seen mention of Prof Ruggles, but didn't know that he had made so much available online.

I've been asked if I can give a talk on behalf of our club to a group of customers from what you might call a "Crystals and Dreamcatchers" shop. They'll be at a luxury glamping site and amongst their other activities will be Forest Bathing and that sort of thing. It's planned for the summer solstice weekend, so I've suggested a topic on The Solstices and how ancient people responded to it. I'm happy to be able to put a scientific basis to what they're enjoying, and if I can help to put it in a historical human context I would enjoy doing that as well. It so happens that next year is also approaching a Lunar Major Standstill; which is when the Full Moon has its greatest Southerly ecliptic declination (actually in January 2025). This is related to the Draconic Cycle which marks the precession of the Nodes of the lunar orbit around the earth. As a result of it being the summer solstice and the lunar standstill, the Full Moon (early on the Saturday morning ) will be about as low above the horizon as it ever is at the Meridian. In terms of information about how neolithic people responded to the solstices, I'm fairly well able to find information that can be included, but I'm less sure about information about the Lunar effects. It's believed that many prehistoric constructions were built to align with the Lunar Standstill (for example the Callanish structure on the Isle of Lewis), and some of the 'recumbent' stone circles in NE Scotland, but I could do with pointers to relatively recent and (preferably) authoritative sources. Anyone able to help? Thanks

I'm not sure whether I posted this here a couple of years ago - but this is an image I put together to show the difference in the view from a dark sky site in Wales, and the view from our back garden in a town in NW England

Could also have been in Santiago, Jo'burg, Adelaide or Auckland (to name but a few places) 🙂

Worms, moles and other burrowing animals mean that soil is constantly being turned over, and plant debris tends to stay on or near the surface. Meaning that non organic material tends to migrate to lower levels.

Given that Google suggests the area of the earth is about 510 million km^2, it's about 10g per km^2 per year. Less than a tablespoon of space dust over the area of an OS grid square. It would take a million years for this to equate to a tablespoon per square metre, and if you consider how thinly a tablespoon of sand would spread ... Save the few whiskies for a different question.