MarkRadice

Glad you enjoyed it JAC.

Hussah, a clear night. Time to test the homemade barn door tracker. Not too shabby but we are getting there - subject to weather and dark skies.

Yes it's on a ball head - albeit the world's smallest ball head. I think a more suitably sized version will be on my birthday list.

I hope the skies were better with you on Wednesday night! It was very hazy here. The thin cloud was also back-illuminated by the gibbous moon making all but the brightest stars invisible. Certainly not good enough for observing but good enough for a play. Polaris was only in the finder scope by dead reckoning, once I had dialled in 51deg elevation and magnetic north using my phone. 60s of Lyra using a 50mm f2.8 showed the clear benefit of tracking. 60S: tracker turned off: 60s with tracking: I just need to check the mount is rotating about the hinge at the sidereal rate as there is still some trailing, particularly at 1 minute (albeit much less). With that in mind, the following morning, I blue tacked my protractor from my flying kit to the tracker, made a pot of tea and fine tuned the motor so it was tracking at 1deg every 4 minutes or 5deg in 20 minutes ready for the next clear night. I am now getting a smidge under 15deg in 1 hour so ~0.5deg error which is 3%. I am hoping, it is good enough for government work - assuming government work is 1-2 minute exposures at a relatively wide angle. I will also check the finder scope is truly aligned with the hinge in daylight - once the rain has stopped that is.

Thanks, Mick. And to my surprise (as it rains at the moment!) it is forecast to be clear tonight and my speed controller has just arrived. A double coincidence indeed.

Thanks to Mary McIntyre for use of the star trails picture: https://www.marymcintyreastronomy.co.uk/image-gallery-star-trails/

If you want to take images of the night sky, you need a long duration exposure to capture the faint starlight. The stars, however, are constantly moving across the sky. While it is perfectly possible to take short exposures that avoid trailing, it soon becomes apparent that the camera needs to track the stars. I wanted a tracker that would follow the stars to allow me to capture the beauty of the summer milky way or follow another bright comet. While it is easy to use the credit card and buy one of the commercial star trackers (available at a variety of prices and capabilities), I wanted something more affordable and set about making my own tracker from scrap plywood, B&Q hinges and a length of steel rod and odds and ends from the spares bin. Total cost was £30 (£50 if I include the stuff I already had). This design is a barndoor tracker (as it works like a barn door!) sometimes a Haig mount after its inventor and sometimes a Scotch mount as Haig was Scottish! It is simplicity personified. I found the challenging bits to be bending a curved rod around a template and secondly butchering the motor mounting so that the gears mesh together effectively. The rest is so simple. Total time was a few evenings – perhaps a bit longer as I stopped to photograph and record the build process. Having enjoyed tracking the moon between showers earlier this week with a guestimated polar alignment, I am keeping my fingers crossed for clear skies later this week to test it under the stars. As always if you have any questions or comments then let me know.

Mars was a marvellous sight last autumn and I have finally got round to making a short video showing my imaging techniques – hopefully they will be useful for anyone imaging the planets. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments. I still get such a thrill that with an amateur telescope (and a second hand one at that!) I can make a map of Mars and observe clouds forming over the Tharsis volcanoes. So exciting! That being said, the horrors of an 0200 alarm clock have long since faded – the joys of i) having a permanent set up and ii) working from home due to coronavirus restrictions. Now I am looking forward to Jupiter reappearing after the summer lull, a planet I have not observed in earnest since 2016 while it is so low.

Hi Spike - apologies I only just noticed your reply recently and have only got round to replying. I thought about your questions while enjoying the recent run of clear weather observing the Herschel 400 galaxies in Leo - Coma B - Virgo - Leo Minor. I have marked most as "another dim rugby ball" in my notebook but every now and then I would stumble across a galaxy grouping or thin edge on that made me reach for pencil and paper (see below for example) - my note book now has pages of scribbles to update in due course. I made a conscious note of how I transferred from eyepiece to paper as follows: - I roll my roof back and get the telescope up and running with minimum of red light so I am dark adapting as soon as possible. I have a red/white head torch but only use that for unlocking the shed and packing up as it is really bright - particularly when dark adapted. - I start off with "old friends" first such as M82, M51, Gamma Leonis, Castor while I wait for full dark adaption with my mug of tea. It is around 30-45 minutes after unlocking the shed that I will start sketching. - With a target in the eyepiece I spend several minutes drinking in the view. No sketching but mentally joining the dots, noting the nebulosity and features and so on. - I have my dim red light on its dimmest setting and cover the ipad I use to control Sky Safari (once we are on target) to minimise light spill. I have also put tape over all the LEDs on my power supply, mount, dew controller and so on. It's amazing how many there are - all prolly designed by imagers who don't care about dark adaption! I can barely notice them when I start but they were, until covered, dazzling 30 minutes later! - I observe with my right, dominant eye and alternate relaxing my left eye (ie keeping it open) and then when it is tired I close it or cover it with my gloved hand Remember to breathe effectively (is that the right word?) so you get good blood supply to the eyes! - Some targets are so faint that even a dim red light is enough to render it invisible so I have to, after sketching the field stars, draw the details from memory. - I can easily spend 10 - 15 - 20 minutes on one target while sketching, simply enjoying the view. It is amazing how many subtle details come out with "time on target" and averted vision. Be careful to avoid averted imagination though :-)! I hope that helps! Good luck with your endeavours and stay safe in meantime.

Thank you for your quick reply. I can understand those features near the equator but what about those feature near the polar regions? I do wonder, having admired your globe again, if I am overthinking the problem! I know what you mean! Mars, was great this season although I can't wait for 2022 when both Mars and Jupiter will be putting on a fine show.

Wow, you make it sound so simple! How do you correct for the distortion for the globe or do you simply align by eye?

Mike that looks amazing! Would you mind explaining how you put this together? It is one thing to sketch on paper but it is an order of magnitude more complex on a spherical surface - especially a steel surface!

What upgrades and changes have you made to make binocular observing more enjoyable? I have been making some variable star estimates using my APM 100mm binoculars - the old black model. They live a top a Manfrotto 161 Mk2b . The tripod is so robust but rather heavy so thank goodness they live in the obsy alongside the second hand C11. I have put together some upgrades including homemade hinged dust covers, longer dew shields and a tripod tray. These, with the rather spiffing 13mm Naglers provides 1.7deg field of view down to mid-11th magnitude (from reasonable village skies) greatly helped by a binobandit and red dot finder. A short video is below.

Hi Robin and Peter - great to hear from you. As you can see the trip is thoroughly recommended. Carole - I took my APM binos, eps and DSLR in my carry on while my camping gear and tripod went in the hold. And then yes, I was given access to a 22" dob - although I have learned to never look through a telescope you can't afford! Jonny - my wife said that I had shrunk when she saw my pic next to the 10". it is very lightening on the wallet too! Jeremey - thanks!

Hi Mark, totally agree. I wonder if there is something along the lines of "mindfulness" going on when you are in the moment, gazing across light years of space and replicating the view by hand. It certainly appears to be more calming than imaging - although not without its own frustrations!

Hi all, I gave a presentation to Basingstoke AS last week on Sketching the Deep Sky. They have kindly let me put it on youtube - link below. It describes why I enjoy deep sky sketching (in this day of digital imaging) and my approach, equipment (inc a homemade sketch board) and drawing technique. It concludes with a trip through the Andromeda Galaxy from the binocular view, star clouds and spiral arms and to its brightest globular cluster.

Thanks Bish, it’s thoroughly recommended. Where are you going in 2024? I have my eye on the next eclipse in Spain but that is still some years hence.

As I wait for the skies to clear, I finally finished a short video of my trip to last year's Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys. As we bask in the sub-zero temperatures, I think back fondly to observing under the warm sunshine. I am gutted to miss this year's event - particularly as last year I had access to a 22-inch dob (plus eyepieces and ladder!) while enjoying eta carina, omega centauri and the milky way sights.

Hi all - thank you for your kind words. Magnus - I simply sketch with graphite propelling pencil on white notebook, scan it in and invert with judicious use of cloning.

After a strange year working from home months on end, home schooling children, a family bereavement, a broken foot and finally being managed out of a job, it was rather a pleasure to watch December's conjunction - the last time I did some observing! I have finally got round to sorting out my sketches and iPhone snaps (having stupidly left my DSLR memory card in my laptop!) and made a short YouTube video: I also put more details in my seldom-updated blog : http://www.refreshingviews.com/jupiter-saturn-conjunction-december-2020/ Enjoy and stay safe!

I recognise that picture señor P. Great stuff - especially with the poor seeing after last nights storm. What filter are you using? Are you using colour filters or IR?

Hi all, As you know, the moon is a fantastic place to start imaging. Having had an image of Sinus Iridum recently published in Astronomy Now I put together a short tutorial on youtube for my club in lieu of our regular meetings. It describes my approach having tried various technqiues and made numerous mistakes over the years! You are welcome to have a butchers and plagiarise as you see fit. Feel free to ask any questions and let me know your thoughts.

The Giants and Their Children: Andover AS 20 February 2020 Steve Hill Chairman of Beckington Astronomical Society will take us on a journey through the outer solar system. The talk goes on a journey from the first telescopic observations of Jupiter by Galileo through to the modern day exploration of the outer solar system with space probes. It looks at some of the science behind our contemporary understanding of the nature of the giant planets and ends with some speculations on the prospects for life in our and other solar systems. Steve Hill is a software engineer currently working in the area of computer graphics. He has been interested in astronomy since primary school days, but has been a more serious amateur astronomer since the turn of the century. His main areas of interest are cosmology and astrophotography, primarily of the planets, Sun and Moon. His only claim to astronomical fame is having one of his Saturn images used on The Sky at Night programme. After a break, Jonathan Blake will then describe his imaging projects using remote telescopes before we head outside for some observing (subject to weather of course). All welcome! First meeting is free. For further details: http://www.andoverastronomy.org.uk/

Happy new year! We are starting our New Year with another high-quality talk. http://www.andoverastronomy.org.uk/ Dr Jackie Davies (Heliospheric Physics Group Leader, RAL Space, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) will be visiting. She is an established space physicist, with over 25 years’ experience in ionospheric, magnetospheric, and heliospheric physics through extensive involvement in a range of major ground-based and space-borne science projects including EISCAT, SuperDARN, the ESA/NASA Cluster mission and NASA’s STEREO mission. Jackie’s publication list comprises more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, over a diverse range of topics including natural and artificial heating of the high-latitude ionosphere, magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause and in the magnetotail, and, most recently, investigation of the evolution of both transient and background structures in the solar wind. The latter includes characterization of the morphological and kinematic properties of coronal mass ejections and stream/co-rotating interaction regions, based, in particular, on visible-light imagery from the STEREO/Heliospheric Imager (HI) instruments for which Jackie is the project scientist. As well as being project scientist for STEREO/HI, Jackie also leads the Space weather Coronagraph for OPErations (SCOPE) project, an ESA-funded, RAL Space-led project to develop a compact solar coronagraph; moreover, Jackie leads an international consortium that is designing the suite of imaging instruments baselined for ESA’s Lagrange (L5) operational space weather monitoring mission, currently under development. After a brief history of solar/heliospheric physics in RAL Space, Jackie will focus on the STEREO mission, including a discussion of the payload and selected results. She will then describe how the use of the STEREO data for real-time space weather monitoring has led to the development of Lagrange. Finally, Jackie will summarise some of the other recently-launched and upcoming solar/heliospheric physics missions, and describe RAL Space’s involvement therein. After Jackie’s talk, Terry Tucker will give us a short presentation on his well-earned degree and explain the Astronomy / Cosmology that he studied. After which, if it is clear, we will head outside for some observing. The forecast is for partially clear so fingers crossed (although I find it hard to believe given today’s weather!).

Thanks Andrew. I’m still waiting for the clouds to clear so I can make a long-standing contribution!!