Phil Fargaze

Unless I am mistaken you might not  achieve focus on your dobs with the camera unless they have low profile focusers otherwise a Barlow should do it although that will reduce fov. It would help if the dobs are the tracking type cos it can get very fiddly trying to keep an object centred. I use VirtualDub capture software, which is free and quite easy to use but can look quite complicated to start with. Once you are set up it can be great fun seeing how deep you can go with faint galaxies etc. 

Excellent work. I saw that your capture got mentioned at the BAA meeting yesterday during the sky notes.

In case you hadn't come across it, Tony cook maintains a lunar observing schedule which provides dates and times for lunar impacts and also TLP. 

See here

Tony is the BAA Lunar Change Project Coordinator 

See here for lunar impact detection software. 

Hi Tony, you might need to double check your dates because the Thursday would be the 19’th if I am not mistaken.

On 02/11/2019 at 21:52, Stu said:

I enjoyed the book immensely on many levels, and even found it not a little emotional at times. Well worth a read if you haven't done so already.

My sentiments exactly, an absolute roller coaster of a read, plus amazing results from a mission that proved it`s worth.

I was out at night on holiday at the Isle of Wight enjoying the dark sky when a big grunting badger came past me, oblivious to my presence it seemed. Scared the socks off me though! I`ve got a bat detector which comes in handy to help decide if I am being buzzed by a bat instead of some kind of giant flying nocturnal insect with fangs. The worst thing for me back home is when the cat decides to jump in the observatory half way through a crucial observation and takes great delight walking on the laptop and tripping over the cables. 

Ok I see, thanks for the update.

On 24/09/2019 at 07:48, paulastro said:

When i arrived yesterday and booked for next year found out it's from October 12th to 19th. 

I was wondering, it`s normally held in September but have now gone the for month later.  I can never normally get to Kelling in the Autumn because both my childrens birthdays are centered aroung the equinox and I had best be around to help them celebrate! Maybe the new moon in September 2020 was considered a bit too early? 

Hope you all get some clear spells this weekend.

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Fairly clear skies here, although patchy cloud moving through. I thought I would give the Tak a run out quickly to have a look at this pair, haven't used it for a while. Very glad I did, lovely sharp views at x31 with the 24mm Panoptic, looking a little bit like Albireo I thought. Somehow higher powers lost the intensity of the colours; Phi Aquarii looked a lovely golden colour, Neptune a pale bluish although not that strong a colour to my eye.

Thank you @paulastro for the heads up. Very glad I caught this one.

Very much agree. I used a mono camera for the capture but the visual view was a real treat.

Clear down here so I managed to capture it before going behind a tree. Rough screen shot shown here. Neptune is below and slightly to the right of the bright star in the the centre of the image. Neptune’s moon was placed roughly between the star and Neptune but the brightness of the star was a bit overwhelming to see it clearly. 

1 minute ago, Cornelius Varley said:

VirtualDub can do this. Load the avi file in to vdub and trim the video clip

Yes, I use Virtualdub for recording and editing my astro AVI`s. I step through frame by frame for the best image and save it as an image file. 

Another way Sir Patrick had to inspire people was to take the time to reply to any letters he received. Had I known that as a youngster I would have no doubt composed a letter to the great man himself and eagerly awaited a response. 

Me and my family met him at the Herstomceaux Festival of Astronomy in 2007. He took the time to meet everyone and also had lunch in their cafe while we were having lunch as well. So does that mean I can tenuously say that I have had lunch with Sir Patrick!

Still got it! A little tatty now. That round mark low down  in the centre looks like the moon but it’s a mark from a stain. 

I was too young to stay up and watch The Sky at Night but Patrick influenced me by his legendary book The Observers Book of Astronomy. 

I recently read the book The Haunted Observatory by Richard Baum (recommended) and chapter 9 entitled `Lichtflocken` deals with reports of a similar phenomenon. The book is an interesting journey into the history of astronomy so the reports are from some years ago ie. 18th-19th century.  I don`t think there was a definite conclusion as to what it might be but it might be anything from insects, pollen, dust flying on a breeze or as mentioned something to do with the observer themselves. A search of `Lichtflocken` on the web produced some results including a youtube video demonstration here

This site is good In the sky.org. Your location can be saved to see relevant information. I always read Astronomy Now for the monthly night sky guide. 

Apart from any other problems you might be having, I was a little bit worried that you are using a 2x Barlow and  3.6mm eyepiece for alignment because the field of view would be very small. When I do alignment I normally use a 25mm eyepiece  on it`s own to give a decent field of view to allow for any discrepancies 

I updated from a 120N+ to the 910 and the increase in sensitivity was pronounced. I was previously limited to mag 12 stars for occultation work but with the 910 in good conditions I can work with mag 14 stars now. 

On 24/04/2019 at 10:36, Astrobits said:

For doing occultations, IOTA ( International Occultation Timing Association) require analogue cameras coupled to a VTI ( Video Time Inserter) and recorder.

Nigel

The camera I use for my occultation observations is a Watec 910HX/RC  (mono) which provides an analogue output.  However I digitize the signal via a USB video adaptor to record onto laptop. Simple to use, great for live viewing and still good for obtaining useful scientific data. 

It’s a bit of a mystery as to why we have had similar issues. If I find out anything else I’ll post back here. 

I’ve got mine hooked up at the moment and it seems to be working fine and receiving twelve satellites. 

Luke! I have had the same problem with the same unit. I recently decided to upgrade my older GPSBOXSRITE 2 unit to the newer GPSBOXSPRITE 3 which is what your one looks like as well. I had got it running fine after showing bad gps then it began to show bad gps again. In the end I had some correspondence with Simon from the Black Box Camera Co and we decided that I return the unit for them to check. They confirmed that the unit was working fine, but even though I was offered a refund I said I would have the unit back because I guessed the problem must be confined to circumstances within or around my observatory which I will try to overcome. With reference to the GPS week number roll over, I would expect my older unit to be affected but the new unit to be unaffected but the older unit is still working fine. If I am not mistaken the effect on older GPS receivers is that the date is shown wrong but the time remains correct. I havnt tried my new unit again since getting it back but I am going to try it tonight. I presume you have been using your unit for a while, otherwise a new unit does need some time to settle down. 

The NH headquarters have been a bit quiet since the `pancake and dented walnut` revelation. I suppose all is ok, they must be hanging around because of that slow download. 

Amazing new evidence regarding the shape of Ultima Thule! Latest release

New higher res image released today! See here