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Hawksmoor
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Heads up. I've probably done for the weather tomorrow in the east of England as I'm off to watch the 'cricket' at Chelmsford.
Nighty night Stargazers wherever you are.
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Yesterday was notable for its contrasts. The morning and afternoon were the component parts of a perfect September day - cerulean blue sky unbroken by cloud. I felt great, had a nice afternoon out with friends and then returned home hoping to go all 'astronomical' as night fell. Sadly on my horizon clouds were forming both literally and figuratively. I gave up on the astronomy early evening and the made my first and rather obdurate error of the day. My partner had warned me not to use the date expired cream in making my signature dish - 'bread and butter pudding' but like many old architects before me 'George knew best'. Now my younger son is a research biologist and as he has said before "it wasn't Lysteria because that probably would have been fatal - more likely the Lysteria was killed by the cooking process but the toxins they produce have a pretty unpleasant impact upon the more elderly adventurous cook". Well without getting into graphic details" Little of my night was spent in bed.
However in the early hours of the morning I looked out over my garden to see my old friend Orion striding across the close-boarded fence between our house and our neighbour's. So as 'Big Will' would have said "All's well that ends well"
George making a bit of DIY astro kit and recovering in Oulton Broad
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Hello Ian and welcome to SGL from Lowestoft. Enjoy your new telescope. The moon is a good starting point. Often overlooked because it's near by, big and bright but there is much of interest to locate and see. The same features can look very different when illuminated by the sun at different angles - so the observable face of the moon is an ever changing subject for study. Enjoy ! Best regards George
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Always had good service from Altair Astro whether in the shop or via the Internet. Hope helpful George
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Oh no it isnt - Oh yes it is - Aurora Borealis - well is it?
Hawksmoor commented on Hawksmoor's blog entry in Blog 19648
Sounds likely as the moon was directly behind me and very bright. Thanks for your comment and explanation. I guess I will have to wait a little longer to see the Aurora from Suffolk. Best regards George -
Oh no it isnt - Oh yes it is - Aurora Borealis - well is it?
Hawksmoor commented on Hawksmoor's blog entry in Blog 19648
Real difficult to know with atmospheric stuff. The posted image was taken at about 2.00 am on 10th Sept looking NNE. so I would have thought the sun would have been well below the horizon and much further west in September. However, on balance both my partner and I were a bit sceptical about the 'auroral glow'. Trouble is when you want to see something you often do. Thanks for your comment much appreciated -
Oh no it isnt - Oh yes it is - Aurora Borealis - well is it?
Hawksmoor posted a blog entry in Blog 19648
You could have knocked me down with a feather, when at 1.00 am. yesterday my partner said "why dont we go down to the seafront and see if we can spot the Aurora". So off we went in the family truckster with tripod and camera box in the back. We were originally going to set up base camp at the UK's most easterly point but the lights from the Birdseye factory were a problem. We ended up on Corton Cliffs with a fine view North towards Great Yarmouth and the offshore wind turbines. Well after an hour we had both convinced ourselves that there was a green auroral glow hugging the horizon. I took a number of 30 second images at ISO1600 with the aim of putting together a panorama using Microsoft ICE. Well here it is believe it or not? The red glow is light pollution from Great Yarmouth - those 'Norfolk Boys' dont turn the lights off at midnight like us ECO warriors in Suffolk. We returned home for 3.00am and had some pea soup to warm up - nice. -
3.00am BST - Just got back from Corton Cliffs and having some soup to warm up. Hoped, looking North out over the Sea, to glimpse a bit of auroral activity but reckon we kidded ourselves that there was a faint green band close to the horizon. Took some photos with a tripod mounted DSLR so after a little sleep I will go through them. Not hopeful
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Been rainin' stair-rods here in Lowestoft. Clearing now and I can see stars, too damp under foot for telescope astronomy but if it stays clear will be out later with my bins. In between we enjoyed a sunset rainbow - quite an exotic looking beast and difficult to do justice with a handheld compact camera - but I tried.
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Thought I would give my profile picture a seaside flavour.
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The things Dr Maggie can get me to do : Truth is my children some years ago banned me from using ladders, not unreasonably as I'm a tad dyspraxic and have fallen off a couple of times. I also know that the industrial revolution has thrown a lot of terrestrial magnetic debris into the atmosphere but all this withstanding, I could not resist the eccentric idea of ferreting about in my gutters with a magnet looking for space dust. So I did and a lot of the crud turned out to be magnetic. Anyways, I attach an image which may or may not be a micrometeorite - its shiny - its magnetic (other bits of dust are adhering to it) - its ovoid and its got some pits on the surface.
Best bit was I disobeyed my children and made my partner and grandchildren laugh. So thanks S&N for encouraging me to be naughty..
Just had a good idea - sadly I dont live near the pristine Antartic ice but I do live near to East Runton where there is an eroding exposure of the 500,000 year old Forest Bed (definitely pre- industrial contamination). If I select a sample where it is overlaid with clay it might well be worth looking for magnetic micrometeorites as well as the fossil pollen and shrews teeth I usually find. A future project beckons.
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Hawksmoor changed their profile photo
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From the album Comets, Meteors and Asteroids
Strangely the timelapse annimation will load today. Represents about 20 minutes in real time just after midnight on the 2nd September 2017. A big lump of masonry travelling at 13.5km/sec aproximately 7.1 million kilometers distant. Me and all the other dinosaurs are pleased it missed. -
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From the album Comets, Meteors and Asteroids
Asteroid 3122 Florence as it went whizzing by yesterday morning in Delphinus. 127mm Meade refractor -0.8x reducer and field flattener- Canon 600D DSLR at ISO6400 - 10 x 1 sec exps. For some reason my GIF annimation would not load properly but if interested its on my Jodrell Plank Blog http://jodrellplankobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/neo-asteroid-3122-florence.html -
What does a meteorologist mean by partly cloudy and how does it differ from mainly clear ? I really enjoy my astronomy but some times I do believe I'm bonkers. I've spent an hour setting up my scope in hope that partly cloudy means there are gaps between clouds and that when and if it moves on to mainly clear the gaps will be bigger and last for longer. Currently in Lowestoft partly cloudy means I can just about see Vega, Deneb and Altair. I'm sitting in my backyard writing this on my laptop by red torch light -I'm holding the torch in my mouth and starting to dribble. All this grief because I fancied imaging asteroid Florence as it goes whizzing by, a 3 mile wide rock 7 million kilometres distant. As my mate Big Phil from Sheffield would say "Why do you want to take hundreds of photographs with really expensive equipment that mainly comprise white dots on a black background" He has got a point!
Do you know what, I think it is clearing a bit so 3 star alignment here I come.
George trying to take pictures in Lowestoft
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This is something I have asked a few times. It is obviously different to our idea of clear. Occasionally I have had "Clear" but a heavy fog. As fog is a local event it is not covered by the weather forcast usually. So Clear and you cannot see the other side of the road.
I suspect a trip to Exeter and the main Met Office might help but equally I suspect that it is almost arbituary and could depend on who wrote up the forecast.
In worst case Clear could be not raining and good horizontal visual clarity.
Big George has a point.
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Thanks for the comment. The weather did improve sufficiently for me to get a few images of NEO Florence in between the clouds. By heck that lump of rock is moving at a pace. Couldn't find it in my big bins but go-to technology and my 127mm. Refractor did the trick. I think the moon light was a bit of an issue. Tonight much clearer but moon very bright and setting later. Have to say after last night falling into bed at 3:15 am and someone's car alarm going off at four, two late nights in a row are not an option. Tomorrow I will have a go at putting together an asteroid animation.
Best regards from George by the sea and now in bed.
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