Hawksmoor

Nice to view tonight Antares and the claws of the scorpion just above my southern horizon as seen  from our backyard. Had a fledgling robin fly in through the open bedroom window. Bird now safely back with mum and dad in our garden. All's well that ends well!

Nighty night stargazers.

Nice transparent night in Lowestoft tonight. Found a spot at the top of our short drive where I could image Antares and colourful chums using my DSLR on my Star Adventurer eq mount. Just able to see Antares over our carport roof and between ours and our neighbour’s houses. 
Night night Stargazers🔭📷

No electrics in the backyard thanks to storm Babet accessing some junction boxes previously water-tight. Old boxes removed and new ordered and awaiting delivery. Wiring made safe, jeans covered in mud and one old man needing a rest. So wouldn't you know it - the first clear night in weeks.

Two hours of more or less cloud free night sky and the Moon waning over Lowestoft. Too good to miss. This required drastic measures- a long extension lead out the kitchen window and the telescope lives Igor!

Managed my first proper look at Jupiter this season and captured some avi clips with my newish QHY planetary camera. Hopefully all will process well but they call it 'lucky imaging' for a reason.

Mrs H was making jam and baking Christmas cakes today so the house smells great! Now off to bed with the promise of Santa and reindeer in the air.

Nighty night stargazers.

Not been up to much astronomy for a while as Mrs. H had her hip replaced yesterday. She is in hospital for a couple of days but doing well! I shall be swapping my personal technical challenges from 'Astro Kit' to 'Washing Machine'. Who would have thought Bosch washing machines would have got so 'digital' over the last 48 years? 

George contemplating a short-medium term period of domestic drudgery in Lowestoft.

Off to bed now, as I fear I'm developing RWE Syndrome (Registax Wavelet Elbow), nighty night stargazers.

Orion splendid over our backyard!

Our daughter and three of our grandchildren are with us for half term so was able to show them the partial solar eclipse safely from our backyard. Lots of medium and high level clouds about over Lowestoft this morning, so images up to my usual blurry standard. Will post a couple of the least worst tomorrow.

Was also coerced into buying lunch from Burger King. The veggie burger was tasty and better than I had envisaged but by teatime I was suffering from spleeny 'burger regret'.

George recovering in bed in Lowestoft.

Our friend Irene sent me a photo of a Falcon 9 taking off from the Cape as captured by her brother Jeff Payne from the balcony of his flat on Bermuda.

Our son Chrissy managed to catch Venus, Mercury and the Pleiades over the fields near his house just outside Cambridge. He used his iPhone with a low light app. I denoised it a bit and removed a TV aerial using Affinity Photo 2

Partial sun halo or dog as imaged by Mrs H with her iPhone.

Purchased Affinity Photo and am now bravely facing the learning curve. Lets hope my aged brain is up to it! Thing is, once you stop learning and reinventing yourself, 'you become a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard'.

The recent Affinity Photo post on SGL looks very helpful and am awaiting the arrival from FLO of Dave Eagle's Guide.

Nighty night stargazers.

Purchased Ken Harrison's book 'Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs'. It arrived this week and I have started to read through. Packed with useful information and straight forward explanations! Have also managed to get my new laptop to run VSpec  - (cunningly by reloading Fritz Chessbase. VSpec must use some shared file - not sure why or how but it now works). Will review whether to buy RSpec after I've messed about with VSpec for a while. Have yet to master adjusting for Instrument Response using VSpec it is relatively simple using the trial RSpec software. Noticed Ken's book has a section on achieving this with VSpec, plus I have the relevant sections of the VSpec manual downloaded. Early this morning whilst I was trying out my homemade widefield astrograph, I noticed Vega was rising in the east so will soon be available for spectrometer calibration. -Yay!

Quick image from my time spent in our Lowestoft backyard in daylight!

Quite a bright afternoon in Lowestoft today, had a ring doughnut covered in sugar plus a black coffee on the seafront. Nice!

Sadly solid cloud overhead in Lowestoft tonight. Looking at Sat24 I suspect there will be no meteors for me tonight!

George contemplating an early night

Saw a few stars over Lowestoft last night👍 Plus two meteor stragglers from the shower.😀

SDR switched on and calibrated. Radar pings from meteor plasma trails being recorded. Hoping this year to get uninterrupted record of Perseids over about twenty days - so can plot frequency over time. Last year laptop shut itself down on night of Perseid max whilst I was visiting son in Southend. Never found out why! Hope I do better this year. If weather improves l shall try to get some images of Perseids using Dslr on Star Adventurer.

Snowed here today. Too cold for astronomising - if you are a wuss!  So I've had a lot of warm bread, molten cheese and the best part of a bottle of Chardonnay for dinner. Now sitting happily twixt sleep, a bar of chocolate and TV.

Some of last night's images were spoilt by the gusting wind but some have turned out OK. Did manage to capture an image of Comet PanSTARRS in Taurus so mission accomplished. Very pleased that my partner has purchased two tickets to see and hear Dr Michael Foale at the UEA towards the end the month. Quite excited!

Spent a happy fifty minutes in our backyard before the clouds rolled in. Used my 66mm Altair Lightwave refractor on a camera tripod. When it cools down its a great little scope. When you spend most of your time messing about with your kit to obtain an alright image you can easily miss the beauty of the night sky which straight through the lens observing delivers.  I enjoyed some wonderful widefield views of Auriga's open clusters, the Hyades, Perseus, the Andromeda Galaxy, Orion's Dagger and best of alll the Pleiades.  I reckon I could clearly see nebulosity around several of the larger stars in the Seven Sisters group.  Not too shabby for a small scope with some light pollution and all done and dusted inside an hour.

Spent an hour messing about with the perspective of of one of my images of the Moon to try and give an astronauts's view towards the Lunar South Pole  from over the crater Moretus. Clearly I have too much time on my hands.

Still grim astronomy blight weather here on the East Coast but on the whole a productive day.  Made a metal sleeve from a bit of scrap stainless and fixed it over a crack in the ABS on Mrs Hawksmoor's Jenome sewing machine. Said crack was preventing the cotton from moving correctly and this in turn was causing stitches to be dropped and some stitches not to work at all!  Generally it is a well made machine but why use ABS in a location where a moving thread over time is likely to wear a groove and mess everything up?  It now works Igor! and I am in her good books.  The other 'result of the day' was addressing the stripped thread in my x2.5 Barlow. Overtime and due to my real fear that one or other camera was going to drop out and fall to its doom on the concrete paving, I had overtightened and stripped the thread in the soft aluminium. Yet again the £5.99 Tap and Dye set from Lidl's middle aisle has saved the day. I await the M4 al thumb bolt from my friend Mr Amazon Prime as I now have a new M4 threaded hole awaiting its company. Now this small engineering feat may not rate with all you proper engineers but for an ' itinerant artist and bodger' like me, this is a "small step for man but a giant leap for Hawksmoor"

Stood in my backyard in Lowestoft and showed the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy to my granddaughter Maisy. Then did a trip around the night sky pointing out the constellations and asterisms. She was really pleased and interested. Living on a main road near the seafront in Southend with so much light pollution has meant that much of the night sky has been lost to her. Realised how lucky I was to live in relatively dark Suffolk.

Strange day weather wise. Started off with loads of high wispy cloud then it cleared. Managed to capture some good video clips of sunspots in white light. Old Dell laptop that I use for capture and guiding started playing up so didn't get any clips of Venus as intended. Also my ancient NEQ 6 ended the night by not 'parking' properly. Hopefully it isn't expiring. If it does die on me I think my days with the 5inch refractor will be over as at 73 years I don't think spending over  a £1000 on a new mount is a sensible use of the cash. Anyway, I am finding getting the covers off and on the beast in the dark balancing on rickety steps a bit scary, so going astro-lite with my mini rig is probably more 'old bloke' friendly!

George considering his future and health & safety issues in Lowestoft

Strange week!  Managed to play an active part in the demise of my old Black and Decker Jigsaw and an inexpensive Chinese mini-vice.  Christmas crafting has its consequences.