Hawksmoor

Horrid, damp and cloudy night in Lowestoft. Only improved by a glimpse of the ISS passing overhead and by watching the Martin Scorsese Bob Dylan film biographies on BBC Four. Got a new preowned/loved acoustic guitar from my eldest son on my birthday. Have put on a set of new extra light weight strings and have lowered the action. Tomorrow, in our living room and to an audience of one, I will perform  'A hard rain' with nostalgia and uncomfortable contemporary relevance.

I have retired to my bed and await the arrival of Morpheus or Aurora, whichever comes first.

Nighty night everyone.

Hurrah! Finally captured this year's blurry image of Saturn resting on top of the ridge tiles of my neighbour's roof. My 18 year old 90 mm. Meade ETX Ra Mak riding on my Star Adventurer mount provided a video clip or two of the 'ringed one' at F12.5. All a bit ' Roger Moore' and ' noisy' but just enough 'signal' to satisfy my annual Saturn needs.

Very nice night in Lowestoft tonight but as we have been to the Indian restaurant and have rather overdone the 'Kingfisher' I decided to give 'juggling astronomy-kit in the dark' a miss. Nice to eyeball three planets - Saturn, Jupiter and Venus - plus the Summer Milky Way.

Nighty night all

I dont know!

I decide to get my 5inch refractor out and on its pier, first time in a while. Lovely sunny day here on the coast. Beautiful blue sky, as you can see on the photograph from this pm. Within literally minutes the sky turned as black as thunder and has remained that way. 'Metcheck clear sky' completely ignored by the weather. This hobby is not for the faint hearted. You can probably work that out for yourself if you noticed my 'tidy' wiring festooned over the scope and its locale. Don't do this at home kids!

I have just put a post in the wrong album. Can anyone tell me how to delete it or better still move it to the appropriate album?

Confused of Lowestoft.

I put up a small gazebo for a socially distanced meal with my daughter and grandchildren. Instantly, the rain became torrential and the wind speed increased to + 50 mph. Erecting a gazebo appears to have a more dramatic impact upon the weather than purchasing a new telescope! Who would have guessed?

George holding on tight to a lifting gazebo in Lowestoft. A bit like the film 'Up' but damper.

I should moan about the weather more often. Been terrible all day but just now I've been treated to the most transparent and steady summer sky I've ever experienced over our back yard in July. I could see M31 with the naked eye even though it was still quite low in the east. Similarly I could see M33 through my big bins but hand held. Vega, Altair and Deneb were so bright that the summer triangle looked 3d. I'm pretty sure that bins and averted vision allowed me to spot the tiny blur of M57 in Lyra. Could also see M71 in Sagittarius and M27 in Vulpecula. Along the way I picked up nice views of the big two globular clusters in Hercules, the Coathanger and the double cluster in Perseus.

In my bins I could follow the Milky Way right down to the rooftops on our southern boundary. Generally interesting fuzziness in this area of the sky just disappears into the murk and light pollution but not tonight, I could easily pick out all the Messiers  down through Scutum  and Ophiuchus until the roof tops met Sagittarius.

Finished off a rewarding 35 minutes with a nice meteor and several bright satellites.

No telescope action and no photography but what a great, if breathtakingly short, night of old fashioned stargazing.

Hope you all enjoyed some clear skies where ever you are.

Night night from George happy in bed Lowestoft.

I was going to have a go at imaging Mercury from the churchyard with my small travel rig but the clouds rolled in at sunset. I also noted that the jet stream has positioned itself over the UK reminiscent of this time last year. Does it know that I'm almost ready to have my 127mm. Refractor back in operation on my new concrete pier?  I think it does - I hate you clouds and jet stream! 

Grumpy George in bed Lowestoft

If I were a sea-fairing man I would describe the current weather in our backyard as a persistent 'squall'.  I think I can safely 'stand down' the telescope for the foreseeable future.

To cheer myself up I have been reorganising my tropical fish aquarium including a bit of re-wiring and have purchased on-line an Eheim Ecco Pro 130 external cannister filter.  My on going battle with ' algae' will hopefully turn a corner with better water treatment and the imminent arrival of four veg hungry Otocinclus Catfish.

Best regards from George up to 'fishy-business' in Lowestoft.

If you are a fossil collector, one day you realise that once you know what you're looking for, that is how big they are - what colour they are - how shiny they are, you find lots more of them. Tonight I had a similar Eureka moment with the veil nebula. I've never been able to see it through my 11x80 binoculars before tonight.

Having photographed the eastern veil for the first time a few nights ago, l had a feel for how big and how feint it was in the sky. So tonight when I turned my big bins towards Cygnus, there it was feint but with averted vision clear as day, a broken ring of nebulosity in the sky.

I finished an hour's viewing catching glimpses between fast moving clouds of: the Ms in Auriga and Cassiopeia, the Andromeda Galaxy group, the Double Cluster, the Pleiades, Aldebaran and friends and what I took to be Neptune.

Astronomy rocks!

Interesting evening under starry skies in Redgrave, Suffolk. Sat next to a guy in the pub who played an officer on the Death Star in the first Star Wars film. Fell three feet into a sunken garden in the dark. Luckily the earth 's crust broke my fall. Survived to tell the tale and now back in bed in Lowestoft.

 George shaken but not stirred in Lowestoft

Interesting fact I discovered yesterday - the Dadaist and Surrealist artist Max Ernst was a big fan of the German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel - comet discoverer extraordinaire.  Max produced a series of drawings and symbols which he labelled as 'illegal astronomies'. Bloke was absolutely barking, thought he had hatched from an egg laid by his mother. However, his artistic endeavours offer wonderful off world and alien landscapes. Creations no more strange than the false colour images we routinely capture. I also discovered that he  used state of the art 'wet photography' techniques to achieve his finished works. Sounds a bit familiar? What he might have achieved if Photoshop had been available will never be known!

Ironically, tonight I watched the full moon rise serenely above the North Sea. Very beautiful but 24 hours too late.

George eclipseless in Lowestoft.

It wasn't supposed to be clear here tonight but as it turned out I managed a good hour and 15 minutes out under a starry sky. Very transparent at times although the moon in the west rendered everything lower than Altair in that part of the sky invisible.

Managed to find Uranus and Neptune both appeared very 'blue' in my 11x80 binoculars. Another night I must try to image them with my big refractor. I have a better planetary camera now than when I last imaged the 'Ice Giants'.

Using my little red torch and the October Edition of Sky at Night - Sky Guide chart, I set about finding some of the stellar highlights.  Globulars M15 and M2 were easy finds albeit quite small - I can usuaslly find these without a chart. Similarly I know where to find  M31 and M33 although M33 is not always easy to spot - tonight it was easy as was the large planetary nebula M27. I do like looking at M31 through my big bins it is so big, so far away and so mysterious. I had a fancy that I could just see M74, small and faint, through my bins but this could have been wishful thinking.

I managed to view a number of beautiful open clusters - The Double Cluster, M103, M34, M52, M39 and NGC 752. M103 is jewel like through big bins and NGC was a new cluster for me - very large and a mixture of bright stars with a dusting of stars on the verge of resolution - very beautiful indeed!

The best thing about Stargazing is you can always learn something new. Its a bit embarrassing but I realised tonight that I've been miss identifying the constellation Cepheus. Up until tonight what I thought was Gamma Cepheus turns out to have been Delta Draco. It helps to have a chart infront of you when stargazing. What a numpty!

Hope you have clear skies wherever you are - nighty night stargazers.

George off to bed in Lowestoft.

Its been a funny old day here in Suffolk. One moment sunny the next rain but hey am I depressed - not me- well just a little.  I was hoping to get my big scope out on the mount and stay up to see if Saturn cleared my neighbour's roof at the back of our yard but the weather forcast for tonight is more of the same.   

Any way,  I v'e had a good shed day.  Spectrometer Mark 3 continues apace.  Without the aid of a lathe Ive reduced the diameter of a round aluminium bar inorder that it will plug into my telescope's focuser.  Next step is to drill it to take the fibre optic cable that arrived through the post last week. I have no idea whether my latest design proposal  will work but thats half the fun of it!

Good news is - BBC Weather Lowestoft says that tomorrow night it's going to be 'cloud free' Woo Hoo!

Just had my first ever 'Strawberry Daiquiri' cocktail - nice!

George 'unlikely to be sober tonight' in Lowestoft

Just about finished analysing my first batch of data from The LVST  sdr meteor catcher. Have been looking in detail at the Perseid Shower 2016. Now I know this is not cutting edge and that 3 years is a bit of a delay between receipt of signals and doing something with the data but I am a bit old and defocussed since giving up regular employment. Anyway I'm quite pleased with myself even if I've got the math wrong and jumped to the wrong conclusions in interpreting the data.  I will be publishing my findings on my LVST (Lowestoft Very Small Telscope) Google Site tomorrow. (subject to distractions too numerous to mention)

George drowning in numbers in Lowestoft.

Just back from a 14 day holiday in India. Had a great time. Levels of atmospheric pollution in and around Delhi and other cities visited made stargazing difficult! Many reasons not to moan about being located by the sea in Suffolk.

George back home in Lowestoft.

Just got in after witnessing a 3 hour long display of 'The Northern Lights' over Reykjavik New Harbour. Absolutely fantastic light show in green, magenta snd blue. I would recommend excited atoms for exciting old amateur astronomers. Now enjoying a glass of Bushmills to calm me down and then off to bed.

Nighty night stargazers wherever you are.

Just opened my Sky at Night Magazine and noticed your fine image of Saturn is 'Photo of the Month'. Well done and well deserved - a beautiful and detailed image.

best regards from  George

Just poked my head outside and its raining. Looks like February which this year looked strangely like July. Weird!

Night all.

Just returned home after a day out in Wells next the Sea with friends, Moon followed us all the way home nearly full and quite beautiful peeking between diffuse 'rainbow' clouds.

Night all

Just took a quick handheld snap from the bedroom window. The extra elevation enabled my first views of Saturn and Jupiter this year, low over my neighbours' roofs. Oh for a clear view of the southern horizon!

George now tucked up in bed.

Just watched 'The Martian' on DVD. Really enjoyable and not completely 'daft' scientifically. So I didn't start playing the banjo halfway through and consequently in partner's good books.  Now in bed, as outside it's still cloudy in downtown Lowestoft. All I need is my telescope and a star to sail it by!

Just watched the first episode of StarTrek Picard. Nice!

Not only do we share the same values but he has proved conclusively that I'm not too old to go into space. "Boldly going-----" and all that malarkey. Good on you Jean Luc!

Just watched the Ian Dury Biopic - excellent! Followed by learning the 'Sex and Drugs & Rock and Roll' riff and middle eight on my acoustic guitar in modal tuning. Feeling oddly 80s and punk for an OAP. Think I will give the 'hot chocolate' a miss tonight and live on the edge! ?

Last night did turn out to be splendid in Lowestoft. Got out my scopes out in the backyard. My recently home constructed spectrometer saw first light attached to my 127mm Refractor. It appeared to work OK and I managed to capture some video footage of Deneb,Vega and Altair and their respective first order spectra. So quite excited and a little daunted at the prospect of using Iris and Vspec software to analyse the data. Have previously read "Using Commercial Amateur Astronomical Spectrographs" by Jeffrey L Hopkins. Guess I need a reread pretty urgently!

It was a great night and stayed out to 3.00am this morning. Took some widefield images of M57 using my 127 mm Refractor-0.8x focal reducer and field flattener and Canon 600 d Dslr all guided with my Qhy5-11 camera. (At ISO 400 and 800 - range of exposures 30 secs and 3 mins.) Also used my home made light box for flat frames for the first time with my big scope and that seems to have worked OK. The use of cheap 0.5mm white plasticard rather than the more expensive and heavier opal perspex for the light box screen-diffuser seems to have been at no obvious detriment to the flats. Tomorrow, after some compulsory gardening, I will complete my 'Ring Cycle'

Sky tonight fully overcast, so off to bed!