Hawksmoor

Immobilized by too much pizza - but otherwise mentally alert!

It is downright uncanny! Have I the power of telekinesis?

Mrs H had me in the backyard doing something vaguely constructive and helpful when, looking up, I thought "there are plenty of gaps between the clouds why don't I take the covers off the telescope and do some white light solar"? It was only a fleeting thought, I never said a word nor did I move towards the pillar. As if by magic a clap of thunder exploded above my head and almost simultaneously the heavens opened - 'rain drops keep falling on my head' -well they do in Lowestoft!  

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

In between the fast moving clouds tonight, I tried out my recently acquired Samyang F2 135 mm lens for the first time and in concert with my modded Canon 200d. Nice hefty bit of glass delivering  circular stars right across the APS-C sensor at F2. I am looking forward to using this combo on my Star Adventurer mount once the nights get a bit darker and longer.

George in Lowestoft next the sea.

You know I mentioned it never rains but it pours. Well Mrs H with her 'new hip' has now tested positive for Covid and in a fit of dyspraxic stupidity I sat on my Lenovo laptop and broke the screen. Lenovo's may be robust enough to withstand a trip to the ISS but my 'backside' is obviously a more stringent test of robustness! I am now typing on an old Dell which is 'clunky' to say the least and will have to wait until I'm Covid free before I can have it replaced. Lets hope today goes without further unfortunate incidents in the House of the Hawksmoors!

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my friends on Stargazers Lounge from 'the old man next the sea' in Lowestoft.

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!

After an extended period of being 'uncle dick', during which I totally forgot that I had registered my interest in taking part , I finally got around to starting the OU-Moons free distance learning package that had been lurking in my Yahoo inbox.  Had an enjoyable day catching up the first week of studies. Week two - tomorrow, if all goes to plan.  Here in Lowestoft it looks set cloudy for awhile.?

Happy New Year to all Stargazers and chums around the world. My new year resolution is to try and treat the Earth and all life on it a little better in 2019.

George now back in Lowestoft (it's still cloudy)

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.

Funny sort of day in Lowestoft. Had sunshine and rain and thought there was little chance of stargazing. Anyway, coming to bed just after the the street lights go out, I always out of habit check out the sky over the old backyard and low and behold tonight there were stars

So I grab my big bins and managed 15 minutes before the clouds started forming. What a great 15 minutes too. Sky was proper dark The milky way was visible from horizon to horizon. I managed to see The Veil and M27, not always a given through bins from my backyard and I think the globular M58 (if so a first for me with bins). Best of all ,just before cloud o' clock , an absolutely splendid slow moving white and very bright meteor travelling  from east to west and from my perspective at the same Dec as Altair.  I'm now in bed happy and ready for sleep.

Astronomy is great even in small discrete parcels, much like photons in fact.

Nighty-night stargazers where ever you are.

George under starry skies tonight in Suffolk.

Spent an hour or so in the shed on the ongoing 'Spectrometer Mk3' build.  I'm not convinced this  'Heath Robinson' contraption of mine is going to work but hey-ho - I've started so I'm going to finish.  On a slightly more positive note, this particular DIY journey into the unknown has been relatively inexpensive and the bits I have purchased are easily recyclable for more and the equally pointless future projects with which I am determined to fill my ongoing retirement from gainfull enterprise.  One of the minor benefits of being a compulsive hoarder and inveterate tinkerer is a shed full of stuff.

I really like stuff and sheds, stuff in sheds and sheds with stuff in 'em. My shed runneth over with stuff! Thats why I've got two sheds!

George in Oulton Broad sitting on a sofa contemplating the philosophy of 'stuff in sheds' and the imminent possibility of Pizza .

Been busy during the day with DIY and the evening cloud cover has been a bit patchy, so have not had the scopes out - but instead I have used my bins when the sky has cleared. Thought the sky at dusk  on the 15th June looked like there was a possibility of Noctiluscent Clouds - so I set up my DSLR on a photo tripod and waited. Sadly no high level blue clouds appeared so I took a few random photos of the sky. As it turns out I captured one of the brightest satellite flares I've ever seen.  It was moving across the sky from South to North.

Lowestoft Pier build took a set back today. The electric concrete mixer that had rested quietly for 6 years under a tarpaulin on our backyard did not go when I plugged it into the National Grid.  Shocker  . Had to take it apart.  The electric motor had seized solid. Had to drill the main shaft to obtain sufficient purchase to free it with loads of WD40 and brute force. Finally got it reassembled and working at about 4.30 pm.

Onwards and upwards

One transit, two shadow transits and the GRS and...................wall to wall cloud.  GRRRRRRx3.  I'm right pigged off!  It doesn't matter how many times I look at BBC weather for Lowestoft or SAT24 or out the window, all I can see is CLOUD with a high chance of precipitation. GRRRRRRRx27.  Thats pigged off cubed.

Well the BBC Weather site turn out to be correct after all.  After a day of wall to wall cloud, rain, rain and a bit more rain, it cleared up and I saw stars the moon and astro stuff like that. Tried out spectrometer Mark 2 with mixed failure. Far too many reflections off chromed tubing so today has incluided corrective 'flocking'.

Anyway to cheer myself up I took a quick video of the terminator on a waxing gibbous moon. Quite pleased with the result, bearing in mind the Altair Lightwave Doublet refractor has only 66mm of aperture!

Widefield gives a nice overview, without 'stitching ', of Copernicus, Kepler, Aristarchus and Gassendi.

Eaten too much!

When I went for a walk this evening I actually saw some stars!  It had clouded over by midnight but I did get to gaze upon my mate Orion and all the other mid winter culprits.  As I walked home I was able to watch Cygnus sinking into the horizon with Vega just keeping its head above the trees.  

Let's hope we've all been  good girls and boys and Santa brings us clear skies in 2017.

Nighty night Stargazers where ever you are.

All sorts of weather in Lowestoft today. Did get to eat lunch in the backyard, which was nice, and the evening cloud, that rolled in after dark, finally cleared to reveal a gibbous waning moon. I love the moon in this phase as it looks positively 3d to the naked eye and a bit backcloth scenery Startrek 1960s.

I believe I'm losing the plot. When I went out to lock up my shed/mission control, at about 23:30, I noticed an almost vertical shaft of light poking up above my hedge. I started to get all 'old man' angry about it. Had another one of my neighbours fitted laser bright security lights or had a local 'entrepreneur' installed the club standard searchlight?  Then I realised it was only moonlight reflected from a passing jet plane's diffusing contrail.

Best drink my cocoa and take myself off to bed. -  "Ah bless! "- As they say in Suffolk.

After searching through over 200 - 30 second light frames of a large tranche of the milky way, taken over two nights around maximum,  I found two far from dramatic potential Perseids. I must say I was amazed how many Iridium flashes and satellites I managed to capture. Low earth orbit must be like the M25 on a Friday afternoon.

Clouded out in Lowestoft tonight!  Off to bed.

As the clouds are back over Lowestoft, I decided to give Perseids hunting a night off. Some weeks ago someone on SGL had recommended the webcams on www.Shetland.org 60 degrees north for the aurora and birdwatching. Over the light nights of June and July, I got hooked watching the Puffins. Well it suddenly struck me that if it was clear over Lerwick, meteors might be visible via webcam. I have been laying in bed watching Cliffcam One and Auriga and the kids are clearly visible above the horizon, so Cliffcam One has an eastern view. What's more I've seen two meteors and all without leaving my bed. What I call a cloudy night result.

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.

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!

I'm wondering whether another mouthful of cake will result in an irreversible gravitational collapse of my energy depleted body?