Jump to content

SkySurveyBanner.jpg.21855908fce40597655603b6c9af720d.jpg

Interested in joining a new Warwickshire observers Group?


Flyingpig

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 87
  • Created
  • Last Reply
sorry - know this is a bit late - but does it matter if I get there a little earlier ??

ISS is going in front of Venus at 19:45 - so would be great to try and capture it .....

I plan to be there at about 7-30 for about 30 minutes then I'm off to work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi David,

As Andy has pointed out we are finding a few sites across the region and will be rotating the observing between them. We hope to have the second site in the Southam area sorted out soon. This might be the Napton Holt farm campsite but I need to check out the site and obtain permission - I hope to get on to this in the coming week if I can.

To clarify things the Central Midlands Stargazers currently has two organisers - Simon who has a small group in the south Leicester area who were known as the South Leicester Observers (where he has another observing location at Gloosten Leicestershire.) and Myself, I'll be heading up organising sites in the Warwickshire area.

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Andy - you too, also lovely too meet you both Simon & Phil.

Big thank you to Simon, for letting us look through his dob & over his shoudler.

A brilliant location to view from, next time i'll have my new mount, so will be staying for alot longer.

Also whoever we passed on the way out - sorry we didn't get to say hello.

Looking forward to lots more sessions & meetings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great night last night. We had 10 people there in total which is a great turnout. We had a whole range of scopes there, some came with just binos or cameras but had a chance to look through scopes if they wished.

The night was clear but there was a strong wind which was quite chilling. Make sure you are protected in all areas body, feet and head with layers then you can focus on the skies rather than the temp. It gets a lot colder than you think especially in country areas like Sulby.

I had a look at all 4 planets available last night. Venus was quite low down when I arrived and was caught in the cloud on the horizon. I could see the bands on Jupier but the seeing wasn't perfect due to a thin layer of high cloud. Mars improved as the night went on and at the end of the evening we tried a range of filters to see if we could pick up the detail of the plolar caps and any surface filters. The blue and yellow filters seemed the most effective. I saw Saturn towards the end of the session but it didn't get high enough up to see very clearly.

I also observed the double cluster in Perseus (wow!), Pleaides, Orion Nebula, Owl cluster, Owl nebula, Whirlpool galaxy (at the request of Karlos), the Andromeda galaxy amongst others.

The Milky way was visible and it seems to be about as good a site as you can expect being in the Midlands.

I look forward to a repeat session very soon. Thanks to all who made it over.

Simon :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys really sorry you hadn't heard from me earlier, for some reason my report on Saturday night didn't post here yesterday, :D so I'm writing it up again. I was fairly busy yesterday with the kids, so I didn't check back till now.

Thanks to Simon and those others who have commented about the meeting already.

Saturday night was fantastic the site proved itself to be very dark indeed and we were treated to a carpet of stars that we dont normally get to see here in the Midlands. :p

Ten people managed to make it which was an excellent turn out thanks to all who came. As Simon mentioned some people turned up with nothing more than binoculars or cameras which was great, we welcome people to come along with whatever equipment they like to bring. I certainly don't want anyone to feel that they can't pop along since they don't have any equipment, Astronomy was studied for thousands of years before the telescope was invented, your all just as welcome with your own two eyes as you are with a 14" Dob. That said we had a variety of equipment between us, there were several EQ mounted Newtonians, Simons 10" Dob, a 3" Refractor courtesy of Karlos and my two Celestron SCT's, unfortunately I had miss placed my power cable :( for the big 11" CPC1100 so we only had the small Nexstar5 one in use.

Between us we observed a great variety of objects from Venus and the ISS which Viv (Scarlet) managed to photograph early in the evening to viewing Saturn and Mars which had risen high in the sky at the end of the evening. I personally observed the Orion Nebula, the Owl Nebula, and the Owl Cluster, the Double Cluster, Whirlpool galaxy, Andromeda, and the planets that were up Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

The highlight of the session had to be a bright "Fireball" meteor that Karlos spotted which lasted for a good number of seconds as it scorched across the sky long enough for me to see a good few seconds of it after Karlos spotted it! :) I have been observing since I was seven but I have never seen a meteor to match it. I would be very interested to discover whether any remnant of it made land fall but we will probably never know.

Another interest was observing Mars at the end of the night through 3 of my colour filters Red #25, Yellow #12 and Blue #80A; the red improved the visibility of the polar cap region better, although Mars looked un-celestial through it like a red LED rather than a planet, the yellow filter was amazing it revealed the dark areas of surface detail such as maria, and the blue was a good all rounder it revealed other surface details as well as the polar cap. I recently read an article by Peter Grego about the use of these filters with the planets which prompted the activity, something that I will eagerly experiment with more after seeing the results on Mars. I am eager to try the two green filters I have #56 and #58A now which I read are excellent to use with Mars. These are the visual colour filters (the number refers to the Kodak Wratten code) that often come with eyepiece sets.

Thanks to everyone who came along it was great to see you all and I'll look forward to our next session when the weather next permits.

Clear skies,

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I live in Nuneaton so I'd be interested in coming along next time.

I know a few dark(ish) sites round here too.

I will send you a PM, you are more than welcome to come along. We are looking to have an observing site to the are north of Nuneaton - I am in Bedworth myself.

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I might be interested. It depends on where you meet etc as Warwick isn't that far from me.

I will send you a PM

We will be having a few observing sites across the region I am currently looking into two new sites one to the North of Nuneaton and the other one will be nearer to you in the Southam area. We are using darker sites located with the aid of this UK Light pollution Map light pollution map - if you search down you will find a map that overlays onto google earth. I do notice an area around Wooten Wawen that looks pretty dark and it might possibly be another location we can look into.

Phil

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.