IYA2009 Newsletter - Moon for all Mankind

[mike.brightmore]

Is anyone going to take part in this?

Dear Amateur Astronomer Community,

The UK has the opportunity to take part in an exciting IYA2009 special project: The Moon for All Mankind Moon for all Mankind | IYA2009 Updates | Astronomy 2009

This project is being run by the IYA2009 Malta Committee. They have divided the Moon into 45 sections, which will be imaged in different countries around the world and combined in a collage which will be circulated globally by the IYA2009 global task group.

The UK has been assigned sections 41 and 42 (see image on above link) which includes Tycho crater. We are therefore looking for amateur astronomers to take part in this project and image the relevant sections of the Moon.

The images are to be taken on either 09 May or 07 June 2009, during the full Moon.

If you are interested in being involved in this project, please let me know. Given the short timescales for the first date (i.e. three days time from the sending of this email), and given also the vagaries of the British weather, it might be difficult to get the required images if we decide in advance on one person and one site, so if I get lots of replies to this email we can make this a UK-wide effort.

Once you have the images, email them to me and I will forward them to the Malta Committee

Many regards

Steve Owens

International Year of Astronomy 2009

UK Co-ordinator

t 0141 420 5010 ext 299

m 07717720479

e steve@astronomy2009.co.uk

w www.astronomy2009.co.uk

[Trevor]

An informational post.......

From: http://wasnet.co.uk/NWAS/May09.pdf

Mountains and the Moon 4/5th April 2009

Been quite a busy month this month, started with the world

record attempt at Sir Patrick Moore’s house in Selsey. The

team, comprising of Damian Peach, Dave Tyler, Pete Lawrence,

Bruce Kingsley, Nick Smith, Trevor Little, Dave Moran

and Mark/Lea Irving, were either on site or imaging from home

(which in the end worked out quite badly for Bruce Kingsley, as

sadly he got clouded out half way in to his run, as did Dave

Moran). Still, we think we have captured all of the images

needed. In total over 1000 separate images we think were captured,

with over 1 million frames of video being stacked. Between

Trevor and I we have over half a million=2 0frames of

video, and 5000+ separate images, though still with gaps. The

Moon dropping at 13 arcseconds/minute made this a really difficult

job, and myself, as well as Dave Tyler, a vastly more experienced

Lunar imager had gaps (thankfully we had overlap

coverage). Seeing was at best 3-4/10 with thin and sometimes

thick cloud trying its best to spoil the attempt

The day was fraught with issues, my C11 focuser locked up

totally (Ninian saved the day on that one), I had a minor issue

with the Skynyx camera too (thankfully which did not affect the

imaging run, and is now resolved courtesy of the nice people at

Framos UK), but we got there in the end.

At time of writing , we are mostly through the initial image processing,

and should hopefully have the final image ready soon,

so watch this space.