CMHASD Solar Observing at Hall Place & Gardens – 5th May 2024

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

On Sunday 5th May 2024 the team from CMHASD set themselves up for the first of our two Solar Observing events at Hall Place & Gardens and what a glorious day it was to be out solar observing.

Members of the public were invited to do some solar observing which was enthusiastically accepted by those who were keen to look at the sun using our scopes.  The Sun put on a good display having several complex sunspots for the public to view.

Five telescopes were set up to observe the Sun safely.  First; a table-top Celestron Firstscope 76mm Newtonian fitted with a home-made solar filter through which many of the public were able to see the numerous sunspot groups, this was a low budget telescope and easy to use.

There were 3 smart scopes set up; two Seestar S50's and a Dwarf II.  The 2 images of the Sun below were taken by the smart scopes.  The first was taken by CMHASD Secretary Dr Mike Rushton using a Dwarf II smart scope and the second taken by member Terry Miles using a Seestar S50 smart telescope.  Both images were captured whilst Mike & Terry were helping at Hall Place.

Dwarf II smart telescope (1" aperture!) 30 x 1/200sec subs at gain 0 with a ND6 Solar filter.

 

The fifth telescope set up was a Celestron C90 Maksutov Cassegrain telescope, focal length 1250mm, 90mm objective lens (corrector plate) using a 32mm eye piece which gave a full view of the Sun's disk. This was on a Sky Watcher heavy duty tripod on which was mounted a William Optics wedge on which was mounted a iOptron Sky Guider Pro tracking mount and finally the Mak mounted on top. The Celestron was set up for visual observation only so fitted with a Baader 5ND solar filter, no imaging was done.

Our pitch was on the grass at the end of the path from the main entrance to the gardens, and we were quite close to the hard standing outside the art gallery and café. With the date being chosen to coincide with the Farmers’ Market, we experienced good foot-fall and our flag was prominent for visitors as they arrived.

The Crayford team returns again later in July for our second session but there’s no doubt this first visit to Hall Place for Solar Observing in 2024 was a great success and the Society would like to thank all those members who helped on the day :-D

Thank you also to John Archer, John Howarth, Dr Mike Rushton and Terry Miles for sharing your photos with us.

*** CMHASD will be back at Hall Place on Sunday 7th July 2024 to do some more Solar Observing with the public. Please do come and join us! ***

Our Sun – 21st & 29th April 2024

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Two fab images of our Sun taken by member Jim Burchell on the 21st & 29th April 2024.  Details of how Jim captured the Sun is on the 1st image.  Please note a solar filter was used too.

Sun on 21st April 2024 by Jim Burchell

For comparison; below is the Sun with the Sunspots numbered taken from Spaceweather.com on 21st April 2024.

Ref:https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=21&month=04&year=2024

 

The Sun on 29th April 2024 by Jim Burchell

For comparison; below is the Sun with the Sunspots numbered taken from Spaceweather.com on 29th April 2024.

Ref:https://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=29&month=04&year=2024

The Sun – 18th April 2024

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

A super collection of Sun images taken on the 18th April 2024.

The 1st image below was taken by Dr Mike Rushton using a Dwarf II smartscope. Mike took 30 x 1/200sec images which were stacked, gain 0 + solar filter.

For comparison, below is the Sun image from Spaceweather.com on the 18th April and has the Sunspots numbered.

 

The next 5 images below of the Sun were taken by member Simon Dawes.  Details of how Simon acquired his images are on some of the photos.

Double Rainbow

A fantastic image of a double rainbow captured by member Kevin Smith whilst on a walk in Deal, Kent on the 16th April 2024.

At 6.35pm Kevin was walking along the marshes to the West of Deal looking East towards the sea, about 700 metres from the beach when he saw the rainbow and used his Samsung A52s mobile phone to take the photo.

''A double rainbow is a wonderful sight where you get two spectacular natural displays for the price of one.

Surprisingly, this phenomenon is actually relatively common, especially at times when the sun is low in the sky such as in the early morning or late afternoon. The second rainbow is fainter and more 'pastel' in tone than the primary rainbow because more light escapes from two reflections compared to one.

The secondary rainbow is also dispersed over a wider area of the sky. It is nearly twice as wide as the primary bow.

A key feature of double rainbows is that the colour sequence in the second rainbow is reversed.

The dark band between the two rainbows is known as Alexander's band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it in 200AD.

The band forms because between the deviation angles of the primary and secondary rainbows none of the sunlight is scattered by the raindrops towards the observer giving the band of dark sky.

How are double rainbows formed?

Double rainbows are formed when sunlight is reflected twice within a raindrop with the violet light that reaches the observer's eye coming from the higher raindrops and the red light from lower raindrops.

This means the sequence of colours is inverted compared to the primary rainbow, with the secondary bow appearing about 10 degrees above the primary bow.'' Ref:https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/optical-effects/rainbows/double-rainbows

BAA Winchester Weekend 2024

BAA Winchester Weekend

2024 April 12-14

Over the three days 12 CMHASD members were treated to lectures and talks covering a wide variety of astronomical subjects ranging from the BAA Archives to Dark Energy; including two new presentations from  CMHASD members Martin Crow, Steve Floodgate & David Grist.  To see the whole BAA Winchester Programme click on the link https://britastro.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winchester-Programme.pdf

This years Alfred Curtis Memorial lecture “The Digital Telescope Concept” was presented by Professor Don Pollacco from the University of Warwick.  If you click on the link https://britastro.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Winchester-Bios-Abstracts.pdf  you can read the biographies and abstracts of all the speakers and their talks in the order they were given.

On Saturday morning CMHASD member & trustee Martin Crow gave his presentation about the ExoClock Project with regard to how citizen scientists are contributing to ESA’s Aerial Space Mission.

On Saturday afternoon some white light solar observing /imaging was possible through the thin cloud.

NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Back by popular demand were Eric and Ernie (CMHASD members Steve Floodgate & David Grist) who made an appearance at the BAA members session on Sunday afternoon to promote and drum up support for New Scientist Live at ExCel London at which they and other CMHASD members helped. 

Also David Grist is now a fully paid up member of the British Astronomical Association choir....

As night fell, observing had been planned but with cloud cover on both nights two social evenings were had instead :-)

Thank you to members Diane Clarke & Martin Crow for your help writing this post and to Diane, Martin and Simon Dawes for sharing your photos of the weekend.

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Crescent Moon

Two lovely images of a 32 hour old Moon with Earthshine taken by member Richard Bohner from Arizona on the 9th April 2024.

The 1st image of the crescent moon with Jupiter (top left) was taken with an iPhone.  The dot to the right of the Moon was an aeroplane.

The 2nd photo of the crescent moon was taken at 7:30 pm using a Canon 6D with 200mm telephoto lens f2.8, 1/20 sec exposure at ISO 3200.

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