SAO28567: One that got away – BAAVSS circular

CMHASD Trustee John Howarth has been thanked for his help in a paper called SAO28567: One that got away published in a recent edition of the BAAVSS, written by Chris Lloyd of the RAL.

John said ''Chris originally suggested to Roger Pickard and Malcolm Gough that this would be a good object for the APT, as there had been a conflicting observation and they passed their data to me for analysis. Subsequently the star was shown to be a double and was being pulled out of shape by the gravity of its companion, hence the variability. I still had the data, so was able to send it to Chris Lloyd for his analysis, and the paper shows this.

I was pleased to be mentioned but it is also a great tribute to the Jack Ells APT and its operators. Timely too, because we are currently trying to find a permanent home for the APT, or at least for its photometer.''

To view the paper click on the link below to download the edition of the BAAVSS circular that has the paper in it.

VSSC201

Friday 3rd January 2025

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

A superb selection of member images taken on Friday 3rd January 2025.

 

The Sun at midday taken by Dr Mike Rushton taken using a Dwarf II smart scope. 20 x 1/250 sec at Gain 0 with a ND6 solar filter.

The Sun taken by Honor Wheeler

The Sun taken by Jim Burchell

The Pleiades by Dr Mike Rushton using a Dwarf II smart scope.  200 x 10sec exposures at Gain 60.

Crescent Moon and Venus taken by Honor Wheeler. Venus is top right of the Moon.

Saturn, Venus and the Moon taken by Honor Wheeler. Venus is top right of the Moon and Saturn is near the top left corner of the image.

CMHASD at Wentworth Primary School – Jan 2025

On Wednesday, January 8th, members of the Society visited Wentworth Junior School in Crayford for an evening of stargazing. Unfortunately, poor weather prevented outdoor stargazing, so the event moved indoors. Despite this, the pupils remained enthusiastic, engaging with the activities and asking questions about telescopes, meteors, the phases of the Moon, and the solar system. The pupils were also fascinated by images of recent auroral activity. Overall, it was a rewarding and enjoyable evening for everyone involved.

Wentworth School wrote in their newsletter ''Our year 5 children welcomed the Crayford Astronomy group to school. They came armed with different telescopes and a mountain of knowledge! This happened to fall on the day that snow was predicted. With snow comes clouds and limited visuals and therefore a tweak to the proceedings. The children experimented by looking at a model of Jupiter, and saw a variety of pictures of the sun, moons and planets that had been taken throughout the South East of England. They also learnt about the orientation, facts and amount of moons and other features you find in space. We even discovered that there was an asteroid named Wentworth! This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening arranged by the astronomy group and we are extremely grateful that they could share their expertise!''

CMHASD Chairman John Archer wrote ''Last night (Wed’s 8th) a group of us returned to Wentworth Primary School, not far from Crayford, to educate and entertain the pupils. There were telescopes on display, activities in the gym & hall as well as a presentation on the night sky and member Aurora images. The teaching staff were delighted with how things went, and hoped we will return next year, (perhaps with clear skies).

I wanted to thank those who braved the sleet, and gave up their evening to share their interest and knowledge of astronomy with the younger generation – It’s entirely possible that the next generation of space explorers or alien life discoverers were with us last night – stranger things have happened!''

Below is a wonderful card made by the pupils in appreciation of our visit last week despite the horrible weather.

 

The Heart Nebula by Kevin Langford – Jan 2025

This is an absolutely stunning image of the Heart Nebula captured by member Kevin Langford over 2 nights on the 7th and 9th Jan 2025 from Bexley, Kent.

The Heart Nebula (also known as the Running Dog Nebula and Sharpless 2-190) is an emission nebula, 7,500 light-years away from Earth and located in the constellation Cassiopeia. The nebula spans almost 2 degrees in the sky, covering an area four times that of the diameter of the full moon. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787.  

''The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of hot stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars, known as Collinder 26, Melotte 15, or IC 1805, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of the Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of the Solar mass.'' Ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_Nebula

Kevin acquired his image using:

ES 102ED APO, 0.7x focal reducer corrector, and EQ5 Pro.

ZWO ASI071, and Orion MMAG,L-eNhance filter.

7.5 Hrs of exposures.

Number of images taken 150 x 180sec.

Software used:

Sirilic to stack images.

Siril to processes image.

Affinity Photo 2 to finish.

Check out Kevin's flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/77708720@N08/ to see more of his fantastic images.

Thursday 2nd Jan 2025


[et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text]NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please click here for solar observing safely.

Thursday 2nd January 2025 was a good day & night for Astronomy.  Clear views of the Sun during the day and a fantastic clear night.  It was also an informal night too for the Society and as the sky was absolutely clear; without no hesitation members got out their telescopes and spent the evening observing the night sky.  Below are some of the superb images members took that day and night.

The Sun with lots of sunspots taken by Honor Wheeler

Crescent Moon in the sunset taken by Honor Wheeler

Waxing Crescent Moon & Earthshine by taken Honor Wheeler.  The moon was 2.62 days old and 8.35% illuminated.

Crescent Moon by taken by John Archer

Crescent Moon taken by Dr Mike Rushton using a Dwarf II smart scope. 1/30 sec x 20 at gain 0 and no filter.

The Moon & Venus by taken Honor Wheeler (Venus is in the top left corner)

Orion, Jupiter and Mars by taken Honor Wheeler. Mars is left of Orion and Jupiter is above Orion.

Members observing at the Pavilion on the 2nd Jan 2025 taken by Honor Wheeler

The Horsehead Nebula taken by Jim Burchell using a Seestar S50 smartscope. 205 stacked images and processed using the Seestar S50 processing software.  The Horsehead Nebula (also known as Barnard 33 or B33) is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion and is located just to the south of the star Alnitak, the eastern most star of Orion's Belt,

The Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters or Messier 45 is a young open star cluster in Taurus) taken by Diane Clarke taken using a Seestar S50 smartscope. 85 x 30sec exposures, Jpeg stacked using Seestar S50 internal software.

[caption id="attachment_9838" align="alignnone" width="341"] M 45[/caption][/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Sun & Moon – 14th Dec 2024

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

A stunning set of images of the Sun by Honor Wheeler and a beautiful one of the Moon by Jim Burchell taken on the 14th Dec 2024.

The Sun by Honor Wheeler

Honor said ''I've had about 20 mins in-between the cloud to capture the Sun in white light with my ED80 refractor and the Sun in H-alpha. In H-alpha there is a massive prominence visible which took me by surprise when I got the camera on it. Shame I can't follow the sun for longer as a neighbours tree and cloud are in the way.''

The combined image of the sun; with the H-alpha image inverted and then the white light disc added.

 

The Moon by Jim Burchell

A very atmospheric photo of a Waxing Gibbous Moon which was 13.58 days old and 99.76% illuminated.

 

First Quarter Moon by Neil Webster – 6th Jan 2025

A fantastic mosaic image of the Moon taken by member Neil Webster on the 6th Jan 2025.  The Moon was 6.85 days old and 47.8% illuminated.

Below are the individual frames from the mosaic.

Neil acquired the images using an AA 115mm apo, EQ6 R, ZWO ASI 290MM, and a Astronomik R/IR filter.

Processed using Firecapture, AutoStakkert, PS, and Microsoft ICE.

8 frames (each 90 x 33fps). 20% selected by AS.

Check out Neil's flickr page at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/137388222@N05/

IC 410 The Tadpole Nebula and IC 405 The Flaming Star Nebula by Neil Webster – 3rd Jan 2025

A superb image of IC 410 The Tadpole Nebula (left) and IC 405 The Flaming Star Nebula (right) by member Neil Webster taken on the 3rd Jan 2025.

''IC 410 is a cosmic cloud that looks like tadpoles swimming through the cosmos.

IC 410 is located 12,000 lightyears from Earth in the Auriga constellation, and is nicknamed the Tadpole Nebula because of the tadpole-shaped clouds of dark dust that appear to be swimming towards the centre.  The Tadpole Nebula is a region of ionised hydrogen gas spanning over 100 lightyears across that's carved and sculpted by streams of charged particles called stellar winds emanating from open star cluster NGC 1893.  NGC 1893 is about 4 million years old: the blink of an eye in cosmic terms.  The 'tadpoles' that give the nebula its nickname are dense streams of dust and gas about 10 lightyears long that may well be sites of star formation.'' Ref: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/astrophotography/nebulae/tadpole-nebula-ic-410

located near the emission nebula IC 410, is IC 405 (also known as the Flaming Star Nebula, SH 2-229, or Caldwell 31).  IC 405 is an emission and reflection nebula that surrounds the bluish, irregular variable star AE Aurigae.

Neil acquired his image using a WO GT71 Apo, EQ6 R, ZWO ASI 294MC Pro Optolong L Enhance filter, Astro Essentials 50mm guide scope, and a ZWO ASI 290MM guide camera.

Processed using APT, PHD, Nebulosity and Photoshop.

58 x 240s Subs, 45 x 0.015s Flats/Bias.

Note: Neil suffered a power cut just before taking the Darks so noise reduction was applied liberally.

Check out Neil's flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/137388222@N05/with/54245664968/ to see a higher resolution image.

CMHASD supporting the BAA at New Scientist Live – ExCel London, October 2024

 
This was the BAA’s 7th in person New Scientist Live which this year saw 26,182 visitors pass through its doors.
All in all, everybody who staffed the stand enjoyed the experience. Over the 3 days their enthusiasm & knowledge radiated to everybody that visited the stand hopefully resulting in future new members of the BAA.
With regard to the effort that everybody put into this year’s New Scientist Live 2024, the BAA’s new President Janice McClean said - It takes a whole team to make it and in my humble opinion I think this was an absolute top team effort”.  CMHASD Members Diane Clarke, Steve Floodgate, David Grist, Debra Holton & Janice McClean were part of the team.''
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