A lovely photo of a young Moon in the constellation Taurus taken by CMHASD trustee John Howarth on the 20th May 2023.
Author: WebMistress
Venus, Mars and the Twins by Simon Dawes and Jim Burchell
Two great images below of the planets Mars and Venus with the twins Castor & Pollux. Castor and Pollux are the 2 brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini.
Left to right: Mars, Pollux & Castor all nicely lined up with Venus lower right captured by member Simon Dawes on the 16th May 2023.
Below; moving again from left to right: Mars, Pollux & Castor with Venus lower right captured by member Jim Burchell on the 21st May 2023.
Exoplanet HAT-P-12b
Another set of transit observations for the ExoClock project by Simon Dawes of Exoplanet HAT-P-12b.
HAT-P-12b is 468 light years away from Earth, orbiting a 13th magnitude K-type star in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is was discovered by the HATNet Project on April 29, 2009.
Sunset & Full Moon Rising by Jim & Honor – 5th May 2023
A collection of beautiful images of our Sun setting and a full Moon rising on the 5th May 2023 taken by members Jim Burchell & Honor Wheeler.
Sun with Sunspot setting by Honor
Sunset by Jim
''The Full Moon of May is known as Flower Moon to signify the flowers that bloom during this month. Native Americans called it Budding Moon, Egg Laying Moon, and Planting Moon.
The Anglo-Saxon name for May’s brightest Moon phase is Milk Moon from the Old English Rimilcemona. It means three-milkings-month in modern English because cows were milked three times a day during this time of year. The Celtic and Old English names are Mothers’ Moon, Bright Moon, Hare Moon, and Grass Moon.'' ref:https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/flower.html
Flower Moon on 5th May by Honor
FLower Moon rising by Jim
The Sun by Simon Dawes – 10th & 16th May 2023
NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/
A fantastic collection of images of our Sun taken by Simon Dawes on the 10th & 16th May 2023 from North Kent, showing lots of sunspots :-)
Details of how Simon acquired his images are on the photos.
The Sun on the 16th May 2023
The Sun on the 10th May 2023
Fogbow by Kevin Smith – 7th May 2023
A great example of a fogbow captured by member Kevin Smith on the 7th May 2023.
A fogbow is a similar phenomenon to a rainbow but as its name suggests, it appears as a bow in fog rather than rain.
Due to the very small size of the water droplets that cause fog being so much smaller than in rain i.e. smaller than 0.1 mm in diameter; fogbows have very weak colours or no colour at all. Fogbows that have no colour are sometimes called 'white rainbows'.
A Fog Bow by Kevin Smith
''How do fogbows form?
The elements that make up a fogbow are the same as for a rainbow - sunlight at the observers back, and water droplets in front. The water droplets that make up fog are so tiny compared to raindrops, between 10 and 1000 times smaller, that while the light still reflects from the water droplet back towards the observer, the process of diffraction of the light by the droplet becomes a dominant effect.
The process of diffraction broadens the reflected beam of light which smears out the colours which give the characteristic ghostly white, or very faintly coloured fogbow. This also makes the fogbow much broader than a rainbow.
The fog bank has to be relatively diffused and thin to allow the light to pass through the droplets and create the effect. Fogbows are large, almost as big as rainbows.
A similar effect can also be seen from aircraft in cloud droplets, when they're known as cloud bows.'' ref:https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/optical-effects/rainbows/fogbow
Sun Halo by John Archer – 30th April 2023
NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/
A splendid example of a Sun halo captured by CMHASD Chairman John Archer on the 30th April 2023.
A Sun halo is caused by the refraction, reflection, and dispersion of light through ice particles suspended within thin, wispy, high altitude cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.
Hot off the Press!!!!! member Kevin Langford’s Pleiades image and BBC Sky at Night
Check this out - our member Kevin Langford's brilliant Pleiades (M45) image - see above; being used on the BBC Sky at Night website. Plus Kevin's image was shown in the programme aired on the 16th May 2023 too!.........Well Done Kevin :-)
CMHASD at the BAA Winchester Weekend 14-16th of April 2023.
CMHASD at the BAA Winchester Weekend 2023
Written by member Honor Wheeler
The weekend started off with the majority of us meeting up at a pub for Friday lunch, although the M25 did its best to make that as difficult as possible but thankfully we all made it in the end. Then an A31 closure sent us all on a long, picturesque diversion before finally checking in at the Sparsholt College campus.
The first lecture on the Friday night, after a delicious dinner of course, was titled 'Superluminous Supernovae: Fantastic bursts and where to find them' by Dr Matt Nichol, Queen's University Belfast which was an fascinating talk on Supernovae past and present. This was followed by a trip to the campus pub for some or returning to the common room for a chance of some relaxation for others.
The Crayford Crew
A busy lecture Saturday followed starting with 'Pete & Paul's 2023 Astronomical Challenges' followed by 'OJ287 - a Black Hole Worthy of Amateur Study' by Gary Poyner BAA, 'the Electromagnetic Spectrum' by Paul Hearn BAA, a talk from Dr Alex Cameron on the 'JWST Observing Galaxies in the Very Early Universe' looking even further back in time to 13.1 Billion years and seeing one of the highest Redshifted Galaxies to date.
Before the afternoon lectures recommenced, a little Solar observing was achieved with some observations of complex groups of Prominences and Sunspots.
The Sun by Honor Wheeler
The afternoon session was presented by the BAA Mercury and Venus section starting with a look at the 'Sodium Ion Tail of Mercury' by Chris Hooker and how to image this elusive 'Comet like' tail followed by 'Observing Venus in IR and UV' in a variety of short talks by other members of the section.
Some members took the opportunity to explore the college grounds which are extensive and enjoyed some great views of the countryside seeing Deer, Buzzards and a rather stunning bird of prey known as a Red Kite.
Saturday evening and we enjoyed the Alfred Curtis Lecture, 'Exploring the Ice Giants of our Solar System' by Prof. Patrick Irwin (University of Oxford) another interesting lecture which left us with the hope that maybe we'll be visiting these enigmatic Planets sooner rather than later.
A few members then made the most of clear skies and carried out observations of Venus and its conjunction with the Hyades before retiring to the pub or the common room for discussions about the day's lectures.
The Hyades & Venus by Jim Burchell
On Sunday the day began with an intriguing lecture 'How Astronomers Can Save The World' by Stuart Eves (SJE Space) but I don't think we were quite convinced that painting an Asteroid with White Paint would save the world from an impending impact (Steve was just kidding!!)
Dr Jen Gupta followed with a lively discussion on seeing 'The Invisible Universe' and looking at how we see through the dust obscuring distant, new stars.
'Let There Be Light' followed with an extensive tour of our local star the Sun by Dr Matthew Malek.
After lunch came the Members session and the opportunity to hear about projects, imaging and observations undertaken by members but which also included a rather different lecture which brought a lighter side to the proceedings.
Steve Floodgate & Dave Grist gave us a Stella (Artois) Performance…I mean Lecture on the complex Crayford Astronomical Society's 'The Book'. You had to be there but safe to say the Members session was one everyone will remember until the end of time…! And maybe there will be a Pub at the end of time too…?
And thus the weekend was over leaving us all heavy with the knowledge gleaned from eminent Doctors, Professors and experts in their field and also filled with an amount of excellent food we just couldn't say no too.
In the end 15 members of the society managed to attend the weekend, with 2 other members who unfortunately had to cancel due to personal reasons.
Overall a thoroughly enjoyable and informative weekend with lots of information to mull over and I'm sure leading to numerous further discussions to be had until next year's BAA Winchester weekend 2024.
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The BAA Winchester Programme 2023 is a downloadable and printable as a PDF here: https://britastro.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Winchester-programme-card-2023.pdf
Thankyou to Honor, Jim and Simon for sharing your photos of the weekend.
Ceres photobombing Messier 100 by Simon Dawes – 26th March 2023
On the night of the 26th/27th March 2023 Ceres appeared to 'meet' and pass directly in front of the beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 100 (M100) and for a few hours Ceres looked like a brilliant supernova beaming from one of the M100 galaxy's arms.
At the time of the line-of-sight view, Ceres was shining from a piddling distance of 150 million miles (240 million kilometers) from Earth whilst the galaxy at 56 million light-years away; so actually trillions of miles apart! The 'meeting' took place in the constellation Coma Berenices just a few days after Ceres' opposition, which is when Earth passes between it and the Sun.
Despite the poor weather CMHASD Trustee & member Simon Dawes managed to capture the event - see his image below :-) Ceres is identified with 2 red lines and M100 is at the 4 O'clock position from Ceres.
Ceres is a dwarf planet and the largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt that is between Mars & Jupiter. It was the first asteroid to be discovered on the 1st January 1801 and was classified as 1 Ceres in 1851. Ceres was designated a dwarf planet, a new category of solar system objects defined in August 2006 by the International Astronomical Union.
Ceres's small size; about 14 times smaller than Pluto means that even at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies. Its apparent magnitude ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, peaking at opposition.
Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321) is a face-on, spiral galaxy with an apparent magnitude of 9.3. It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies with a diameter of 160,000 light years. It was discovered in 1781.
Information of how Simon acquired his image is on his photo and for more information about this event see https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/observing-news/tell-time-with-the-big-dipper-see-ceres-transit-m100/#:~:text=By%20good%20fortune%20Ceres%20will%20pass%20directly%20in,northern%20portion%20of%20the%20Virgo%20Cluster%20this%20spring.
