Astronomy every Thursday
Three members of CMHASD attended the BAA Chichester meeting back in April 2013. It was held at the South Downs Planetarium, Chichester and hosted by Dr John Mason MBA of the BAA.
Below are a selection of photos taken by member Jim Burchell of that day.
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Members Mike, Rita, Jean and Brian travelled to Northern Australia to see this eclipse.
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Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC
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All images are copyright. Permission must be sought to from the image owner to the use of any of these images.
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When the Manor house closed in December 2011 we lost our 50 year old observatory so we had to find a new home for our 24" telescope built by John Wall :-(
York Astronomical Society agreed to rehouse the telescope. Below are a selection of photos showing what happened that day.
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This meeting was hosted by Crayford Manor House Astronomical Society, the weather wasn't great but we did manage to get the Solar scopes out for a short while. The lectures were great.
Dr Chris Arridge
All about project JUICE an ESA mission to Jupiter
Dr Dan Andrews
All about missions to comets with some insight into the Beagle 2 mission
Dr Rob Gowen
Title says it all really
Prof. Iwan Williams
All about categorisation of asteroids and coments and how/ if they can/should be classified differently
Dr Craig Leff
All about how to manage robotic missions on Mars.
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Set in the Sussex countryside Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) a world-leading space science laboratory and home to Guilford AS held an open day and we were invited along.
15 members attended the Mullard Space Labs open day hosted by UCL. It was a good day with a nice meal in a local pub afterwards. Displays included making a comet, rocket launches and a Mars rover. There were also solar telescopes from Gillford AS and a tour of their observatory which houses a 20.5" telescope for visual work and a couple of refractors for imaging.
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This meeting included a (Free) trip to the Planetarium organised by the SPA, and then the BAA exhibition meeting down the hill. At the meeting our founder, Gordon Taylor received an Award from the BAA.
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A number of members went out to Easter Island and Hao Atoll to watch the 2010 total solar eclipse on July 11, 2010. This is obviously a very remote area but the locals were well prepared and treated us astronomers really well. It was touch and go at times as to if the cloud would intervene but we struck lucky and saw the eclipse. Overall a very memorable trip.
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Video shows a few minutes before, during and after Eclipse and shows how the lighting levels change as the Sun becomes obscured
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Wide angle video of the eclipse taken by Crayford Member Val
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The pictures were taken at Hao Atoll French Polynesia, about 700 miles from Tahiti.
Canon 30D, 500mm mirror lens [35mm equivalent 800mm] f 8.8
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The face on this unusual clock splits and rotates on the hour, exposing the inner workings, discovered by a member whilst on their eclipse trip in a hotel on Easter Island
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Reviewed for the RAS Journal; Observatory, June 2010
1st Edition, by Martin Mobberley (Springer) 2009, Pp 288, 23.1 x 17.5 cm.
Price £24.99 (paperback; ISBN 978-1-4419-0325-9)
This book, as expected, is primarily concerned with the description and details of the Caldwell objects and this is covered to the depth suitable for an amateur astronomer. There is also a section on the compiler of the Caldwell list, Sir Patrick Moore, as well as primers on observing and imaging in general. These additional chapters are not covered in any depth. Whilst they will provide the novice with some guidance, the reader will have to go elsewhere for a comprehensive guide.
The book puzzles me slightly; I’m unsure if I should be using it as a reference book, a book to help plan an observing session or if I should take it to bed and read it from cover to cover. It sets out to be a reference book, with consistent levels of information on all the objects. It has a good index but no summary tables. Used as an observing planning aide it is likely to become tiresome because of the lack of tables, the reader will have to flick through many pages to find what objects are suitable for their equipment and location or use the inside back cover to make their own tables.
The basics for each object are covered on a single page, such as position, brightness, suggestions for finding the object and the best time of year to observe. The author also recommends the best aperture and filters for observing and provides good comprehensive descriptions. A second page for each object is used for charts and images (generally from amateur astronomers). The author’s personality and humour does come through in his writing making the book an easy and enjoyable read (I particularly like Caldwell 8 where the author describes all the great open clusters in Cassiopeia before describing C8 as ‘less than mind blowing’.).
You might be forgiven for thinking that this book is all you need (apart from a telescope!) to begin observing the Caldwell objects. However the charts provided are not suitable for finding the objects and this is pointed out by the author. Despite their low quality and small size, the charts do provide the reader with the general location in the sky and for this they are useful. The charts contain a number of objects and are only printed alongside the first object described and it quickly became irritating having to flick back to previous objects to look at the associated chart, especially when there is ample space for the chart to be repeated for most objects.
For £24.99 I would not buy this book, but if cheaper or given as a gift I would happily add it to my collection.
Reviewed by Simon Dawes
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Located at Dartford Park on the weekend of the 18th & 19th July 2009.
We had a stand to promote Astronomy Courses at Adult Education College Bexley. The stand was the same as it was at the Danson Show 2009. A talk was also given by members Martin Crow & Honor Wheeler on getting to know your way around the night sky.
The slideshow below shows photos of the day taken by member Jim Burchell - Thank you Jim.
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This was a great event with thousands of people in attendance. We met lots of people with telescopes who didn’t know how to use them and people with an interest in Astronomy but unaware of the Astronomy courses Bexley college had.
| The display consisted of 7 telescopes, including…
• Two PST’s |
The Stand included......
• 8 panels of observations by Crayford members
• Lots of 6x4 images by Crayford Members in a hanging display
• Handouts on starting in Astronomy
• Handouts about the advanced astronomy course
• BAA handouts
• Posters about the college and the Astronomy courses
• A few commercially available posters and posters on the international year of astronomy
Below are 2 photos taken by member Honor Wheeler - Thank you Honor. The 1st of a Circumzenithal Arc and the 2nd is of a Solar Halo.
A slideshow then follows of photos taken by member Jim Burchell of the day - Thank you Jim.
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