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 :-)
Category: Society News
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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.
Waxing Gibbous Moon by Neil Webster
A lovely image of a waxing gibbous Moon taken on the 29th April 2023 by member Neil Webster.
To see a higher resolution photo of Neil's image - check out his flickr page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/137388222@N05/52861969736/.
The Sun – 29th April 2023 by Jim Burchell
NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN DIRECTLY. Please see our Solar Observing safety page at crayfordmanorastro.com/solar-safety/
A splendid white light image of an 'active' Sun taken on 29/04/2023 by member Jim Burchell showing sunspots AR3285, AR3286, AR3288 bottom right, AR3289 and AR3292 top left, with AR3291 middle right.
Image was taken with a Pentax KP attached to 102mm, f11 Altair Astro refractor and a solar filter. The seeing was a little bit hazy.
Venus & Mercury – 13th April 2023 by Diane Clarke.
Our rocky neighbours; Venus & Mercury taken by member Diane Clarke whilst at the pavilion on the 13th April 2023.
Venus & Pleiades by Jim Burchell – 10th April 2023
Super image of Venus and the Pleiades taken by member Jim Burchell on the 10th April 2023.
''The Pleiades are also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.'' ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades
Image was taken with a Pentax KP 135mm, F6.3, 10sec and ISO 8oo.
Camera was mounted on a Skywacher Star Adventurer.
Mercury & Venus – 4th April 2023
Hot off the press - all taken last night 4th April 2023.
Venus & Mercury by Jim Burchell
Mercury by Jim Burchell
Mercury by Martin Crow taken with an iPhone.
Mercury & Venus by Jim Burchell – 3rd April 2023
Two superb images taken by member Jim Burchell of the planet Mercury and then of the planets Mercury & Venus on the 3rd April 2023.
Crescent Moon and Venus – 24th March 2023
Two lovely images of a crescent Moon, with Earthshine and Venus taken by member Jim Burchell on the 24th March 2023. The first image has the ISS in it too!
