Society News – Page 36 – Crayford Manor House Astronomical Society Dartford

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Honor recently took this video of a transit of the Sun by the ISS, something she has been attempting for 10 years.

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="782"] Image by Honor Wheeler This was taken using: Skywatcher ED80 refractor Canon 700D set in movie mode @50fps 2x Barlow EQ3 mount Date 2020.04.20 13:09UTC Transit time was 0.9 sec 16 frames extracted from the original video using PIPP and then the layers merged in Photoshop elements 6. Additional processing also done in Photoshop E6.[/caption]

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The Great Conjunction of 2020

22nd December 2020

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Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions happen every 20 years (the last one in 2000.) however this particular conjunction will be especially close - the closest since 1623 and the closest observable since 1226! Don't worry, if you miss it there is another close conjunction in 2080!

At its closest on 21st December Jupiter and Saturn will be 6 arc minutes apart (1/5 the diameter of the full moon) which is still easily discernable as two separate planets (some reports would have you believe the merge together into an 'elongated star')

The weather was poor on the 21st, but there was a gap in the clouds on the 20th, the images from the 20th the planets were at about 9 arc minutes vs 6 arc minutes at closest encounter.

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Images by Steve Goldson

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Image by Steve Goldson 1/8 sec f5.6. ISO 6400. taken at 18.02. 20/12/2020. (Inset image: 1/8 sec f5.6. ISO 3200 taken at 18.07. 20/12/2020. - Note Steve captured 3 of Jupiter's moons)[/caption]

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Images by Martin Crow

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="637"] 2020Dec20 17:06ut Equipment: 80mm equinox @ f15 and DMK41 mono video camera and an old laptop. Location: Top of Dartford Road, Hextable. Taken the day before closest approach due to likelihood of poor weather on 21st. Best views though were had through the eyepiece. Absolutely stunning.[/caption]

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Images by Simon Dawes

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Image by Simon Dawes Skywatcher MN190 (modified), EQ6 Pro (modified) ZWO ASI 1600 MM Pro Bexleyheath England[/caption]

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EXO-Planet Paper features observations from two members

17th December 2020

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Members Simon Dawes and Martin Crow have been named as contributors on a scientific paper published this week, Martin and Simon along with other amateur and professional astronomers have been observing exo-planet transits - each observation takes between 4 and 5 hours typically so is quite a commitment. Well done Mrtin and Simon and all the other amateur astronomers who submitted observations.

Abstract

The Ariel mission will observe spectroscopically around 1000 exoplanets to further characterise their atmospheres. For the mission to be as efficient as possible, a good knowledge of the planets' ephemerides is needed before its launch in 2028. While ephemerides for some planets are being refined on a per-case basis, an organised effort to collectively verify or update them when necessary does not exist. In this study, we introduce the ExoClock project, an open, integrated and interactive platform with the purpose of producing a confirmed list of ephemerides for the planets that will be observed by Ariel. The project has been developed in a manner to make the best use of all available resources: observations reported in the literature, observations from space instruments and, mainly, observations from ground-based telescopes, including both professional and amateur observatories. To facilitate inexperienced observers and at the same time achieve homogeneity in the results, we created data collection and validation protocols, educational material and easy to use interfaces, open to everyone. ExoClock was launched in September 2019 and now counts over 140 participants from more than 15 countries around the world. In this release, we report the results of observations obtained until the 15h of April 2020 for 119 Ariel candidate targets. In total, 632 observations were used to either verify or update the ephemerides of 83 planets. Additionally, we developed the Exoplanet Characterisation Catalogue (ECC), a catalogue built in a consistent way to assist the ephemeris refinement process. So far, the collaborative open framework of the ExoClock project has proven to be highly efficient in coordinating scientific efforts involving diverse audiences. Therefore, we believe that it is a paradigm that can be applied in the future for other research purposes, too.

Full article is available here

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Two New Competitions

8th December 2020

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After the success of the last competition, we have decided to run another two.

Lunar Halo Competition

As the name suggests, take an image of a Lunar Halo.

Rules:

Whilst the points awarding is somewhat ambiguous I'll be looking for the following...

Technically a good image (in focus)
Well composed
Other points of interest (foreground or background)
A good story - if you have a story of how you took the image it can't hurt!

Entry criteria:

You can only enter if you are a paid up member (any tier of membership)
Entries must be to webmaster@crayfordmanorastro.com - feel free to post them on what's app as well!

Orion's Trapezium Competition

The Trapezium actually has more than 5 stars can you image them?

Rules:

Whilst the points awarding is somewhat ambiguous I'll be looking for the following...

Technically a good image (in focus)
you need to resolve at least 5 stars in the trapezium - this wil be challenging!

Entry criteria:

You can only enter if you are a paid up member (any tier of membership)
Entries must be to webmaster@crayfordmanorastro.com - feel free to post them on what's app as well!

Winner of the Milkyway from your backyard competition

8th December 2020

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The winner has been announced, every image was great but there has to be a winner and our congratulations goes to Richard Bohner of Arizona (yes he is a member of CMHASD) with this marvellous image taken from his back yard.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800"] MW_RichardBohner The Winner of the 'Milkyway from my back yard' competition. Image by Richard Bohner Taken with Canon 6D with wide angle lens at 24 mm at iso 1600 for 60 seconds. Jupiter & Saturn at far left with Sagittarius Teapot to left of galaxy and constellation Scorpius to right of galaxy. Taken on 15 June in Arizona, USA. (Richard lives in the USA so this is a valid entry)[/caption]

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Meteor Report for November 2020

8th December 2020

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November 2020 was spent largely in lockdown due to the Corona virus, one thing keeping us from all going crazy is our astronomy and with our remotely operated meteor camera our members were still able to observe and had lots of candidates to look forward to, and it turned out this was our most productive November 'since records began' - ok the records only go back to August 2018 - so was it better weather, is COVID-19 actually space borne and arriving on the meteors, or perhaps it is just a useless fact? Personally I think it has something to do with 5G masts...

Sorry back to the report.

We observed 244 meteors, 39 of them Leonid's and you can watch them all - thanks to our members of the meteor team - without having to wade through all the false positive sightings.

I've embedded the video below, but if your attention span isn't what it was, then just check-out the highlights at the times listed below (if you click on them they will take you to the correct part of he video)

Highlights:

01:50 02:06 02:22 02:22 02:57 03:20 04:00 05:40 07:18 07:50

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Conjunction of Mars, Moon and ISS

27th November 2020

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Image by Dianne

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="730"] Mars Moon ISS Image by Dianne. Mars, the Moon, & the ISS Canon 750d, Sigma 18-250mm lens, @18mm Exp 6 secs @ f/5.6, ISO-400 Static tripod[/caption]

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Kelling Heath Autumn Equinox Star Party 2020

20th October 2020

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7 members of the society attended the Kelling Heath Autumn Equinox Star Party, some booking camping pitches and others static caravans. The weather was overcast with showers with long dry spells and whilst the astronomical observations were very limited between clouds it was still a great event which I'd recommend any keen observers try to book.

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Meteor report for September 2020

6th October 2020

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This is the meteor report for the automated meteor camera operated by the Crayford manor house astronomical society Dartford, for the month of September 2020

This month we detected a total of 269 meteors, well over half were sporadic meteors, meteors from known showers only making a minor contribution to the total, the largest identified shower came from the September Perseids but contributed only 22 meteors to the months total

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Perseid Meteor Shower Report 2020

16th September 2020

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The below video is a report for the perseid meteor shower, based on meteors captured by the semi-automated meteor camera operated by the society members.

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Category: Society News

ISS transit of the Sun

The Great Conjunction of 2020

Images by Steve Goldson

Images by Martin Crow

Images by Simon Dawes

EXO-Planet Paper features observations from two members

Abstract

Two New Competitions

Lunar Halo Competition

Rules:

Entry criteria:

Orion's Trapezium Competition

Rules:

Entry criteria:

Winner of the Milkyway from your backyard competition

Meteor Report for November 2020

Highlights:

Conjunction of Mars, Moon and ISS

Kelling Heath Autumn Equinox Star Party 2020

Meteor report for September 2020

Perseid Meteor Shower Report 2020