Henry Hatfield's Spectrohelioscope - 1985

I love this whole video, from the subject matter, to the pace of Henry Hatfield's delivery, a classic.

Thank you to the amateur astronomer Martin Mobberley for putting this video on YouTube.

N.B. If you ever want to read a great biography about the late great Sir Patrick Moore, Martin has written the definitive story of his life. (two volumes)
www.amazon.co.uk/Martin-Mobberley

Well worth reading.

Trawling the old photos

Staying at home for obvious reasons at the moment, with plenty of time on my hands to trawl through some old astronomy pictures and sketches.

Over the next few days/weeks/Months! I will put on several posts of bygone astro images.

Here are a few to start with:

Above photo showing the projection method of observing the Sun. 

The telescope used was a 6 inch Tal2 reflector, a great white light solar scope. 

Also really good for observing Saturn.

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Notice the four distinct craters along the terminator between the five and six o'clock positions:

Crater names: from left to right: Furnerius, Petavius, Vendelinus, Langrenus  (the chain of four).

Best seen around third day after a New Moon.

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Above photo taken at a friends smallholding, some five years ago.. I think! 

I wrote an Englyn poem to compliment the photo.

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Final image, a sunspot picture I took, using my trusty old Tal1 reflector. 

It may have only been a 4 inch reflector, but it delivered some beautiful views of the Sun (with proper filters fitted.) 

Plus some great views of Mars at opposition.

Sadly though, this telescope was not much use for observing Jupiter. 

Clear Skies, Stay safe.

First sunspot of the year - for me at least.

You can just make out the spot, just off centre of the image.

Granted not the best picture, but I'm happy just to be outside solar imaging again.

The little 70mm refractor is not that brilliant for solar photography, especially if your aim is good quality solar photos, but it is ideal for projecting and sketching the sunspots.

November the 7th 2019  was the last time time I viewed a sunspot, happy to see one today.

Lets hope 2020 reveals many more sunspots..

December frost and Venus returns

Through the viewfinder

The first day of December and the skies are blue over Pembrokeshire.

Also the winter frost is upon us, a welcome sight, considering the deluge of rain these past couple of weeks... Thank you sky gods !

Venus make a welcome  return tonight, haven't seen her for several months.

Pulled out the old Hitachi digicam and captured a few Venus shots.

Venus amongst the trees

She dipped down under the Preseli hills at around 5.15pm, leaving behind a beautiful crescent Moon.

A perfect evening for all Pembrokeshire Astronomers

Nos da Venus 

A good start to this Christmas month.

Mercury Transit from Cardigan

We have been waiting to witness a Mercury transit for many a year, always the weather has misbehaved ... not today!

The transit began at 12.35pm and went on for about five hours.

The huge scudding black and white clouds hampered the viewing session, which meant that between 12.35pm and 2.00pm I only managed about five minutes of actual observing..... it was a perfect five minutes.

The little refractor and digicam behaved beautifully, and returned several photos that I later processed. 

The results can be seen on this blog post.

We decided to go to Cardigan, as I reckoned the weather would be kinder to us. 

It was a great afternoon, some people stopped and asked what was going on, a few had a quick peep at the little planet's progress, plus we met up with a dear friend and drank tea in the camper van. 

By 2.00pm it was obvious that the clouds were winning the day, so we slowly packed up.

Cardigan was completely clouded out for the May 2016 Mercury transit, but today's Cardigan allowed that small five minute window.  

Diolch Aberteifi.!

Trying out my old digicam.

Last night, the gibbous Moon shone down over Crymych, I set up the small refractor and experimented a bit with my trusty old digicam. 

The same camera I used for taking many of my solar pictures back in 2011-2013.

Considering the camera has been kept in a drawer for the past few years, it still worked well. 

With luck, the transit next week will be within the grasp of the little refractor.

This morning I made a quick sketch of last night's Moon (Mare Imbrium region).

Today has been the first noticeably cold damp day this autumn, time to put the heating on!

As soon as the Sun allows, I will be outside with telescope and digicam capturing Sol.


Clear Skies

That perfect 1970s evening.

Waiting patiently for the Moonrise.

The lunar eclipse was upon us:

The evening clouds held to the west, the eastern skies were clear.

It was time for the eclipse to unfold. 

All we had to do now, was wait for the Moon to make an appearance.

Sitting patiently in the camper van, waiting for the eclipse to begin.

We parked up just outside the sleepy village of Hermon, all was quiet, a hush that only eclipses bring descended over the Pembrokeshire countryside.

This was to be the quietest lunar eclipse I have witnessed in many a year.

The last really quiet lunar eclipse was back in February of 2008, but that was in the early hours of the morning, when most people were asleep.  

The stillness of this evening, the quiet countryside, the subtle colours of the darkening sky, all added up to remind me of my childhood astro observing, way back near the end of the 1970s.

Back then astronomy was different from what it is today.. How?

Well, the skies were clearer, with fewer aeroplanes, less contrails, less turbulence.

Back then the stars did seem sharper, the winters were definitely colder, and the light pollution was non existent in this part of the country.

Tonight's sky had all of those attributes going for it.

Tonight was that perfect 1970s evening.