Pembrokeshire Astronomer

  One of my favourite astronomy books, or series of books, has to be Burnham's Celestial Handbook , a three volume collection of reference material on the stars and objects in the night sky.  What I particularly like is that among all the wonderful astronomical data, the author Robert Burnham Jr also included a large amount of ancient history and folklore of the stars and constellations. Plus there's a very a good selection of poetry relevant to the subject in question.   Whilst reading through the pages concerning Sagittarius the Archer, my eye was drawn to a beautiful translation of a poem by the great Chinese poet Du Fu or Tu Fu as I stubbornly refer to him... Though correctly his name would be 杜甫 Night Thoughts While Traveling   A light breeze rustles the reeds Along the river banks. The Mast of my lonely boat soars Into the night. Stars blossom Over the vast desert of Waters. Moonlight flows on the Surging river. My poems have Made me famous but

I t was a cool evening with a just enough breeze to make the nearby trees gently sing with songs of the autumn leaves.  The sky was clear of cloud, the moonlight was soft, the sleepy village was at rest....such a  night was made for lunar eclipses. Since living at our present address I have photographed three lunar eclipses, at each event the  camera and telescope were my prime concerns.  Tonight I decided to take only a few simple shots of the eclipse, the rest of the time I simply sat on the astronomer's bench in the garden with my lovely wife.  We both sat in the darkness, soaked up the starlight and absorbed the fading moonlight. In the words of Helen......... What a magical night. We took some photos, then sat gazing.  There was so much to see....the eclipse, obviously, many meteors, one which zipped through the V of Taurus.  Orion showed off his belt and wide shoulders, Betelgeuse flashing red to compete with the Blood Moon.  This i

It was one o'clock, the sky was clear, the streetlights had switched themselves off, the deckchairs were out and the camera was set up on the tripod........ Time for the Perseid fireworks display. HiTech meteor observing equipment Over the first hour I spotted 13 meteors, mostly short trails and about magnitude 3 in brightness. Most of those motes of dust were headed towards the direction of Cassiopiea and Auriga. I Dream of Perseids Some would say that 10 meteors an hour wasn't that many, but in that hour I was able to wander off into daydreams, or is it "nightdreams"! Those gaps between the shooting stars allowed me time to dream of past eclipses, of splitting double stars, flying over the Moon and surfing the Milky Way.... I didn't really mind if spotted a meteor or not, to just sit and ponder the Perseids has always been as fascinating to me as actually seeing a Perseid. I suppose this is how fishermen feel when t

August 11th 2015 - 21h45m UT - Nikon D3000 Just before the teapot disappeared from sight, I set up the Schmidt and took a quick peek at the area around the teapot's handle.  It had to be a quick peek, as thanks to the trees, my window of viewing below the ecliptic is pretty small towards the south. No matter, I managed to spot Messier 22; what a lovely globular. View with 40mm Kellner eyepiece Through the Schmidt with a 40mm Kellner it had about it a ghostly quality. The stars within the misty globular shimmered, and every so often a twinkling would appear from within this mist.  To my eye M22 is far superior to the brighter M13. After only ten minutes of observing the dew started to settle on the corrector plate. I decided to pack away the telescope, and for once get an early night. Viewing the rest of the Universe would have to wait until tomorrow.... Capturing the globulars with Bicarbonate of Soda. How to make a gl

Hard to believe it was 16 years ago today. What a special day that was, I bet everyone can still remember where they were that day.  I was set up with a 60mm refractor, taking solar projections of the whole event outside our flat near Cardigan town.  Considering the many clouds that day, the weather was kind for eclipse chasers. The refractor did a great job projecting, even though my focuser was a piece of rolled up cardboard, with a 25mm plossl stuck in the end. Today I made some watercolour sketches of four of my original drawings. 09h28m 09h59m 10h18m 11h32m After completing the watercolours I made this image with the help of Instagram and Photoshop. Sixteen years ago today I had no camera set up to record the event, luckily I was able to make several drawings via the projection method.  I enjoy photographing the heavens, but my favourite will always be the sketching. I now always carry a camera, but a

June 4th 2006   Recently, whilst looking through my 2006 journal,  I found an interesting entry under the heading of TLP. TLP stands for Transient Lunar Phenomenon , a term coined by the late, and much missed, Patrick Moore.  For an introduction to TLP visit:  Wikipedia - Transient Lunar Phenomenon Red Flash (TLP) June 4th 2006 - 22h25m UT If ever you see something strange whilst observing the lunar landscape, maybe a glow near a crater or a sudden flash of light, perhaps what appears to be mist on the crater floor, or a multitude of other unexplained sightings, this maybe a TLP.  Many amateur astronomers totally dismiss the idea of TLPs, but who knows.  All I can say is that on the night of June the 4th 2006 I was observing near the craters Janssen and Lockyer, and happened to witness a bright red flash from the crater Pitiscus.   I have no idea what the flash was, it could have been lunar based, or maybe lunacy based and all made up in my head

The teapot disappears into the West The teapot of Sagittarius slips by almost unnoticed, hidden by trees and hedges.  A lone telegraph pole points to the star Nunki.  From our garden vantage   point, only the handle of the teapot is seen.  Kaus Australis and companions   are hidden by the damn hedge! Hercules leans over, seemingly intent on grasping Lyrae the Harp. Vega shines so brightly… Jean Michelle Jarre plays through my headphones.  The songs are full of cascading arrangements,   beautifully composed to fit in with the stars above my head. The "Oxygene" album is the perfect accompaniment to the twilight of a summer’s night. A warm midnight breeze blows over my face and arms.    I lie back on my ground blanket and survey this Beautiful Cosmos. Westward, Arcturus   greets the roof ridge of my neighbour’s house. Like moths to a flame, a   scattering of artificial satellites track and race towards the Northern twilight. Izar is gleaming to

After a refurbishment and a lick of paint, my 60mm/f5 Vixen refractor is yet again ready for astro travelling the heavens. I decided to turn the scope into a dedicated solar imaging/observing platform. With the solar filter and Nikon D3000 in place I can quickly capture the day's solar image, plus the scope is easily transportable. Here are some Sol images from the last week. The Vixen 60mm is perfect for quick Sol imaging.  Fingers crossed for some July Sunspots.

The car was packed with two telescopes, two deck chairs, two cameras and a picnic for two astronomers. The early morning mist had burnt away to reveal a glorious sunny Pembrokeshire morning... NOT A CLOUD IN THE SKY! Helen and I made our way along the Cardigan road, we had the idea of stopping at the ancient burial chamber at Pentre Ifan...   As we neared Maenclochog we decided to forget about Pentre Ifan and take a detour to   Mynachlog-ddu   to set up camp at Carreg Waldo . Carreg Waldo is probably one of the best sites in the whole of Pembrokeshire for astronomical observing; there are very few street lights to spoil the night time viewing. Carn Menyn To the North you can see Carn Menyn, source of the  Bluestones of Stonehenge. Cwm Cerwyn  North West and to the highest peak in Pembrokeshire, Cwm Cerwyn. Looking East Moonrises can be spectacular over those hills, and the Moonlight of a Mynachlog-ddu Autumn is especially ma

A few photographs of the eclipse, taken on a beautiful sunny day near Mynachlog-ddu. Vixen 60mm f/5 refractor (afocal digicam) 20mm Erfle eyepeice. I have several other eclipse photos taken with a Schmidt C8 scope, I'll put them on the blog sometime next week.

Through trees the glowing starlight Falls upon my eyes this night. Sirius is oh so bright, further on  Orion fills my sight. Mark Lee 10/03/2015 * Englyn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englyn

THANK YOU Telescope House ... the solar film arrived this morning. A quick delivery service,  I was very pleased with my purchase. All I had to do was mount the solar film into my homemade filter holder and within ten minutes I was observing my first sunspot group. The Sun was shining down from a clear blue sky, a perfect test for the new filter. It must be at least a year since I last took any decent solar shots through mylar. I hooked up the Nikon DSLR and fired away.   Today's solitary sunspot group AR 2297 stood out sharply through the eyepiece, and the Nikon did a fair job of capturing some detail. It's good to be back shooting Sol. Clear Solar Skies Mark