The Mighty Atom revisited **.

 

Some weeks ago I was rummaging through a box, at one of our local car boot sales.

I found an intriguing item.

It appeared to be a fountain pen, but on closer examination it opened out into a small refractor.

It works well considering the 1/2 inch aperture of the objective glass.

I christened it The Mighty Atom.

Last night the clouds were sauntering once again around Pembrokeshire, and the Moon low on our neighbour's trees, could occasionally be glimpsed.

I grabbed the Mighty Atom, put it over the lens of the digicam and captured this shot.

Also I have found, that if you reverse the scope and look through the objective glass, it makes a really handy microscope..

If you ever happen upon a box full of dubious junk, and see a Mighty Atom, buy it...you won't be disappointed.

**This post was originally published on July 8th 2011.    Eleven years ago!  ...... Time, it seems, does fly!

Hydrogen-alpha - July 7th 2022.

"Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe... 

We should not say 'I am an Athenian' or 'I am a Roman' but 'I am a citizen of the Universe".

Marcus Aurelius

HIYA POEM - Hot Day.

A HIYA Poem written under a tree on a glorious hot day in June.

For clarification of  Hiya poetry, please refer to one of my old blog posts:

https://pembsastronomer.blogspot.com/2022/05/

Now that's what you call a filament!

Look at the size of this beauty... to date, my best capture of a filament.

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What is a filament?

Solar filaments are clouds of ionized gas above the solar surface squeezed between magnetic regions of opposite polarity. Being cooler and denser than the plasma underneath and their surroundings, they appear as dark lines when seen on the solar disk. 

  SpaceWeatherLive.com - website

Contrails vs Chemtrails.

Chemtrails or contrails, which is it ?  or maybe both!

All I know is that this morning the skies above our village are littered with the tell tale signature of criss-crossing transatlantic aeroplanes.   

Is it possible that our governments are spraying us with mind altering chemicals, disease inducing pathogens?

From an astronomers point of view, those blasted skytrails will, over the course of the day spread out and form a thin film of haze over the entire sky.  

That haze can linger into late evening, resulting in noticeable dimming and slight blurring of the stars.

As we all know, during the Covid lockdowns, the Iceland volcano eruption of 2010, and the Twin Tower attack of 911, all aeroplanes were temporarily grounded. 

Within those small windows of no flight, I observed a marked improvement in astronomical seeing. The stars and star clusters were much better defined. The Moon craters appeared sharper.

Contrails vs Chemtrails

Personally I'm on the side of the astronomer Bob Berman. Who's quote, can be found on the Wikipedia Chem trail page.

Astronomer Bob Berman has characterized the chemtrail conspiracy theory as a classic example of failure to apply Occam's razor, writing in 2009 that instead of adopting the long-established "simple solution" that the trails consist of frozen water vapour, "the conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their own children."^[52]

Have a read of Wikipedia's take on the Chem trail theory.  wiki/Chemtrail Theory

Today a giant prominence.

The sky was mostly clouded this morning, but a few gaps appeared. 

This photo was taken at 09h45m UT. 

Within a few minutes you could easily see the structure slowly changing shape.  

It was amazing to see this life giving solar flare change shape in "real time".

Cycle 25 definitely has many surprises in store. Today giant flares, tomorrow countless sunspots, lightbridges, filaments and plages.  

That's the wonder of solar observing... everyday is different. 

Solar - 19/05/22

The most wonderful discovery made by scientists is science itself. 

Jacob Bronowski