Garden Shed Astronomy, Perseids, Streetlights.

Thanks to the mild weather of July and most of August, Helen and I have spent most of our evenings observing the stars from the comfort of our garden shed.


The only astronomical equipment I have used these past six weeks, apart from a few quick peeks with Tal2, has been my sleeping bag.

Simply lying in the shed with my head stuck out the door entrance has been a welcome change. 

It must be about six years since we were last able to sleep outside for extended periods.

At the start of July it was interesting to note that Vega around midnight was somewhat East of the zenith, whilst now around midnight some five weeks later, it has noticeably passed the zenith and is making its way Westward.

As a child, at this time of year I would spend many an evening on my parent's farm, lying in a field and watching the stars pass by.

Alternatively I would be found in my grandmother's garden lying on the garden bench, stargazing till the early hours.. often I would fall asleep!

I really enjoy using my telescopes and binoculars, but nothing beats those extended periods of simply lying under the stars and looking up.

If I had the choice of only one astronomical instrument it would be the sleeping bag, and a clear night to view by.

The Perseid Shower.   

The rising Pleiades heralds the Autumn nights

I tried to capture a Perseid meteor with our camera. 

Unfortunately those little spots of space dust had different ideas.

Several meteors were seen, but unfortunately none made it to the camera's sensor!

Never mind..  

I decided to put away the camera and retire to the comfort of the sleeping bag.

The Perseids seemed much faster this year. Out of the dozen or so I observed, only one was around first magnitude, the rest seemed to average about third magnitude.

No Streetlights

2006

2013

As you can see in the above pictures, Pembrokeshire has started to switch off it's streetlights..... 

For someone used to the darkness of the countryside, these past 12 years have been really frustrating.

Many an observing session has been cut short due to the glow of the nearby lights!

But thankfully now, on most nights after midnight, I can once again enjoy the night skies without the pallid sodium glow of those blasted streetlights.

I understand completely the need for lighting in key areas, but most of those we have in this county are not needed, and cost far too much money to justify their continued use.

I now see the Pleiades once again rising in the early morning;  a sight I have been unable to see properly from our front garden in all the time we have lived here!

The Sun walks the Preselis..

From our house the month of July is the perfect time to observe the Sun as it rises out of the Preseli Hills..

This past week or so, I have been fortunate enough to witness several of these wonderful events..

From my astro log: July 17th 2013
My vantage point was our North facing kitchen window...   a perfect spot to wait for the Sun, and also importantly I was very close to the kettle... ! Any excuse for a cup of tea... !

I waited patiently for that first glint...

It wasn't long before Sol was racing skywards.......

 

The Sun walks the Preselis.

From day to day it's surprising how fast the Sun moves along the horizon.

The varying contours of the distant Preseli Hills clearly mark the daily renewal of sunrise positions.

From observations I took on the 17th, 18th and 21st of this month you can clearly trace the speeding path of Sol...

I'm not sure how long it will be before the Sun disappears behind the neighbouring rooftops, but I'm hoping to capture a few more Preseli Hill Sunrises before that time.....

Clear Solar Skies

Mark...

Flying across the Moon.

Tal2 had no chance of spying the Moon tonight.. once again hidden by my neighbour's trees.

Though from our back door I had a clear view of the Moon, albeit a brief one.

Due to the high trees and the low Moon I had maybe 20 minutes of possible observing time.

I decided to set up my tiny 40mm refractor.

Considering it only has an objective glass of 40mm aperture, it does show a fair bit of lunar detail.

From tonight's lunar log book I note.. along the terminator, and close by:

Flammarion, Herschel, Halley, Hind, Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel, Purbach, Walter.

Flammarion wasn't that distinct , but Herschel was an inky black pit with it's west wall lit up like a thin waning crescent moon.

I then flew over to have a quick look at Hercules and Atlas.. 

Hercules exhibited a bright central region, but the 40mm aperture did not reveal much else, Atlas was outlined well.

On the southwestern border of Mare Serenitatis (Montes Haemus) I spotted Menelaus plus a little further clockwise along the Montes, the crater Sulpicius Gallus was visible.

At least I think it was Sulpicius Gallus.... the 40mm aperture was struggling a bit.. I'll have to verify that one another night with Tal2.

Then just before the Moon sank into my neighbour's trees I quickly flew westward for a last look along the terminator.

Goodnight lovely Luna...see you tomorrow night .

Crescent Moon & Sleeping under the Stars..

After a few days of looking and waiting,  I've finally spotted the July crescent Moon.

Due to the location of this evening's Moon, I couldn't use Tal2 for observing.

I decided to give the 40mm refractor a chance at capturing some lunar light... 

The little scope performed admirably, and delivered some lovely views.

The weather in Pembrokeshire is still beautiful, so to take full advantage of it, Helen and I have been  sleeping outside under the stars.

These past three nights we've had the studio shed doors open, and we are both inside on the floor in sleeping bags.

Our heads are sticking out of the doorway, which affords us a spectacular view of the night sky..

Last night, at about 1p.m. we were disturbed by something lurking in the hedgerow, it turned out to be a hedgehog.. a very noisy hedgehog!  

Maybe he will be back again tonight to disturb our peace.. I do hope so.

Straw hats & Sol Sketching - July 8th 2013.

The skies are blue in Pembrokeshire, the Sun and I have definitely got our hats on today. 

This morning I managed the following Sol image.

Due to the air turbulence I had difficulty capturing a decent close up of AR1785.

I decided that as AR1785 was such a beauty I would try and attempt a sketch...

The initial sketch didn't really show the turbulence I was witnessing, so Photoshop came to the rescue.

I was able to create an image more in keeping with the eyepiece view.

All about the Sun.

Early this morning I was getting myself a glass of water from the kitchen.

I looked out the window, and suspended in the morning mist was one of the most beautiful sunrises that I've seen in a very long time.

This photo doesn't do it justice...  the Sun was a glorious shade of orange.

Pembrokeshire excelled herself this morning.

It looked as if the sun was caught on the nearby electrical power lines.

Here's a close up:

I was hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of active regions 1777 or 1775,  but nothing was seen.

Later in the day, I managed the following Solar picture:

                                   

Night time Daylight - No NLC.

Saturn has finally disappeared behind some rather large ash trees at the end of my neighbour's garden..

Not much astro activity at the moment, these past few evenings have been spent spying the waxing moon and glimpsing the odd double star through my powerful 40mm refractor. 

It's such a small scope, but it's fascinating to see how much of the night sky it can reveal. 

Here's an afocal image of the Moon from a few nights ago.. taken with the tiny 40mm refractor.

afocal image: 40mm "Leviathan" refractor.

Still no Noctilucent cloud sightings. 

It helps that the street lights to the North of our property now switch off after midnight. 

The picture below was taken a couple of evenings ago, at about 11.30pm. 

You could easily be fooled into thinking it was 11.30 am. 

Thanks to the county wide streetlight switch off, I now stand a better chance of seeing those beautiful ethereal Noctilucent Clouds "NLC".

The pale short nights of Summer.

Noctilucent Clouds above the observatory?

Due to short nights of Summer, over the next couple of months my astronomy time will mostly be taken up with chasing Noctilucent Clouds, observations of Sol, and the sketching of the Moon.

Though there is always time to say hello to the countless double stars, meteors, globulars, and more.

Observing the pale short nights of Summer, on a balmy evening - perfect.

Today's Solar image, taken with Tal2:

From the Harp to the Small Bear.

The weather this week has been wonderful, with blue skies every day so far... and what's more some lovely clear skies in the evening.

Monday the 3rd was one of those glorious warm summery evenings. 

We haven't had that many really warm evenings in Pembrokeshire over the last few years, so I took full advantage of this one.

As the stars slowly switched on I spotted Vega over towards the East.

I've been meaning to pay Lyra a visit these past few weeks.. tonight was my first real opportunity.

Firstly Vega, beautiful as ever, with classic diffraction spikes and a crystal clear white colouring.

Next Beta Lyrae "Sheliak",  primary white and secondary bluish grey. 

Gamma "Sulaphat" was noticeably brighter than Sheliak.

Epsilon Lyra (Double Double) easily seen at high magnification. 

The seeing wasn't that good tonight, plus the Tal2 was out of collimation as can can be seen from this photo I took. 

Tal1 so far gives the better view of the double double.

M57 a beautiful greyish colour in the Tal2. Great views with the 42mm and 25mm eyepieces. Averted vision was needed to draw out the distinctive oval shape.

No sighting of M56, but nearby Albireo looked stunning in the 42mm eyepiece. Yellow primary with a piercing French ultramarine blue secondary.

Moved on to M13 in Hercules, the globular looked amazing in the 42mm and the 25mm. 

It reminded me of the seed head of a dandelion.

Tal2 resolved the globular many more stars than Tal1 has ever shown.

Moved on to Ursa minor.  

I turned the the scope onto our Northern star Polaris.. what an absolute beauty, further enhanced by it's blue secondary sitting nearby.. which stood out wonderfully.  

Considering the seeing wasn't that good, I was more than happy with the observing session.

Tal2 needs some tweaking as the above collimation picture shows.

The Double Double put on a poor show, but the view of M13 and Polaris redeemed any failings that Tal2 may have shown.  

I think it's time to get out the collimation eyepiece.

Roll off Roof fixed - AT LAST.

Up until today, the majority of the Northern sky has been difficult to observe from my observatory, due to the roof being unable to retract fully.

Over the last couple of years I've mostly had my Tal1 scope pointing South. Very rarely would I venture Northwards past the zenith.

If ever I needed a clear view to the North I would usually drag the Tal1 out on to the lawn. 

Or sometimes take the lightweight roof off completely. but even though the roof was lightweight it was still cumbersome to handle.

Thankfully that problem has been solved, as can been seen in the above picture.

Now that I've fixed the roll off roof, I will have a much wider view of the night sky to observe.

First on the list will be Polaris..  It's been months since I last observed the secondary star of Polaris. 

I wonder what Tal2 will reveal.

Fingers crossed for some clear skies.

Moonlight on the western wall and a touch of blue.

Last week was spent at a friends' smallholding. I had no telescopes, no binoculars and most importantly no streetlights...!

The skies were clear, the Moonlight shone on the west facing wall of our friends' house,  there was no sodium glare to spoil the show..  I recall one evening..... just gone midnight....

I was tired and fast falling asleep, but outside in the dim moonlit night Cassiopeia was shining brightly...  and it was on my mind to capture an image... 

I grabbed the camera, and propped it against the north facing window and took maybe ten shots, all with approximately six seconds of exposure.

As I was half asleep, the lens wasn't in focus, but the image that I post above conveyed the mood of that most wonderful of constellations.

It was great to simply drink in the night sky without the need of objective glass or reflector, plus the total absence of streetlighting was wonderful.

 Yesterday's reflected Sunlight. 

Yesterday I managed a Solar image, but unlike my usual yellow tinted images, this time I added a touch of blue.

Clear Skies.

Maybe Dione, could be Tethys..... definitely Halley's globular.

The clouds rolled in early this evening, bang went my chance of sketching Saturn. or so I thought.

At about 10.00pm UT the clouds moved away to reveal a beautiful night sky.

After training Tal2 onto Saturn I tried out the 25mm plossl, along with the Tal x4 Barlow.. Perfect.

Titan and Rhea stood out really well. 

Just below Rhea, I could make out a third satellite, it was winking in and out of view. either Dione or Tethys, I'm not sure which.

Next time I hope to capture that third satellite properly.

Also Tal2 got it's first look at a globular cluster, namely M13 in the constellation of Hercules.

The Astronomer Edmond Halley is credited with the discovery of this cluster in 1714.

Although.. being that M13 is within naked eye visual range, I guess countless stargazers of ancient times looked up and pondered on that distant speck of light.

Last night's Saturn sketching.

 

I've been waiting for weeks to have a decent view of Saturn..

Last night I was rewarded with a fair view of the ringed planet.

I firstly tried out the 15mm kellner with the x4 Barlow (x315), this was unsuccessful, the image was poor.

Then I tried the Barlow with the 25mm eyepiece (x190)..  this combination was perfect for last night's Pembrokeshire Skies.

The seeing wasn't brilliant, but at least I was able to detect slight surface detail, albeit very fleeting.

The Cassini Division was less pronounced than usual, but all things considered I was more than happy with the view.

My intention for the session was to make a sketch of Saturn.

 

At the x190 magnification Titan and Rhea could easily be seen.

May is usually a good month in Pembrokeshire for clear seeing, the heat hazes of the Summer months haven't yet arrived.

With a bit of luck we might have some turbulence free planet watching ahead of us.

Here's a recent photograph I took of Saturn..... I think I'll stick to sketching.

First light for Tal2.

 First Light for the Tal2, what better target than tonight's lovely gibbous Moon.

The Tal2 is noticeably showing more detail at higher magnification.

Plus the motordrive keeps everything centred long enough for me to attempt some detailed sketching.

After trying to split Algieba it became apparent that I need to spend some time cleaning and realigning the primary mirror.  That will have to wait a few days.

For now I'm more than happy to capture the lunar light.

The Seed Moon is on the rise... Deckchairs at the ready.

Tonight's eight day old Moon, captured (afocal) with my Tal1 Newtonian.

In folklore this month's Moon is sometimes called the "Seed Moon", well named and appropriate, as tomorrow afternoon Helen and I will be in the greenhouse sowing our garden seeds.

The deckchairs will be out tomorrow night for some Lyrid meteor observing.

I wonder how much of the event will be washed out by the gibbous Moon..?....

Essential April Meteor Shower Equipment:

Woolly hat, scarf, gloves, a hot water bottle and blanket, plus a flask of chai tea.  

Clear Skies

Mark.

Shining Bees & Whirling Galaxies...on a cold night in March.

The sky was clear and cold, the stars were shining, and my eyes were adapting to the darkness.

Armed with my trusty 8x30's I decided to search for a few Messier open clusters....

M44 "The Beehive Cluster' high up in the South was the first target... in the 8x30's it was a breathtaking sight.

The bees were certainly busy tonight, each one a sparkling icy white.

I panned down slightly to M67, which is a somewhat vague smudge of light in the 8x30's, but still very much worth a look.

Next.... up and over to Auriga....

This constellation held my gaze for several minutes as I took in the view of M37, M36 and M38... all in the same field of view.

Across to M35 in Gemini....  

M35 was just visible to my naked eye, many stars were visible through the binoculars.

Considering it is of visual magnitude 5.2, I was really pleased to see M35 with the naked eye from my slightly light polluted village. 

Next....Over to the Double Cluster in Perseus.... They were a bit disappointing tonight in the 8x30's. 

This was mainly due to a nearby street light throwing up an orange glare towards the direction of the cluster.  

At other times of the year the Double Cluster looks wonderful.....blasted street lights...!!!!

Then a quick look at the Hyades.... 

Whenever I search out the Hyades I get side tracked into gazing at Aldebaran, such a beautiful orange, which always has a mesmerising effect...

It was very cold tonight in Simpson Cross,  I was wearing my fingerless gloves, and the tips of my fingers were suffering for being out in the open... 

Before I escaped back to the open fire of our living room I decided to give Tal1 a quick walk around the the handle of the Plough...  

Seeing that the Plough was almost on the roof of the sky, and away from much of any possible light pollution,  I was hoping to glimpse M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy.

Tonight M51 turned out to be an easy target for Tal1. With the 25mm plossl I could clearly see both M51 and it's companion galaxy, plus a slight haze, mostly around M51.

Both M51 and companion took on a comet like appearance. 

No wonder Messier made up his list of objects to avoid... 

The cold weather finally beat me.... :0)

The night had finally got the better of me and the cold was too much....

In the East I could see a faint glow in the trees, I soon realised it must be the Moon waiting to make an appearance. 

Just above the trees Virgo was tentatively tip toeing across our neighbour's treeline...... 

When the temperature rises I might be able to sit awhile and draw those clusters, for now I've added a couple of sketches from memory......  Roll on the warmer weather.....

I said goodnight to Tal1, closed up the observatory ....  and left the night to the Moon and stars....

My hands really appreciated that warming open fire.....  :0)

First Light, PANSTARRS... Big Bino convert..

Yesterday evening near sunset, a bank of heavy black cloud lay to the North, but the North West through to the South was fairly clear....... I was  hoping for a chance to glimpse the comet.

I decided to head off to one of Pembrokeshire's best observing sites, a small car park named Maidenhall near Newgale.

This elevated site has a wonderful 360 degree view, especially out towards the sea.

Another good reason to visit Maidenhall last night was to meet up with friend and fellow astronomer Andrew Merrick, who was also hoping to see "First Light" on Comet Panstarrs.

Andrew had already set up his 72mm refractor, and right next to the scope was a lovely pair of 25x100 binoculars.....

The skies behaved perfectly; the Moon and Jupiter were visible, the stars slowly switched on and the cloud bank to the NW was fairly low... ideal conditions for finding Panstarrs......

But where was it....? ....  We both searched and scanned the horizon.... and then searched some more......nothing to be seen...!!!

Then finally Andrew snagged the comet in the refractor....

My little 8x30 binos were not up to the task, and I would have been searching in vain for much of the session....

Andrew's 25x100 binos were a different matter...

The Big Binos delivered a beautiful image of the dust tail, and the coma was very striking.

The overall big binocular view left a lasting impression.

Earlier this evening to mark the event, I made a Panstarrs sketch for my astro log book.

I've always fancied a pair of Big Binos, but I wasn't sure if they would deliver.

Thanks to several views of the comet, M42 and M45 last night, I'm now a Big Bino convert..


It was great to catch up with Andrew and his family......

I hope to meet up with him again soon at Maidenhall....... maybe next month for some Saturn observing.....

Twinkling Sirius and Messier March.

Not much to report for the last couple of weeks.

The night skies haven't been too bad, but the evenings have been really cold.  We have had a couple of frosty nights, perfect for spying the twinkling stars.

My favourite twinkling star on the frosty evenings has always been Sirius; when viewed through a slightly out of focus telescope Sirius puts on a lovely rainbow light-show of swirling colours.

This past fortnight it was nice to simply go outside on those few cold evenings and just look up at the stars without running to find my sketch book or camera.

If the weather allows, I intend this month to dig out the binoculars and search out some of those Messier objects.

Tal1 will be having a rest for the month of March.

Plus, fingers crossed for Comet PANSTARRS, lets hope it puts on a good show for all .


Last night I rolled back the observatory roof and grabbed a quick sketch of Jupiter.

I've enjoyed sketching Jupiter these past few months, and I'm looking forward next month to spending some time with Saturn.

Between the Comet and the Messiers, and a bit of twinkling starlight, I reckon March is going to be an interesting month of observation.

Fly by Fred.

I was pleasantly surprised that the media didn't whip up a doomsday prophecy about the recent fly by of asteroid 2012 DA14  -   or "Fly by Fred" as I liked to call it.  

Fred was some 50 metres wide and the estimated mass was around 190,000 metric tons.

Last Friday, this peripatetic lump of rock came within 17,200 miles of our lovely blue planet Earth!

Even though I didn't want to meet Fred close up, I was more than happy to just shout hello to him from a distance.

I'm so glad he didn't decide to drop in for a cup of tea.

Fred is somewhere up there.

Being ONLY 50 metres long, and at a minimum Earth distance of some 17,200 miles meant that Fred was below the naked eye visibility. 

So I grabbed my binoculars and meteor deckchair and was outside around 9.00pm eager to glimpse some space rock.

I also brought along the Nikon DSLR to capture some shots.

At five minute intervals I was hoping I might be able to capture an image of Fred's wanderings as he traversed the Ursa Major region of the skies..

No joy, not one of the photos showed the slightest hint of the asteroid, nor did I see anything through the binoculars.    

But still a very pleasant way to spend half an hour under the stars.

Io casts a shadow.

Last night there was an Io transit, between 20h 48m UT - 22h 48m UT.

Perfect timing, as the skies were cloud free.

With help from my old friend Tal1, I managed the above sketch......

Io was clearly visible, hovering as it did above the South Equatorial belt....

That little Tal1 always makes me smile...... for example:  Io is about the same size as our Moon, plus it's some 430 million miles away at the moment, yet my little Russian scope can see the shadow it casts onto Jupiter's clouds....  !

All done with a 110mm mirror.....!!  :0)

I'm looking forward to capturing the other three Galilean moons.....  

Clear Jupiter Skies

Mark...

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