Author Archives: FJA

Home Again

After an uneventful flight (during which I watched Avatar, an excellent film and better than I expected) and bus trip home from Heathrow to Portsmouth, then a ferry ride to the Island, I arrived home on Thursday afternoon. I am pleased to say that my astro-purchases also made it home in one piece. I had been concerned for my new Telrad dew shield, as that’s made of brittle plastic but, thanks to a small cake tin and clean underware acting as makeshift bubble wrap, that also made it home intact. It’s now been united with my Telrad and it will certainly make life easier on those humid, dewy nights.

I have hundreds of photos to sort out, process and upload and I’ll put some here and also on my Flickr page. I can’t do much at the moment as I have got a massive infection of my upper arm (again) and it hurts to sit up or do anything for too long but, hopefully, I’ll be able to get them done by the start of the new week. I am just grateful this infection didn’t happen last week.

I have come home to nice warm weather and clear skies but the moon’s now in the way so there’ll be no observing, although with this infection I can’t do much anyway. Annoying, really, as I’m looking forward to trying out my new purchases such as the dew shield and the twist-lock adapter.

TSP Day 6 – Farewells

I hate the last day of TSP. That Saturday is always a sad occasion, as the party is done for another year – or another two, at least, in my case – and we all have to go our separate ways.
Alvin dropped me back at the Ranch late morning and, after lunch, I packed my bag and then went birding. I did, at last, find Vermilion Flycatchers and I got what I hope are good pictures of one, a lovely bright red and black male bird.

The final meal of the 2010 TSP was steak and, unlike the rest of the meals during the week, it was pretty good, with baked potatoes and corn on the cob. After that there was a talk on meteorites, then observing awards and then the Great Texas Giveaway Part 2 – and I still didn’t win a thing. There was a 17mm Televue Ethos up for grabs as the grand prize but, as usual, I didn’t win. You’d have thought that, with a lot of people having packed up and gone home the odds would have shortened on winning stuff. Uh uh, no. Oh well, never mind, next time maybe.

Once the meeting was over, we all left the meeting hall, and some people headed home straight away, while those of us staying the night went to the observing fields, which resembled an astronomical Marie Celeste, especially the Middle and Lower Fields with most people having packed their scopes away ready for an early departure next morning.
After farewells to various people and chatting it was time for bed, as the sky had completely clouded over so observing clearly wasn’t going to happen. I finished packing and went to bed before a 6am departure back to San Antonio with Robert.

Sunday morning we headed out under the Adios, Vaya Con Dios sign on the ranch gate and, after a six hour drive which I mostly missed as I was asleep(!), arrived back in San Antonio just after lunch.

It had been a good TSP and the weather co-operated – well, co-operated most of the time – and I got some good observing with 18, 36 and 48 inch scopes. Thanks to all those who let me share their scopes: Dennis Beckley, Larry Mitchell and Jimi Lowrey – thanks guys, it is much appreciated. Also, Alvin for the invites and laughs. I got a binocular pin and a coveted Larry Mitchell Advanced Observing Pin and I got a lot of good observations and some good drawings, that I’ll post when I get home next week.

It’s now Monday and I am going home on Wednesday. That ash is back, though, so things could get a little interesting. I hope not.

TSP Day 5 – Jets and Quasars

It was a quiet day spent around and about on Friday. As mentioned in my previous post, I went to Indian Lodge State Park and did some birding (and, I hope, I got some decent photos; I’d brought my 400mm Canon telephoto to the US as it’s my birding lens and produces excellent results) and in the afternoon, I visited fellow Brit’s Keith and Jan Venables for their 4.30pm Happy Hour which is now a TSP institution. Up to 15 people gather at their bunkhouse for beer (or wine), pretzels and chat. I can’t always make it, but it’s a very civilised way to spend an hour on a TSP afternoon, chatting, drinking and talking astronomy.

I had made a promise to myself not to spend much money this year but guess what? Yep, entirely predictably I broke that promise and exceeded my self-imposed budget by at least $200. But, as I told myself, that prevents me being royally ripped off when I come to change US dollars back into Her Britannic Maj’s British Pounds. If I had spent them on things I want here in the States, then I am not going to be shafted at the airport or the travel agent back home.
I did buy an Arcturus Telrad dew shield from Camera Concepts – I’d been looking for one for ages in the UK and not found a decent one at a non-scandalous price until TSP, plus I bagged an Antares 2-inch to 1.25 inch eyepiece adapter which, instead of having a screw to hold the eyepiece securely, twists closed. It’s much more secure and there’s no annoying little screw to fall out and get lost, so it will be an improvement on the one I currently use.
I also bought The Night Sky Observers’ Guide Volume Three – The Southern Skies from Bob Kepple, one of the authors, plus the Digitised Sky Survey on CD Rom for $45. Both were bargains and the book was $34 which is much better than the outrageous prices charged in the UK – Amazon UK wanted a ridiculous 70 quid for a copy! I obviously won’t get much of an opportunity to use it in back in the UK, but I wanted it to join my Volumes 1 and 2 and I will be taking it on my next trip to the Southern Hemisphere, whenever that will be. As for the DSS I nearly bought a copy for a hundred quid from someone at the IW Star Party earlier this year but decided against it due to the price. I also bought a Lumicon 2-inch UHC filter – I already have 1.25 inch filters but now I also have 2-inch eyepieces in my collection and using 1.25 filters with these is a pain and the filters inevitably get dropped, with the risk of loss or damage. I can also screw the 2-inch filter into the Antares adapter, which means I don’t have to swap the filter between eyepieces when viewing nebulae.
I am hoping I get the dew shield home in once piece as it’s made of a fairly brittle plastic and it won’t take much to crack or snap it. I have borrowed a round cake tin and wrapped the dew shield up in socks and – clean! – underwear and placed it in the tin. It doesn’t move around so hopefully the combination of underwear and socks acting as bubble-wrap and the metal cake tin will prevent an annoying breakage.

I also bought Turn Left At Orion – I don’t need it, it’s a beginner’s book and I am not a beginner and haven’t been a beginner since the early 1990’s, but I wanted it for my collection and, besides, Dan and Brother Guy were signing copies. Plus, I also bought Brother Guy’s autobiography Brother Astronomer to read on the plane home. I am interested to see how he reconciles his Catholic beliefs with science, especially as I am an ex-Roman Catholic myself. I say ‘ex’ as I was brought up in the Church but I am a non-believer – I believe in science and not any mythical omnipotent being. I didn’t tell Brother Guy that though, when he was signing my book, that would have been rude and I would hate to cause offence!

Friday night, I was invited back up to Jimi’s 48 inch for some more deepest of deep sky observing so, once the talk (a hilarious account of the making of Turn Left At Orion by Brother Guy Consolmagno – who is a Jesuit priest and also a professional astronomer at the Vatican Observatory – and Dan Davis; Brother Guy, especially, would have been a great stand up comedian) and the Great Texas Giveaway were done – as usual I won the square root of bugger all! – we headed up the hill to Jimi’s place.
By the time we arrived, it was dark and the skies looked very promising indeed but, unfortunately, this state of affairs did not last long as fog and clouds built up. The humidity was already up to 63% and by the end of the session it had got up to 78%, just like observing from home!
We didn’t do much, but we did see Hickson 50, an optical jet in IC1182 (the jet has a designation in Larry Mitchell’s MAC catalogue, MAC 1605-1747B, as it does look like a tiny galaxy) and an uncharted lensed quasar in Lynx. As the clouds and fog were becoming a serious PITA, we called it a night and headed back to the house for a sandwich, beer and astronomy talk. I again crashed on Jimi’s sofa and later in the morning, Alvin and I headed back to the Ranch.

TSP Day 4 – Thunderheads and the Skunk Nebula

The evening didn’t start out too promising as, during the late afternoon huge thunderheads built up, dominating the eastern and north-eastern sky. At one point, there was one huge and evil-looking cloud that looked unpleasantly like a mushroom cloud, prompting people to make jokes that someone had dropped a nuclear bomb nearby. The effect of late sunlight on the cloud enhanced its hideous appearance and people were pleased when it began to lose its shape. No thunderstorm materialised, although there was some lightning on the horizon.

The skies weren’t too great for observing, although useable, and by three a.m. we decided to pack up for the night which was a shame because we were just on halfway through another of Larry’s Lists, this time the 2000 list ‘Rings Over Texas’. Last night’s observing was a mix of the frustrating (clouds right where you want to look, bad seeing, not being able to find things) and the hilarious – a visitation from a skunk who was on the lookout for dropped food items. Unfortunately the little cutie came far too close for comfort and we spent ten minutes keeping an eye out for him and, at one point, abandoned Dennis’ 18″ and retreated to a safe distance while Mr. Skunk pottered around. He investigated people’s tents and my bag (and I was thinking ‘please don’t spray it, please don’t spray it!’) before wandering off somewhere into the darkness. We had to use dim red torches and averted vision to keep track of the Skunk Nebula but, luckily, he didn’t deploy his chemical warfare on us so the area around us and, more importantly, our possessions remained Eau de Skunk free.

Back to the observing and before being ‘skunked’ (ha ha) by the clouds and deteriorating sky we managed to observe about 14 of the objects on the list:  NGC 2685, NGC 5122, NGC 2793, AM 1358-221,  MCG-4-33-27, Arp 87, NGC 3681, Minkowski 1-64, 2H24, NGC 4650A, the central star in M57 and Mayall’s Object.

I also whipped quickly through the TSP Binocular list and added to my pin collection.

Going to bed at three a.m. at least meant I was able to get up early enough to go birding this morning and I saw some nice species, especially Blue Grosbeaks. I went up to Indian Lodge State Park with Keith Taggart of El Paso, TX and I got some (hopefully good) photos of different species at feeding areas specially set up. Unfortunately Vermilion Flycatchers, a species I’d particularly like to see are still eluding me at present. I am told they’re common but to me that seems they’re common when I am not about. That’s the story of my life when birding!

TSP Day 3 – Bright and faint

Wednesday was a lazy day, spent doing not very much at all. I actually bothered to go to afternoon talks, as I wanted to hear Larry Mitchell’s talk on Super Thin Galaxies and Alvin’s talk about observing galaxy groups, clusters and trios. They were both excellent talks and very interesting, certainly to me as I particularly like observing galaxies.

For the night’s observing, I joined Larry and his 36″. Larry was working on next year’s Advanced Observing List and we looked at some of the possible candidates for that list. We also looked at a mixture of eye candy and dim stuff, too, including M108 and some of the very faint galaxies around it, IC 4616 which is near M13, Hickson 82 and NGCs 4038 and 4039.
Unfortunately, by 0230, I couldn’t stay awake any longer as I’d had the sum total of 10 hours’ sleep since Sunday night so I had to call it quits and go to bed. I didn’t like having to do that but, as the sky was beginning to deteriorate anyway, it wasn’t the sacrifice it could have been.

However, I can’t leave this post without mentioning the quote of the 2010 TSP so far. This came from Amelia Goldberg: “Larry, all this faint shit you’re making me observe means I don’t want to look at the bright stuff any more!”.

TSP Day 2 – Aintnos and Ambartsumian’s Knot among others

While observing on Monday night, Jimi Lowrey who is a friend of Alvin’s and who I visited (along with some of the Houston gang) back in 2008 stopped by and invited me to join him and Alvin for a night on the 48″. Obviously this was something not to be missed, especially as there were only going to be three of us – me, Jimi and Alvin – so just after 4pm Tuesday Alvin collected me and we headed up to Jimi’s place at Limpia Crossing.
Just before dinner, Jimi and me headed over to fellow amateur Carl Swicky’s place to see his 32″. In the area, there are other observatories set up and there’s a community of amateur astronomers. With the climate, dark skies, gorgeous birdlife and beautiful scenery I can’t think of a better life, so if ever I win the UK lottery and get the chance to get out of that murky light-polluted place here is where I will come. We looked, admired and took plenty of pics (by the way, pictures will appear here but they might have to wait either until I get back to San Antonio on Sunday or when I get back to England –  I’ve just remembered that the World Cup begins next month, I’m looking forward to that, I love my football – on Thursday next week) including a prime focus capture of me in the 32″ mirror.

After dinner, we headed up to Jimi’s observatory, just up the hill from his house and set up ‘Barbarella’, his giant scope, for the night. The scope is collimated with huge bolts which need a torque wrench to turn and the laser collimater in the eyepiece can only be seen properly with a pair of binoculars!

Once the scope was set up and the mirror fans left to do their work (they suck air in and blow it out of the back of the mirror cell) we went back to the house to get our stuff and some supplies before returning to the observatory.

Fuller descriptions will appear later, but we observed quite a few objects, including NGC 3242 (aka the Ghost of Jupiter), UGC 9492, Arp 84, Arp 105 and Ambartsumian’s Knot – including the Knot itself, the bridge between the galaxies and the streamer that comes away from the bottom galaxy. This latter component is on the famous Aintno List compiled by Barbara Wilson and Larry Mitchell but, sadly, Barbara doesn’t believe us! I think Larry might, but he needs to see it for himself, he says.
Also seen were the ring galaxy VII Zwicky 466, the Double Quasar Q0957+561 A/B (nine billion light years distant, and I saw the very faint galaxy that is the gravitational lens – another Aintno, but we still can’t weedle a certificate out of Larry and Barbara!), the Jet in M87 (a long-standing observing ambition of mine that I hadn’t to date fulfilled, never got round to it. It was surprisingly easy but, then, I was using a 48″ scope), the planetary nebula DHW 1-2, NGC 6304, the compact galaxy group Rose 13, very small and quite tough to seperate the components (I saw 3 members), NGC 5907 and NGC 6543, the Cat’s Eye Nebula. We also saw three more quasars, but I need to find out what they’re called and where they are as I forgot to write them down.
I’ll pad this out with folks and scope photos and object descriptions later – ‘later’ might mean today, it might mean next week, but it will be in the near future.
The transparency was very good although the seeing was mediocre. However, we did get those moments of clarity which allowed quasars, etc, to pop into view. We packed up at 0500 and went back to the house where we all had a few hours’ sleep before Alvin gave me a ride back to the Prude Ranch.
It was an awesome night and to see stuff that’s totally impossible at home with a 12 inch is an opportunity you just can’t refuse. Jimi, I doubt you read this,but if you do – thank you very much indeed for a wonderful night’s observing! To read more about the Lowrey Observatory and Barbarella, Jimi’s 48″ Dob, here’s his website: Lowrey Observatory. By the way, while you’re there, go to the Gallery and the pic on the left side features me at the eyepiece, clinging on for dear life to the colossal ladder, taken in 2008.

TSP Day 1 – Galaxies Galore

After a six-hour drive from San Antonio, we (that is Robert Reeves and I) arrived at the Prude Ranch on Monday afternoon. Two things were apparent when we stepped out the truck – very high winds and heat. The high winds were particularly unwelcome as they’d make observing difficult, if not impossible although we were told by ranch staff that they’d die down by dusk – and they were right, the winds did die down as dark fell. It’s always nice to meet friends from previous TSPs and before long I’d run into Alvin Huey, Barbara Wilson, David Moody, Amelia Goldberg, Steve Goldberg, Keith and Jan Venables, Matt Delavoryas and many others.
The Upper Field

Depsite unpromising conditions (lots of high clouds and high winds) at first, the observing was pretty good on Monday night and Alvin, Dennis Beckley and I knocked off Larry Mitchells 2010 Advanced Observing list which, this year, was Flat and Super Thin Galaxies, Dennis’s 18 inch Dob. I’ll post the observations at a later date, but we observed UGC 5267, UGC 5270, MCG+2-25-42, UGC 5341, CGCG 63-37, UGC 5164, UGC 5495, MCG 3-26-39, UGC 5509, NGC 3579, NGC 3501, NGC 2820, NGC 2805, UGC 6378, UGC 6667, UGC 8040, UGC 8146, UGC 7321, NGC 4183, NGC 4222, NGC 4244, NGC 5907, UGC 10043, NGC 3245A, NGC 3432 and UGC 4719. We then claimed our pins from Larry who was pretty impressed that we’d done this in one night.
After a chat with Larry, and a peek at M17 through the 36″ we went our separate ways, as it was now 0430 and some of us, including me, had been up since 0600 the previous morning.

Epic trek

I arrived in San Antonio, TX, late on Friday night after delays caused by mechanical problems with the Continental Airlines Boeing 767-400 (a fault with the hydraulics on the braking system – very important on landing!) causing us to miss our take off slot from London Heathrow and then a big detour due to the volcanic ash, which meant the flight took 11 hours instead of the usual 8.5 and fighting 100mph headwinds over Canada and the northern US didn’t help. Because of this I was four hours late into Houston, and missed my connection to San Antonio.
The detour was interesting as it took us up the centre of the UK and over the coast of northern Scotland (there’s still snow in the Highlands), past the Faeroe Islands and north to just over the Arctic Circle. I could see Iceland – the cause of all the ash trouble – to the south and pack ice and icebergs in the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. Other jets were in the sky, including one on a parallel course a few miles from us, on our port side, it looked highly impressive speeding along at 500mph with the contrail streaming behind – I expect we looked just as impressive to them.
Excuse the poor quality of the photos, airliner windows are not made of optical quality glass! The crap on the windows is ice crystals; according to the flight path map data, it was -64 outside.
Pack ice in the Denmark Strait
We flew over Greenland, and from the plane there were fantastic views of the coast just north of Angmagssalik; it was clear, displaying incredibly beautiful Arctic scenery with mountains, snow, huge cliffs and, at the coast, icebergs and pack ice. It looked lovely but I would not want to live there, too cold and it doesn’t get dark at all in summer although I would love to visit. 
 
Icebergs and pack ice on the Greenland coast

Greenland
We left Greenland behind just south of Godthab (Nuuk) and flew down over Canada (which seemed to take forever), the Great Lakes and into the United States. Our route over the US took us over Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, the top left hand corner of Louisiana and into Texas before landing at George Bush Intercontinental in hot and humid Houston.
I’d missed my connection to San Antonio so, once I’d cleared US Immigration and Customs (the queueing took an hour, the actual process about three minutes) I had to go to Continental Airlines’ check in desk, fully expecting to be told there were no more flights to San Antonio that evening and already forming my contingency plan (find a hotel and try to get Continental to pay for it! At least find a hotel) but, fortunately, that proved not to be the case. I got the last remaining seat on the last departure of the evening and made it to San Antonio just after 10 pm.
We’re setting off for TSP tomorrow (Monday) and hoping the weather will be good. The forecast has already changed twice from good to bad to indifferent. Let’s hope it changes back to good again. At the moment we’re in for one totally clear night, four partially clear ones and a cloudy one with thunderstorms. I hope it improves! But, even if the weather’s crap, it’ll still be a fun event with great people and scenery. And it’s a change of scene.

Bugger OFF!

More volcanic ash is heading our way from Iceland. At the moment it is predicted to cover Ireland and Scotland, with warnings of flight restrictions. I just hope it stays away from the rest of the UK, certainly until I am safely out of here on Friday. The winds aren’t helping as they are unusually (because our winds usually come from the west but a high pressure system in the Atlantic is bringing in a northerly airflow) coming from the north and north west, although they are predicted to swing to the north east by Friday, which will hopefully help keep the stuff away.

Met Office London VAAC website latest ash prediction as of 1800Z

New website!

I have moved my website from webs.com (who are truly excellent, but a tad limited) to a new host and I have my own domain name fjastronomy.co.uk. The reason I changed was that I was in PC World yesterday, looking for some new web-building software, and the program I bought included free hosting. How good the host is remains to be seen but you can’t go wrong if you don’t have to pay. If they prove to be unreliable with loads of down time then I will move in due course to another host, but they are supposed to be quite good and, normally, their hosting starts at £33 per year but they have done a deal with the makers of the software.
My new site looks great and I am really pleased with it as the software was incredibly easy to use and comes with an FTP client, which is always better than cumbersomely using a web browser. Click here to see it: FJ Astronomy

Off to TSP on Friday, all being well. I leave home on Thursday and fly to San Antonio via Houston on Friday. I’ll spend a couple of days in San Antonio with Robert and Mary Reeves before driving out with Robert on Monday to the Prude Ranch. The couple of days in the city will be spend birding (I am hoping to photograph Cardinals among others) and shopping for those bits I’ll inevitably forget to bring from the UK.
Eyjafjallajokull is still erupting, with ash blowing south over the Atlantic. I have my fingers firmly crossed that the winds, which are currently keeping the ash away from the UK continue to remain favourable and I can get away ok. I don’t mind being stranded in the States but I’ll be pissed off if I can’t get there! Funnily enough I’ll be going through Heathrow Departures on my way to the States and my sister, who has been to a wedding in the US Virgin Islands, will be coming through Arrivals at the same time.
I have bought myself a sweet little laptop to take with me, for blog updates, which I got in PC World yesterday. My other laptop is a big heavy thing but this is small, with a 10 inch screen and will easily go in my camera bag. It has a 250GB hard drive so I can put my photos on it as well.