More bling on its way

My Deep Sky Binocular award is in the post. I am on a roll! For my next AL project, I now have to decide between Galaxy Groups and Clusters, Planetary Nebulae or Flat Galaxies. Well, I don’t have to do any of them, but it would be nice to get some more pins.

You can now chuck those England flags in the bin after another tournament exit on penalties. England’s participation in penalty shoot-outs always have that air of doom-laden inevitability about them, don’t they? The FA need to take a leaf out of Germany’s book, change the system and rebuild. And practise those bloody penalties.

Beyond a joke.

This is what is passing for summer, this year. We have had two MONTHS of this, bar a short pleasant spell at the end of May.

Utter crap.

Bling

On Friday I had an email from the AL Award Co-ordinator for the Globular Cluster Program, Bob Kerr, to say my award was in the post. A large envelope duly arrived this afternoon containing a nice letter from Bob, a certificate and the award pin.

 

I know some people look down their noses at observing awards but who cares what they think? Observe however you think fit, not how others tell you to. And if you can get a nice bit of bling in the process then what’s not to like?

I’m now waiting to hear from the Binocular Deep Sky award co-ordinator; I sent the observations off to her about two weeks before the Globular Cluster observations but so far I’ve not heard anything back. All in good time…

Well done England for qualifying for the knock-out stages of Euro 2012 and top of the group, no less. Italy are up next.

Spring? Summer? More like Autumn!

British summers have a reputation for being a bit..well…crap. They can often be glorious but, equally, they can be  just rubbish. This spring going into early summer has been utter garbage with, apart from a nine-day spell of glorious sunshine and 86°F temperatures, two MONTHS of rain, gales and more rain. This is utter crap even by our usual fairly low standards, but the south coast doesn’t usually get months on end of rubbish weather, this is usually the preserve of Scotland.

Part of the reason, apart from Atlantic lows coming in from the west is the jet stream which should be over the north of Scotland right now but, instead, is lying over the south of England. This is about the third or fourth straight year it’s done this and it’s getting old now. I have said for a long time I want to emigrate but now, if I could afford it and had a job to go to, I would go tomorrow as this is one crap summer too far!

It is admittedly academic, given that there are no real dark skies until the middle to end of July, but so far this June we have not had a single clear night…NOT ONE! I may not be observing at this time of year but I want high temperatures and sunshine, not wind and rain! Apart from that 9-day nice spell May was nearly as bad but we did actually muster up 14 clear nights out of 31. I was away for half of April but that was very poor from the information I was given. If it’s any consolation it’s the same situation on the Continent and, Down Under, conditions are also miserable (but not surprising as it’s coming into their winter).

What do we want? SUMMER! When do we want it? NOW!

Finally, and on a totally unrelated but more cheerful note, with the Queen’s Jubilee recently and other exciting British things coming up during the rest of the summer (I use the term summer loosely, given the current diabolical conditions), here’s a patriotic tune to tap toes to, the Grenadier Guards’ marching tune.

 

Oh and good luck England in their final Euro 2012 group game on Tuesday – and beyond…

Season’s end…

With the Moon getting fatter each night (full Moon is on 3rd June) and the nights getting shorter, it’s time to pack the scope away until mid-late July. Last night, 23rd May, we had an hour and a half of true darkness and, by 21st June, this will be down to no true darkness. Astronomical darkness will return in mid to late July.

I did attempt some observing last night but it was so murky – the weather has dramatically improved with daytime temperatures of 84°F/29°C and bright sunshine but the haze is atrocious! – I gave up. I had a list of galaxies in Bootes to look at but I could only find one, and even then it was faint, and the stars all had haloes around them.

Time to turn my attention towards different things over the summer. I’m off on a trip on the P&O cruise ship Oriana (a friend is going on that cruise but the friend who was going with her dropped out so she asked if I’d like to go) in July; nowhere exotic just Amsterdam, NL, and Zeebrugge in Belgium, but it’ll be a bit of fun. I’m planning to do some photography over the summer, ships, birds, insects…anything that catches my eye, to kill time until the observing season starts again. And not to mention all the observations I have yet to type up.

Everybody should be an astronomer

My friend Robert Reeves, of San Antonio, sent me a scan of the latest article he wrote for the ‘Comfort News‘, a local newspaper in the San Antonio area (Comfort is a small town nearby). He sent me the scan, as I have a mention! The gist of Bob’s article is that the world would be a much better place if we were all amateur astronomers which is something I totally agree with. If everyone had a telescope and spent a few clear nights each month looking at all the goodies up in the sky, like Bob, I believe that we’d all be better off. For one thing, amateur astronomy takes you away from all the petty nonsense of everyday lives, away from the moron who cut you up at the traffic lights that morning, away from that unexpected large bill that you have no idea how you are going to pay, away from that large overdraft and away from the feeling that the entire world has already completed 99% of its journey to hell (if you listen to the news bulletins).

Amateur astronomers are, by and large, some of the finest people I have had the pleasure of knowing. It is the only community I have ever fit into and felt comfortable in. Not just because they are just like me, more than any other people I’ve met, but because they are genuinely good people. That most likely stems from an interest in the universe at large and the realisation that the universe doesn’t revolve around human concerns.
As Bob points out in his article (scan posted below), amateur astronomers are more disdainful than most of petty national politics, travel restrictions and the politics (UK/EU sales taxes!) that make astronomy equipment either expensive or hard to obtain. Put another way, us amateur astronomers have a lower bullshit tolerance level than the rest of the public! I also wish that any amateur astronomer who desires to could just up and move to a drier, darker and clearer climate, such as the Southwestern United States, or Western Australia, with none of the hoops you currently have to jump through with existing visa and red tape nonsense. If you want to up and leave you can just go, without all this border crap.

Amateur astronomers of all nationalities – British, American, Australian, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, French, German, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, etc –  as is seen at astronomy conventions, such as NEAF, London Astrofest and TSP, get on well with each other with no animosity based on partisan politics so wouldn’t it be good if our governments and non-astronomer general public could feel likewise? Not just nationalities but religions, too. I have personally seen Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc, of all sects and denominations, all getting on famously when discussing the sky – ironic really when you consider that a shared love of a starry night sky has succeeded where their various religions have failed!
I am a sports fan and I have heard it said that sport, like warfare, brings out the worst in people, which is not too far from the truth, if fans’ attitudes to the opposition is anything to go by (the Euro 2012 football – sorry Americans I mean soccer! – championships are imminent and, as a football fan, I am looking forward – with no expectations! – to watching England’s matches but I am not looking forward to the xenophobic crap that will undoubtedly appear in the gutter press and on football forums). I like to think that, if sport really does bring out the worst in people, then astronomy brings out the best. Of course, not everyone is an out-and-out good guy and even in astronomy, petty squabbles erupt from time to time with some spectacular fallings-out, but they are the exception to the rule and I have only ever met one or two genuinely unpleasant people. Another reason is that amateur astronomers, by and large, are generally more intelligent than most.

It’s a pipe-dream of course, but everyone should be an astronomer and we, the environment and civilisation would be a lot better for it. And there’d be no light pollution!

Here’s Bob’s article, click for largest (and readable!) size:

 

Observing, 12th and 13th May 2012

The run of crap weather ended for a brief period over the weekend (but is back to being rubbish today), so I was able to do some observing on Saturday and Sunday night. Saturday night’s session was excellent, but Sunday’s was less so, thanks to some pretty woeful transparency due to some thin high cloud.

I hadn’t used my 18″ since the Isle of Wight Star Party, back in March, so it was nice to get it out of the shed and set it up. The new 2″ Howie Glatter laser collimator worked brilliantly but I will get a TuBlug for use with it, otherwise I have to look in the top of the scope to see the laser and the shadow, then go to the back of the scope to make the necessary adjustments. The collimation was only slightly out, which wasn’t bad, considering the telescope had been disassembled after the star party, driven over shoddily-maintained roads which resemble Afghan goat tracks (at the risk of insulting Afghan goat tracks), carried up the garden and reassembled.

As well as the H2500 I have been doing the AL’s Globular Cluster program. As well as observing 26 of these at TSP last month, I was going to use some ‘ancient’ observations from my 1997 Australia trip but I decided against this, apart from NGC 5139 (Omega Centauri) and NGC 104 (47 Tucanae) which I will keep in the list, as I have enough observations from recent years (2010 to now) I can  use, including some from this weekend. You need 50 observations to complete the program, I now have about 70-odd so I’ll select my best ones to send in, including the Challenge Object (I have Palomar 11, NGC 5466 and 5053 to choose from). One of the good things about these programs is the fact that doing them often takes care of objects on the Herschel lists, as well.

I have loads of observations to type up, from the Isle of Wight Star Party, the Texas Star Party and the past two nights but I’ll save these for the next rainy day – and I don’t think I’ll have long to wait, as the unsettled period goes on.

Galaxy groups and clusters are also among my favourite targets, mainly because find one and you have found half a dozen or more, so I put Abell 1656, the Coma Galaxy Cluster, on my list.

Saturday:

Date: 12th May 2012
Conditions: Clear, very dewy, no Moon (rises at 0200)
Transparency: II-III; Seeing: II; NE Limiting Mag: 6.0
Equipment: 18″ f/4.3 Dob with 22mm TeleVue Panoptic (90x), 15mm TeleVue Plossl (132x), 12mm TeleVue Nagler (165x) and 9mm TeleVue Nagler (219x).

I began with some eye candy (M53), then went on to some fainter stuff before returning to bright objects. Objects observed were M53, a globular cluster in Coma Berenices, NGC 4147, a globular also in Coma B, an attempted observation of NGC 5053 in Coma B, Abell 1656, the Coma Galaxy Cluster, M5, M56 and M3. The Messiers were objects that I hadn’t looked at in about 17 years so it was nice to catch up with them again, besides I wanted them for my Globular Cluster observing progam mentioned above.

I failed to find NGC 5053, a notoriously hard object to observe because of its low surface brightness (I returned to it on Sunday night with more success).

I identified 14 members of Abell 1656 during the course of an hour and a half, plus I saw many others that’ll have to remain nameless until a better night, as the transparency, while ok, wasn’t as good as it could be. The ones I could put names to were NGC 4889, NGC 4874, NGC 4864, NGC 4869, NGC 4865, NGC 4881, NGC 4860, NGC 4848, NGC 4921, NGC 4911, NGC 4923, NGC 4908, IC 4051 and MGC+5-31-46, the latter object only visible with averted vision. I used my new (second-hand) Naglers on these and was pleased with their performance.

I finished with some more Messier globulars, M5, M56 and M3, before packing up.

Sunday:

Date: 13th May 2012
Conditions: Cool, slight dew, breezy.
Transparency: II-III; Seeing: II, NE Limiting Mag: 5.8 to 6.0 later before deteriorating badly.
Equipment: 18″ f/4.3 Dob with 22mm TeleVue Panoptic (90x), 15mm TeleVue Plossl (132x)

The sky was not that good although the transparency did improve slightly later. I ended up just observing three objects, all globular clusters, NGC 6229 in Hercules (another re-visit to something I’d not seen in years), M92 (the last time I looked at this was in 1999) and I had another crack at NGC 5053, this time successfully, despite the less-than-optimal sky conditions. NGC 5053 was faint, very faint and amounted to nothing more than a roundish glow with stellarings in moments of good seeing and no central condensation whatsoever.  As globular clusters go, it is a pretty poor specimen!
I decided to go after some more galaxy clusters but the transparency gave out completely and the sky became extremely milky. When it’s like that, it’s no good for anything, much less faint galaxies which vanish if even the slightest bit of haze appears.

So, it was a couple of good sessions – well, one excellent session and one not-so-hot one. It’s been a mediocre year so far for observing, with not many sessions because ‘life’ has just plain got in the way, although it had been quite clear up until the second week of April when the period of bad weather set in. I’ve done most of my observing at the IoW and Texas SPs.

Semantics

Amateur astronomer or stargazer? Or something else? Someone on Cloudy Nights forums made the comment that we non-scientists shouldn’t call ourselves ‘amateur astronomers’ because astronomy is a science and astronomers are scientists.

Personally speaking I really, really don’t like the term ‘stargazer’, partly because, to me, the term invokes a vision of someone standing or sitting, staring up, mouth open, at the the sky and not doing much else. I also don’t think that ‘stargazer’ adequately conveys what a lot of amateurs do. Ok, so most of us aren’t making variable star estimates, studying black holes or contributing to a theory but neither are we aimless gawkers either. A ‘stargazer’ to me is someone who goes out stares up for a while, enjoys the view and that’s it. Yes, there’s a bit of the stargazer in all of us, but there’s also something more, even if it doesn’t quite extend to ‘scientist’.

Anyway, since when did professional scientists lay claim to the term ‘astronomer’? Astronomy began as an amateur pursuit, as did all the sciences, and the name has stuck ever since. If you Google  ‘definition of astronomer’ you get this:

as·tron·o·mer/əˈstränəmər/
Noun: “An expert in or student of astronomy”

I wouldn’t claim to be an expert but, as someone who reads about astronomy, I think I could call myself a ‘student’ of the subject and, as I am not paid for it, an amateur. Therefore I think we are entitled to claim to being ‘amateur astronomers’.   That said, I generally just call myself a ‘deep sky observer’, which suits what I do, very nicely, as I don’t tend to observe the Moon or planets.

My friend, and fellow amateur astronomer, Steph, put it this way:

“I’m with you, we’re in that middle state between those who do little but look up, and those who are scientific astronomers. We’re serious enough about what we do to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on our equipment, and hundreds and thousands of hours of time using it. I think we’ve earned the right to use ‘amateur astronomer’.” Spot on and well said.

On a related note – and in the same CN thread – the same guy who told us that we shouldn’t call ourselves ‘amateur astronomers’ also derided those of us who enjoy doing observing lists and getting pins as being boy scout/girl guide-ish. Excuse me? Is it really anyone’s business why we observe? And if we get a certificate and/or a pin for it, so what? Some of the best observers in the world have done these club observing programs and earned pins and I am sure they wouldn’t be happy at being accused of being overgrown boy scouts or girl guides. Not only that, I don’t like having my interests and activities devalued and sneered at by somebody who seems to think they are above such things, even if they may be trolling. It doesn’t matter why you do astronomy, as long as you do it.

Costs, clouds and canines

The sheer cost of anything astronomy-related here in Britain – indeed in the rest of the EU, and I believe Australia has the same problem – is a hot topic among amateur astronomers. Here, there are huge mark-ups put on items by the retailers, an eye-watering 20% VAT (which is even higher in some parts of Europe) and everything costs at least as half again here as it does in the USA. This is the reason why I buy eyepieces when I go to the USA, I am sick of being ripped-off for stuff on this side of the Atlantic.

Therefore I was not best pleased to read on Deep Sky Forum that CCTS only brought along one copy of each current Delos eyepiece to TSP. I had wanted to get the 6mm and 10mm at TSP but some guy on DSF informed me that he bought the only two that CCTS had so I settled for two second-hand Naglers instead – a 9mm Type 1 and a 12mm Type 4. Not that it’s that guy’s fault, it’s Jeff’s for not bringing enough stuff along. Next time I come over and there’s something I want to get, I’ll try to remember to email Jeff at CCTS and see if he can bring it with him and keep it to one side.
It’s even more annoying when every man and his dog is telling you how much better than any other known eyepiece the Deloses are – which is true, I have actually seen it for myself when comparing a prototype 8mm Delos with an 8mm Ethos in Larry’s 36″ scope. The Delos was more contrasty and went a bit deeper than the Ethos did, so if it can comfortably beat a nearly new eyepiece, it would probably wipe the floor with a near 30-year old design.

My dog needs expensive vet treatment next week (an operation whose cost is going to run into at least three figures) so any further purchases have to wait but when the 12mm Delos comes out, I may well get rid of the second hand 12mm Nagler I bought and get the Delos instead.
This reads like a rant but it’s the end of a very shitty week indeed so it is as exactly as it appears, a moan. Things like that don’t usually piss me off too much but I have the ‘back in Britain blooz’ after that great trip to Texas, I have a toothache caused by an abscess in a molar root – so I am having to take some antibiotics and can’t even have a drink – my dog needs the aforementioned vet treatment, which is going to cost an arm and a leg, and the weather is crap…cold, grey and wet. The calendar says it’s May, usually one of the best months of the year for nice weather, but it’s more like November. It has barely stopped raining and the heating is on…in MAY, ffs!

TSP 2012 part 2 is done…

…and you can read it here.

After this great trip to Texas it’s not so much as ‘back to earth with a bump’ as ‘back to earth with a resounding crash and lying in the wreckage’! It’s hard to feel motivated to do anything at the moment and I feel flatter than a squashed snake in a rut. I’ve also got a dental abscess which doesn’t help! And neither does the crap weather I have come back to with low temperatures, rain, grey skies and the lights on at 3pm – in MAY ffs!!
Jet lag doesn’t normally affect me much, if it does I am usually done with it in a day or two, but this time  it has lasted nearly a week. I suspect the all-nighters and three hours’ sleep a day has got something to do with it as has the grim weather.