Category Archives: Weather

From the notebooks 3 – TSP 2008 galaxies

Some galaxy sketches to brighten up your (and my) day – and mine is in serious need of a brighten up! These were made at the 2008 TSP, while observing with Larry Mitchell’s 36″.

NGC 5907, Draco
Spectacular, cutting right across the field of view in the 36″ at 232x. Prominent dark lane and a bright, elongated nucleus. Very thin, indeed. I am fond of edge on galaxies and this is one of the best.

Hickson 44, Leo.
A nice group of which NGC 3190 is the brightest member. 3190 (below centre) has a prominent dark lane. NGC 3187 (to the left of 3190) is faint and evenly bright. NGC 3185 (top) has a slight brightening towards the centre. NGC 3193 (bottom right) is round with a dense core and a fuzzy halo.
36″ at 232x.

NGC 4206 and 4216, Virgo
A lovely view. 4216, the large galaxy at right is very large, very bright and elongated. It also has a very bright compact core.
NGC 4206 is much smaller and fainter and does not have a bright core.
36″ at 232x.

M52 and NGC 5195, Arp 85, Canes Venatici
This is one of the best views I’ve ever had of this pair. You line up the huge dob, go up the ladder and this dinner plate, with the little saucer NGC 5195 next to it, is in the eyepiece.
It was hard to draw, as I was balancing near the very top of the ladder.
The arms are not uniformly circular as they appear in smaller apertures. They are bent, probably due to the influence of  5195 nearby distorting them. There are bright HII regions in the arms.
The bridge of material connecting them is easily seen and quite bright in the 36″ at 232x.
5195 is oval, distorted. the side nearest M51 is brighter than the side away from it. Fantastic.

‘From the notebooks’ does sound a little pretentious (I was going to say ‘poncey’!) but it’s quite a good title – and this stuff IS from the notebooks! – and posting old sketches is a good way of keeping the blog active while I scratch about for something interesting to post. It’s gone dead observing-wise here, due to the most appalling weather (August has been a total wash-out this year, with torrential rain, flooding and gales. I feel sorry for anyone on holiday here, especially if they’re camping) and the last few nights the Moon’s been in the way. The beginning of the month was okay for observing, with one okayish night, one good night, the Perseid peak, the Milky Way sketching session and that absolutely sensational night we had.
Anyway, some more ‘From the notebook’ type posts will appear over time, depending on what else I can talk about. It depends on how much observing I get in. I’m hoping the weather will improve during September.

Off topic, but still relevant (which I’ll come to in a minute) is my work situation. I’m currently doing a seasonal driving job delivering tourist guides to hotels, attractions, ferries and train stations, etc, which I like very much. It’s part time which suits me nicely as I can start what time I like – very handy after late observing sessions and all-night runs! However, with the tourist season winding down soon and just another couple of weeks to go of the main season, my hours will probably get reduced.
I can’t find anything else at the moment as the employment situation in the UK as a whole, not just where I live, is appalling. I’m getting interviews but then nothing comes of them, usually it’s because there’s always some git with more experience than me (although I am sure it comes down to pulling names out of a hat). Even the temping agencies have nothing – indeed the manager of one described the situation to me as ‘absolute crap’, and when even the agencies use words like ‘crap’ you know it’s bad indeed. The fact that a very real threat of a ‘double-dip’ recession is hanging over the country (although I do get the feeling the Bank of England and the Treasury are talking us into this, aided and abetted by the media) does not help the situation any.
Despite this, I am still planning to get a 20″ dob (I am one of these people who has to have something to aim for – I do NOT believe in just existing, because that’s just depressing and pointless), firstly buying that mirror-less scope I’ve mentioned in previous posts, as I already have most of the money for that. The mirror might take longer to acquire than I previously hoped, though, depending on what happens on the work front.

I am pleased to say the observing shed has held up in the recent bad weather. Some rain got blown in through the vents, as it has been pretty much torrential and blown horizontally for the past few days, but otherwise – touch wood – it seems more or less ok. I did seal up non-vent suspect points with duct tape and also fixed the roof down better, just in case as I don’t trust their flimsy method of attaching the roof. I also stuffed an old t-shirt into the vent where the rain was being blown in, I’ll remove this when the weather improves. Let’s hope it continues to be dry in there. The mirror also looks as if it’s remained condensation-free, so the silica gel cat litter seems to be doing the trick.

Here we go again

Year after year the debate about changing to permanent British Summer Time (an hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time – incidentally the same as Universal Time) crops up as soon as autumn appears on the horizon. This time the Prime Minister, David Cameron, has joined in wanting the country to adopt BST year round, according to the Torygraph. Not only that, he wants DOUBLE BST which effectively means the clocks going forward by 2 hours in summer and then back 1 hour in winter and doing away completely with Greenwich Mean Time.
It’s already hard to practise this hobby here anyway due to our climate and the sheer amount of light pollution – although here on the Isle of Wight, we’re more fortunate than a lot of people as we have a higher incidence of clear nights and less light pollution than the adjacent mainland –  and dicking about putting the clocks forward every March just adds insult to injury as summer observing becomes almost impossible, particularly for people having to get up for work in the morning. Putting the clocks forward two hours would mean that any summer observing here would be completely impossible, certainly during the week.

In my opinion, putting the clocks forward in March and leaving them forward until October is a complete waste of time (pun intended) because the evenings are light from May until late August in any case, as are the mornings. When you get to winter, when the time has reverted to GMT, both mornings and evenings are dark. So what’s the point of changing? It’s pointless and ridiculous and only panders to the general public who seem to think that altering the clocks alters the earth’s orbital tilt and rotation!

The excuses for changing the clocks is nothing to do with crops and farmers any more, as was once the case. No the new excuses vary from road accidents during dark evenings to tourism.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents backs a change, saying that it’ll prevent road accidents on dark evenings. So what about dark mornings then? There are plenty of RTAs on dark mornings, plus mornings have the added ‘bonus’ of people being sleepy and not ‘with it’.
So that’s nonsense for a start and what about the main cause of accidents? It’s not the dark that causes accidents, it’s moronic and careless driving that causes accidents. Accidents are caused by excessive speed in inappropriate conditions and on badly-maintained roads, they’re caused by tailgating, overtaking into oncoming traffic or on corners and the brows of hills, cutting people up and other forms of bad driving. They are not caused by dark and if dark is a factor it’s because someone is not driving with due care and attention.
Not only that, I am not a morning person and, long observing session or not, I find it difficult getting out of bed in winter anyway because it’s so dark and I am not sociable at all until at least 10am. This change would make that a lot worse.

Environmentalists say we’ll use less electricity during the evenings, which conveniently forgets that we’ll end up using more electricity in the dark mornings instead. When you have to get up at 0600 to be at work by 0830 and it won’t get light until 0900 then you are still going to use a good deal of electricity in the mornings, so I don’t see the environmental angle at all.

Another reason is tourism. Who decides to go somewhere based on the time zone anyway? And, considering the country is even more damp and cold in winter than it is in summer (when it’s merely often damp and a bit chilly), tourism wouldn’t play a part anyway – why come to rainy old Britain in autumn and winter when you could go to the Canary Islands or somewhere else far pleasanter and warmer?

And then there’s the completely daft and spurious argument that ‘we’ll get more daylight’. Er, NO WE WON’T! How many times does it have to be spelled out to some people that we do NOT physically get more daylight?! Some members of the public seem to have difficulty grasping the idea that BST does not mean we get extra daylight, that the hours of day and night remain the same and that all BST does is just move the clocks an hour forward. Daylight just starts and finishes later, there isn’t actually more of it.
If people want more daylight, then go to lower latitudes in winter.

I hope that this stupid and halfwitted idea does not become a reality. With a bit of luck the Scots will have a lot to say about it because Cameron has insisted that the entire UK and not just parts of it would have to be included in this hare-brained idea and Scotland is very dark in winter. I know there is a lot of opposition to this in Scotland, where permanent BST would be a big problem for them with no daylight until at least 1000 in winter.
BST in winter would not, admittedly, be a big obstacle for observing as I can usually be observing by 5pm on a clear winter evening during the weekend. If it’s a week night, by the time I’ve got home and the evening meal is done and finished with, it’s usually 6.30 by the time I can get outside and still have a long observing session until 11pm or midnight. But that’s not the point because I oppose year-round BST on sheer bloody principle! And I especially oppose BST +1 because there is actually no sound reason whatsoever to change the clocks from the present system.


Oh and to add to my good mood, forecasters have predicted that the weather’s likely to be rubbish until November. Great. I just hope it’s the usual forecasters’ trick of making a long-term prediction only for it to be totally wide of the mark, like they have for the past few years. Knowing my luck it will be right for once.


Perseids, 12th-13th August

After practically hopping with frustration during the earlier part of the evening, I was pleased to see the skies finally (partially) clear around midnight, so I pulled out the sun lounger, got a blanket to keep my legs warm (my knees don’t like being still and in the cold for very long) and my little dog (who went to sleep under the blanket and acted as a living hot water bottle!) and watched the show.
There wasn’t as much activity as I thought there would be but what there was was quite spectacular as a lot of the meteors were fast moving and left trails behind them. A lot of the trails were green, although there were a couple of yellow/orange ones as well. The meteors were, for the most part, bright although there were a few quite faint ones as well.
As well as watching the show, I also had a look round Cygnus, Cassiopeia and Cepheus with my 8.42 binoculars. NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, was bright and the nebulosity extensive. The fainter Pelican Nebula, IC 5067/5070, lies just to the south of 7000 and is, just, visible through the binoculars without the UHC filter. With the 2″ UHC filter it is much easier to see.
I also found the planet Uranus, which is close to Jupiter. It looked like a small blueish-white star.


We have had a few decent observing nights recently, despite the continuing unsettled weather. The long hot days of late June have long since gone, to be replaced by cool temperatures, showers, more prolonged spells of rain and some fairly strong winds, but, so far, out of 12 nights this month we’ve had three completely clear nights and five partly clear, observationally-usable nights and early mornings so it’s not all bad, although I am also a fan of hot sunshine, something we’re not getting (I know, it’s hard to please some people! 😉 ). I have a feeling that, now it’s mid August, we’ve probably seen the last of any decent hot summer sunshine.
The reason for yet another rubbish summer, for the fourth year in a row is, yet again, the jet stream is too far south. Because of this, Russia and most of Europe are incredibly hot (although I don’t envy the Russians their severe fires, the downside of prolonged hot weather) yet Britain is damp and horrible – again. Sometimes, I get the impression that the British climate is doing this to amateur astronomers and holidaymakers:

Actually, I think I’ll blame the water company who imposed a hose pipe ban in part of England back in July. It’s in the north west of England, so hundreds of miles from here, but as soon as the utility company in question imposed the ban, the weather over the entire country turned bad.

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And finally

RIP Markus Liebherr and thank you for saving Southampton FC

20" project

As mentioned in my previous post, I have the opportunity to buy a 20″ Dob from someone on the mainland. He transferred the optics to a permanently-mounted equatorial scope and now has the empty scope for sale. All being well, I am going to buy this from him and get a new mirror to fit it and the cost of the entire project should be less than ordering a brand-new, scratch-built custom scope. The original mirror was an f/3.7, so I am either going to have to get a 20″ f/3.7 mirror made, which will be slightly pricier than a standard f/4, or get an f/4 and alter the scope by adding longer truss poles, new secondary holder, changing the position of the attachment blocks, and so on, but by the time I’ve done all that, I may as well spend the extra couple of hundred quid on an f/3.7.
I’ll need a Paracorr as the coma will be bad with such a fast mirror, but I can live with that, it’ll be worth it to have large aperture! But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves – the one item of bad news is that I have to save up first. It’ll take me about three months to save for the scope and then at least 8 to save for a mirror so this won’t be up and running for the best part of a year yet, unless I get lucky in the wallet department. But…how exciting! I’ve wanted a large scope ever since I became a deep sky observer the best part of 20 years ago, so this will be an ambition come true.

I’m planning to spend the weekend putting the finishing touches to the shed. Then I need to put the castors on my 12″ scope’s base so I can roll it in and out then we’re in business!

There’s no sign of the weather clearing up. It’s typical unsettled English summer weather. I hope it clears up in August, so I can catch the Sagittarius and Ophiuchus summer goodies before they vanish into the twilight.

Oh, and I got my monitor back on Monday. Only it’s not my monitor, it’s a replacement, which is good as it’s a brand-new machine and unlikely to go wrong – I hope. At least PC World eventually got it sorted for me after first trying to fob me off with this ‘You have a contract with the manufacturer, not us’ crap – they need to read the Sale of Goods Act, especially this bit. Stuff less than a year old should not break, but it does occasionally and the retailer has a responsibility, under the Act, to refund, repair or replace the item and not give the customer the flick with some stupid excuse about ‘extended warranties’.
The sketches, I am pleased to say, look fine.

‘Observashed’

The new shed is now in place. We started putting it up yesterday and after six hours, a lot of swearing and a few ‘teddies chucked out of prams’ (patience is not one of my strong points; fortunately the neighbours appeared to be out and thus, hopefully, did not hear an ‘f-word-every-other-word’ rant at one stage in the proceedings!) it was just about finished with only a few finishing touches to be added. I did make a couple of cock ups but it seems largely straight, secure and solid so I don’t think it’ll blow down in a gale. It also appears to keep the rain out. There was a thundery downpour this morning and, apart from rain coming in the windows as I hadn’t installed them, it looked to be bone dry with the sole exception of one side which let in a few drops in at floor level. I’ll get some sealant and sort that out. The real test will come when the autumn and winter set in and we get howling gales and driving rain. I am going to leave it for a while before I put my scope in it to see how it fares, that’ll let me see what needs doing to keep any weather out. I went to a party last night and a friend told me that any flat pack assemble-it-yourself item comes with free swear words, the amount of which directly correlates to the nature of the item and the annoyance factor of putting it up; i.e. kitchen units come with 100 free swear words, a shed like mine comes with about 100,000 while a greenhouse comes with several million!
I put the windows in this afternoon, unlike the rest of the thing there were no annoying mini-crises to put up with!

I have not done any serious observing for a while, apart from a couple of mini-sessions with the refractor on a couple of evenings two weeks back. This is because the weather is so highly variable at the moment and evenings which start off clear are not staying that way. We are having a very unsettled summer, apart from a hot couple of weeks in late June/early July. I did manage to sketch a couple of Messiers, just to keep my hand in, while cloud-dodging.

M8, the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius. 3.5″ refractor at 36x

M27, the Dumbell Nebula in Vulpecula. 3.5″ refractor at 36x.

I have no idea what these sketches look like on most people’s monitors. My 20″ widescreen monitor went bang just over a week ago so I took it back to PC World (who did not want to know, despite the monitor being well under a year old, so I had to resort to playing the arsey customer which, to be honest, I hate doing. I’ve worked in retail myself – it sucks) and am waiting for the repaired monitor or a replacement. In the meantime I am using an elderly borrowed 17″ square matte flat screen job which isn’t that good for picture editing or viewing. The sketches look appalling on this one, I am hoping that they look a lot better elsewhere!

I also aimed my 400mm Canon telephoto lens at the Moon the other evening – yes, you did read that right. The Moon. Not only that, it meant I was doing some astronomical imaging – the shame. ;-D
Here’s the result of that. I was quite pleased with it, especially as I was handholding the lens at 400 ISO and using a shutter speed of 1/320 sec at f/5.6. I sent a copy to my friend, the well-known author and astro-imager Robert Reeves, who sent me some feedback.
No, I am not going to become an imager, but I do like taking the odd shot now and then. It shows how desperate one can get to do something astronomical!

I have decided that I won’t mess around getting a 16″ Lightbridge. I do want a decent scope of 18 or 20 inches, so I will carry on saving and get a custom-built, quality Dob. One route, and one that I am currently investigating, is to buy an existing Dob chassis and get the optics to fit. I know someone who has a lovely one (a 20″) for sale, minus the optics. However, I’d need an f/3.7 mirror and secondary to fit it as buying a more common f/4 or f/5 would involve a bit of a rebuild, something I don’t want to get into. If I can’t easily get hold of an f/3.7 mirror for a reasonable price (i.e. comparable to that of an f/4) then I’ll probably revert back to Plan A, which is buy a custom-made dob.

From the notebooks 2 – Obscure Planetaries from Australia

Here are some more sketches from that 1997 trip Down Under. These are some of the more obscure planetary nebulae I observed on that trip. All of these sketches were made at the 1997 Queensland Astrofest at Lions Camp Duckadang, Linville, Queensland on 25/26th and 26/27th August 1997. The scope I used was a 20 inch Dobsonian.

Henize 2-111, Centaurus

Henize 2-141, Norma

Henize 2-207, Ara

Longmore 16, Scorpius

Menzel 1 (PK 322-2.1), Norma


Shapley 1 (PK 329+02.1), Norma

 

PK 322-5.1, Triangulum Australe

The observatory is still not up yet. That is because our weather has gone completely to pot and is now more like that of October than it is of mid-July. There are gale-force winds, low temperatures (17C/63F) and rain. Plenty of rain. This will please the miserable buggers who have moaned about the heat and lack of rain and who have now got their own way but I hate this crap and want summer back as soon as possible. Apart from anything else, there’s no observing to be had but even before the weather completely broke up we’d been stuck in a cycle of clear afternoons and cloudy nights for a couple of weeks.

I might have to rethink getting a big scope. I have not yet been able to find a permanent full-time job and the agency work has completely dried up, although I have some part-time seasonal work delivering tourist guides. I have an interview in two weeks’ time for a part-time data-entry job which offers just over £6000 ($9000) and if I get that, which won’t be enough on its own, I could at least combine it with the seasonal work. Unfortunately this seasonal job only lasts for the duration of the holiday season before dropping back to a few hours a week.
A 16″ Meade Lightbridge, at +/- £1800 is not beyond my financial reach on part-time/low wages but a custom-built scope at just over £3100 is, as things stand. Maybe I should just get a LB and then go for a custom-built David Lukehurst Dob when/if my work and financial situation improves? LB’s aren’t bad scopes with a bit of tweaking, although their mirror boxes are incredibly heavy for the size of the scope. Hopefully, though, by the time I have managed to put away £1.8K things might have improved.

Where’s summer gone?

It’s mid June. We know this because it says so on the calendar, there are baby birds everywhere, there’s too much daylight, the Isle of Wight Festival has just happened – and it is cloudy, wet and chilly. I have tried – and failed – to get out to see comet C/2009 R1 McNaught, every time I have planned to observe it, clouds have interfered. Hopefully, the weather will improve soon; the weather forecast is looking a bit better from tomorrow.

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!

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