A new telescope for the Observatory

Meade's ATX 125 AT

Have you ever wanted to have the use of a telescope for a few nights, so that you can do some astronomy  of your own without having to wait for the observatory to open?

Thanks to a generous grant from the Alexander Trust, it will now be possible for you to borrow a very good telescope for a week at a time. In order to raise funds for future hardware, repairs and so on, there will be a hire charge of £10 per week. I'll need to take a deposit cheque of £100 as well, but this will be returned to you after you have used the telescope. For this, you will have access to a computer-driven telescope that guides you through the night sky, giving a commentary as it goes! I'll also give a twenty minute walkthrough on how to set up and care for the telescope before you leave with it. This will be ideal for a family who would like to have a star party, but it is also a telescope for the more serious observer. The optics are very good, providing clear views of planets, moons and Messier objects. For an extra £5, you can also hire out a digital camera and the necessary equipment to fit it to the telescope, and have a go at taking pictures of what you observe.

If you would like to book a week on the telescope, it will be available for hire from Monday 21st November - just email to check on availability. If I can work out how to, I'll try to install an online calendar of bookings once we get some! 

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to our stockists at Telescope House, who made a generous discount available so that we could get the most out of our budget. I found the staff very helpful and full of useful advice about what would work best for us.

1339

A very large sunspot group known as sunspot 1339 has recently appeared on the sun's surface. It is highly active, and over the weekend there is a good chance that it will eject a lot of high-energy charged particles in the direction of the Earth. If this happens, it is possible that we might get a good display of the Northern Lights as this "solar wind" interacts with the Earth's magnetic field. These were reported as nearby as Pocklington last month, so it isn't out of the question that something might be visible. You can keep an eye on the coloured box at the top right of this page - green means "no chance", but orange (or better still red) means that we might be in for a show. Lancaster University's Aurora Watch monitoring site can provide much more information, and is a good one to bookmark.

The skies are clear - let's grab the opportunity!

I'm not on duty in my boarding house tonight, so I will open up the observatory from 7.45 until 8.45. At such short notice, I don't expect places to be over-booked, so mail me to say you're coming if you can...

Iridium Flare 14th October

While you're at it, why not look out for this Iridum flare? These bright flashes of light happen when a rotating Iridium series satellite flashes a beam of reflected sunlight back to the Earth from its mirrored surface.

14 Oct

18:23:41

-4

46°

193° (SSW)

11.0 km (W)

-8

Iridium 4

-4 tells you how bright it will be. The biggest minus numbers are the best. -4 is very bright.
46 tells you how high up to look. The horizon is at 0 and overhead is at 90, so this is almost exactly half way.
193 tells you what direction to look in - North is 0, south is 180.

in other words, look half way up the sky, a little west of south at 18:23 and 41 seconds. the flare will last for a few seconds...

source: heavens-above website, link on the right

ISS pass - hope you see it!

The best flyover of the ISS in the next week or so will be on the 19th Oct.


look out for it at 20:59:08 in the WSW. It will climb quite high in the sky and get very bright, until it is the brightest star-like object in the sky. Unlike a star, it will be flying eastwards (it is actually passing directly over the English Channel), and it will be visible fromYork for about three minutes.

19 Oct

-3.1

20:59:08

10

WSW

21:02:10

46

SSE

21:05:14

10

E

source: heavens-above website, link on the right

Sorry everybody, but I think we'd better call it quits

The rain has really set in for the day now, and I think that the chances of seeing anything at all tonight are now basically zero. This is a real shame, so I will look at my diary and try get get an alternative date for you as soon as possible...

It's really not looking good.

I'm seeing the advertised white cloud - the weather forecast seems fairly clear that it will stay with us all of today I'm afraid. Stay tuned, and I'll keep you posted, but it looks as if tonight will be a bit of a wash-out...

Still giving cloud, but no rain

The weather forecast has brightened up! They still think we'll have cloud, but at least the rain has gone. The only way to deal with the situation is to keep on checking...

Not looking too good now

The BBC site at the bottom of this page is offering us white cloud followed by rain on Saturday. Naturally this isn't all that encouraging, but we'll keep a watch on how things develop...

So far so good for Saturday.

The long-range forecast doesn't immediately put me off about Saturday, but it is still a long way off! We have a nice group for the evening, so it should be possible to get some good work done on monitoring the draconids, if any turn up. It would be great, though not at all essential if you could have a look at night-sky maps for the northern horizon (all the weblinks on this site offer them), and get to know you way around in advance.

I aim to map any meteors we see onto the chart, and submit our findings to the BAA, so fingers crossed - you might be part of scientific history in the making. (Or it may just be cloudy - that's part of the excitement of astronomy...)

we got that one wrong!

It just goes to show you that these things are not always easy to predict accurately. At the time of writing, I don't think anybody on Earth saw the fireball when the satellite finally came down at about 0500 GMT on Saturday!

UARS falling tonight

If you get the chance, go and have a look to the south east just before 9pm tonight. The Nasa satellite UARS is reentering the Earth's atmosphere, and with any luck we should get a view as it plummets to Earth!

Get ready for the Draconids!

Put this in your diary --- Saturday the 8th October. The Draconid meteor shower will take place over Western Europe just after it gets dark here in the UK. A Canadian astronomer thinks he has worked out that it will be a particularly good display, for about an hour. This is not a meteor shower that delivers perfect displays every year, as the comet that makes it happen has yet to unclump and spread its debris all around its orbit. However, Paul Wiegert thinks he has unpicked the pattern of good years and bad years by looking at historical records, and applying his understanding of solar system dynamics.

It has got to be worth a look, and I'll be opening the observatory at 6.00pm BST and closing again at 8.00pm. Places are limited, so the first ten families - Bootham or ISSP to apply will get a place for an adult and a young person! Mail me here to get your place...

Only One Picture!

So what did we manage to cover last night? We saw the Moon briefly using binoculars and the Cooke refractor, and we managed to get a glimpse of Arcturus through a gap in the cloud. We also spotted a star in Virgo that I am pretty sure was, well maybe, Vindemiatrix. We also did a nice little experiment to prove that your eyes respond to darkness and sudden lights. I think we covered the laser reflectors left behind on the Moon by the Apollo missions, and we also tried to spot the ISS, but saw some Chinese lanterns instead. And then there was quite a lot of surveillance on Radio York, Dave the Security Man and York Minister.

Oh well, better luck next time!

At least we all got to meet up again- what a pity the cloud wouldn't let us see much. Still, it was really fun meeting up with the team and their parents, so keep checking in here for a repeat evening in october some time. I'll try to keep posting things to this blog in the meantime...

The final decision...

Well, I'm prepared to turn up if you are. It's not looking clear yet, but it still isn't terrible. I'll open the Portland Street gates (off Gillygate) at 9.50pm, and I'm looking forward to seeing you all then!

Still looking good!

I am still seeing a report for clear skies in York tonight, so I am going to go ahead as planned for now. If possible, check this blog again at 9pm for a final, final decision!

Looking Good for Saturday Evening.

Weather

The weather forecast from the BBC is giving clear skies over York in the evening, so everything looks set for a nice event at the observatory tomorrow. Twilight will end at about 10:28pm, so don't feel you have to rush to get here early!

International Space Station

If the weather stays clear, there will be a low pass of the International Space Station at 11:23 so that may be worth staying for, but it will be low in the sky and will only last for about fifty seconds.

Saturn

The moon Titan will be well off to one side of Saturn on Saturday, so it should be possible to see both clearly through the telescope.

The Moon

Moonset will be at 10:50pm, so the Moon will be our first observing target.

ISSP Saturday 11th June

When you come for this event, please use the entrance on Portland Street to get into the school campus. You can park up on the playground, and then make your way to the entrance of the labs where I ran the ISSP sessions in March. I'll meet you all there. It will still be quite light at 10pm, but we can run the session until it gets dark enough to see something useful.

Please assume that it will be cold, and bring something warm to wear - you'll be out in the open!

RSVP ISSP

The students who took part in the astronomy ISSP earlier this year are invited to respond to Annette Aylett's invitation to come for an observing session on the 11th June. If the weather is fine, we should be able to target Saturn's rings, the M13 globular cluster in Hercules and one or two other interesting objects. Detailed timings will be given out in Annette's invitation...