Oh dear - the weather looks terrible

As I peer from my office window, the clouds seem to be gathering ever more thickly, and the thin band of clear sky that had held sway in the north-east all morning has finally vanished. I'll make a final call on tonight's observing evening at 5.00pm this evening, so that you get a chance to see a note in the school's reception area, as well as posting here.

New link in the useful links table

Breaking news from NASA can now be found at Nasa science News.

Not so clear after all.

The sky was strangely obscured last night, with a soft haze that trapped an awful lot of street lighting and made "seeing" (the quality of the view) poorer than I had hoped. Jupiter delivered however, with lovely views of the cloud belts, and a nice wide display of all four moons. We were also able to do a bit of star-cluster gazing, enjoying good views of the Pleiades cluster.

Last night's session was very sparsely attended, and I wonder if these messages get through in time for you to act on the invitation. Therefore, I would like to invite everyone to an observing night on Friday 20th January, from 8.00pm onwards. There will be no Moon, but Jupiter remains a good target, and we can do some binocular astronomy for interesting winter sky objects. It would be very helpful if you could send me an email to say that you are coming and as ever, check this site on the evening to see if the weather is going to let us go ahead.

Clear skies!

The weather looks good, so I will be opening up the observatory tonight for an hour from 8pm to 9pm. Come and see Jupiter, and perhaps the glories of the winter constellations too! The Moon will rise at about 8.50pm, and will be well worth a look.

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.