Day 82 Thursday 12th June 2014

Current Sky at a Glance from Sky amd Telescope

A very warm but blustery day - particularly up in the mountains.

I drove down to Mojacar to the bank and supermarket but drove along the "prom" which is definitely getting into summer holiday mode but a pretty empty beach running for miles. I bought 6 large bottles of drinking water and 6 packs of 6 small bottles of water - it is a long way to go to the supermarket when I only have to go round the corner to Tesco at home - so I need to stock up here!

I have moved the TAL 1 and it is now here.

It still has a reasonable view of the sky. It is so light it can easily be relocated to see any part of the sky. I have a "digiscoping" (why don't I like that word?) bracket that I aim to try out with the TAL1 , my iPhone or a small camera.(I can also use it on my Swarovski 80 Birding Scope) To use the iPhone I have to use the bracket with another iPhone holder. Very fiddly!

Here is the bracket designed to hold a compact camera that has a tripod thread.

Here is the iPhone adaptor that effectively holds the ipone and provides a tripod socket. The second photo shows it attached to the first bracket.

Here it is with the iPhone attached and showing the image of the hoder with its camera.

I adusted the altitude of the Paramount to the precise latitude of this location this morning based on the assumption that 1 "tic" on the adjusting knob is 2 minutes of arc I set the altitude to 37 degrees using the scale and moved 3 further "tics"to correspond to the 6 minutes as indicated by my compass app on the iphone.

 

I downloaded an App to tell me the height of this location

 The latitude shows a difference of 1 second of arc between the two apps - I must have been in a different part of the property!

Full Moon tonight - itreally is very bright - diffused by some light cloud. Not a good observing night.