My Astronomy

 

 

Click here for main

Home Page

 including Dominic

Ford's excellent

monthly calendar

 

 

 


My New Book May 2018

 

ABOUT THE WEBSITE - CLICK HERE

My Telescopes

My Main Telescope - C14 and Paramount ME

My new Paramount MyT and 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien Telescope

MyT Hand Controller

My Meade 12 inch SCT on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

My 4 inch Meade Refractor with Sky Watcher Guidescope and ZWO camera on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mount with Canon 40D

 

My Solar setup using a DSLR and Mylar Filter on my ETX90

DSLR attached to ETX90. LiveView image of 2015 partial eclipse on Canon 40D

Astronomy Blog Index
About the Site

 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

My Recent Tweets
« Day 3 Galaxies in Gemini imaged in December from Leyland Observatory | Main | First day in the Cabrera Mountains- Snapping the moon - Using the TAL1 for visual observations of the Pleiades etc. »
Thursday
Feb132014

Day 2 in Cabrera - 2014 Yearbook of Astronomy - Evening Moon from the Terrace - Ursa Major over La Pilica.

.CLICK THROUGH THE LINKS ABOVE TO MOVE FORWARD OR BACK

More settling in and organising today - a less cloudy day today - clearing completely by the time it got dark.

I brought a large number of astronomy books with me to catch up on and use for reference. I had bought myself the 2014 hardback Patrick Moore Astronomy Yearbook for Christmas and sat out on the terrace with an Ethiopian Coffee to start reading it.

It has a number of interesting articles about Patrick from his friends. I had spent a day with Patrick some years ago and found the articles to reflect my views of him - a very generous man who gave away much of his wealth without a second thought and much of his time - always replying to every query and request personally without hesitation. He did have very strong views in certain directions that not everyone agreed with. He sent me  one of his famous postcards typed on his vintage typewriter that he used for his books that I am pleased to have. He used postcards in the same way that people use email.

The evening view fom the terrace is below with the Moon very bright.

A perfectly full Moon(well 98.55%) - very good through my Swarovski 80mm birdwatching telescope - and easy to see because of the current low altitude of the Moon (33 degrees from Almeria) - the 45 degree eyepiece makes it difficult to observe high objects.

The constellation of Ursa Major was rising from behind a local hill called La Pilica shown below.

 

Looked at the Double Cluster again through the TAL and was "rewarded" with a bright satellite going through the field of the cluster. Pinprick bright stars  in the cluster through the TAL - a very good telescope - not bad for £40 on EBay a few months ago!! In my opinion the best telescope for a beginner - but don't expect too many on EBay for £40!

There are always bargains there if you keep your eyes open. My C14 was bought in the same way - but not for £40 I might add!! It is much warmer outside tonight - no coat or hat needed. I have been using my new Head Torch - extremely useful because you wave your hand at it to switch it on or off. I did find however that if you wave your head past the telescope to turn away for example - it has the same effect!