Friday, December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas

  December 25, 2015    

The weather has been unseasonably wet and windy of late, so I decided to take advantage of a break in the clouds and take a few photos of the beautiful (almost) full moon on Christmas Eve. Imagine my surprise when I went to edit them and discovered that one of the images...

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Sunday, November 22, 2015

All About Space Magazine Article

  November 22, 2015    

About 6 weeks ago I was contacted by Gemma Lavender - the features editor of All About Space Magazine. She had seen my photos of the lunar eclipse on Twitter and wanted to know if I would be interested in writing an article for their monthly 'Stargazing Stories' feature...

  

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Sunday, November 01, 2015

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Monday, September 28, 2015

Super Blood Moon

  September 28, 2015    

It has been all over the news for the past day or so, but for those that missed it this morning was a rare opportunity to see a Super Blood Moon.  Whilst lunar eclipses are fairly common, the last total eclipse observed in the UK was in 2008 and the next will be in...

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Monday, April 06, 2015

The Leo Triplet

  April 06, 2015    

Work has been getting in the way recently so I haven't had much opportunity to get the telescope out, but the Easter holidays has meant I have been at home and the unusually good weather has given us astronomers a couple of relatively clear nights. Whilst the sky has not...

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Friday, March 20, 2015

Catching The Eclipse

  March 20, 2015    

I missed out on the last opportunity to witness a solar eclipse in the UK, so I have been awaiting today's 98% partial eclipse with much anticipation. I had planned ahead and purchased my solar eclipse glasses well in advance, to avoid disappointment, so it was just typical...

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Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Rosette Nebula

  February 22, 2015    

With a clear sky forecast all night last night, I decided to have a go at imaging something new last. A quick look at Stellarium showed that the beautiful NGC2237 - otherwise known as The Rosette Nebula - was perfectly positioned in the sky. So, with my son to assist, I...

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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Catching the GRS!

  February 17, 2015    

Having fixed the rotation of Jupiter in Stellarium a couple of nights ago - see my previous posts - I noticed that there was a convenient Great Red Spot (GRS) transit this evening to test the software out, so I went out with the specific intention of checking that the prediction...

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Feeling Crabby!

  February 17, 2015    

Despite not feeling particularly well yesterday, the forecast of no moon and a clear sky all night provided an opportunity to test out my new Altair Wave 115 refractor on a deep sky object that could not be missed. So, as the sun dropped below the horizon I started moving...

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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Fixing Jupiter's Rotation in Stellarium

  February 14, 2015    

I really like Stellarium, having recently started using it to control my scope through EQMod. It is great for scanning the night sky for suitable targets and even lets you zoom in to the planets to see the location of their moons.  What i didn't realise, until recently,...

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Sunday, February 08, 2015

Jupiter and Europa

  February 08, 2015    

After a long run of bad weather I finally managed to get outside this evening and do a little imaging with my new scope - the Altair Astro Wave Series 115 ED F7 Triplet refractor. After an initial alignment using Astrotortilla, I swapped the main camera for my QHY IMG132E...

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