Astronomy

Sort of proof that I'm a bit of a slacker I'm afraid. I did take a shot last Sunday, the Sun was out, getting a little low to offer the best viewing but I've nothing to show. I was distracted for a large part of last week for reasons I won't go into here and I've been trying to tidy the area I set my telescope of all the wood I have accumulated. The reason I don't have anything to show from last weekend was that the batteries died. Literally at the point that I had completed the alignment, entered date, time lat & long, yada, yada, got it into the Solar tracking mode, went back in to get the filter and camera and something to weigh down the tripod and when I come out all is quiet, the usual faint whirr of the motor tracking the telescope is absent and when I check the handset the the display is dead. I know it's not a real excuse, but by the time the batteries had been recharged the Sun was far too low. I suppose that a serious astronomer would have a spare set of batteries ready to go, but, as we know, I don't come into the 'serious' category and 8 spares is a lot to keep lying around and away from the kids who would commandeer them unless they were watched 24/7! Forecast not good for the next couple of days but hoping to have something to show before next weekend.

My man has come through with the couple of bits and bobs for the telescope, a little spacer for the new camera mount and a holder for Baader Solar Safety Film which will allow me to use the full aperture for viewing the sun.

From Astro Kit

I expected no less, but it's a beautifully finished piece of beech I think, two pieces held together with 6 brass screws to trap the filter material. It was a bit of a delicate process getting the the filter material in place and one of the screws put a little tension into the film but not enough to worry about a tear. The diameter is over size by about 4mm, I may put some sticky buds on the inside surface to take up the slack but I'm not sure it's worth it. The only thing I would like differently, and it my fault that it's not, is the depth. There is no reason for it to fall off in normal use but considering the consequences I will have to tape it in place to ensure that unexpected knocks from dogs, kids or earthquakes don't result in it coming off the telescope.

From Astro Kit

This is the spacer, and the mount, it a little bit of walnut, a really snug fit with the recess so that it doesn't drop out when the pressure is taken off but doesn't interfere with the operation of the mount.

Thank you Mark!

I was pretty grateful that the cloud rolled up about 3 a.m. coming in from the north east, it looked pretty solid and signalled an end to craning my neck looking for something which only appeared very infrequently. I wasn't as organised as sometimes so I wasn't lying out there for long spells but went out about 5 times from about 10.30 for a total of 20-25 mins and only saw 2 short duration meteors. The moon may have had an impact on how many were visible but I'm not too sure this was the case, I didn't keep having the 'was that one?' feeling as if there were many hovering around the edge of visibility. My night vision wasn't helped by the farmers who kept rolling past with headlights and flashing yellow lights on their tractors rolling past at regular intervals, working late getting their crops in before today's rain.

It looks like that will be it for me this week, the forecast is for solid cloud for the rest of the week.

Managed to find the email with the download link and licence number for Starry Night Digital Download 6. I was a little apprehensive as I couldn't remember if this had been one of those pieces of software that they expect you to pay a fee solely to keep the download link active for future downloads, but it all OK and I have installed it on the laptop. It was a worryingly slow process with nothing on screen for many minutes between certain parts of the install and just HDD activity to suggest something was still going on.

Between the install and the setup once the program was in, the whole deal must have taken over two hours. I also, reluctantly, uninstalled Carina Software's Voyager as I guess there's not going to be anything doing in the absence of any contact from them. I read somewhere that Starry Night could be quite demanding on processor resources but it seems to want no more than 12-15% of CPU resources which I think, with everything else shut down, except Word to keep some notes in, should give me a couple of hours outside on the battery. Now I've had chance to have a look at it, it would suggest that it was not Mars that's near to the moon right now (never said I was Galileo!) but Jupiter(?). I need to get out more! Late at night, when it's dark, with a telescope.

I see Starry Night Pro claims to be able to drive 'most popular computerised telescopes', if anyone is using this software with a Celestron NexStar 130 SLT I would love to hear of their experiences?

Since the last time I was out my next door neighbour has hacked the Leylandii on our border, bring them down from close on 30' down to a more astronomy friendly 8-10', giving me a lower horizon to WNW. Every little helps.

Spoke with my woodworking friend over the weekend and he has this coming week off so expects to bring over the couple of bits he promised me so it will soon be time to get back in the saddle, not that the weather has been very encouraging in recent times.

Since I wiped the HDD in the desktop and the laptop also went back for a new HDD not so long ago, I don't have any planetarium software on either machine. I should be able to resurrect my copy of Starry Night but need to decide which machine to put it on as I think the licence is just for the one machine. I also need to create another observing log and I think that in the future I will email it to myself from time to time so that a copy of some sort is kept on the IMAP server. I see Mars(?) looks to be somewhere near the moon at present and if they are getting closer might make a good target for my first photography project if the daytime weather doesn't give me a look at the sun.