Here is my video of the Lunar Eclipse of December 10th 2011. There was patchy cloud for the first part of the partial phase, and then it completely clouded over shortly before totality. However, about 15 minutes after the start of totality, the cloud cleared and I had a great view of the rest of the eclipse.
The eclipse images were shot with a Sony video camera and a Nikon SLR camera with a 300mm lens.
Peter Nosworthy
Alright that’s it! I’m getting some of those fancy heater thingies to keep my telescope dry!
It was another good turnout – five five members with scopes, two without scopes and about five visitors (including one child). But early in the evening we noticed our scopes getting wet, and soon our mirrors and eyepieces were getting fogged too. Fortunately (and for the first time ever), I had brought along small hair dryer and a long extension cord. As we have mains power at North Turramurra, we were able to use the hair dryer to keep the dew at bay to some degree. However, this method required constant re-application and proved a bit tedious.
We also noticed that there was a glow of bright lights to the east and north (usually the darkest part of the sky). There may also have been a very light fog which made the light problem worse.
These problems resulted is a somewhat frustrating session, and particularly thwarted my attempts to see even a single galaxy. Despite all the problems, we still had some great views of some of the brighter objects.
I only wrote down six objects that we observed (last month it was 29). This was partly because we didn’t view as many objects, and partly because I was too distracted by the dew problems to remember to write them down.
Here is my list:
We also viewed comet C/2009 P1 Garradd which was high in the North East and looked like a dim fuzz in my scope. Geoff also attempted to find Neptune but I don’t think it was positively identified.
Because of the poor conditions, we packed up a bit earlier than usual (10pm) and went home.
One of the visitors (who calls himself grindsmygearsAU) shot some video with me for YouTube. Here it is…
Peter Nosworthy
For those interested, the very nice video of the Parkes field trip is now on the Media page of the website. Depending on your browser, it will launch there or in a YouTube page.
The Parramatta Park Stargazing event on June 4th went ahead despite cloudy skies. Members from other clubs set up their scopes on the field. Four NSAS members attended, however we decided it was not worthwhile to set up our scopes. We only got to see one star (probably Sirius) through a gap in the clouds.
The talk by David Malin was held in a large tent and was well attended. The talk made it worth the trip.
Bob also set up a stand to promote NSAS and we handed out pamphlets.
And here’s a video…
On Thursday May 12th I got up early to see the conjunction of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Mars…
Peter Nosworthy
This is a video from September last year but I thought it might be of interest.
It was International Observe the Moon Night so I observed the Moon while my neighbours had a loud party next door. Since making this video I have upgraded my scope to a goto so I no longer use the rather primitive alignment method shown in the video.
A few days ago I tried setting up the club’s refractor telescope which was recently returned from loan. The scope is a Polarex 4 inch f/15 refractor. It is quite old (perhaps 40 years) and includes a weight-driven clock drive and a glass plate astro-camera.
In the video below I just set up the scope on the equatorial mount. I didn’t attempt to connect the clock drive or to do a polar alignment. I found the scope to be a bit cumbersome to use compared to my dob, but the view of Saturn was quite good.
Peter Nosworthy
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Bad Astronomy
Astronomer/writer Phil Plait writes lots of interesting astronomy related posts on his Bad Astronomy blog, with the odd skeptic/debunking post thrown in for good measure. |
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