I suggested the Baker Street Irregular Astronomers do something about the asteroid. That is have a bash at seeing it at a meeting. Our normal meeting spot at the Hub in Regent's Park wasn't playing ball so it was arranged the group shall meet in a school playground in Northolt to await the rock's appearence.
News was still abuzzing about the Russian event earlier in the day as I loaded the GT-81 into the ZipCar and joined the delightful traffic crawl along the A40. Earlier I had invested twenty odd pounds on the upgrade to SkySafari 3, my iPhone app. The upgrade has the asteroid data so I could track the Alt and Az co-ordinates of the speeding rock. Dialing this info on my setting circles of my AZ4 mount would be crucial for me to spot the aseroid with my GT-81.
Arriving at the school I was greeted by clouds - lots of them which hardly parted all evening. No 2012 DA14 sighting for me. The closest I came to seeing it was when the clouds parted for a brief moment so I could see a few stars in the field of view. I'd like to think one of those points of light was the asteroid but the clouds closed in too quickly so no tracking was possible. Did I really see it? I doubt it.
News was still abuzzing about the Russian event earlier in the day as I loaded the GT-81 into the ZipCar and joined the delightful traffic crawl along the A40. Earlier I had invested twenty odd pounds on the upgrade to SkySafari 3, my iPhone app. The upgrade has the asteroid data so I could track the Alt and Az co-ordinates of the speeding rock. Dialing this info on my setting circles of my AZ4 mount would be crucial for me to spot the aseroid with my GT-81.
Arriving at the school I was greeted by clouds - lots of them which hardly parted all evening. No 2012 DA14 sighting for me. The closest I came to seeing it was when the clouds parted for a brief moment so I could see a few stars in the field of view. I'd like to think one of those points of light was the asteroid but the clouds closed in too quickly so no tracking was possible. Did I really see it? I doubt it.
Photo by Guy Wells
In this photo my GT-81 points to the position where the asteroid is hiding behind London cloud. On the right I'm being interviewed by two chaps from the press interested in our merry band of amateurs.
During the evening there was lots of chatting to old and new members of BSIA and much forlorn viewing of the cloud cover. We did get to see a little of the Moon and Jupiter htrough the cloud gaps but conditions were so unfavourable to observing we cheered when a star, any star, made a fleeting appearence! All-in-all a rather a disappointing evening.
My thanks go to Paul Hill of BSIA for organising the evening at the school.
It was great to meet up, but a disappointing end to the day non the less. On to the comets!
ReplyDelete