Jupiter: triple moon shadow transit

With my small refractor (WO GT-81) I enjoy observing Jupiter: its belts, zones, the GRS (the latter always looks a lighter grey to my retina) and the four Galilean moons. I've seen a few single and double transits of moons and shadows from my terrace in Central London ('EmmsTowers'). At the April AstroCamp in the Brecons, Wales I had fun observing a transit of Ganymede on Jupiter in clear BLUE skies through a friend's 16" bespoke Dobsonian - a first for me.

So when I learnt there will be a rare triple shadow transit occurring on June 03 beginning in daylight I was determined to have a crack at observing as much as can with my 'frac. At the critical time in the afternoon Jupiter will be in the western skies, a part of the heavens obscured by buildings at EmmsTowers so I've arranged for a few friends to join me to observe the event from Regent's Park.

 It will be fun to find Jupiter in blue skies and see what is on view.

AstroCamp Apr 2014

I'm always keen to attend AstroCamp held biannually in the dark skies of Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales. Being an urban stargazing I love to get under darker skies, whether of the Canaries, Isle of Wight and the Brecons.

Last month I attended the latest AstroCamp with the expectations of three dark nights around the April New Moon. The weather, always changeable in the UK, didn't cooperate, providing plenty of rain and cloud. But I did manage a few hours observing with my WO GT81 of a few DSOs I cannot perceive in Central London, namely a trio of galaxies in the Virgo galaxy 'realm' new to my retina, M49, M87 and M60.

During daylight hours I spent the few cloud free hours doing a spot of solar observing

Upper pic by Carol Grayson. Centre pic by Howard Cooper. Lower pic from BBC iPlayer

and demonstrating chromospheric features to others with my Lunt60HaT. Part of the May 2014 Sky At Night television programme was filmed at AstroCamp. The last photo is a brief shot from the show.

The next AstroCamp will be held September 20-23.

Jodrell Bank Telescope

2014Apr03 by Eric Emms

I visited Jodrell Bank as a member of a group organised by Friends of the Royal Astronomical Society, to see the famous Lovell Telescope, hear a talk from the Director Prof Simon Garrington and visit the Control Room of the observatory.

The dominant feature of The Jodrell Bank Observatory is of course the radio telescope, one of the world’s largest, known as the Lovell telescope

Walking up close to the telescope one is struck by its sheer size and the beauty of its design.

Notices scattered along the footpath tell you to switch off your mobile phones as signals would interfere with the radio signals collected and relate simple facts about the work of the telescope. 

The  Discovery Centre which receives thousands of visitors is home to exhibits and visual presentations describing basic astronomical concepts.

Prof Garrington’s illustrated talk described the present set-up of the observatory, its early work and its current importance as the organisational ‘hub’ of present national array of radio telescopes across England (e-Merlin) and in the future international radio astronomical research (SKA). 

The conclusion of our trip was a visit to the Control Room, where the BBC Stargazing Live TV programme is filmed. A brief illustrated talk by a resident radio- astronomer explained how radio signal data collected at the observatory are processed to produce a meaningful image of the target radio source to resolutions in the order of microarcseconds, as good as or better than the resolution seen in Hubble optical images.

Thanks to Marcus Hope of Friends of the RAS  for organising the trip.

Astronomy and Me: How I Started...Stopped...and Restarted.

It started for me with Apollo 8 and Patrick Moore.

Christmas 1968: your pre-teen author watching the BBC coverage of Apollo 8. On the screen was this strange looking man talking rapidly explaining why the mission was so important.

His words, still potent when seen and heard today, helped arouse the child’s interest in space and astronomy. I collected newspaper cuttings of the Apollo missions, glued them into a long-lost scrapbook and devoured all the astronomy books available from my local library, many written by Patrick. I well remember reading his 5^th edition of Amateur Astronomy.

My parents encouraged my interest: the first astronomy book I owned, received as Christmas present in late 1960s was Larousse Encyclopedia of Astronomy, a paperback edition in 1966. It was, effectively, a text-book of what was known in the mid 1960s, with emphasis on the Moon, planets and stellar composition.

I received another present from my parents, a small telescope with a table tripod: a cheap refractor. A toy in essence, but through it I could enjoy for the first time the splendour of the craters of the Moon; Saturn and its rings; and Jupiter and its moons.  A toy microscope was also purchased for me. Both presents and other educational toys triggered a life-long interest in sciences (little did the boy realise he would later spend a third a century looking at diamonds and precious stones through a rather different microscope: but that’s another story).

But I can’t recall watching the Sky at Night on a regular basis and as the public awareness of the Apollo programme diminished so did my curiosity in astronomy. ‘O’-levels, three science ‘A’-levels and an honours degree at King’s, London passed without much thoughts of astronomy. A subsequent career with precious stones in Hatton Garden, London eclipsed any interest I had for the heavens – perhaps I was too preoccupied with gems to bother with stars.

However the embers of astronomical interest smouldered occasionally; I recall staring at the many large (to me) telescopes seen through the large window of Telescope House in Farringdon Road, close to Hatton Garden, and casual glances at the Sky This Month diagrams and notes published monthly in national newspapers but certainly no observing since the time of the now long abandoned toy ‘scope. But I do remember being impressed by comet Hale-Bopp seen with my naked eyes hanging in the heavens when on business trip to Basel in April 1997 and explaining what a comet is to Swiss contacts.

After moving to Marylebone in the late 1990s, I would walk past a shop off Baker Street, 

glimpsing telescopes in the window and form a fancy of buying a ‘scope in the future for the time, if and when, I retired abroad. Little did I know then...

Perhaps you, too, do not think you share the so-called ‘passion’ evident in the amateurs you read about on-line, meet at astro-events or follow on social media. Take heart, a greater interest in astronomy can be reignited. For me, it happened on a walk in April 2011 when a curious incident in Regent’s Park occurred - I saw a poster on a notice-board.

On the spot, I decided to investigate...

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse 2013 Oct 18.

by Eric Emms

The Flamsteed Astronomy Society had organised a meeting on Blackheath to observe the eclipse and the Sky At Night TV programme  planned to film the event for transmission in early November. Several Baker Street Irregulars,  including me, would be attending.

I arrived at the location by car before 19:00 UT to find bright lights from the TV crew illuminating the patch of the heath where an array of telescopes had been set up. In the light it was easy to set up my William Optics GT-81 then ponder the thick clouds masking the Moon.

Photo: Julie Ramsden.

The four-hour eclipse was expected to be at its maximum at 23:51 UT so all had time to chat with the Flamsteed astros, Irregulars and curious locals who turned up to see the event.

Photo: Philip Stobbart

We waited for the clouds to part. We waited. The TV hosts went through their routines to camera. We waited. Lunar and asteroid belt meteorites were thoughtfully shown to us by planetary scientist Katie Joy 

Photo: Philip Stobbart

Then we waited and chatted. And we chatted and waited. The Moon poked through the clouds on occasions allowing me to show the disc to a few young people but soon retreated behind cloud cover.

As the hours of the eclipse wore on there was little chance of observing any of it. The astronomer numbers were draining away: I packed up, thanked the Flamsteed organisers, trudged to my car and headed home.

I Have Never Seen Mercury

Since I’ve taken up stargazing again in 2010 the opportunity to see Mercury, that sun-hugging innermost planet, has never arose. In other words I have never seen Mercury, truly a confession any stargazer should be ashamed of.

My Central London observing site (my terrace at my home) provides a good Eastern facing aspect but objects low in the Western sky are obscured by houses. Mercury and other planets close to the setting sun are beyond my reach.

The triple conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury in late May 2013, when all three planets were within 5 degrees of each other soon after sunset, provoked me to attempt to see Mercury for the first time.

Credit: Chris Schur.

Could I find a near-by site to view a western horizon within Central London with my telescope? No. And as I didn’t wish to travel outside town I decided to go Mercury hunting in London street armed with my binoculars, an old East German Carl Zeiss 10x50 pair.

On the evening of the 27^th May I walked to a suitable vantage spot in a Central London street and waited on a pavement for dusk and the appearance of the triplet. The spot turned out not to be sufficiently suitable: no planets were seen, buildings still hindered my view. I tried again the following evening in another street – another failure. There are too many buildings in London. I did succeed in receiving suspicious glances from passers-by who must have wondered why I was peering through binoculars, one community support office (a traffic warden) ending his shift engaged me in conversation demanding to know what I was up to.

Mercury had to wait until my first 2013 trip to the Canaries planned for June. Meanwhile I resolved never to attempt again on-street observing.

Solar observing at AstroPicnic 2013

The idea for a day of observing the Sun through solar filters and having a picnic arose from a discussion I had in May with Fawzia Muradali Kane, a fellow Irregular of the Baker Street Astronomers.

I decided that the best date for the first of its kind would be Sunday 30^th June. Floating the suggestion on various social media gathered a sufficient positive response so all was set. We just needed clear skies and a suitable site. Following our tradition of meeting in Regent’s Park for our regular BSIA events it seemed natural to hold the solar viewing with the park. It was suggested that close to the amenities around Hanover Gate would be the best location.

The day before the event I had my last recce of the spot; it looked quite deserted at noon and offering ample opportunity to track the sun as it moved across the sky from morning to late afternoon. No trees would impede any observation.

The weather for the planned day looked promising: warm temperatures with light variable clouds and at 09:30 on the Sunday I picked up my kit and walked from home to Hanover Gate, Regent’s Park and was delighted to find the spot was deserted. 

I set up my 81 mm refractor with its Baader solar film filter on its dew shield and being obvious in an otherwise deserted field soon attracted the curious attention of early morning dog walkers, joggers and the regular patrol of an armed policeman. I began observing at 24x three obvious active regions; AR11777, 1778, and 1781.

Soon other Irregulars joined me, pitching their dedicated hydrogen-alpha Lunt solar ‘scopes, telescopes sporting white light solar filters and tripod mounted binoculars. Pretty quickly a score of us were observing our closest star and showing interested passers-by their first view of sunspots.

The day progressed by comparing the view seen through the two Lunt solar scopes kindly brought my Chris and Simon with those seen through white light solar filters, chatting to friends old and new about astro and non-astro subjects; snacking on our picnic victuals.Through the H-alpha filters of the Lunts we saw spectacular examples of prominences, filaments and plages

The temperatures soared to 26°C tempting many to the park so by 3pm we were surrounded by a collection of picnickers, sunbathers, footballers determined to strike a telescope with a ball, energetic young children running around and one kite-flier, so it was time to declare the day a success, break down our equipment pack up our bags and head home.

My thanks go to all who attended particularly those who brought the scopes and binoculars. We shall return for another AstroPicnic in Regent's Park next Summer.