Quote of the Week from Astronomy & Geophysics - Jan 2011

One of my hobby horses is the little amount being invested in Astronomy and in Science in general.

The Royal Astronomy Society has been fighting our corner well. In the editorial of the latest Astronomy & Geophysics, Sue Bowler, near the end of it writes:

"The focus of that pressure is changing, too. “Managing demand” is coming into vogue among research councils at the moment, with the laudable goal of limiting the submission of poor quality applications for the ever smaller pot of research funding.   .............................  Managing demand is a clumsy tool – just look at the railways, who do it in effect by making popular journeys expensive and uncomfortable. Managing science well, with a transparent approach and genuine two-way links with the community, would be much better for all of us.

Morning Observing

I normally open up the observatory in the evening - I am more of a late night person, rather than an early riser - but since the 3rd of this month that has changed and I now open up in the evening and early morning.

On the 3rd. I was up early to carry out a dry run of the partial eclipse that was to take place the following day. I did not open the observatory that day or the day of the p.eclipse, but just went out onto a terrace so that I could confirm exactly where the sun would rise. I found that the sky was a lot clearer than the previous evening sky. That morning I had the pleasure of seeing Venus, Mercury and a very fine crescent of the Moon.

The following morning I was up earlier thinking that I would enjoy myself wandering around the sky with a pair of 20x80 binoculars before the eclipse started. The sky, as in the previous morning, was perfect.

I viewed a number of Deep Sky Objects of which the best was Omega Centauri, the huge Globular Cluster in the Constelation of Centaurus. This object has been viewed for at least the past 1800 years, as Ptolemy included it in his catalogue. The reason it is called Omega is that the 17th Century Astronomer Bayer catalogued it as a star and used the Greek Letter for Omega as it classification within Centaurus.

One of the extras you get by using binoculars is that you see the area around it. When I view Omega in one of my telescopes all I see - even using a 50mm eyepiece - is the Globular Cluster taking up 60 or 70% of the field of view. In the binoculars I saw something that I had not seen before. To the south of Omega there is an asterism that that has the shape of the Plough (Big Dipper). There are seven stars, the only difference is that there is one less star in the handle and an extra one in the farside of the bowl. I have looked on the Net to see if it had been noted anywhere, but had no luck in my searches.

For the past week I have been observing Moon and Jupiter in the evening and Deep Sky Objects in the morning, finishing up with Venus, Mercury and Saturn before the Sun rises - later on in the morning I check the Sun out as well :-)

For some reason I had never thought of Omega being a naked eye object but after reading about Ptolemy's entry I thought I would check on this. It only gets to 5 or 6 degrees above the horizon so I was a little unsure. On clear nights I can see stars down to the horizon, but they are bright pinpoints, not a "fuzzy thing". On the morning of the 5th the first thing I did after I woke up was to get up with no lights on - not even a red torch - and fumble my way out to the terrace. Looked to the point in the sky where I knew it would be and there it was, quite clear. In the mornings since, even without being completely dark adapted, I see it straight away.

This morning I also looked at Centaurus A (NGC 5128). This is a very peculiar galaxy with a strong Radio signal. Although I could see it with direct vision, it was better seen indirectly. Because of the dark band of dust it looked like two object, the northern part larger than the other. It was on the verge of twilight that I viewed this, so I will have to look at it earlier next time.

The Partial Eclipse of the Sun - 4th Jan 2011

I did get up earlyish - six o'clock. I was outside with a cup off coffee by 6:15.

Before the p.eclipse I had a look around the sky by my 20x80s and viewed a few globulars including Omega Centauri which was nice and bright - not quite naked eye. The sky was perfect and was able to observe right down to the horizon. Venus was quite high in the sky and Mercury looked nice to - I must remember to get my scope onto it soon.

When the p.eclipse started there were a few clouds down on the Med, but nothing near where the sun was to come up on the side of one of the farm's hills. When it did come up it caught me slightly off balance with the cam as I just saw to bright points of light and I thought something was wrong with the cam, which caused me to do some fiddling. I then realised that the two "horns" of the sun had appeared at right angles to the hillside!

The first half hour was great but then the clouds came in. I did manage to see the end using my 1999 Eclipse Glasses (yes I did check them out before using them. I did catch parts of the p.eclipse on cam using a welding glass and baader solar astro film.

While waiting for dawn to break I also looked out for meteors and saw about 20 plus. As I was not looking for them all the time I must have missed double that amount!