If your astro soc is thinking of doing something like this, then I strongly recommend it.

I spent all weekend on our stand at Herstmonceux. It was a great opportunity to meet the public and let them know about CADSAS and it’s forthcoming meetings. Good local promotion and awareness building.

But just as important was meeting other local astronomy societies, getting to know some of their key people and generally “joining the local astro club community”.

Also, it provided a great opportunity to make a couple of (very) short videos for YouTube.com (above and below)

All it needed was a simple camcorder and a tripod. You should do the same for your club or society.

Don’t get put-off by thoughts of fancy video equipment.

Surely, the quality is not like the BBC. But in spite of the wind and excessive background noise, IT WORKS to help show people what you are doing.

A quick video like this, gives you something you can show to others. And it helps people find your society through the search engines.

Highly recommended!

Top of 35 Ton Bronze Dome of Harrison Planetarium

It was for the special SPA Greenwich event.  

After setting off from Kent early, I reached Greenwich and parked on Crooms Hill with plenty of the time for the 9.45am (sharp – “latecomers will not be admitted”) start to the show.

The presentation was given by Tony Sizer – it was a very interesting and visually stunning, look at the Night Sky.

The highlight for me, was the “Trip to the Southern Hemisphere”.

The whole audience got to view the constellation of Crux, the nearest stars to our own  Sun – Proxima, Alpha and Beta Centauri – plus the Larger and Smaller Magellanic Clouds.  All without leaving our seats!

Good fun and informative.

It’s been designated  ”Spring Moonwatch” week, as part of the IYA 2009 and we have been blessed with wonderful clear skies here in South-East England. 

I have helped run two public events at my local astro society . I even gave a talk yesterday to about 30 people, about the Moonwatch week and what to see on the Moon.  And it used my own Moon images, taken over the last couple of weeks.

Two or three of the newcomers, became obviously enthused with the idea of Moon observing, which made it feel very worthwhile.

Newtonian 6 inch reflector on EQ6 mount, observing the 9-day Moon

Tonight, I snapped the 9 day old Moon.

To the right, is my old 6 inch reflector, which I bought on eBay in 2003.  

Originally, it was on a simple alt-azimuth mount, but I have recently added new tube rings and dovetail bar, enabling it to be put on the Skywatcher EQ6 mount. (Vastly more stable and of course, driven)

It has worked really well this week for capturing images of the Moon, as it has progressed from 3-day crescent through to 9-day Moon, tonight.

(I shall put together a montage of images from this week.)

Using my now trusty, Canon 1000D dslr, I have (as always) been very pleased with  the results.

Here is an image of the 9+ day Moon, I took tonight.

9+ Day Old Moon, 2009/04/04 (click for larger)

David founded this new astronomy group, just about six months ago. But already, it’s well established and growing fast. The fact that membership is free, probably helps!

Public Observing

What’s really good, is they run regular public observing sessions, using their own varied collection of telescopes and other equipment. You can bring your own equipment too, of course, if you have some and it’s portable.

The observing nights are held every two weeks or so, at two carefully chosen and fairly dark sites – Butser Ancient Farm and INTEC, both in Hampshire.

You don’t have to be member to go along, but you do have to reserve an observing pass in advance. For some sessions, there is a small fee, payable on the night.

If you are within striking distance, this could be a great chance to do some practical astronomy with like-minded, experienced people on hand to help out.

Monthly Download Magazine

The other striking thing David does, is to publish an impressive monthly magazine, you can download from their website.

Called “Look Up!” and now running to about 20 pages, it seems to get bigger every month. It’s packed full of articles, great colour images and useful astronomy information.

And did I mention? … the magazine is free too! Not surprising, the number of copies downloaded is increasing by 30% a month, according to David.

My Suggestion..

Definately check out the Hants Astro website and the Look Up! magazine. And perhaps get yourself along to one of the observing nights, if you possibly can.

In my previous post here, I said the restoration of the Alan Telescope was nearly finished.

We had a meeting on Monday night and there is a problem with the Declination axis motor drive.

It has worked OK up to now, but the 30 year old arrangement has now given up.

The telescope has a fine pitch worm screw, driven by a reversible DC electric motor. The worm acts on a small rack section, which we unbolt and move around a large (30 inch diameter) declination circle, made from metal.

The screw has started to slip and there is no obvious remedy, other than replacement.

So I have have been talking to telescope specialists, such as the excellent Beacon Hill telescopes, about how to fix it for the long term.

We may have to purchase and fit a large worm wheel and worm set, to provide a more accurate, reliable drive.

This will cost a fair bit of money.

Alternatively, we are considering a “tangent arm” threaded rod arrangement. this will be cheaper and easier to fit.

I shall let you know here, what happens next…

This 22.5 inch reflector carried out important work on supernovae in the 1970′s and 80′s, operated at Burwash in Sussex, by it’s designer and builder Alan Young.

It then lay dismantled and unused for many years, before coming into the hands of Cranbrook School. Volunteers at their astronomy society have worked over the last couple of years to restore the telescope to operation.

The restoration project is now reaching the final stages.

Here’s a close-up picture of the recently fitted Crayford focusser with a custom motordrive. The arrangement will permit careful adjustment of the focus, from the observatory floor level. This is essential…

As you can see here, from this picture of the Mintron camera being fitted to the focusser. It is many feet up and requires an access tower to reach safely.

In the bottom picture, the declination axis drive is being adjusted.

The telescope is expected to be fully operational soon.

This is a picture of the site. And lots of people were there on the day, even though this picture suggests otherwise!

I spent some time with my SPA colleagues Barry and Guy, who were doing such a good job on the SPA stand (and probably distracted them with my chatter).

And I briefly met Sir Patrick Moore, who took time to visit the astronomy societies in their tent around the back.

Here’s the “front lawn” view.

I also enjoyed a good talk on imaging the night sky by Nik Szymanek. (Good to meet you, Nik)