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)

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.