Oz Blog - The Blog from Oz.
(or - Martin Whipp's Astronomy Adventures Down Under)
Hello all.
Welcome to my new web log featuring my adventures down under.
Most of you who know me will be well aware of my plans. I have moved down to Adelaide, along with my wife, Karen for the foreseeable future. Don't know how long we'll be here, but a good few years as a starter. This Blog will chronicle my astronomical adventures down under. If you've got any questions, just pop an e-mail to the usual YAS info e-mail address, and it will be passed on to me on the other side of the planet.
Thursday July 31st 2008
Over the Top As mentioned below in my blog, I've recently taken a fancy to doing timelapse photography, especially of the night sky. My Stockport video went down very well at the meeting, and it has spurred me on to do a bit more.
You can also see a vid on vimeo taken in the Barossa valley of Orion rising amongst other things - and it's in High Def too! www.vimeo.com/1369534
Anyway, the point of this story is this - last week I decided to go out to the Eden Valley, some 70km NE of the city to take a sequence of 300 or so pictures of the milky way to make in to a timelapse. This I did, and very nice it looks too - I haven't published it yet because I want to take a lot more and make a nice sequence up in the future. While I was there, on what could only be described as near perfect seeing conditions at a rather dark site, I also decided to take a panoramic photograph, but instead of going left to right, I decided to go NE to SW straight overhead, following the line of the Milky Way. In total I took 16 separate shots of 1 minute exposure each. When I came to stitch them together, the more images I used, the worse it looked, so in the end, I joined just 5 pics together to produce this "all sky" (sort of) image from one horizon to the the other.
If you look to the lower right, you can see the small and large Magellanic Clouds, and the glow to the top right, over the car is the glow from Adelaide. The whole image is quite heavily processed - the light dome from the city is not quite as bad as that to the naked eye. Hope you like it!
Tuesday July 8th 2008
Hello once again. I know I've been a bit quiet of late - well I've been busy with work again, but I have been doing a few astroey things too.
I've been rejigging the projector cinema system at the Stockport observatory, and the guys there have been building a new fence to cut down glare from the house that's recently been built next door. We've got a big public night up there in early August for Science week.
I finally gave my lecture at ASSA - all about York and YAS. I started off with a little bit of history about York, from the Romans through to the Vikings etc, and mentioned a few famous Yorkies (Guy Fawkes, WH Auden, Frankie Howerd!) then went on to talk briefly about William Parsons, John Goodricke, Edward Pigott, and not forgetting of course Thomas Cooke!
After that I mentioned the sustrans solar system cycle route before going on to talk about YAS and its many exploits. I mentioned the trips, the star parties, had a right good mickey take about THAT year at Kielder (Lake George, Sea of Gary etc) and then mentioned the more successful events we've had such as the transit of Venus, and the trips to Tunisia and Turkey for the eclipses. The final bit of the talk was the history of the society's 5 observatories, concentrating mainly on the current one at Rufforth. Everyone was quite amazed at what we had achieved with such little funding.
I concluded with some videos, as I haven't had a good opportunity to show off my wares in that department yet. My grand finale for the evening was my latest film, "An Evening at Stockport" which includes my first proper attempt at time lapse night photography. I set up my EOS 350D to take over 500 consecutive 30 second exposures at ISO 1600 at F4. These were then strung together in the editor to produce a timelapse film in which the clouds fly past, and the night sky slowly rotates behind them.
So here for you viewing pleasure is "An Evening at Stockport"
An
Evening At Stockport from Martin
Whipp on Vimeo.
I am glad to report that I had very good feedback about the talk, with folks saying that it was a very nice mixture of history, astronomy and comedy, without going too deep in to any of them. And regarding the videos - apparently I have "raised the bar" for ASSA presentations!
Nice to know it went down well!
Thursday May 1st 2008
I reckon I should be charging for staying at my house! First I had Hayley in January and February, then my folks came to stay in March, and just in the last few days, I've had our very own Hazel from YAS pop round for a day or two!
Hazel was staying with her brother and his family in Melbourne, and thought it would be an ideal opportunity to drop in and for me to show her round a few places. So after the usual trip to the wildlife park, and a jaunt round the Penfolds winery and vinyards, it was off up to the Stockport observatory once more to show her what she had really come over for.
And by some miracle - it was clear too!
The observatory directory, Lyn Grida and her husband Joe (who writes the night sky articles for Adelaide's Advertiser paper) were there waiting for us on our arrival, and after the formalities (shaking of hands and swapping of Algols and ASSA Bulletins etc.) we went upstairs in the obs to use the 20" Cassegrain.
Joe took the controls and slewed it round to look at Saturn, which was resplendant with at least 6 moons in attendance. Next it was on to Omega Centauri, the huge Globular Cluster. Sadly, this was not so good as the 20" is actually too powerful, and we were only looking into the core as opposed to seeing the whole thing.
So with that we went back downstairs to get the 15" Dobsonian out from under its slide back shed. This gave a much nicer view of Omega Centauri, and along with 47 Tucanae, Eta Carina, the Jewel Box and many more, Hazels hunger for all things southern deep sky was satisfied.
Time for a cuppa and a piece of cake. Very nice too - those blueberry muffins were as big as yer head!
Later on we did a bit of naked eye viewing of the Magellanic clouds and the Milky way rising in Scorpius and Sagittarius, then went on to have a brief look at the 18" Dobsonian in the other observatory, which is more or less a scale model of what the society's next baby will look like. Within 5 years, ASSA intends building a 36" scope for public use on site. Watch this space...
Around half past 10, it was time to go, as Hazel had an early train to catch the following morning, but I'm sure the memory of what she saw at Stockport will stay with her for a long while.
On a personal note, I'd like to thanks Joe and Lyn for their hospitality, especially as they had further to travel than we did. They really made it a special night for us.
Thursday April 24th 2008
I've been down under for almost a year now, and so far have never been "out back". I needed to remedy this fact and the weekend of April 25th-27th was a long weekend, due to the Anzac public holiday (very similar to our remembrance day, but specifically remembering those who faught from Oz and New Zealand in WW2). We had decided to take the Thursday off too, to make it a 4 day weekend. Woohoo!
Our destination for the weekend was the Flinders Ranges.
Gorgeous ain't it? And yes - the rocks really are that colour. This is a huge range of hills running from Adelaide up to the middle of the outback. Out there you are a long way from anything, and it is a wise person who takes every opportunity to refill his or her fuel tank at any given chance!
Anyway, about 300km North of Adelaide is the town of Port Augusta. This is known as the "crossroads of Australia", because from there you can take your pick between two main roads. One gets you to Perth, via the Nullarbor Plain(eventually) and the other to Darwin, via Coober Pedy, Ayers Rock and Alice Springs (eventually).
We chose to go up the Darwin Road, because another 150km on from Port Augusta is a little town with a lot of history...
WOOMERA - Where the Wockets go Fwom!
Now, I'm not going to spool off the history of this town / rocket range for you, because a lot of you will know all about it. If you don't, then check out the Wiki!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woomera
But needless to say, it was at one point the base for all Anglo-Australian space-bound projects and testing. It's the nearest thing that the UK has ever had to it's own Cape Canaveral.
The picture above shows the Welcome sign at the village gateway, showing you what delights the place has to offer. Under that are the remains of a Blue Streak rocket that was launched in 1966 (1 of 10 launches) and was recovered from the Simpson Desert in 1994. The Image on the right is me next to a Long Tom rocket. Long Tom was the first sounding rocket, launched in 1957 to test the suitability of the Woomera Range for the Black Knight trials that followed it.
This image shows a mural painted on the side of the village shop, the Woomera observatory (which houses a C14), and the Woomera founding memorial.
As well as the two rocket parks in the town, and the aforementioned observatory, there is also a very good visitors centre, which had a surprisingly good exhibition. I won't go in to any detail here, as I may give you all a talk on it all one day. Up until last year you could also go on tours of the rocket range itself, but this is now closed (sad news) due to it once again being an active launch facility (great news!). The Japanese are currently doing some testing there, and who knows, perhaps this little town may once again in the future become "Spaceport Australia"
I'm really glad we did the 300km round trip Woomera, even if it was only for a couple of hours. That night we got back to Port Augusta and fell straight asleep.
The rest of the weekend we were up at Wilpena Pound, a huge geological feature that looks like a huge volcanic crater, but isn't. Here we were around 500km from Adelaide, and 30km from the nearest village. Consequently the night sky was by far the best I'd ever seen. Sadly, it was through breaks in the clouds and I never got a chance to do anything about it photographically, but all I can say is "wow."
I can't wait for my next trip "out back".
Tuesday 8th April 2008
Last Saturday I found myself back up at the Stockport Observatory again. There was a bit of work to be done on the 15" Dobbin, replacing some of the Teflon runners and tightening stuff up and generally looking after it in it's old age.
The afternoon was quite pleasant. A nice 23 degrees C, which was very welcome after the recent heatwave, where we had 17 consecutive days over 35C, 6 of which were over 40C! Sounds great, but it really wipes you out! Anyway, the sun was out, and Blair (head instrument honcho at the obs) had brought along his 70mm Coronado. Well - I had a few minutes spare, so I bolted my EOS 350D to the eyepiece and played around for a while. Anyone who has tried imaging through a coronado will know the focussing problems that you can encounter. I had the same trouble. My strategy became that of going one side of focus, taking a shot, racking in it a bit, then shooting again, and again, and again, until the other side of focus was reached, in the faint hope that one of the shots would be half ok. Well - it kinda worked. I can count 10 separate prominences on here, including the beauty at 10 o'clock, and there's some granulation too!
Later on, the weather was not so friendly, but we didn't care as there was only 8 of us in attendance and 5 of us had brought along a bottle of wine for the BBQ! We were happy enough!
I did get the chance to do some imaging though with my Megrez. There were enough gaps in the clouds to get 24 x 30 second shots of the Eta Carina region. I varied the exposure and ISO for this, and stacked them in K3 CCD tools. I'm quite happy with the result, given the conditions. Next time, I'd really like to get at least half an hours' worth of exposures, and if possible, bolt the whole thing on the back of the 20" Cassegrain using a guide star.
Thursday 7th February 2008
Well, I just couldn't believe it when I got an email from Paul B saying "Enjoy the eclipse tomorrow won't you".
"THE WHAT??" I thought. I quickly looked up on Mr Eclipse to find that there was indeed an annular eclipse, visible over most of Antartica, parts of New Zealand and bits of Australia. I punched the figures in to Starry Night Pro, to find that from my location it would be an amazing 3% coverage! Woohoo! The challenge was on.
Could I manage to get a picture of it while I was at work? The maximum "coverage" would be at 3pm local time, so I made sure that the welding kit was in the van, and I took my camera along. Thursday morning had been miserable, with heavy rain then wind. Later on it did get out a bit nicer, and by 2:30pm it was actually sunny! Hurrah I thought.
Then the clouds came over - patchy at first, then broken, but I did manage to squeeze a couple of hand held shots in between gaps. The main image you see here is a shot with my Canon 350D through my welding mask - hand held at ISO 1600 for about 1/200th of a sec at F11. I then replaced the green tinge with a yellow one in photoshop.
Not much to see - but at least I caught it!
Saturday 19th January 2008
Happy New Year to everyone back on the other side of the planet in YAS.
On January 1st 2008, I decided that it would be a good opportunity for me to contact some of the more involved members of the ASSA to discuss how I could become more involved in the society. New years resolutions and all that. As you will know, I'm mainly interested in observatory work, and since the new year I've been out to Stockport once again to help with some foundation digging for a new storage unit being put in - that was fun in 39 degree heat I can tell you!.
But I've always had an interest in planetariums too. Even when I was still at school, I would occasionally help Martin Lunn out with his inflatable Starlab Planetarium talks and events, and since then, I've always fancied being involved with one - I even fixed Martin's projector up before I came out here (gave it another 10 years of life didn't I Mart???)
I have to admit that I was both excited and depressed about the introduction of the Yorkshire Planetarium at Harewood. Excited because Yorkshire has always needed one in my opinion, but depressed because I was moving down under before it actually opened. Never mind - I'd heard somewhere that Adelaide had it own planetarium too...
Lo and behold - the Adelaide Planetarium just happens to be on Mawson Lakes - a brisk 10 minute walk from my house! Woohoo! Before you ask, we had decided to live there WELL before I found about the planetarium. Honest! So, the other week I got in touch with guess who? Another Martin! Martin Lewicki has been running the presentations at the Adelaide planetarium for years now, and along with his ASSA colleague, Paul Curnow, have been educating somewhere around 8,000 people per year. Not bad going when you consider that the planetaium is not actually open freely to the public. It's part of the University of SA (That's why it's on the Uni campus at Mawson) and is used mainly for training courses on navigation and beginner's guides to the various aspects of the heavens. It does open to the public for general shows, but only on the first Saturday of each month.
On January 5th, I dropped in on Martin before one of his sessions and discussed what I could offer him, being a planetarium fan, and an Audiovisual techy. Already I've been making some bits up to help with the presentations, such as an electronic "lens cap" which can be operated remotely, and a long line of other gadgets that my AV company could provide them with. Martin really wants to bring the place up to speed this year, with new furniture, and better equipment.
The only thing we can't really replace due to funding is the actual planetarium projector - a lovely old Carl Zeiss ZKP1 (circa 1965), which works well, but needs a bit of TLC to get it running how we want. That'll be fun!
One of the main presenting tools is something I researched a few years ago, but had never seen one until now. It's a mirrordome projector. In basic terms, it's a standard LCD projector, pointing at a quarter-dome mirror (like those security "look round the corner" mirrors). This sends the picture on to the whole dome, but greatly distorts it obviously. Now a few years ago, some clever chap from Melbourne figured out how to pre-distort the picture so that it looks right once projected on the dome. I was a little sceptical about the quality difference across the dome, but once I had seen it working, I was really amazed by it. The software used with it is the free to download "Celestia" package, and takes the audience on a nice concise trip through the solar system. Great stuff - Gotta get me hands on that sometime!
So hopefully, in the near future I may even be doing the odd presentation in there when the main guys are unavailable. Looking forward to that.
Sunday 23th December 2007
A few weeks ago, Karen and I had a long weekend in Sydney. Amongst all the usual stuff to do, such as hiking in the Blue Mountains and wandering round the huge city, we decided to pop along to the Sydney Observatory.
The observatory is similar in design to the one at Greenwich, although not as big, and was one of the first official buildings erected once the colonial settlers had moved in. Being on the banks of the largest natural harbour in the world, it was essential to get good timekeeping and signalling up and running as soon as possible, and so the observatory was build for this purpose.
Today, the observatory is a museum and has a "flat screen 3D planetarium" which is a 3D theatre with interactive shows - quite nice. The displays are excellent and there are many nice toys to look at. There is a beautiful old Troughton and Simms Transit instrument in the main room, and upstairs there are two domes. One houses a 14" LX200, while the other has an 8" Hugo Schroder Refractor, which I understand is the oldest scope in the Southern Hemisphere. Still working, but in need of TLC, I did manage to get a look through it in the day time. Not the best image I've ever seen, but what can you expect?
Just as we were leaving, we we reminded that in a few moments time it would be 1pm, and the time ball on the roof would be dropping - and guess what? It did! Of course today, that daily occurence goes largely unnoticed by the rest of this bustling metropolis, but it's good to know that the observatory's original purpose is still demonstrated every day, keeping the traditions alive.
Monday 12th November 2007
It's taken a while to get there, but I've finally got round to doing some imaging at Stockport with my new scope. Saturday night was a lovely evening, and around 15 members of the ASSA congregated up at the obs for a pleasant night's observing.
I have always believed that if you want to get a reasonable astro pic, you need to have one target for the evening, and one alone - then concentrate on it. Mine on Saturday was 47 Tucanae - the very large and impressive 4th Magnitude Globular cluster.
After rattling a few shots off, trying various exposures and fiddling in general with the set up of the thing until I was satisfied with the result, I had a go at piggybacking, in an attempt to capture the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Sadly, as these were both in a Southerly direction, the distant lights of Adelaide put pay to any chance of imaging for more than 2 minutes at a time.
Still, I don't think my first "through the scope" shot is too bad is it?
Later on in the night I had a go at a circumpolar star trail - something I haven't done in years, and despite loads of folk walking around in front of the camera, I don't think that looks too bad either. You can see the distant lights of the city to the lower right, and the two fuzzy smudges towards the top are the LMC and SMC.
Can't wait to get back for another go now...
Wednesday 7th November 2007
7th November 2007 - Joint ASSA / Australian Institute of Physics Lecture meeting.
On normal ASSA nights, there is a beginners lecture at 7pm, then the main event at 8pm. On this occasion however, the beginners session had been cancelled to allow time for the hall to fill up to near capacity for the evening's guest lecturer - Dr David Malin, from the Anglo-Australian Telescope
Yes - you've all seen his pictures. You probably own more of his images than you know in various books. I myself have dozens of his pics. I have seen Dr Malin give a talk before, 15 years ago at Cleaveland & Darlington AS's "Cosmos II" meeting in Newcastle. I can't remember much of that lecture, so I can't compare. But, this evening's lecture was a potted history of how David got to where he is today, growing up in "Outback Northern England" as he described it (Ramsbottom, near Bury - out in the sticks somewhere), and going through a northern chemicals company using photgraphic and microscopic techniques to analyse pigments, right through to getting the job at the AAT in 1975, and on to the impressive images we all know and love.
What was really good to see was that David has recently been working on "revamping" some of his original works. Using his origianl plates from the AAT from the 1980's he has digitised them at 10,000 x 8,000 pixels (each in red, green and blue filtered b&w plates) and has worked on them in photoshop. He is only now delcaring some of these 25 year old images as "job done" to how he originally wanted them to be, but was previously unable to due to the limitations of the darkroom. So, although it was nothing we hadn't seen before, the level of detail in these picture was quite astounding. A very enjoyable lecture indeed. Glad I got to see it.
Check out some of david's images at www.davidmalin.com
Saturday 15th September 2007
ASSA Members Viewing night at Stockport. This was my first opportunity to get my new scope out under clear dark skies with other fellow astronomers and see what I could see. I had had quite a tiring day, still on with the decorating at our new house, so didn't set off until 7pm or so. I got to the observatory around 8pm, to find that the skies were clear, but rather misty.
I went up to talk to some other members, and they told me that the seeing had been variable all night, and that a front was moving in. Not knowing fully how to set my scope up properly in the dark yet, I decided to leave the scope in the car, and wander round the instruments that were already set up, just so I would actually get to see something..
A few meetings ago, a chap called Paul gave a talk on Planetary Imaging - I think I mentioned him in an earlier entry. He is of a similar standard as Damian Peach when it come to planetary imaging, and he was at the observatory on this evening, with his rather impressive 18" telescope. This thing was huge! It had a tube framework, and looked to me like a dobsonian, on a simple rocker-box type mount. Just then, he pushed a few buttons, and the scope rather quickly slewed round to it's next target - it was a GOTO dobbin thingy! I couldn't believe it! I forget the manufacturer's name now, but apparently it is a similar design to an Obsession, but better quailty.
Was this true? Well, I have never looked through an Obsession, but Paul assured me that the optics of the main mirror were 1/34th wave accurate. Now that's pretty good in anyone's books. I took my first tentative look through a clear gap in the clouds. OMG! I was looking at the Swan nebula (M17), and was amazed to see structure within the clouds. Such fine detail, it was like looking at a cloud in our own atmosphere - just swan shaped!
The picture I have included here is a semi pro shot taken from Astronomy picture of the day, but altered to recreate what I believe I saw at the eyepiece of this beautiful instrument. As the evening went on, I looked around a few more instruments, and introduced myself to some members in the dark. Many referred to me as Yorkiedownunder, and remarked at my eclipse video clip. That was nice. So - as for my little scope - I've still to use it in anger, but it's time will come!
Sunday 9th September 2007
Ever since arriving in Oz, I've been meaning to get myself sorted with a telescope. It's been over 17 years since I last bought one - such are the conveniences of belonging to a society - you can always use someone elses, or the group instruments. However, now that I'm under more readily accessible dark skies, and not being too well acquainted with the local group yet, I thought it only right that I should finally buy myself a decent scope.
As luck would have it, just before I left the UK, I did a small video production job that earned me a not so small one-off sum of money. This would be my telescope fund on arrival in Oz. Thanks John!!!
I had decided on a small refractor by William Optics, as I had heard great things about them, and a few YAS members already had them reporting good clear, aberation free images. My initial choice was to be an 80mm Fluorite refractor, and I was going to get it from a place just outside Sydney. Sadly, the only optical retail shop in Adelaide lacks a little when it comes to the telescope side of things, so I was worried as to whether I was getting a bargain or not. Then, one night at an ASSA meeting, a chap turned up selling a few bits and pieces, and handing out leaflets about the kind of instruments he sells. His name was Matthew Lovell (no relation to Sir Bernard!) and he runs "Telescopes and Astronomy", a home-based business importing and selling instruments on at reduced cost to the purchaser - and he dealt in William Optics! Bingo! I got a full price list from Matthew, and adjusting my budget only slighty (!) I emailed a list of my requirements.
As expected, due to stock shortfalls, and variations etc, the list changed a bit, but in the end I plumped for a 90mm William Optics Megrez Refractor on an EQ5. Why such a big mount for such a small scope? Well, as you know I like my photography and video making, and already this oversized mount has been beneficial to me for piggybacking my 3CCD video camera on the back of the scope during the recent lunar eclipse. I also mounted my SLR camera on the tube, and there was still no hint of movement in the mount. That's what I wanted - a mount that I could load up with stuff, and have it not fall over.
Because the tube and the mount were the most important things, some other stuff has had to be kept to a minimum. For example, I have a red-dot finder on board rather than a full finder scope, and I've only bought one eyepiece so far - a 8-24mm zoom, simply because for the time being, all I'm interested in is photography with this new toy. I've also got a few other extras such as a 2.5x Barlow (still to be sent from the US), a field flattener, and a UV reduction filter, again to help with any imaging problems I may come across.
So how many times have I used it so far? Well - once on the night I opened the box, and once more on the night of the eclipse! Pretty pitiful eh? Well - the same week that I got the scope, I also got the keys to our new house, so some things have had to go on standby for a while. Also, the two observing events up at the Stockport Observatory have been cloudy since I got it. Everywhere you go - always take the weather with you!
I'll keep on with updates as I use my new scope a bit more, and start sending pictures through as I take them. Watch this space.
Tuesday 14th August 2007
On Saturday August 11th, I finally got the opportunity to visit the Stockport observatory, home to to the larger instruments of the Astronomical Society of South Australia.
They have two main buildings, one which houses the 20" Cassegrain, and the other with an 18" Dobsonian. There is also a small "run-off" shed with a 15" Dobsonian, plus a room for viewing slideshows etc, a garden shed, and a small accommodation block for the die-harders who just don't know when to quit!
It was a bit of a working day, as we had a small gathering of people there who were chopping trees down, mowing, tidying, etc. Myself - I was with a guy called Michael, and along with a couple of others we were sanding, preping and painting the floor of the main observatory ready for a public star party next weekend.
It was a very pleasant day, and the weather stayed warm most of the day. I thought I was out of luck though when it came to the evening. We had a small BBQ going, and sat around it as the clouds rolled in.
As luck would have it though, after our meal, one or two stars began to pop out. Before we knew it, we were under perfectly clear skies, although it was still rather hazy, so everything dewed up really quickly. I managed to rattle off a few shots.
All in all - a grand day out. Can't wait to get back there!
Friday 20th July 2007
Hi folks. Sorry I've not got back to doing this much lately, but I've only just nicely got on to the internet at home, so I'll do my best to update you on my astro adventures. July 3rd came round and I finally joined the Astronomical Society of South Australia. I had waited until July because membership starts in January, and becomes half-price after July. You know what they say - you can take the man out of Yorkshire. . .
The ASSA meet on the first Wednesday of each month in the Physics Building at the University of Adelaide. It seems a shame that I only get to go to one meeting per month, but I do get to see two lectures. You see, every meeting night, there is a 19:00 beginners meeting, during which many of the regular members creep in at the back anyway. Then once that is finished, at 20:00 we go straight in to the main meeting. The meeting of July 3rd was of great interest to me. The beginners meeting was on general photography tips, and the main one was on Planetary imaging. The chap (who's name escapes me now - sorry) gave an excellent presentation on the refinements of planetary imaging, such as what type of weather you need to look for depending on which side of a hill you live on, and paying that little bit extra for your filters to be optically matched. Some would dismiss this little tweaks as nonsense, but I tell you this - you could not argue with the quality of this guy's images. They were STUNNING!
There are only a few serious serious imagers like this in Australia, and they are part of a global network of like-minded individuals. Our very own Damian Peach's name popped up quite a lot. I spoke to the chap afterwards at the supper (laid on for all members) and he has never met Damian, so I was chatting about our little experience with him, and he had heard very similar stories before. It seems Mr Peach's reputation has gone a long way. I've also managed to tag along with some guys who regularly go up to the Stockport Observatory - still a dream for me yet. I did have the opportunity to go there last Saturday, but I was working until 8pm, and the weather wasn't too hot anyway. I'd like my first visit to be a spectacular one - I understand that they have members meetings up there on August 4th and 11th. Here's a question - can anyone make an educated gues at the ZHR of the Perseids from down here??? See you soon.
Additional -
Just been out to a public star party at the Heights observatory this evening. Cloudy though :-(. Here are a couple of pictures.
Saturday 9th June 2007
Quick story for you.
On Saturday, Kaz and I travelled out to the Riverland area, some 150 miles NE of Adelaide to see a Balloon festival. Sadly, due to wind conditions, there was no flying, but they still did the night glow which was rather spectacular! See pic below. (Night Glow)
On the way back, I noticed the skies were clear, so I pulled over as far away from any of the small townships as I could, and got myself about 1km off the main road. This brought me to a nature reserve called "Loch Luna". Here I set up my camera on my mini tripod - big one still not arrived yet! and took a 60 second exposure at 1600 ISO looking eastwards towards Scorpius. See pic below. (milky way in Scorpius)
I've processed it a bit, but not bad for 60 secs eh? The glow is from a little town some 10 km away. I then did the same exposure straight overhead, looking towards the southern cruss. I was amazed to see the coalsack naked eye, not to mention the two magellanic clouds as clear as day. See pic below again! (Crux and Coalsack)
After 15 minutes, I packed up, as it was getting a bit cold, and quite frankly a bit scary too. Never been in such a dark place! Can't wait until I get a decent tripod and my scotch mount back. Couple of weeks still. I bet it will rain for months then!
Wednesday 30th May 2007
Hello all.
Welcome to my new web log featuring my adventures down under.
Most of you who know me will be well aware of my plans. I have moved down to Adelaide, along with my wife, Karen for the foreseeable future. Don't know how long we'll be here, but a good few years as a starter.
Of course, wherever life may take you, on land or sea or foam, you've still got to get your fill of astronomy from somewhere, and I've got the fullest of intentions of getting myself in with the Astronomical Society of South Australia (ASSA). The ASSA is the oldest astronomical society in Australia, having been founded in 1892. Current membership is around 500, but consider that this covers an area equal to that of France, Spain and Portugal put together!
My first encounter with the ASSA came last Friday (May 25th) when they held a public star party at a nearby School to the north of the city. I had tried to go to one of these before when I visited Adelaide at Christmas, but despite being the middle of summer, the weather was foul and there was a huge storm on the night of the event. Everywhere you go - always take the weather with you. . .
Anyway, this school is called "The Heights" at Modbury, and is the home to not one but two observatories. It gets a bit political here, but the main observatory is owned by the school, and the scope inside it (a 12" F16 Cassegrain circa 1960) is owned by the Astro society. The other observatory is solely owned and run by the school, and houses a 10" LX200. This is the one with the slide back roof in the picture. Similar to our own Container observatory, but a bit larger.
So - my first star party down under comprised of me turning up along with 40 or so other eager-to-learn members of the public. We paid our small entry fee, and were given a ticket with a number on it. This was because only 12 people can go up to the main observatory at once, so we had a batting order issued to us - good idea I thought! While the first dozen were up in the obs, the rest of us milled around on the nearby grassed area where 4 society members had set up their personal scopes. This felt so much like home it was unreal! There was a couple of Meade ETX's, an LX90 and a chap who had made his own 10" Dobsonian.
The guy with the Dobsonian (Michael, I think) was very chatty, and was telling me of the legendary "Stockport Observatory", a society site some 60 miles north of Adelaide which boasts some excellent viewing conditions, not to mention a 20" Cassegrain scope! He was showing me the Eta Carina Nebula through his scope (That's the one which Hubble sees as two "balloons" coming froma central star). It looked like a fuzzy smudge through his instrument, but he told me that a week or so earlier he had looked through a Celestron C14 from the Stockport site, and had seen both "balloons" clear as day. I have yet to travel to this place, but I can't wait!
Later on in the evening, when my number was shouted out, I finally got to have a look through the main 12" cassegrain scope at the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Because this scope has a huge focal length (16 feet approx) is was an excellent instrument for planetary work. On this particular night, we were treated to a view of Jupiter with all four Galileans in tow, one of which was just off the limb of the planet - very nice indeed.
Later, after the crowds had gone, I went round and introduced myself to some of the main ringleaders in the society. They seemed very interested in me, and what the YAS have been up to in the last year. Their regular meetings (once a month in the city) normally feature two shorter lectures rather than one long one, and sometimes more than that, and they've asked me to do a 15 minute session sometime on the world of Astronomy as seen by the YAS. Of course I said I would. I think I've been accepted, it just a shame that they struggle with me yorksha accent by 'eck tha knows! If you want to know more about the ASSA, click here: www.assa.org.au
All the pictures seen above are taken from the ASSA website, and are subject to their copyright.