Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

Ken Shepherd has made a lightweight, wooden cover for the Telrad finder on the LX200.
With his cover in place during solar observing the delicate Telrad reticle will be protected from damage by sunlight:




Steve Wainwright

The images were taken through an 120mm refractor using a DBK 21 camera.
With a 2.5x barlow


With a 3x barlow.


Keith Davies

The Solar Observing group met for just over an hour today. For an operation and safety briefing.
The new Finderscope solar filter was used to quickly locate the Sun with the 12" LX200 fitted with a full aperture 1000 Oaks glass solar filter:


Attendees:




The emphasis was on safe practice for starting up and shutting down.
The participants viewed a string of sunspots across the solar disk and images were captured with a DSLR:


A 60mm H-alpha scope was set up on the EQ3-2 mount outside the dome and participants viewed sunspots, prominences, plage and filaments. The use of a 'lights-out-canopy' was introduced.
It was too windy to attempt any form of imaging outside the dome, which was not the purpose of the meeting.

Steve Wainwright

Something different this evening for Swansea Astronomers. Welsh artist Chris Williams gave a talk on astronomical art and brought some of his wooden sculptures for the audience to see and handle after the talk. Chris is an amateur observing astronomer and gains his inspiration from his observations. He has a major sculpture caller Orrery on display at the Herschel museum of astronomy in Bath. His website is worth a vist.
Chris talked to a packed audience:




One member of the audience was Lon Shaw who recently was awarded a life membership of the SAS with his helper.


After the lecture, members talked with Chris and examined his exhibits




Steve Wainwright

Jupiter was imaged at the prime focus of an 11" Celestron SCT using a DBK21 camera.


The Orion nebula was imaged through a guided 120mm apochromatic refractor using a Nikon D700 camera and an Atik 314.






Keith Davies

An SPC800/900NC re-flashed camera fitted with an IR/UV cut filter and a x 2.5 Barlow was attached to a 5" f/10 Maksutov. 3min AVIs were captured using Carsten Arnholm's wxAstrocapture software and guvcview Linux capture software at 10fps. The AVIs were processed in Registax 4 under Wine in Linux (Ubuntu) and the images were post processed in the Gimp (Gnu Image Processor)

guvcView screenshot:


guvcView image of Jupiter.
Click on an image to get a larger view:


wxAstrocapture screenshot


wxAstrocapture image of Jupiter

Note the moon on the left of each image of Jupiter

3 minute AVIs were captured consecutively and an animation was made using Abdrew Sprott's Blink Comparator and PSP5 Animation shop:


Steve Wainwright

A Nikon D700 DSLR camera was placed at the prime focus of a 120mm Refractor autoguided with a Lacerta guiding system.
4 x 1 minute and 4 x 2 minute exposures were made of M42/43 and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker:

Click on the image to get a larger view.

Keith Davies

On Friday the 18th of November Members of the Swansea Astronomical Society met with members of the public at the National Botanic Gardens for Wales. Two lectures were given and members shared their views of Jupiter, its moons and the night sky with visitors:
Phil and Gaynor with Gaynor's scope


Jim with his scope


Brian Stokes giving a talk


To date these are the only pictures I have.
The evening was a success

Steve Wainwright

A DBK31 camera was placed at the prime focus of an 80mm refractor fitted with a Baader solar filter. AVIs were captured of two overlapping halves of the Sun and the two images combined in Photoshop Elements to produce this mosaic:


Keith Davies


A remounted Opticstar PL-130M 1.3Mp CMOS camera fitted with a neutral density filter and an IR/UV cut filter was placed at the prime focus of a Solarmax ll 60 BF15. A 3,200 frame AVI was captured at a resolution of 1280 x 1024. The AVI was processed in Registax 6 and the resulting image colourised to represent the 656.3nm wavelength used by the scope. Click on an image to get a larger view.


A DNK21 camera was fitted with an IR/UV cut filter and a 2.5x barlow. A 5000 frame AVI was captured and processed in Registax 6. A second AVI of the same region was captured at a higher exposure to capture the large prominence. The two resulting images were combined in Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers program:


A large filament that recently snapped was imaged with a 5000 frame AVI:

Before it snapped, this filament reached over the limb and formed a magnificent prominence there. As it snapped, it flung a huge mass of plasma into space, but not towards the Earth.

Steve Wainwright

On Sunday night it went well at Llanmadoc. The weather was quite poor, with thin cloud and a strong wind blowing across the site.
The organizer Mark Cutliffe runs an outdoor activity sort of youth club called the "Eco Tribe." There were around 15 youngsters and 9 adults. It was Marks intention to get the youngsters away from the TV and involve them in gardening, looking after live stock (chickens/pigs), camping, walks etc. They are located at the St. Madoc Christian Youth Camp, Llanmadoc.

As I mentioned earlier the weather was not great but I was able to set my 120mm refractor on Jupiter and after using a 2.5x barlow with a 20mm eyepiece good images of the planet were seen by all.
They were very enthusiastic and after speaking to the parents a few said they would be coming to the Botanical Gardens Star Party on Friday.

Keith Davies

A Pentax K-x DSLR fitted with a UV/IR cut filter was placed at the prime focus of a 5", f/10 Maksutov. Two overlapping images were captured and stitched together with Microsoft ICE.
Click on the image to get a larger view.


Steve Wainwright

On Saturday November 12th between 9-45am and 4-45pm a Meet and Greet with the Swansea Astronomical Society was held at Waterstones on Oxford Street with Brian Stokes and Mavis Morgan talking to members of the public.
A number of people expressed interest in the Astronomical pictures projected, the Society, Star Parties, Talks at the Waterfront, and also depleted our stock of Society information/handouts.
A tiring but worthwhile day.
Thank you Brian and Mavis for raising the profile of the SAS and its activities.

On Saturday November 12th fifteen members of the Swansea Astronomical Society traveled by minibus to the Spaceguard Observatory in Knighton. The bus was skillfully driven by Gaynor Thomas.


Lunch was taken in The Horse and Jokey Pub restaurant where a fine selection of food and excellent service was provided.






Gaynor's driving skills were tested as she negotiated narrow lanes, muddy patches and awkward sharp turns into gateways. We arrived without a scratch and with no stress.




The Observatory was opened by Sir Patrick Moore in 1995

A profound and enigmatic proclamation on the inaugural certificate reads :'Ex stellis venimus ad stellus imus' ; 'From stars we came to the stars we go'.

A guided tour of the facilities and the work that is done there on the tracking of Near Earth Asteroids was provided.


Including a very interesting interlude in the planetarium


A visit to the observatory revealed the refractor and the substantial structures associated with it:




A fascinating feature was the elevating floor to make for comfortable and safe manipulation of the equipment without the use of ladders.
Gaynor did the honours of driving the observatory floor back to its home position:


Outside the main buildings excavations have begun and foundations laid for a new observatory.

The new observatory will house a large Schmidt Camera that will eventually be used to discover new Near Earth Objects. The Centre will then be able to perform both parts of their important task: to discover and track potential threats to the Earth.
All agreed that this was a successful and enjoyable excursion.

Steve Wainwright

Between the clouds I was able to capture two overlapping images of the Moon at the prime focus of an f/10, 5" Maksutov with a Pentax K-x DSLR fitted with an IR/UV cut filter.
The images wer combined into a mosaic with Microsoft ICE, a free image mosaic making program program.
Click on the image to get a larger view:


Steve Wainwright

This evening Dr Rhodri Evans gave a fascinating lecture on the Yerkes Observatory of Chicago University where he worked for a number of years as a Research Associate. This history of astronomy is fascinating and involves the most extraordinary people and Observatories:


As he often does, Rhodri brought one of his daughters with him and she did the honours of picking the winning raffle ticket for the evening:


Rhodri will return next session to continue the story.
Diolch yn fawr Rhodri.

Steve Wainwright

These images were taken through a 120mm apochromatic Refractor with a DMK31 camera
A Baader solar filter was used for the solar image.








Keith Davies