Soon after I had started to use a telescope, I joined an Astronomy club which back then was called the Junior Astronomical Society, which is now called the Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA) and still going strong. From around the age of thirteen, I would regularly attend SPA meetings in central London (Holborn Library, to be precise) and feed my enthusiasm for all things astronomical. I recall the enjoyment of sending in my observations to the various section heads, and receiving replies (typed letters!) to my various astronomy related queries. I still have some of those old letters in my archives.

Since those early days, my interest has expanded in significant ways. I’ve upgrade from that wobbly telescope and moved on to a Meade ETX105 which is a great little portable telescope. It has a built computer and electric motors which mean I can position the telescope correctly and then instruct it to slew towards a particular object in space without having to manually move the telescope myself. The Meade ETX105 is small enough to sling in to my backpack and go places with it via public transport and on holidays abroad. I’ve also got another two telescopes which I tend to use more often these days. One of them is a 110mm refractor and the other is a 66mm refractor, both made by William Optics. I have found the 110mm telescope is a superb instrument for observing deep space objects like galaxies and nebulae. The 66mm refractor is also a great observing telescope but I mainly use it as a guiding telescope when conducting astrophotography.

A lot of my time these days is taken up with imaging objects in space, a technique known as astrophotography. My main imaging instrument is an unmodified Canon 350D (Rebel XT) which I fit to my 110mm refractor. I’ve found DSLR cameras in general take some great pictures of deep space objects and tend to be a little cheaper than dedicated astronomy CCD cameras. I have both telescopes mounted on the same mount which is a sturdy HEQ5 Pro mount. This makes the whole set up significantly heavier and so I cannot just sling it in the back pack and stride off to a dark observing site. It requires a good 15 minutes of dismantling, reassembling and a further ten minutes or so of calibration and setup before I can start observing with it. It’s a superb looking instrument and mechanically and optically excellent. This whole set up usually gets moved in to the back garden for observing, although very recently, since April 2009, I have started to take my telescope set up out of the house and join local star parties where groups of observers get together and go out for a night of observing. This can be very exciting, especially if the general public are invited as then you get a chance to explain your hobby and the science of Astronomy to the layman who are often amazed by the views they see through a telescope.

Amateur Astronomy can be looked upon as a very male dominated, private hobby enjoyed predominantly by retired men, and I guess if you go to a lot of Astronomy clubs around the UK, that’s still the impression you’re going to get. However, the more I get involved in public outreach and spreading the astronomy bug to others, the more I’m beginning to discover how a younger, new generation of amateur astronomers are already out and eager to learn more about how our universe works.

If you are a young astronomer and looking to get more information on astronomy, then you should check out the Starlight newsletter and also consider joining the Society for Popular Astronomy if you’re in the UK. They have a section called Young Stargazers that’s dedicated to 8-16 year olds.

© Robin Scagell, Galaxy Pics

Word about the Spring Moonwatch event had certainly got around by now and a lot of families came to visit us. Mothers, fathers, relations and children were all coming down to take a look through the telescopes. Here’s an interesting anecdote. I called Anglian to give me a quote for double glazing a few days ago. The gentleman who came around to my house a few days ago was very fascinated by the site of my William Optics 110mm refractor telescope which was standing in the corner of the living room. I told him about the Ruislip Lido event and asked him to come along since he was so interested in telescopes. Well what do you know? Last night, he turned up with his two sons! The elder one was very taken by the whole experience and I suspect he wants his father to buy him a telescope. Moustafa Ali, the Anglian salesman, hails from Egypt and commented that where he had grown up as a child, he would venture out in to the desert at night and see so many stars. Now that he lives in London, he feels many people are missing out on the vista of space and stars that can be seen on a really dark and clear night. He hopes that through signing up to WOLAS and getting himself and his sons involved in astronomy, they too can discover the wonders of space. How wonderful!

Last night’s observing session certainly prompted a lot of questions from the members of the public who were attending. I spent considerable time explaining the life cycle of stars, the nature of binary star systems and the reasons why Saturn’s rings are so edge on to us right now. The green laser pointer I was carrying in my pocket came in very handy and allowed me to point out many constellations and stars in the sky. It was pleasant to meet some public who knew their way around the sky. I met a gentleman called Nat who told me his favourite star in the sky was Polaris in the constellation of Ursa Minor. He kept talking about Polaris and eventually plucked up the courage to ask me to point the telescope towards it. I swung my telescope over to that star and offered Nat to look through the telescope and he was awestruck at the site of his favourite star, even though all he saw was a single bright dot of a star. It’s amazing what floats different peoples boat. The cool part about looking at Polaris was explaining how it was a binary star and that there were two stars circling each other under the influence of their mutual gravity and then showing the two stars split through the telescope by inserting a much higher power lens. This prompted me to swing the telescope over to Mizar in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Big Dipper or The Plough) which is a really great double star to show anyone. Quite a lot of people were amazed by the site of the binary system.

Another favourite of the evening was the Plaiedes. To observe this cluster of stars, which I like to describe as a cosmic treasure chest of diamonds, I set up both the 110mm and 66mm telescopes to look at the object at the same time and inserted a 35mm lens in the 110mm telescope and a 40mm lens in the 66mm telescope. This allowed two different people to observe the same object at once which seemed to attract a lot of people around my telescope.

Another member of the public was fascinated by the notion of a binary star system so I gave him a brief guided tour of a few more binary star systems and started out by pointing out a particularly interesting system called Capella, the 6th brightest star in the northern hemisphere in the constellation of Auriga. Although it appears to be a single star to the naked eye, it is actually a star system of four stars in two binary pairs. The first pair consists of two bright, large stars, both with a radius around ten times the Sun’s, in close orbit around each other. The second pair, around 10,000 astronomical units from the first, consists of two faint, small and relatively cool red dwarfs. Just in-case you’re wondering what an astronomical unit is, it is a unit of distance often used by Astronomers to describe the mean distance of the Earth from the Sun. Therefore, 10,000 astronomical units basically means 10,000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

At around 10pm, we all start to pack up. The night was a perfect conclusion to Spring Moonwatch and most definitely ended on a high note. I greatly look forward to next years Spring Moowatch event at the Ruislip Lido. Much appreciation and thanks go out to everyone at WOLAS who put the time in and effort in to organising this annual event.

You can read about the previous two days of Spring Moonwatch on my first and second write-ups.

At home, I have a modestly bulky, although still portable telescope setup comprising a William Optics 110mm refractor, which is my main observing telescope, accompanied by a 66mm William Optics refractor, which I use for auto-guiding. This is all mounted on a weighty mount (HEQ5 Pro). I’ve never dared to dismantle it all and take it with me to an alternative observing location until tonight. With the weather forecast showing mostly clear, I decided to book a car, dismantle my telescope, pack it in the boot and take it all to the Ruislip Lido. The whole process of dismantling the ’scope and loading it in to the boot took around 20 minutes. I had the whole set up broken down in to a tripod, mount, 66mm telescope on its mounting plate, the 110mm telescope detached from the mounting plate and stored in its own box, a rucksack for carrying the counter weights, torch and electrical wires and another smaller box that contained all my eyepieces. I decided not to take my laptop or DSLR camera since this was the first time I was venturing outside the home with my main telescope setup. One step at a time!

Upon arrival at the Ruislip Lido, it was disappointing to note just how misty it was. The sky, although clear, was rather murky and compared to the previous Saturday when I was down at the Lido, there were a lot fewer stars visible. On the upside, however, there were a lot more people here tonight compared to the previous Saturday. I was told that by time the evening ended there were at least 45-50 members of the public who had visited the observing site and looking through the various telescopes available to them.

With car parked and boot wide open, I started putting together my telescope. I was probably the last amateur astronomer to arrive on site as there was already a hubbub of activity surrounding the other telescopes. As my telescope took shape, starting first by splaying out the feet of the tripod and fitting the mount on top of it, people soon started to walk over and asking what I was up to. Eventually, all the various components of the telescopes was attached and connected and I started aligning the telescope to three different stars so as to let the computer on the hand-controller know where the telescope was pointing in the sky. During this process a number of enthusiastic child rushed up to me asking if they could see through the telescope. I kept from attentive by explaining what I was doing and how in a few moments they’d be able to look at the moon which resulted in spontaneous jumping up and down and expressions of glee in the face of the kids who had gathered around me.

First object to observe for the evening was, naturally, the moon. It was high up in the sky, almost directly overhead, which made for ideal viewing conditions at it was well above all the misty murk. By now, it was not only kids wanting to look through my telescope but also a hand full of adults. I counted in total five adults and four children all hovering around my telescope eager to get a turn to look through the eyepiece. With everyone’s curiosity satisfied and a few greetings made and hand shakes shook, someone else asked me what else we could look at in the sky. After some brief thought, I decided to instruct the telescope to point to one my favourite star clusters, NGC869 and NGC 884, otherwise known at the Double Cluster. In dark skies and with good seeing conditions, the Double Cluster appears as two gloriously rich collection of diamond pinpoints, distinctly clustered in to two clumps of stars. The longer you look at the Double Cluster, the more beauty you see in it. I never tire looking at this collection of gems in space.

As members of the public took turns to observe the Double Cluster, a few of them asked me what the difference was between my telescope and some of the others that were available to look through at the Lido. Whilst explaining the differences, the conversation drifted towards the question of which type of telescope was best suited for planetary observing and which was better suited for observing those faint fuzzy deep space objects. As it turns out, my refractor, due to its f-ratio is not well suited for planetary observing and is more suited for photography of deep space objects. Undeterred, I guided the telescope to point at Saturn, which was also fairly high up in the sky and so well above the murk of the misty Lido. I decided to demonstrate to people the effect of using different eye pieces and so I started off with a 26mm eyepiece. Through this, Saturn was tiny and some people who were wearing glasses found it difficult to even make out the rings of Saturn. I swapped the 26mm lens out for 6.4mm lens. This got me a few “ah, yes” statements from those who were looking through this lens. Saturn was notably larger and my observers were commenting on how edge on the rings around Saturn looked. Finally, I popped on a 2x barlow lens which the equivalent of a 3.2mm lens. At this high magnification, and especially through my f6.2 refractor, you do lose a lot of brightness and therefore cannot pick out much detail. False colour also becomes noticeable at this high magnification, although to the untrained eye of the general public, this was not really a big issue and the larger and more prominent image of Saturn really got people talking.

I left people to gaze through my telescope and decided to engage the member of public some more and ask them questions. Were they amateur astronomers? Was this the first time they had looked through a telescope? A few of them were curious to know how my telescope knew where to point and some were commenting on how time consuming astronomy appeared to be. Since I had a green laser pointer on me, I decided to point out a number of constellations and showed people who to hop from one constellation to another.

As the night progressed, people drifted off and eventually it was only a few of us astronomers left behind. Everything was starting to get rather damp and cold so that a good cue to start dismantling everything and packing up. All-in-all, a really exciting evening with some very interesting people who took the time to come down and visit us! There’s only one more night of Spring Moonwatch left and that’s tomorrow, Saturday 4th April, 2009. I hope some more of you can make it for the grand finale!

photo credit: Robin Scagell, Galaxy Pics.

We’re currently in the midst of an annual UK astronomy event known as the Spring Moonwatch. It was originally conceived by the Society for Popular Astronomy in the UK. Spring Moonwatch usually falls between 28th March to 5th April annually, and this is because the moon will be best placed for observation from the UK between these dates. What is more, because the moon stays high above the horizon for a long time, it results in what astronomers called better “seeing” which means that there will steady atmospheric conditions, that usually results in a steady and sharp image of the moon when observing it through a telescope.

I attended my first Spring Moonwatch event this year on Sunday 29th, March 2009 at the Ruislip Lido. The Lido was originally built as a feeder reservoir to the Grand Union Canal back in the 19th century and has gone through numerous changes over the decades since. Once you arrive at the Ruislip Lido, you’ll find a large clearing located about 200 yards away from the main car park (free parking available) where all the astronomers have set up their telescopes. My wife and I arrived at the Ruislip Lido at approximately 9:15pm and was greeted at the gates by Jean who is a committee member of the West of London Astronomy Society and she directed us down to the clearing. Having only just arrived, my eyes had not got used to the dark, so to anyone visiting the Lido at night, just be warned that there are no street lights down the rough track to the water front so make sure you bring a torch or wait near the entrance for five minutes or so before you venture on so your eyes can begin to get used to the dark.

Upon arriving at the clearing I looked up and was immediately amazed a the vast expanse of sky visible. Without our eyes fully dark adapted yet, my wife and I carefully and slowly strolled over towards the astronomers who were already set up observing and taking to some members of the public who were at the Lido. As we moved closer towards water front, we could see the orange glow of London towards the South, but when we turned around and looked back up towards the north and gazed from east through to west, we were treated to a large uninterrupted view of the major constellations that are visible in the northern hemisphere. The crescent of the moon was still hanging well above the tree line in a south easterly direction and further to the east I could see the constellation of Orion with it’s distinct belt comprised of three stars. The seeing conditions were so good at this site that one could easily make out the reddish tinge of the star Betelgeuse, the star classified as a red super giant in the top left hand corner of the constellation of Orion and the bluish tinge of the star named Rigel, classified as a blue super giant towards the bottom right of the constellation of Orion. Further up towards the zenith you could easily make out the constellations of Auriga, Cassiopeia, Leo, Gemini and many others. Looking around the sky from the Ruislip Lido and taking in the vista of stars above me, I had to admit that this location was an ideal site for observing as far as expanse of available sky was concerned. Even the light pollution in this part the borough of Harrow was notably less compared to central Harrow. The darker skies reveal more stars and generally make for better observing.

The Ruislip Lido had attracted a range of astronomers and members of the public for tonight’s Spring Moonwatch observing session. Between the time we arrived and got ready to leave, I counted roughly 20-25 people turn up and take part. Given the freezing cold weather that night, it wasn’t a bad turn out at all. The public had a variety of telescopes at their disposal, manned by amateur astronomers who were there to set things up and point the telescopes in the right direction and also explain to the uninitiated what they could see, what they were actually looking at when looking through the telescopes and how some of the things up there in space actually came in to existence and evolved over their life time. In terms of the telescopes themselves, we had a number of 10 or 12 inch Dobsonian telescopes, a few basic Newtonians which were being hand guided or mechanically guided. We also had one or two refracting telescopes available and a number of larger reflectors of the Schmidt Cassegrain or Maksutov Cassegrain variety. Some of the telescopes were equipped with built in computerised drives that would very conveniently point the telescope in the right direction if you punched in the name of an object in the hand controller and then continue to track them across the sky. Other telescopes were merely pointed and guided manually by hand.

One of the most interesting aspects of the evening was the sheer variety of telescopes available to look through. It was great fun jumping from ’scope to ’scope and look at various objects in the sky ranging from the Moon to Saturn and double stars. By moving from one telescope to another, you could start to appreciate the difference in light gathering power of a small mirror compared to a large mirror and visibly see the difference in brightness, detail and quality of image between the telescopes of lesser and greater size. We even had a member of the local astronomy society, Robin Scagell, bring his laptop computer down to the Lido, on to which he attached a highly sensitive and specially adapted video camera for taking images of objects in space. The camera itself was inserted in to his telescope and it relayed near real time images back to the laptop screen of whatever the telescope was trained on, enabling many more people to see what was being observed at once. This particular set up was used to observe a variety of objects ranging from the moon, to the planet Saturn – now with its dusty and icy rig system almost edge – to faint galaxies and nebulae. Robin, equipped with a hand held green laser pointer, had quite a few people captivated with his guided tour of the night sky which resulted in numerous people asking questions and Robin very ably answering all their queries.

At around 10.30pm, it all started to get a little too cold and the smell of damp air and the onset of mist meant that my wife and I decided to head off back home, leaving behind a sizable number of astronomers still eagerly looking down the eyepieces of their telescopes.

The next Spring Moonwatch observing session at the Ruislip Lido is coming up on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th of April, 2009 – next week, starting at 8pm. The weather is forecast to be warmer and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll be clear on both nights. If it is, I’ll be taking my own 110mm refractor down to the Ruislip Lido to set up along side the others who will be there.

If you’re a budding amateur astronomer or if you know nothing about astronomy at all, but occasionally look up in to the clear night sky and wonder how all those stars got there, then please do come down to the free Spring Moonwatch event at the Ruislip Lido. Everyone is really friendly and helpful and you’ll be fascinated and amazed by some of the things you’ll be able to see through the telescopes available. The moon is by far the most visually stunning thing you’ll see on the night and if you’ve never seen those craters on the Moon up close, then now’s your change to see them! Free parking, free entry, free astronomical guidance and advice and free smiles all around. See you all next week!

Download a PDF flyer with details of the Ruislip Lido moonwatch event, with address.

Go to : http://www.heavens-above.com/

On that web site there is a link called ” Select from Map ”

http://www.heavens-above.com/LocationFromGoogleMaps.aspx

Find your exact location down to your street or at least your town or city and place the Google maps marker on it. This tells the web site where you are located (your longitude and latitude). Then click on the link called: ” ISS ” which is located under the section called Satellites. It’ll bring up a table of times, dates and locations in the sky where the ISS will appear. It shows you where it will rise from, where it’ll be above you and where it’ll set in the sky. It usually takes about 5 minutes or so for the ISS to pass by over head.

OK so before the ISS actually appears in the sky, you should login to NASA TV and tune to the live space station video. You can find that here:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

The link to the live space station video is to the right hand side of the live video playout.

So, now you’re listening to the astronauts and you know when the ISS will pass over head. Get ready, turn up the volume on your PC/laptop so you can hear the action and go stand outside in your back yard or street in hearing distance of your computer (or take the laptop in your hand if you’re on wireless) and look up towards the rising point of the ISS. There, you should see a VERY bright white star like object that’s noticeably and very slow gliding higher and higher up in to the sky. That’s the International Space Station.

Pretty cool, huh?