Above the Cloud - the blog!

A very cold night! It snowed yesterday and the temperature has been that low that it's now freezing! We are promised more snow tonight and tomorrow...we'll see! Stars can be seen but when some thin cloud moves over them, they are lost to view. Tonight Chi appears to be brighter than last night, but not quite rivalling the brightness of 17 Cygni, a magnitude +5.0 comparison star. To the east of Chi is another comparison star, +5.5 Hip 98325. Using 10x50 binoculars I can see a reddish hue about Chi and its brightness is 70% closer to 17 Cygni from Hip 98325 so giving me a visual magnitude estimate of +5.2. The above CCD image taken by Brian Joynes at Doncaster Astronomical Society was imaged on 12th of this month when Chi was estimated to be visual magnitude +5.8.

Thursday 17th: Yesterday early evening the skies cleared after the snow and I stepped outside to brave the cold and check on the current brightness of this red variable. With some cloud passing through from the east notwithstanding, I managed to get some good views of the star and it's surrounding comparison stars. After careful consideration, I have deduced that it is +5.4.

Sunday 6th: From my garden, the sky is very dark and clear. The Moon is well over to the east and there is a slight breeze but much milder than last week. It's early evening and plenty of stars can be seen; Cygnus is the target and it's essential to view Chi before it gets too low. Using 10x50 binoculars bring many more fainter stars into view and sweeping through the star-fields of the Milky Way up the length of Cygnus is amazing! Chi appears to be much brighter than when last viewd on the 30th November. To me it is brighter than the +5.9 comparisson star but still much dimmer than (about 60%) the bright +5.1 mag star to the west. So I have confidence in making my visual magnitude estimate of Chi as +5.7. It now looks orange in colour through the binoculars. Set my 8" SCT up with a view to spending a few hours in the garden looking at Doubles. Unfortunately the azimuth drive is overshooting targets wildly. I seem to have little control as the backlash has got worse to the...

Tuesday 1st December: Very cold tonight and very clear...too clear as the Moon, just 1 day away from being Full is dominating the sky. I drove to Austerfield expecting a throng there at the Observatory, silly me, should've rung before leaving home! This didn't really matter as I needed to get away from the bright lights of my neighbourhood to make an observation of Chi Cygni. Using my 10x50 binoculars and comparing the variable to three nearby comparison stars, a 6.4, 6.1 and magnitude 5.1 star, Chi certainly seemed brighter than when last viewed. In fact the variable is a 'tad' brighter than the +6.1 star, but not by much. So my estimate would be +6.0. After that, I did give Brian a call on my mobile. It was 9pm and Brian would be down for 10pm. So I nipped home for a hot cuppa of tea. Getting back at 10:30pm, Brian was waiting in the office and reluctant to go out in the cold especially with such a bright Moon in the sky. So I had the Dome to myself for a while. ...

15th November: A very damp and dewy night. I had planned a few hours out in the garden with my scope as the sky was exceptionally clear and I wanted to observe Chi Cygni, to see if it was within range of the scope. As soon as I got home from work, I set the scope up on the patio. At 19:03UT I got the variable within the fov of the 20mm lens. The star did seem fairly bright, a redish colour. Mindful of the fact that I didn't want to star at it too much and bias my magnitude estimate, I grabbed 3 short looks while comparing it to stars of +6.4 and +8.1. Checking with my AAVSO chart, My estimate is +7.9 and this agrees quite well with other reports made to the AAVSO . Afterwards, I dropped down to view Beta Cygni, Albireo, one of the 'showpiece' doubles of the sky. Even at 200x, this is a marvelous colour contrast double with wide components. The primary yellow with the secondary star's blue colour make for a splendid sight! I remembered that the Luminous Blue Variable, P...

On the 1st and 9th of November, Brian grabbed a couple more images of Chi Cygni for my magnitude estimates. Though the star is bright on the images, in actuality it is still quite dim and below binocular range, at least for my 10x50's. By going to the Doncaster Astronomical Society Blog you can read and see more details of the images for those dates

Tuesday 1st September: The sky is clear so the 8" SCT is out in the back garden but it is 11pm BST before I actually get to view an astronomical object...don't ask why! So I have decided that the wide optical double star 16 & 17 Draco, otherwise known as SAO 30012 or STFA 30AC. Both stars are equal in brightness. Still haven't reconfigured but made 3 sets of measures anyway! The PA is 194° and I measured the separation as 100.7"! So I have a +1° and +11.4" difference to the 2008 published values. Disgruntled with this, I swung the scope to Jupiter. Though low to the southern horizon, it still is large enough to give a decent view. The Galilean Moons are stretched across the eyepiece fov . Callisto to the west, Io, Europa and Ganymede to the east. Jupiter is between Io and Callisto. The EQ -belts on the disk of the planet are well defined as is the SPR . The Moon is very close, being about 2° to the SW and so under these conditions, not a bad view at al...

Friday 21st August: A very clear night so went to the Society's observatory with Sandra. Surprisingly when we got to Austerfield at 11:30pm only Brian and Phil were there. Usually on a Friday night when the sky is clear, a host of members are observing the night sky. After looking at Jupiter, Phil retired for the night leaving just us three. We began by looking at Jupiter using the Super wide angle 40mm lens in the 14" SCT. We then took a tour of the sky. M27, in the constellation Vulpecula, the Dumbell nebula was very easy to see, the object is very apparent in the fov. It looks very similar to an apple core but grayish in colour. still in that area we turned the scope to Lyra and M57, the Ring nebula. Again easy to view and grayish in colour as well, though averted vision was needed. Swinging up to Hercules, we dropped onto the Globular Cluster M13. This is a splendid sight in any scope. but low powers are needed. In the 40mm wide angle lens, it was breathtakingly 3-dimensi...

Thursday 20th August: A good clear night so instead of going to the Observatory, I set-up my own 8" SCT in the back garden. My first target of the night was Alpha Hercules, also known as Rasalgethi. This is a visual binary star which also happens to be a Variable. What is readily apparent when you observe this star is that when the star's variability is increased, then finding the secondary star can be tricky and sometimes cannot be seen at all. Normally though when the star in "quiet", the secondary can be easily seen and even measured see my website at http://www.abovethecloud.org.uk/ for my most recent measures. tonight, both stars were resolved as individuals but the Primary stars did look orange in colour, this is usually yellow wile the B-star appeared red. Then I moved over to the lovely Globular Cluster, M13. Even in an 8" SCT, a very good and pleasing image can be seen. As this night is very clear with good transparency, M13 looks majestic. Plenty of...

Monday 17th August: I got to the Observatory at 10:30pm and Brian was there gathering images of the Veil Nebula. The sky was crystal clear, the Milky Way was a very prominent misty arc stretching accross the sky from horizon to horizon. Jupiter stood shining brightly to the SE as you can see by this photo that I captured with my Finepix digital camera. So I started the night with photgraphing Jupiter as a bright star-like object against the backdrop of the Study Center. If you click on the image, as well as the planet, the stars Deneb Algeidi and Gamma Capricorni (V3.6), become visible (to the SSE and S resectively). Through 10x50 binoculars, two of the Galilean moons could easily be seen. I ended the observing session in the morning at 4:30am by imaging the star-like planet Venus and the wanning crescent Moon. Unfortunately, I didn't get any webcam footage of Venus as it became obscured by a tree and then the patchy cloud rolled-in. Both Brian and I departed at 5am.

Friday 7th August: the annual Society BBQ took place at Austerfield. There was a good turnout by members and good food was had by all! Fortunately, the sky was clear which enabled the use of the 14" SCT. We toured the sky, viewing delights such as M13 and various Double Stars. Later when the scope became available, I unpacked my kit containing laptop and webcam. My targets were Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus. Observing the Jovian planet in the scope presented a marvellous sight! Both Polar Regions and EQ Belts showed a clear contrast with the whitish disk of the planet The Galilean moons were readily visible to the east (following). Above is my final rendition of Jupiter. This is the result of hundreds of stacked webcam frames and some tweaking in Photoshop. Uranus was next on my list and Brian steered the scope over to the planet. I grabbed a couple of videos and observed the planet in the scope. Not an awful lot to say about Uranus but it's always worth the effort. I have art...

Monday 27th July: Got scope out again, his time, in my back garden. I wasn't planning to stay out late but the night air was mild and the sky was Moonless but clear! But at 00:52 BST (23:52 UT), I saw the bright dazzling star that was Jupiter peaking out from behind the row of houses that hampers my view. Grabbed my old laptop and trusty old Toucam, connected them up and shot some footage of the planet. Unfortunately I couldn't get the surrounding moons and stars in the same field-of-view but Jupiter was what I was after. The images here show the planet; stacked webcam frames to give a still image. Of course I also observed the planet through the 8" SCT with 26mm (76x) and 15mm (133x), plossel lenses. Jupiter presented a remarkably still and crisp image. Both Equatorial Belts were easily observed along with both Polar Regions. To webcam, I used a 2.5x barlow lens at prime focus without the right-angled-prism, so yielding a direct view of the planet. Very satisfying and wo...

Sunday 26th July: After a warm, sunny and blue sky day, the evening rapidly brought the cloud! I had planned an evening's observing session in the back garden of a fellow member of Doncaster Astronomical Society , Sandra, who lives just around the corner from me! But yes...you've guessed it, the clouds were trying to put an end to my plan. After a couple of phone calls, I packed scope, laptop, webcam and lenses for a couple of hours observing. The sky was clear when I packed the kit into the car but had clouded-up when I got to Sandra's. We discussed the merits of setting the scope up as the cloud did present a few gaps and wide areas of clear sky were available for short periods. Well I quickly set it up, managing to get a couple of alignment stars; Alkaid in Ursa Major and Arcturus in Bootis. At 01:08 BST, Jupiter was in the eyepiece of the scope and at 76x, gave a pleasant crisp and clear image. The Equatorial Belts were very noticeable as were the Polar Regions. The Jo...

Monday 20th: At long last I have let my own scope see the night sky! Being a reasonably clear night - it wasn't until 23:45 BST that I actually directed my scope at an astronomical object - stars down to mag +4 were easily seen with the unaided eye, though there was some haze out to the west. Well the first object on my target list was Epsilon Bootis, Izar (SAO 83500). Izar is the showpiece Double Star in Bootis. A tight binary, the yellow primary star contrasts with the blue secondary. Through the 20mm lens and 2.5x barlow (250x), both components are resolved into individual stars and show a NE-SW arrangement. There is also a third star belonging to this pair, but either I didn't notice it or because at mag 12, the scope failed to resolve it. Staying in Bootis, Delta (SAO 64589) is a wide Double, easily resolved at any power. At 100x power the pair make an easily resolvable Double. With any more then both stars would be at opposite sides of the fov. The 3rd mag Primary star i...

Friday 24th April: observations were of M82, kindly located by Dave.Epsilon Lyrae, Eta Cassiopeiae, Iota Cass, Alpha Cannes Venatici (Cor Caroli), Albireo, Xi Bootes, M13, M92, Saturn, Melotte 111 by Sandra - first for me!

Monday 20th April: a good clear night and I decided that another shot a Saturn was required. I got to the Observatory at 9:30pm but Brian had three groups of students to show the night sky to. So I made best use of my time by brushing up on my Constellation/Star awareness. During this time, I saw two bright fireballs estimated at visual magnitude -6 and -4 and both moving from east to west through the Constellation of Ursa Major. At 11:30pm BST the sky was very good and I got some cracking webcam footage of the planet. After gathering several videos, Brian said we should process one there and then. This we did and he educated me in some finer points of using Registax. To finish the session we looked at one of the showpiece Binary Stars in the sky; Porrima, otherwise known as Gamma Virginis. With a 2x barlow in the 14 inch Meade, we racked up the magnification with a 12.5 mm lens giving a total magnification of x572. Using the electric focuser, I managed to get the Double as pin-sharp...