Above the Cloud - the blog!

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...