Paul's Place

Changes Ahead

2010-03-28T14:10:00.004+01:00

This blog has been here since April 2007, when I gave up wasting time on the East Antrim Astronomical Society and moved on to a much better club, the Irish Astronomical Association.

However, it has run its course and I haven't done much with it over the last year or so as I've been concentrating on other projects.

These are the development of the IAA's website here....

http://irishastro.org

And the development of my own photographic website here...

http://niphotography.co.uk

This site will remain here for the time being, but will not be updated further and may be redeveloped in the future.

Many thanks to all who have visited and supported the site over the last three years.

Paul.

China

2009-07-28T20:51:00.002+01:00

Just a holding post this, but we spent two weeks in July in China. A truly fascinating place!

Here's just one shot taken 8 mins after the Total Solar Eclipse...

Much, much too busy!

2009-06-30T21:00:00.007+01:00

Which is why I haven't updated this blog since March!

Here's a few samplers of what I've been doing since we lost Venus to the twilight over three months ago!

We visited Selsey on the South Coast of England where quite by accident I stumbled across a Peacock. Being in no hurry I realised that if I waited a while it would surely perform for me, and I was right!

I also caught the ISS shortly after Space Shuttle Discovery undocked - Discovery is the leading, fainter streak...

April brought a variety of snaps. Here's Asteroid #1 - Ceres - showing itself as a 7th magnitude object in Leo...

And an excellent morning conjunction of Venus and the Moon...

At the IAA, Professor Mike Redfern celebrated the IYA in the "Galileo" outfit...

And I thought it would be fun to image a rainbow through a 600mm refractor...

May, of course, is Bluebell time. A trip to Portglenone Forest delivered the goods!

With the new solar panels fitted, the ISS passes are now the brightest ever, and I'm quite certain that this pass on 12th May was brighter than Venus, making the ISS the second brightest object in the night sky...

May was time of great storms too - here's one passing Larne over the North Channel...

And the first beginnings of what is turning out to be a classic NLC season - this first apparition spotted on 29th May...

June started with some amazing Cirrus Cloud formations...

And a very unusual Sundog in a Cirrus Cloud...

But June 2009 will be best remembered for some of the best Noctilucent Cloud displays ever seen...

17th June

18th June

19th June

26th June

Then on the morning of 26th June I caught a local "special" phenomenon - Sunrise from behind Ailsa Craig...

The Movie version is available here...

Sunrise from Behind Ailsa Craig

Venus again this evening!

2009-03-14T22:37:00.002Z

She's looking so good - note the slight shift in the orientation...

Venus again

2009-03-14T12:56:00.002Z

Here's Venus on 12th March getting bigger and thinner in the run up to Inferior Conjunction on 27th. Unusually, Venus is passing the Sun so far to the North that it should still be visible as both a morning and evening object both at conjunction and a few days either side! Very much worth keeping an eye out for.

More Venus, Comet Lulin passes M44

2009-03-08T11:16:00.003Z

Here's Venus getting bigger and thinner...

And here's Comet Lulin passing M44 - now dimming but still putting up a good fight against the moonlight...

Twins and Comet Lulin

2009-03-03T21:07:00.003Z

Got some clear sky Sunday evening, so took a look at the Moon and Venus, then on Monday evening I caught Lulin on a widefield shot...

But first, here's the three brightest objects in the sky caught in a single shot...

Then the Moon...

And looking remarkably similar, Venus...

And here's the Guest of Honour...

Looking forward to Venus getting bigger and thinner as March moves on!

Venus

2009-02-26T10:05:00.002Z

Venus was clear in the evening sky last night. Unfortunately my predicament precluded setting up a mount so I managed with a small telescope on camera tripod, a webcam and a netbook - no tracking but once it was set up I could get 30 seconds of exposures worth as Venus crossed the frame, and the brightness of the planet is such that the individual exposures were 1/1000th second so movement wasn't a factor there. Of more consequence was the fact that Venus was bouncing around in the turbulent air which made precise focus difficult to achieve. So here's the result...

Comet Lulin again

2009-02-25T09:55:00.002Z

Despite the terrible weather, I managed to grab a shot of Lulin in between the clouds late on Sunday evening. Unfortunately having sustained a back injury there was no prospect of getting a telescope out, just a quick widefield with a 50mm lens. Lulin is clearly seen to have a tail and is racing towards Saturn in the upper part of the frame - it passed within 2 deg of Saturn on Tuesday morning and is now en route to a close encounter with Regulus!

Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin

2009-02-20T12:21:00.002Z

We have a new comet in the sky! C/2007 N3 Lulin is currently making its way across the sky from Libra, now into Virgo and will shortly pass into Leo. It is a diffuse Comet with an obvious tail - telescopic views show a reverse tail too. Unfortunately it is not particularly well placed for observation from my location, and in any case having put my back out (ouch!) carrying 'scopes up to the garden is out of the question, however I did manage to capture this shot with a camera on static tripod....

A Trip to England - and Astrofest 2009!

2009-02-15T13:59:00.002Z

Despite the snow and subsequent floods, my trip across the water was faultless - planes all on time, roads in SE England were almost deserted by their usual standards and all were well salted so a pleasure to drive on.

Astrofest 2009 was held in Kensington as usual this year. I managed to get along to the Saturday PM session where I saw four talks covering such diverse subjects as The Universe - or indeed the possibility of there being many Universes, Sunspots, NASA's route back to the Moon and a great talk by Dr Allan Chapman regarding the little known fact that an Englishman, Thomas Harriot, was observing the Sun, Moon and planets with a telescope some months before Galileo!

Here's Dr Chapman delivering his talk...

Dr Chapman is an inspirational speaker with a wonderful style of delivery and a mastery of the history of astronomy - if you ever get the chance, go and see him!

New URL

2009-02-11T20:49:00.000Z

Well, here we are, off the Blogspot host and onto my own URL!

IYA 2009

2009-01-25T14:48:00.010Z

Well, I am in the process of reorganising my web presence. The problems are twofold - Lycos, who have hosted my "pevans.me.uk" domain since 2004, are pulling out of webhosting. Secondly, I have found that these days a .me.uk domain will tend to be heavily filtered by the corporates so it's not so useful. I am therefore moving my web presence to:-

Northern Ireland Photography

The Astronomy side of things will get its own site:-

Northern Ireland Astronomy

Both have holding pages on them now. I am also looking at moving this blog away from blogspot hosting as that too is on the wrong side of too many filters.

So, thus far I have give two talks as part of IYA2009 - one to the Ballee Presbyterian Church Mens' Fellowship on Monday 5th January entitled "How far can you see?" which was an introduction to astronomy and which was followed by an observing session using my 10" Dobsonian telescope where we viewed M42,43, Orion's Belt, M45 and the 8-day Moon.

On Wednesday 7th January I talked to the IAA, Northern Ireland's biggest and best Astronomy Society. The talk was entitled "Astrophotography - The Fundamentals" and was a "prequel" to Dave Grennan's excellent talk in November, starting with some photographic basics and showing how different types of astrophotography can be accomplished with quite lowly equipment then adding greater layers of complexity to achive better results. Here's me delivering the talk - thanks to my friend Peter Paice for the photo...

The slides are here...

Astrophotography - the Fundamentals

The talk was very well received and indeed I've already been asked to deliver it to a different audience.

Despite the weather, it has been possible to do some actual astronomy - I had a good night where I took a scoot through the Messier objects in Gemini and Auriga. Here they are...

M35 with NGC2158 adjacent

M36

M37

M38 with NGC1907

Venus is now showing an excellent phase as it moves closer to Earth and thus appears larger, but less of it is illuminated by The Sun. Here she is on 13th January...

The second IAA lecture of the month featured Professor Francis Keenan. This was a light-hearted look at “The Science in Science Fiction” and covered propulsion systems, ray-guns and all the other aspects of sci-fi that the movie makers get wrong! Here's Prof Keenan demontrating the use of a Light-Sabre...

The Forum which friends John C McConnell FRAS, Martin McKenna and myself set up just six months ago has gone from strength to strength - indeed it is now the busiest and best Astronomy based Forum in Ireland which is quite some achievement and far more than we ever expected.

The Forum is always happy to give a warm welcome to new members, and unlike some other places, all are welcome!

Astronomy, Photography and Weather Forum

It is a far better place than the IFAS Forum which I have now stopped using. Whilst there are many excellent people there I found the Chairman's manners left a bit to be desired so I'll not bother going there any more.

And that, so far, is January!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T16:18:00.001Z

And not just any New Year - 2009 has been designated by the IAU as the International Year of Astronomy!

October Review

2008-10-31T08:35:00.004Z

Actually let's start with the end of September - my birthday - and to surprise me Jude took me away to somewhere I'd never been before - the Isle of Man!

This was an extraordinary place to visit, starting with the journey there which involved flying from George Best Airport in Belfast to Ronaldsway near the southern end of the Island - in an aircraft equipped with about 12 seats and two propellors!

Here's some snaps from the island...

Sunset from Port Erin

Lady Isabella, the world's biggest Water Wheel

Jurby's Bookshop - where do you start?

Snaefell, highest point on the Island

In terms of Astronomy, October was an interesting time - the IAA held excellent talks as always including an inspiring talk about his adventures in the USA by our own Past President Dr Andy McCrea...

Observations include M15, a better looking Globular Cluster than M13 to my eye, though of course 47 Tucanae is the champ - southern hemisphere only I'm afraid!

Other observations included an early morning Orion...

A colour enhanced Moon...

And a rising Leo with Saturn below...

We also had some excellent sunsets of the "volcanic" variety - here's me at Lough Neagh...

At last, clear skies!

2008-09-25T19:46:00.003+01:00

Well, we've had a couple of very good nights recently! Let's start with last night - Weds 24th Sept...

Started with M13...

Moved on to M57 - close inspection reveals that I have caught the central star...

Then found that M27 is not a short hop from M57 - my mount had to go through almost 360 degrees to get there....

Furthermore, the hazing over and dewing up of my scope were bringing matters to a close by the time I got to M92 in Hercules...

M92 is a first for me - a great little cluster!

Weekend in Sussex

2008-09-18T09:18:00.010+01:00

We were able to spend a much too short weekend in Sussex which enabled me to visit a few places while Jude was on a course. So here's a whistle-stop tour of Sussex....

The Jack & Jill Windmills - this is Jill...

The Blackberry Season in full swing...

The Seven Sisters viewed from Cuckmere Haven...

The Big Sky, Brighton Beach...

The Harvest Moon made it's presence known low in Saturday evening's sky - this is actually a day before the Full Moon...

And an excellent pair of Sundogs taken from Woking in Surrey...

So that was an excellent trip!

IAA Lecture - More about Hubble, and much more!

2008-09-18T09:18:00.009+01:00

The IAA lecture on Weds 17th September featured Dr Bob Fosbury of the European Space Agency who delivered a gripping lecture entitled entitled "Astronomy today and the role played by the Hubble Space Telescope"

Dr Fosbury is head of the section in the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of ESA's collaboration with NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) project at ST-ECF. Based at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) near Munich in Germany, Fosbury joined this initiative in 1985, more than 5 years before launch. During the latter part of this period, Bob served on NASA's Ad Hoc Science Working Group and ESA's Study Science Team as they developed the instrument concepts for the James Webb Space Telescope, the next generation space observatory.

Dr Fosbury covered the achievements of Hubble, explained a lot about ground based projects in Chile, the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope as well as the October mission to upgrade Hubble to give us at least another five years astronomy.

Here's a still frame from the NASA simulation video for that mission...

And here's Dr Fosbury taking questions...

This was an excellent lecture and again, the IAA Council are to be congratulated for putting together such a complete programme of talks and events.

It really is light-years ahead of the other Astronomy group in Northern Ireland which has resorted to changing its name in a laughable attempt to disguise their tarnished reputation.

Excellent IAA Season Opener!

2008-09-06T11:52:00.003+01:00

Wednesday 3rd September saw the first meeting of the Irish Astronomical Association this season, and what a talk it turned out to be!

Firstly, as usual, Dr Andy McCrea gave us a tour of the sky in September and of course the highlight of that is the Milky Way!

Dr McCrea used a couple of my recent images in his presentation as we have had a couple of clear nights this week - the first in a long time.

The Summer Triangle with the Milky Way running through it

The North America Nebula with Deneb to the right.

The main talk was delivered by Dr John Mason and concerned the future of the Hubble Space Telescope following next month's Space Shuttle servicing mission which will repair and upgrade the telescope to give it five or more years of life.

Here's IAA President Pat O'Neill introducing Dr Mason...

And here's Dr Mason taking questions...

A most enjoyable and informative lecture and the start of what looks to be an excellent season - thanks are due as always to the IAA Council for putting together another top quality programme!

Yorkshire & The Lakes

2008-08-31T12:39:00.007+01:00

We had an excellent though somewhat wet trip across to Yorkshire for a few rounds of golf followed by a couple of days in the Lake District.

Here's just a few snaps of the excellent scenery on offer...

Rainbow over Flamborough Head

Bridlington Boats

Gull in Bridlington Harbour

Looking Down Honister Pass

Waterfall near Buttermere

Grey Squirrels can drive as fast as they like!

Waterfall near Honister Pass

Some cheekily named Cumbrian Ales

A great trip - the best advice would be to stay away from the tourist traps of Windermere, Ambleside and Keswick and seek out the unspoilt areas away from these places.

Lenticular Display over Larne

2008-08-11T18:26:00.002+01:00

I caught this impressive display over Larne close to sunset on Saturday....

Solar Day

2008-08-09T19:53:00.004+01:00

Today was the IAA's Solar Day at Carnfunnock Country Park.

I got off to an early start by photographing some Iridescent Clouds around the Sun in the early afternoon...

Then off to Carnfunnock to meet the lads - excellent craic and a bit of outreach - the weather even played ball and I got to see a detached prominence through one of the many Solar telescopes in use - I really must get one myself!

The setup...

My only Solar shot...

20,000!

2008-08-09T19:46:00.003+01:00

Since I started this blog in April 2007 over 20,000 people have visited.

I'd like to thank each and every one of you for visiting - I hope you have enjoyed reading my words and looking at my pictures. A very special thanks is due to those who have commented - please keep doing so and please more of you join in.

Here's to the next 10,000!

Cheers,

Paul.

Partial Solar Eclipse

2008-08-02T09:21:00.004+01:00

On 1st August 2008 parts of the Earth experienced a Total Solar Eclipse - probably nature's greatest spectacle. Unfortunately the path of totality started in Northern Canada, extended across the Arctic then down into Siberia, Mongolia and finishing at sunset in China. Here in Northern Ireland we experienced a Partial Eclipse with just 19% of the Sun's disk being covered - this equating to 30% of its diameter at maximum eclipse. The weather prospects weren't so good, but in the end we did very well.

Being at work I set my ETX70 and camera up outside - both were filtered with Baader film. Here's the setup....

Looking the other way shows the weather problem - we started out with 80% cloud cover which increased to 100% before the eclipse was over....

At 0923 BST a dent appeared in the Sun - the Moon had arrived!

Things progressed further....

By this time we were dipping in and out of the clouds...

Shortly after maximum eclipse I took a shot through the telescope - hence laterally reversed...

I sent this to the BBC and was very pleased that they used it on the weather forecast that evening - Here's Cecilia Daly...

So all in all a successful morning. Many of my colleagues observed the eclipse through my 'scope and for many it was the first time they'd seen anything through a 'scope, so it was a bit of an outreach session.

Here's to 22nd July 2009 in China!

An Exciting New Forum

2008-07-15T20:17:00.003+01:00

Two good friends and myself have decided to start a new forum on the web. The purpose is to provide one place to share information, views and banter around the subjects of Astronomy, Photography and Weather

The team is as follows:-

John C McConnell FRAS is one of Northern Ireland's top astronomers - he was Chairman of the East Antrim Astronomical Society for 8 years and is a particular authority on lunar, solar and planetary observation. He has been honoured by the IAU by having Asteroid 9929 McConnell named after him.

Martin McKenna is a noted observer with a particular interest in Comets. Martin was IFAS Astronomer of the Year in 2005 and in 2006 joined the exclusive club by having Asteroid 42531 McKenna named in his honour.

I don't have an asteroid named after me, but I fill in as the Camera and Technology expert of the trio. I am a past Treasurer of the EAAS and was proud to serve on the Committee under John McConnell. These days I'm a keen member of the Irish Astronomical Association.

In just 6 days we have 26 keen and knowledgeable members joined up - an excellent start, so if you'd like to come and join in to share knowledge and information with us, or indeed if you just fancy a bit of good old fashioned Irish craic, here's where are:-

Astronomy, Photography and Weather Forum

I look forward to seeing you there!