Image credit: NASA Hubble Heritage
Welcome to Astronomy in Herefordshire
Latest News:
News and items of interest to Herefordshire Astronomical Society members
Next Talk - Kindle Centre Meeting - Thursday 9th May 2024
Our next meeting will be back at the Kindle Centre where our two international explorers return from their exploits in Mexico and the U S of A to tell all about their adventures to observe "The American Total Solar Eclipse of 2024".
Let's hope they both (well, at least one of them?) has clear skies on Monday 8th April.
Please note, this month's talk is not on the "first Thursday" - it will be on the second Thursday 9th May!
As always, look out for emails from Chris with details of what HAS is doing next. If you are not on our emailing list, please contact Chris for the latest news - contact details here.
Thursday 9th May 2024
7 pm - Kindle Centre
The American Total Solar Eclipse of 2024
Dr Chris Baddiley and Chris Millington
Visit - Jodrell Bank - June 2024:
At our AGM, Keith described our outline plan to visit Jodrell Bank with an overnight stay nearby. You'll have seen from his recent emails that we are now homing in on some dates in June. Keith's latest update indicates 10 members and partners are confirmed going on the trip. If you haven't yet put your name down yet, please contact Keith. More information here.
19/20th June 2024
Jodrell Bank
More information here.
Members Discussion Group
We've set up an online community for HAS members where you can raise questions, share your experience and suggest topics for talks or visits. We've created a discussion group on the Groups.io platform. This is a "fremium" based platform and promotes itself as "We don't run advertising and your data is never submitted to any ad tracking networks.". There are a lot of other astronomy and expert groups using this platform - it looks like a safe place to be online.
We've set the permissions for the group to be listed publicly but content is private - only HAS members can see what you post. We are moderating new members joining the group to manage spam bots and spurious content. This means new member requests have to be approved by an Admin before being admitted to the group.
Once admitted you can follow discussions and post entries. It's an email based platform by default - you'll receive new posts by email from other members. However, if you don't want individual emails you can go online and change your "Subscription" to turn off emails and receive digests etc.
Have fun!
Observing Highlights
Observing highlights for this month:
Click link below for view of UK sky: Met Office Satellite image. UK Visible Light.
FAS News
Look out for emails from Keith with the regular FAS Newsletter and news and information about other events and talks that you may be interested in attending at FAS and other Astronomical Societies
Member's Photos
Taken any astronomy photos over the last few months? Share them here with HAS members!
Take a look at what HAS members have managed to do over the years on our Images page (here).
February 2024: Francis has taken advantage of the recent clear nights to take some more wonderful images that show what you can do with recent image processing software. For those interested in the more technical side, he has included some notes on how he took and processed the images. Enjoy!
M42 The Great Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion,and is known as the middle "star" in the "sword" of Orion.
It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky with apparent magnitude 4.0. It is 1,344 ± 20 light-years (412.1 ± 6.1 pc) away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across (so its apparent size from Earth is approximately 1 degree). It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula. (Wikipedia)
M42 "Starless"
Francis' notes:
M42 The Great Orion Nebula. Captured on February 26th 2024.
The telescope: an Askar 120mm refractor focal length 840mm reduced to 672mm with a 0.8x reducer. An Astronomic L2 UV-IR blocking filter was used along with an ASI 2600 MC Duo camera for the captures.
These comprised: 25x 60s subs, 20x 25s subs, 20x 10s subs and 15x 5s subs (circa 38 mins total exposure).
All the sub exposures were grouped together and registered in PixInsight (PI) software then merged to form an image including the stars. Stars and background were then separated with PI, further enhanced and finally recombined for the final image.
February 2024: Keith managed to image one of the brightest comets as it comes to visit us every 71 years - terrific image showing the structure in it's tail. Keith has lovely dark skies between Hereford and Hay-on-Wye and was lucky enough to see the recent aurora - captured on his "all sky" camera. Enjoy!
Comet 12P Pons Brooks
12P/Pons–Brooks is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 71 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with an orbital period between 20 and 200 years, and is also one of the brightest known periodic comets, reaching an absolute visual magnitude ~5 in its approach to perihelion. Comet Pons-Brooks was discovered at Marseilles Observatory in July 1812 by Jean-Louis Pons, and then later recovered in 1883 by William Robert Brooks. (Wikipedia)
Aurora Borealis
An aurora is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Ed: check out the AuroraWatch UK app from Lancaster University’s Department of Physics. It gives you live updates and alerts of high geomagnetic activity.
January 2024: Keith's answer to all the cloudy nights is to look at the sun instead. Here are a couple of images of the sun using an Altair Starwave 80mm Triplet APO refractor with a Herschel wedge and 7nm Ha filter for the whole disc.
Keith took close up images of the sun using a Quark Express Ha tuning etalon on his Altair Starwave 80mm Triplet APO refractor. Amazing the detail you can see of the surface and prominences. If you don't have much time between the clouds at night, try imaging the planets. Here's Keith's first go at processing an image of Jupiter - fab view with the bands, GRS, Io and Io's shadow cast on Jupiter's disc.
Keith's been processing some older deep sky images with lovely results:
Horsehead Nebula
The Horsehead Nebula is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located just to the south of Alnitak, the easternmost star of Orion's Belt, and is part of the much larger Orion molecular cloud complex. (Wikipedia)
To the left of the Horsehead in Keith's image, is NGC 2024, the Flame Nebula. The Flame Nebula is a bright emission nebula lit by the bright star Alnitak.
M1 Crab nebula
The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The common name comes from a drawing that somewhat resembled a crab with arms produced by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, in 1842 or 1843 using a 36-inch telescope. The nebula was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. It corresponds with a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054 as a guest star. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified that corresponds with a historically-observed supernova explosion. (Wikipedia)
Meetings:
With meetings now allowed indoors, we are delighted to be able to have a mix of virtual Zoom talks and talks back at the Kindle Centre. Our next meeting is:
Thursday 9th May 2024
7 pm - Kindle Centre
The American Total Solar Eclipse of 2024
Dr Chris Baddiley and Chris Millington
Many of our speakers at the Virtual Talks have allowed us to record and share their talks for society members to view if they missed the meeting. We've started a HAS YouTube channel here where you can visit or subscribe to and watch these talks.
To watch recordings of previous talks, they are on the "Recordings" page here.
Sadly we had technical difficulties with recording our last meeting in April. The last recorded talk was in March::
Thursday 7th March 2024
A talk given by James Hough to Herefordshire Astronomical Society on the 7th March 2024.
James led the astronomy research programme at the University of Hertfordshire for almost 40 years, retiring as Director of the Centre for Astrophysics in 2010.
ESA's Rosetta mission was the first to rendezvous with a comet, the first to follow a comet on its orbit around the Sun, and the first to deploy a lander to a comet's surface. Who can forget the excitement of following Philae's "soft" landing on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko? James tells us about comets, asteroids and the story of Rosetta's 10 year journey.
Observing Session:
Oh dear, that's it, no observing in March.
As always, look out for emails from Chris giving proposed date and details and look out for any last minute alterations. We will endeavour to stick to these dates unless weather means 'sliding' it, in which case it will likely be a few days earlier or later and members will of course be advised. Each date is centred on the first Thursday after Third Quarter.
If you are not on our emailing list, please contact Chris for the latest news - contact details here.
Remember that there are some great online observing guides - a good one is run by Telescope House. Look out for the monthly night sky emails from Chris.
Tuesday 5th March 2024
6:30 - 9 pm
Visit:
Once or twice a year, members like to jump in cars or climb in a mini-bus and make their way to go and see something interesting outside of Herefordshire (passports not required - so far). Previous trips have been to the Spaceguard Centre, the International Astronomy Show, the National Space Centre, Jodrell Bank, the Norman Lockyer Observatory outside Sidmouth, the Herschel Museum in Bath and the Hanwell Community Observatory just outside Banbury.
At our September meeting, Keith described the potential sites we could visit and took a poll of those present. Based on your feedback we've now had a fab trip to visit to the Spaceguard Centre in Knighton and Keith is now looking to organise a longer visit to Jodrell Bank in 2024 with an overnight stay to make the travel easier.
Look out for emails from Keith explaining more about the proposed visits and asking members to register for the trips.
19/20th June 2024
Jodrell Bank
More information here.
Members pay for shared transport and any entrance fees as appropriate..
Star Party:
We hope to hold Star Parties again this session - Covid-19 allowing. Maybe we'll be able to run one at the Madley Environmental Study Centre (MESC) again.
MESC is right next door to the Madley Satellite Earth Station - a well known Herefordshire landmark. There are some location maps and directions to the MESC web site here.
TBC
Star Party with MESC
More information here.