Stirling Astronomical Society News
Members Evening 24th February 2012
Please note that the Members Evening on February 24th, 2012 will be held at the Highland Hotel due to the Mayfield Centre being unavailable.
Images of the Moon in November 2011
Society Member Alex Houston has been out imaging the moon. See one example below and a Gallery of his images can be found here.
Images of the Moon 5th & 6th November 2011
Society Member Alan Cayless has been out imaging the moon. See one example below and a Gallery of his images can be found here.
Enhanced image from Hubble Telescope
Society member Derek Banks generating 17 output images from a downloaded 24-bit (2417 x 2380 TIFF) version of the recent NASA Hubble image of the most remote galaxy yet imaged. The image above is based on an 8-bit close approximation to the input image. It was derived in 2 stages. In the first stage the palette used is adaptive, that is the palette colours are adjusted by cluster analysis to fit the 24-bit image as closely as possible with at most 256 colours. As a result the best palette is image-dependent. In the second stage the adaptive palette is replaced by a randomised version of a false colour palette, which gives the contours. PixeIs with the same colour in the 8-bit image have very similar 24-bit colours.Any interested parties can contact Derek via the SAS website for more details.
Comet Hartley by Janet Simpson
Taken 10 Nov 2010. The settings were F1.8, ISO 400, exp. 290secs.
"Comet 103P/Hartley was probably about 5th magnitude when I first photographed it on 11/10/10, and may have got a bit brighter by the end of October. I found it on the 10th November with 8x45 binoculars. It has steadilly been getting lower in the sky and fading, though it will turn and start to climb up again in December. As I write 19/20 November it should be close to alpha Monocerotis."
Solar Images by Alan Cayless
again. These images of solar filaments and prominences were taken on
Sunday 7th March near Stirling.
The pictures were obtained with a Coronado PST Solar Telescope
belonging to the Society - this is a dedicated solar telescope with a
built-in filter system that transmits only hydrogen-alpha light
(656nm) and cuts down the overall intensity to a safe level. This
makes it safe to observe the Sun and highlights features such as
sunspots, filaments and flares.
A Nikon 4500 camera was attached to the eyepiece for these images.
The camera had some difficulty focusing on the monochromatic H-alpha
image, but with a little patience I was able to obtain these images
showing a filament and two small prominences at roughly the
ten-o-clock position. The second image is slightly overexposed to
show more of the detail on the solar surface.
The comparison image is from the NASA / Trinity College SolarMonitor website:
http://solarmonitor.org/full_disk.php?date=20100307&type=bbso_halph&indexnum=1
Reminder: observing the Sun can be dangerous. Do not look directly at
the Sun even for an instant, and NEVER attempt to look at the Sun
using a telescope or any other form of optical equipment, even if
fitted with filters. The Coronado PST is a specialised instrument but
even this must only be used with great care and under controlled
conditions.
Gibbous Moon and Partial Eclipse
Society member Alex Houston took these images of a gibbous Moon on 27th December and New Years Eve's partial eclipse.
Hogmanay Lunar Eclipse
Society member captures the last lunar eclipse of 2009 at the last blue moon of 2009!
Partial eclipse of the last full Moon of the decade, photographed in
Stirling, Scotland at 19:59 UT with snow on the ground by Alan Cayless. Although only
a very partial eclipse, the very clear frosty sky (-5 C) made for an
excellent view of the darkened southeastern limb.
Photo details: Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera, TAL1 Telescope.
This image also appeared on the SpaceWeather website::
The Moon on Christmas Day 2009
These were taken on the evening of Christmas day, with snow on the ground. The closeup shows Tycho and Clavius, and the Straight Wall (Rupes Recta) in Mare Nubium. If you look closely at the half-illuminated crater at the very lower limb you can see a small point of light on the night side - this is a peak on the far rim of the crater just being picked out by the first rays of the rising Sun. Images by Alan Cayless.
Once in a Blue Moon
The time taken by the Moon to circle the Earth (Full Moon to Full Moon) is just over 29.5 days and this period - 'Moonth' - gives us our Month. Generally there is one Full Moon in each calendar month but on rare occasions there are two. A genuinely blue Moon has been observed a few times when pollution in our atmosphere has affected the colour but nowadays, if a second Full moon occurs, this is regarded as a 'Blue Moon' to reflect the rarity of this happening..
The next Lunar Eclipse visible from the UK is at sunset on December 10th 2011 and the next Blue Moon is in August 2012.
Galloway Forest Park has been officially unveiled as the first Dark Sky Park in the UK.
The award, announced by the International Dark Sky Association, confirmed Galloway as one of the best places for stargazing in the world.
See here for full details.