Keep watching the skies!

There was a beautiful waxing crescent Moon last night, which set not long after the Sun (For those who enjoy a bit of trivia: a waxing Moon is one that is growing in size - the opposite being waning. The origins of the two words are in 'high' German: wachsen (to grow) and wanen (to diminish) The large, (200km) compound crater Janssen was particularly prominent, lying on the terminator.

In two days time the Moon will pass just south of Saturn and Jupiter: the three planets will still be close the next evening. Best time to look will be around 9.00pm.

Brown Shrike at Warham Greens - a lifer for Linda and me!

It's not often these days that Linda and I add a new bird to our life-lists (you know - the ones we don't keep any more!) With today possibly being the last decent weather for the time being and the weekend 'mega'  Brown Shrike popping up on the pager first thing, we downed a quick breakfast and were out of the door by 8.00am.

Do you ever have those days when you know you're going to connect? Well today was one of those, despite the fact that on arrival at Garden Drove we were told the bird hadn't been seen for over an hour. We plodded through the pig slurry,  enjoying the sight and sound of thousands of Ivy Bees along the track. Eventually we came across a small gallery enjoying great views of this welcome little stray. Among these were Sue & Ian, with whom we've chatted in the past. They were kind enough to let us look through their scope: what an absolute stunner! The bird worked its way nearer, eventually catching a shrew which it impaled on a thorn.

After 'filling up' we decided it was time to head eastwards, stopping on the way home for a 'Normal for Norfolk' cuppa and scone at Wiveton. As we were enjoying our elevenses, five Buzzards and a Kite wheeled overhead - just marvelous!

The ISS and a bright meteor

As mentioned yesterday, the International Space Station passed over Jupiter and Saturn last night: the sky was so clear here in East Norfolk that the Milky Way can plainly be seen in some of the photos I took. One pleasant coincidence came when I was trying to image M31, the Andromeda galaxy: a bright meteor passed through the field of view.

A rare sight in the sky tonight!

Tonight the ISS begins a sequence of passes across the UK: below is a timetable with dates, times and brightness (The lower the magnitude, the brighter)

The pass at 8.43 tonight will be extra special, because the Space Station will pass just above the gas giant planets Saturn and Jupiter. Cameras out! Use a tripod, set to 'B', 800 ISO twenty seconds exposure should do it!

Beautiful Venus - the 'Morning Star'

At the moment our 'twin' planet Venus is in the news because of the recently discovered hydrocarbons in its atmosphere that may just possibly be evidence of some form of primitive life. Since the surface temperature is around 900 degrees Celsius and the atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid, I don't think we can anticipate anything more complex than bacteria!

If you glance out of an eastward-facing window just before dawn, you'll see Venus as a brilliant star - by far the brightest object 'up there' at the moment. With just a pair of binoculars you can make out its gibbous phase: a beautiful sight.

Update on my mystery meteorite: a deafening silence!

Terrible cliche, I know, but that's the way things have gone since my first blog entry! You may remember I found an anomalous metallic object inside a stone meteorite a few months back. Since the discovery, I've sent details to leading meteoriticists, the Natural History Museum and other august bodies and have received... not a single reply!

A 'Fortean' style online magazine picked up the story, but, again, there's been no feedback. No wonder Charles Fort entitled his published catalogue of such objects 'The Book of the Damned'. It really does seem at times that anything that doesn't fit the current received wisdom is either buried or ignored: so frustrating. This could be one of the greatest discoveries of all time: a non-natural artifact embedded in a four and a half billion year old meteorite. If the object is a construct, it can only have once been part of the debris that made up the solar nebula, from which the first meteorites and then the planets themselves condensed. If so, its origin must have been on a planet orbiting a second generation star that 'went supernova'.

Patio frog and a Jupiter anomaly

This large frog spent some of the late afternoon underneath a bench on our patio: a most welcome visitor. He then sidled of into the new circular flower bed, where the fresh, deep manure and compost substrate is obviously to his liking.

I hadn't intended 'doing any astronomy' last night, but Jupiter was so well-placed I thought I'd try out the cell phone telescope adapter I mentioned earlier. While I was taking a series of 'shots' of Jupiter - none of which are particularly impressive - I noticed a pulsing light close to the planet. With the naked eye this was just visible, passing by before disappearing. It wasn't an aircraft: a satellite perhaps? I also took a single photo of the Pleiades, which came out pretty well.

Any advice?

I'm lucky enough to have numerous dealer-friends in the Astronomy world: one of them has been kind enough to offer me a fantastic deal on a Maksutov 127 reflector, ZWO planetary camera and go-to mount. I've 99% decided to go ahead (taking notice of Anne & Pam's supportive comments!) But does anyone out there have personal knowledge of the set up? Is it intuitive to use, even for an old geezer like me?

Look what I found!

Some time ago, when big astronomy shows were still happening, Linda and I bought an adapter for our Optolyth spotting 'scope. We never got round to using it, and for two years it has been sitting on a shelf, forgotten in our storeroom. I came across it this morning and gave it a try with my 'phone and then with Linda's (much higher resolution!) The set-up seems to be producing better results than the DSLR / telescope combination, so - if it clears - I'll give it a bash later: watch this space! The Oak in the photo is 400m away, through the double-glazed door of my office and you can make out individual acorns!

An early start at Hickling NWT reserve.

When Brian and I get together it's always an early start: we like to get ahead of the crowds. In these post apocalyptic days (!) there seems to be very few places you can visit that don't fill up by lunchtime with strollers in brightly-coloured T-shirts, with brand new binoculars dangling at waist height!

Today we met at Hickling just after 7.00 and walked briskly around the reserve, meeting just one other birder, camped in Cadbury Hide. Given the early-morning fog, I had hoped there might have been a fall of waders or even passerines, but in the event the only wader was a Common Sandpiper on the new scrape. There were a few bits and pieces to enjoy, best being family groups of Cetti's Warblers and Bearded Tits, as well as the usual Cranes (5) and Great White Egrets (2)

After a cup of coffee at the Reserve Centre, we decided to call it a day: the car park was more or less full!

I need a new telescope!

I spent some time yesterday afternoon rigging up a counterbalance on my 4.5" refractor and attaching a DSLR with a 3x Barlow lens in anticipation of a clear sky. This duly occurred, so I set up in the back garden and began trying to image Jupiter, Mars and Saturn: the results are below.

I now realise a few things about these 'cobbled together' attempts at astro-imaging:

*  The focus on my 'scope is not sensitive enough

*  Without an equatorial mount, the ISO has to be too high and the f-stop too low for a sharp image

*  What you see is not what you get.

I think I've just about reached the limit of what is possible with a low-end refractor on an altazimuth mount. The thing is, I'm 70 soon. Is there any point in spending a couple of thousand pounds to take better quality photographs that no-one will ever really look at?