Image credit: NASA Hubble Heritage
Welcome to Astronomy in Herefordshire
Latest News:
News and items of interest to Herefordshire Astronomical Society members
Next Talk - Virtual Meeting - Thursday 7th December 2023
Our next meeting is a Virtual talk given by Gary Fildes - "Building and Managing an Observatory".
Gary is an outreach astronomer, specialising in public engagement centres in astronomy. He is the Founder and ex - CEO Lead Astronomer of the Kielder Observatory in the UK and is currently lead Astronomer at the Grassholme Observatory which he also founded. An author and with numerous TV and media appearances under his belt, Gary has firmly established himself as a leading light in the UK astronomy scene.
Gary’s experience and knowledge in the development of accessible, exciting and inspiring astronomy centres is unparalleled. In recognition of Gary’s achievements, he was awarded an honorary MSc degree in astrophysics from Durham University in 2012. Then in 2017 he was also awarded an honorary degree from the university of Sunderland.
It is widely acknowledged that these observatories owe their success due to Gary’s ability to communicate his passion, enthusiasm and encyclopaedic knowledge of astronomy to all who want to listen. He is a seasoned guest speaker with SAGA cruises and is happy to chat to guests continually about all thing’s astronomy and physics.
Gary remains today the lead astronomer of the UKs newest premier dark sky observatory.
In July 2016, Gary published his first book ‘An Astronomers Tale’ a bricklayers guide to the Galaxy.
As always, look out for emails from Mark and Chris with details of what HAS is doing next. If you are not on our emailing list, please contact Mark and Chris for the latest news - contact details here.
Thursday 7th December 2023
7 pm - Virtual Talk
Building and Managing an Observatory
Gary Fildes M.Sc Hon.Caus. University of Durham
Members Discussion Group
It was great for us to be able to get together again at the Kindle Centre for our May meeting. There's a wealth of knowledge and experience held by different HAS members - hopefully we were able to answer some of your questions and puzzles.
Off the back of that meeting, it was suggested we create an online community for HAS members where you can raise questions, share your experience and suggest topics for talks or visits. We've had a rummage around and rather than use the Meta owned data harvesting platforms .... 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. We'll check your email addresses against those we old for HAS members - if you want to use a different email address to the one we hold, please let the HAS website manage know (here).
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.
Keith emailed out the link to join the group. If you've mislaid his email, you can subscribe following the link below.
Have fun!
Observing Highlights
Observing highlights for this month:
Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics - Monthly Night Sky Guide (compiled by Ian Morison)
Telescope House - monthly night sky guide
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).
Francis has been busy and produced another set of wonderful images. For those interested in the more technical side, he's included some notes on how he took and processed the images. Enjoy!
LDN 1235 - The Shark Nebula
LDN 1235, the Shark Nebula, is a dark/reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. The Shark Nebula is made up of interstellar dust, which is so thick it hides most of the light from behind it. Dark nebulae like this one are often difficult to process because they are extremely faint, and are difficult to bring out from the background medium due to how dark they are. These deep sky objects are also almost colourless, so you really cannot enhance any of the individual colours throughout the image. (Galactic Hunter)
Francis' notes:
Imaged With RASA 8 inch scope. Baader UV/IR cut filter and 60 x 300second sub frames.
Sub frames sorted, aligned and stacked in PixInsight. Colour processing also in PI but using a grayscale luminance mask to control highlights and shadow areas. Reversing the mask to work on either highlights or shadows as required. Final crop and resizing.
NGC 7331 and Stephan's Quintet
NGC 7331, also known as Caldwell 30, is an unbarred spiral galaxy about 40 million light-years (12 Mpc) away in the constellation Pegasus. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784.
Bottom right you can see Stephan's Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies of which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. The group was discovered by Édouard Stephan in 1877 at the Marseille Observatory. (Wikipedia)
Francis' notes:
10x 300s sub frames Orion Optics VX10 f4.8 Newtonian reflector. Camera ASI2600MC DUO one shot colour camera cooled to -5°C.
Frames were sorted, aligned and stacked in PI. the stars were then removed from the image and the background and star images worked on separately before being recombined.
NGC 7000 - The Wall
The North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20) is a large emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, close to Deneb. It is named because its shape resembles North America. The dramatic feature of the nebula captured by Francis is known as The Cygnus Wall (Wikipedia)
Francis' notes:
Shorter sub frames (15 x 60s) used for the Wall. Mainly to try and reduce the sky background as this was shot early September with a bright moon, a few days after its full phase.
Processing in PI. Masked for red and blue areas. Red to lift the nebula, blue to suppress the sky background.
Sharpless 122 (Sh2-122)
The Sharpless catalogue is a list of 313 H II regions (emission nebulae). The first edition was published in 1953 with 142 objects (Sh1), and the second and final version was published by US astronomer Stewart Sharpless in 1959 with 312 objects. Sharpless also includes some planetary nebulae and supernova remnants, in addition to H II regions.
Near the bright star Markab in Pegasus, SH-122 sits in a rich area of small galaxies. (Wikipedia)
Francis' notes:
10x 300s sub frames Orion Optics VX10 f4.8 newtonian reflector. Camera ASI2600MC DUO one shot colour camera cooled to -5°C.
An Askar Ha/OIII 6nm narrowband filter was used for this image to lift the nebula from the background. Frames were sorted, aligned and stacked in PI. the stars were then removed from the image and the background and star images worked on separately. Masks were also used for the background nebula image to maintain and enhance the colour contrast gained with the filter. The star image was given a saturation boost before being recombined with the background.
M20 - The Trifid Nebula
The Trifid Nebula (catalogued as Messier 20 and as NGC 6514) is an H II region in the north-west of Sagittarius in a star-forming region in the Milky Way's Scutum-Centaurus Arm. It was discovered by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. Its name means 'three-lobe' (botany). (Wikipedia)
Francis' notes:
Comprised 10 x 300s subframes through UV/IR Baader filter and an Altair RC8 reflector.
Processing in PixInsight. No masks just use of saturation and curve transformations to accentuate the different parts of the nebula.
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 7th December 2023
7 pm - Virtual Talk
Building and Managing an Observatory
Gary Fildes
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.
Our last talk was given over Zoom and recorded:
Thursday 2nd November 2023
A talk given by Martin Hendry to Herefordshire Astronomical Society on the 2nd November 2023.
Prof Martin Hendry MBE FRSE FInstP FRAS is Professor of Gravitational Astrophysics and Cosmology in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow.
Martin takes us for a whistle-stop tour through the exciting new field of gravitational-wave astronomy: the ground-breaking discoveries that have been made, the astounding engineering and technology that has enabled them, and how they are helping us to unlock the mysteries of Einstein's universe.
Observing Session:
Our first observing session in October was cancelled due to the cloudy weather and our November session clashed with the Spaceguard Centre visit. Let's hope we have better luck with our December observing. We will meet at our Lugg Meadows site - more information about our site and location here.
As always, look out for emails from Mark and 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 Mark and 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 Mark and Chris.
Thursday 6th December 2023
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.
TBA May 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.