It was great to meet member of the Society and visitors at the Observatory on October 25th 2022 to share in a partial Solar Eclipse. The rain held off and the clouds cooperated somewhat, to allow us to watch the Eclipse from start to finish. Not the most impressive as you can see from the …
Category: Observing
In praise of small telescopes
Big isn’t always best – in praise of small telescopes Our Stargazing Live events are always wonderful and our one in January 2014 was probably the best yet because the sky was so brilliantly clear. Also I learnt surprisingly that my 5” telescope gives a better understanding of the Orion Nebula than the best astrophotographs, …
Galaxy viewing
The Wow factor of galaxy viewing I only have a small telescope and it has given me lots of wow moments – looking at Jupiter and its moons, seeing the rings of Saturn and looking at the craters of the Moon. At public events, visitors are equally impressed. We were at a Cubs evening one …
Jupiter and its moons
Jupiter and its moons – an ideal target for beginners Got a new telescope and not sure what to do with it ? Congratulations! An ideal starter for you is to look at one of my favourite sights in the night sky – Jupiter and its moons. Even with a simple telescope, you should easily …
Auriga
By late evening in January, the constellation of Auriga sits high in the night sky. With its name being the Latin for “charioteer” it has been associated with several characters in mythology.The constellation is dominated by Capella and at magnitude 0.08 it is the sixth brightest star in the night sky. Auriga offers the observer …
Double Double star
A nice Double- Double star system to observe is Epsilon Lyrae, very close to Vega (one of the stars of the summer triangle) Image credit : Torsten Bronger CC BY-SA 3.0 Published in seasky.org Look for this in your finderscope or with a pair of binoculars and you will see a pair of stars, but …