The obvious question is when will it return?   I’m sure that astronomers will be keeping a close watch on the planet.

Just in case you could not remember what Jupiter normally looks like, here is one of John’s images taken in 2004:

Jupiter by John Moore

Using the Jodrell Bank 7m telescope

Students on the course were allocated a set number of timeslots on the Jodrell Bank 7-metre radio telescope with which to undertake several observing assignments. This telescope is actually a 6.4 metre dish and is fitted with a 21cm spectral line receiver. It is accessed by students remotely via the The Jodrell Bank internet Observatory (JBiO) web interface.

Just a few simple steps are required to observe an object:

1. Log on to JBiO;
2. Choose your target and determine its coordinates;
3. determine when the target is observable (when is it above the horizon?) – a sky map is available to help you decide what is observable at a given time;
4. Find a free timeslot on the telescope schedule when your target is observable (or more than one adjacent timeslots if necessary);
5. Create the observation request by entering the details of your required observation;
6. Submit the observation request to the telescope scheduling computer.

With the request for the observation submitted it is then a case of waiting until the observation is complete. If you like watching grass grow you can connect to the telescope webcam and watch the dish slew to your required co-ordinates (actually, this is irresistible). Once the timeslot has passed and the observation is finished, you can then view the data (as raw data or graphically by using one of the basic plots that the web interface provides).

The dish is very slow to slew. Picking target that is poorly placed in relation to the last observation made by the dish risks losing most if not all of your valuable timeslot just moving the dish. This problem can be overcome by scheduling two adjacent timeslots. You soon learn that it is better to use up two of your allocated timeslots to get one observation than to use just one and get no data!

Mapping Neutral Hydrogen

Using data acquired by the telescope at fixed latitude of zero degrees but at various galactic longitudes (i.e scanning around the disk of the galaxy) a map can be made of the neutral Hydrogen in the spiral arms (21cm spectral line).

The following diagram shows a JBiO plot from just one of my observations at a galactic longitude of 106 degrees.  The three peaks are concentrations of neutral hydrogen Local, Perseus and Outer spiral arms. These peaks occur at different frequencies as a result of doppler shift; the velocities relative to the Earth of these concentrations is different in each spiral arm due the different positions in the galaxy’s disk.

The Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy

Taking the peak values from plots at different longitudes (the peak values), a scan of the Milky way galaxy is as follows.

Note that zero degrees longitude is in the direction of the galactic centre.

Three arms of the galaxy are clearly visible in this plot: the Local arm, the Perseus arm and the Outer Arm. The challenge now is to work out which arm is which – it isn’t obvious but you can work it out.  I don’t want to spoil things for future students should the course start again so I will not give the game away.

Distance Learning

If you find this sort of thing interests you then maybe I’ve given you enough encouragement to take a look at some of the courses that are on offer. I continue to be impressed by the quality of distance learning courses; and particularly those offered by the Universities of Manchester and Central Lancaster – this applies to content and materials as well as the quality of the support. In these days of the Internet, distance learning is a more social activity than it used to be. Students can participate in online discussions and even participate in (optional) online workshops and tutorials.

I would recommend distance learning to anyone who wants to learn that bit more about astronomy and cosmology. The Level 1 courses are not too demanding but for some Level 2 courses you may need a reasonable grounding in mathematics depending on the subject.

Exploring the Radio Universe is my fifth distance learning course to date. I have already completed four modules with the University of Central Lancaster and in October I’m beginning the first of two modules for the Advanced Certificate in Astronomy. Modules I have completed to date are:

• Introduction to Astronomy (Level 1);
• Introduction to Cosmology ((Level 1);
• The Milky Way Galaxy (Level 2);
• Galaxies Beyond the Milky Way (Level 2).

It is a great pity that Exploring the Radio Universe is no longer being offered – for the foreseeable future at least. Manchester University appears to have withdrawn all of its Astronomy distance learning courses but these may resume – perhaps delivered by another body.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the University of Manchester for a most enjoyable and informative course.

Image of the North America Nebula by Peter Campbell-Burns - click to enlarge

The image was taken with a Takahashi 106FSQ abd a QSI 538 wsg (off-axis guiding using a Starlight Xpress Lodestar).  The image was processed using Astroart 4.  The exposure details were as follows:

• Luminance: 16 exposures of 300 seconds using an Hydrogen Alpha filter (1hr 20 minutes in total)
• R, G and B: 3 exposures of 300 seconds

Close inspection of the brighter stars shows that they have halos – these are not real but are internal reflections caused (probably) by the filters.  The solution, unfortunately, is to replace the filters!

Unfortunately I lost an hour of valuable imaging time in an attempt to auto-guide using PHD. My normal configuration is to run two instances of Astroart on my laptop, one looking after guiding and the Lodestar, and the other dedicated to the QSI and image acquisition. This set-up is just my personal preference; with Version 4 it is possible to perform these two tasks using just one instance of Astroart. I was hoping to evaluate PHD against Astroart for ease of set up and guiding ability but alas PHD just would not play ball. A salutary lesson – it pays to iron out the problems on the workbench rather than ‘in the field’.

About NGC 7000

NGC 7000 is an emission nebula in the constellation of Cygnus. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1786 from Slough. Herschel recorded a “faint, extremely large, diffuse nebulosity” under his catalogue number H V.37. With an angular size of approximately 120 x 100 arc minutes this nebula covers an area of the sky that is roughly sixteen times the area of the full moon (which it is why it is about the only object I can guarantee to place on my CCD first time every time)!

NGC 7000 consists of vast clouds of hydrogen gas and dust. The hydrogen gas in the cloud is ionized by ultraviolet radiation from nearby stars (‘H II regions’). This radiation energises hydrogen atoms which then emit radiation as they fall back into lower energy states. Emission nebulae are usually red because the emission line wavelength of hydrogen – the most abundant gas in interstellar clouds – happens to be at the red end of the visible spectrum.

The fact that emission nebulae emit light at particular wavelengths is helpful to astronomers. By using narrow-band filters – filters that block all but a very narrow range of wavelengths – it becomes easier to observe the H II regions in emission nebulae. This is also a great help to amateur astronomers working against urban light pollution because a narrow band filter will block light pollution from street lighting and other sources – even a bright moon – which would otherwise render faint nebulae unobservable against the background light. For example, the hydrogen-alpha filter used to capture the above image transmits light centred on a wavelength of 656.3 nm whereas light of sodium street-lighting has wavelength of approximately 589 nm and is blocked by the filter.

NGC 6997

Emission nebulae are often sites of recent and ongoing star formation. Also visible in this image is a young open cluster NGC 6997 which was found by William Herschel (H VIII.58) and which probably formed from the same interstellar cloud. Also visible in this image is the open cluster NGC 6997 (see below).

Image of NGC7000 annotated bu astrometry.net

The abive image is annotated using astrometry.net .

Most of us have seen one at one time or another, but stop to think about what they are.   Moon halos are caused by ice in the atmosphere.   The hexagonal shape of these tiny ice crystals creates a halo of approximately 22 degrees (see below for an explanation). 

Image of Moon halo taken by by Richard Kacarek – click to enlarge

Atmospheric phenomena such as halos were used as part of weather lore along with “red sky at night”. Any readers of my generation from the north of England will remember Willam Foggitt who had a regular slot on television – he was famed for his engaging forecasts based on his observations of nature trusting more the behaviour of frogs, rooks and the yellow goatsbeard flower more than isobars.  

So what does a Moon halo foretell?  

“Halo around the sun or moon, rain or snow soon.”

If you can see stars in the halo some omens say that it will rain for as many days as there are stars.  There are many more examples in a book on Weather Folklaw by Edward B Garriott (reprinted from a 1903 version).

Clearly there is value in this ancient wisdom - just hours after Richard took his photo the rains came!

There is one question left to be answered - why is the angle of a halo 22°? 

Kevin Pretorius, 2010 August 12

I took the graveyard shift, stepping out into the damp evening air (and even damper grass) just after midnight on the evening of the 12th/13th. Hastily made plans to set up a camera, were as quickly dashed by an announcement by mywife that she’d been using it all day -and did she mention that it needed new batteries?

The hammocks in the garden contained watery surprises for the unwary, so were abandoned in favour of the reclining deck chairs. We watched for a little over 1.5 hours, and saw perhaps 25 meteors ranging from little sparks to a few big WOWs! The 3 brightest were i) at 01:05 BST dashing down from Lyra down between Aquila and Ophiucus, a real blazer at 01:15 BST streaking overhead through Corona Borealis and Serpens which left a glowing ionisation trail visible for maybe 10 seconds afterwards, and at 01:45 BST tracking downwards and eastwards from Perseus through Taurus which appeared to give off 2 or 3 sparks on the way down. I only hope they continued to fall down on whoever is responsible for light pollution in Camberley which ruins my view of that part of the sky.

All in all, not too bad a show. Next time I’ll have my batteries charged and ready, and a dry hammock to lie in.

Katherine Rusbridge, 2010 August 11 and 12

We observed in our back garden (Church Crookham) on the 11th and 12th. We thought the 12th was much better, as expected, with at least 6 strong trails in just over half an hour and a similar number of fainter ones. (On the 11th, we had only seen 1 strong trail in 45 minutes and about 4 fainter ones). All of the strong trails appeared to be radiating from a point above and to the right of Cassiopeia. Good chance as well to look at Jupiter. Managed to convince myself I could see at least one of the moons through the 10 x 50 binoculars we won in the raffle at the SAGAS meeting at Guildford.

Richard Kacerek, 2010 August 12

Awesome, I will probably watch today again if the weater allows.  I popped out yesterday for about 20 minutes after eleven but saw about 5, not very bright at all and a couple I could not recognise, as per John’s report it could be the other shower.

John Moore, 2010 August 12

I took a chair and sat in Calthorpe Park, Fleet. Limiting Visual Magnitude was 4.5 overhead but deteriorating towards the East which is towards Fleet centre, only half a mile away. The Milky Way was visible through Cygnus and Cassiopeiae, but M31 was lost in the glare. There were occasional patches of cloud and high haze.

Between 22:00 and 23:00 UTC I saw 13 Perseids and 4 iota Aquarids. Four of the Perseids left a smoke trail, but none lasted for more than a couple of seconds.  The iota Aquarids all came from the south east. Most of the Perseids were quite faint; most were seen around Cepheus and Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, with a few in Andromeda.

It was quite nice to just sit and look at the stars and try to learn a few more constellations for a change!

Peter Campbell-Burns, 2010 August 11 and 12

On 12 August I counted 34 Perseids between 22:50 and midnight from my back garden in Church Crookham.   The view from my garden gives a very restricted view with the Northern sky obstructed from the Zenith.  More than half of the meteors I observed started low in the South and North and a long way from the centre of radius.  I saw three Perseids leave a trail but the meteors seemed, on average, much less brighter than the night before.

On 11 August I observed the Perseids between 22:30 and 23:30.  I counted  just twelve meteors in one hour of observing although there were some short periods when my attention was on my digital SLR and not on the sky!  There were two paricularly bright meteors which left trails which took many seconds to disperse.  With the Zoom set to give the widest view of the sky (18mm focal length) and at maximum ISO (1600) I set up my Digital SLR to take continuous 30 second exposures over a 15 minute period but only caught one Persied. 

My one Persied image taken on 11 August is bellow followed by the same image annotated using astrometry.net .  I’m pleased with this because it is my very first attempt at a widefield shot with a difital SLR.

Perseid meteor by Peter Campbell-Burns

Perseid meteor annotated by astrometry.net - click to enlarge

If any member has an issue that they wish the committee to discuss please tell a committee member at the next meeting (or alternatively send us an email)  and we shall include this in our agenda. 

Meeting Agenda:

Contact:

(all times BST)

CalSky has an alert facility and can send daily emails about supernovae, lunar occultations, spacecraft passes and comets. Once of the options if to receive alerts when a satellite or spacecraft crosses the Sun or Moon. July has offered two opportunities to use the crossing alerts to capture some interesting images.

The first came on 5th July when the site predicted a possible occultation of 0.8 magnitude Altair by the International Space Station at magnitude -3.4. Most of the day had been overcast and it was only at 10pm that I decided to go out and watch the event at 22:16:35. On impulse I grabbed a Canon camcorder, put it on a tripod and zoomed in on Altair. With no time to adjust the settings I was surprised that I could get an image of Altair from the twilight and then it was a matter of a few minutes to wait for the ISS and start recording.

The video shows that this was a close pass and not an occultation but I was impressed that video camera was able to capture the event so easily.

The second alert came on 19th July when CalSky predicted that the ISS would cross the disk of Sun. So far this year, I have set up my ETX125 with a solar filter to capture an ISS Sun crossing twice earlier in the year. On the first I was not accurate enough on my timing and did not get any images; on the second cloud rolled in at the last minute. But this time weather conditions were perfect, I was working from home and determined to get the timing right.  

The ETX was tracking the Sun 30 minutes before the event and I had my Canon 350 DSLR on a sports setting to capture multiple images as quickly as possible using a home-built shutter switch. On a quick test I found I could capture about 10 seconds worth of images before writing to the memory card became a problem. Ten seconds gave me about 3 frames per second and so I decided to start firing images 5 seconds before the predicted time. Although I could not see the ISS through the rapidly firing shutter, there were two frames that showed the ISS moving from 4 to 10 o’clock (if the Sun were a clock face).

This approach worked but the sports mode I used gave me no control over the shutter speed or ISO rating. The automatic settings gave an exposure of 1/125 seconds which produced some motion blur, as seen in this scaled up image.

The blurring should not have been a surprise because according to CalSky the angular velocity of the ISS was 56.7′/s and the whole event took place in 0.6 seconds. Next time, I will use a webcam or video camera to try and record the event.

Pointing a telescope or binoculars at the Sun can destroy your eyesight or a digital camera chip. I am very grateful to Society member Chris Thayer for the long term loan of the ETX solar filter which makes my telescope safe for solar viewing.

In time we expect to provide Scout leaders with a complete toolkit for the Astronomy badge and teachers with experiments to sit alongside the national curriculum.

Each exercise (below) is downloadable as a self-contained workbook with instructions and and log sheets on which to record observations.   We have attempted to grade the difficulty of each exercise taking into account ability, equipment and the time it takes to complete observations. 

Exercises

Feedback

We are always looking to improve these exercises and will, over time, add new exercises.   To help us achieve this aim it would be helpful for us to receive feedback as well as any ideas you have for how they can be improved.  We would like especially to know whether you found the instructions easy to understand and follow, whether you found the exercise interesting or useful, and perhaps also share your results with us.  You can use the comment form at the end of this post or alternatively contact us at the email address below.

If you find any broken links please let the webmaster know.  Use the following index to help find what you are looking for:

• Local UK Amateur Societies
• What’s in the sky over Farnham tonight?
• Weather: Dare I ask – will it be clear tonight?
• Sky Maps
• Variable Star Resources
• Astronomy Databases, Surveys and Tools
• Astronomy PodCasts
• Secondhand Telescopes, CCDs and accessories
• Equipment Reviews
• Observatories Around the World
• Building an observatory
• Light Pollution
• UK National Astronomy Links
• Other Useful Astronomy Resources
• Astronomy Software
• Member’s Web Sites
• Local Information for Farnham and the Surrounding Area

 Local UK Amateur Societies

What’s in the Sky Over Farnham Tonight?

• Nightsky: The night sky page of the Jodrell Bank Observatory web site.  It lists some of the things that you can look out for in the night sky this month including the phases of the moon, planets and some of the prominent constellations.
• Satellite sightings: Nasa’s J-Pass web site  showing upcoming satellite passes (other than Space Station or Shuttle) for the Farnham area.
• ISS:   ISS passes over Farnham
• Calsky - this astronomical calendar contains thousands of events per day for every point on earth but you can personalize your own astro-calendar based on your geographic location and recieve email alerts of interesting events including ISS crossings of the solar disk and satellite occultations.
• Heavens Above – provides real-time satellite, ISS, and Space Shuttle orbital pass information, maps, and star charts based on your geographic location.

Local Weather: Dare I Ask – Will it be Clear Tonight?

• Weather Satellite
• Weather over Farnham (Metcheck site)

Sky Maps

• Wikisky
• World Wide Telescope:  Much more than a sky map in fact – this is MicroSoft’s virtual telescope that brings together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes.

Variable Star Resources

• British Astronomical Association (BAA) Variable star section
• BAA Chart Catalogue
• American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
• Krakow University eclipsing binary data

Astronomy Databases, Surveys and Tools

• 2MASS: The Two Micron (near infrared) All Sky Survey at IPAC
• Aladin: Aladin Sky Atlas. Aladin is an interactive software sky atlas allowing the user to visualize digitized astronomical images, superimpose entries from astronomical catalogues or databases. This is a very powerful tool that can be downloaded ontoi your desktop.
• ADS: The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 7.6 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints.
• DSS: The Digitized Sky Survey comprises a set of all-sky photographic surveys in E, V, J, R, and N bands conducted with the Palomar and UK Schmidt telescopes
• GSC: The Guide Star Catalog I (GSC I) is an all-sky optical catalog of positions and magnitudes of approximately 19 million stars and other objects in the 6th to 15th magnitude range. GSC I catalog is used for the control and target acquistion of the Hubble Space Telesope
• LEDAS :LEDAS provides an on-line astronomical database service and access to archive data from high energy astrophysics missions. In particular, LEDAS provides the primary means of access for the UK astronomical community to the ROSAT Public Data Archive, the ASCA Public Data Archive, the Ginga Products Archive and now to the Chandra Science Archive.
• NEDS:The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
• Simbad::The SIMBAD astronomical database provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography and measurements for astronomical objects outside the solar system. SIMBAD can be queried by object name, coordinates and various criteria. Lists of objects and scripts can be submitted.
• Sloan DSS::The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one of the most ambitious and influential surveys in the history of astronomy
• Vizier::The VizieR Catalogue Service is an astronomical catalog service provided by Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg.

Astronomy Podcasts

• Jodcast: A twice-monthly podcast covering all aspects of astronomy from The University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory (UK). It includes the latest news, what you can see in the current night sky, interviews with astronomers and many other interesting articles.
• Universe Today: Latest astronomy news and great interviews by Fraiser Cain

Secondhand Telescopes, CCDs and Accessories

• UK Astro Ads
• UK Astronomy Buy and Sell

Equipment Reviews

• Astromart: Equipment reviews and articles
• Cloudy Nights: Equipment reviews by users
• S&T Telescope Reviews: links to recent Sky & Telescope Test Reports on telescopes

Observatories Around the World

• Aricebo Radio Telescope: This huge “dish” is 305 m (1000 feet) in diameter, 167 feet deep, and covers an area of about twenty acres.
• Anglo-Australian Telescope: The AAO operates the Anglo-Australian and UK Schmidt telescopes on behalf of the astronomical communities of Australia and the UK. To this end the Observatory is funded by the Australian and British Governments. Its function is to provide world-class observing facilities for British and Australian optical astronomers.
• Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes : The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) operates the 4.2 metre William Herschel Telescope (WHT), the 2.5 metre Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the 1.0 metre Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT). The ING is located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain.
• Faulkes Telescope Project: The Faulkes Telescope Project provides free access to robotic telescopes and a fully supported education programme to encourage teachers and students to engage in research-based science education.
• Jodrell Bank: Facilities Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is involved in the operation, construction and use of a number of facilities including the famous Lovell telecope, ALMA, eMerlin and VLBI
• Keck Observatory: The twin Keck Telescopes, arethe world’s largest optical and infrared telescopes. Each stands eight stories tall and weighs 300 tons, yet operates with nanometer precision. At the heart of each Keck Telescope is a revolutionary primary mirror. ten meters in diameterand composed of 36 hexagonal segments that work in concert as a single piece of reflective glass.
• Kitt Peak: Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), supports the most diverse collection of astronomical observatories on Earth for nighttime optical and infrared astronomy and daytime study of the Sun.
• Paranal Observatory: La Sillia Paranal Observatory: ESO operates the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) with four 8.2-m telescopes (the Unit Telescopes or short UTs).
• Overwhelmingly Large Telescope: Something for the back garden perhaps? With a diameter of 100 meter, OWL would combine unrivalled light gathering power with the ability to resolve details down to a milli-arc second.

Building an Observatory

• Thinking about building an observatory? You should first visit Bill Arnett’s web site where there is one of the most comprehensive list of links to amateur observatories we have seen. You will find hundreds of ideas amongst the many referenced site.

Light Pollution

• Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) Surrey Branch
• Campaign for Dark Skies: The BAA’s Campaign for Dark Skies
• UK Parliament Science & Technology Committee Reports (PDF format):
  • Government Support for Beagle 2 (2nd November 2004)
  • Seventh Report on Light Pollution and Astronomy (6th October 2003)
  • Government Response to the Committee’s Report (18th December 2003)

UK National Astronomy Links

• British Astronomical Association (BAA)
• British National Space Centre.
• Federation of Astronomical Societies
• Royal Astronomical Society
• Royal Observatory Greenwich
• SAGAS:  The Southern Group of Astronomical Societies provides a forum where representatives of Astronomical Societies from the South of England can meet to share best practice and discuss items of mutual interest or concern.
• Society for Popular Astronomy
• Sussex Astronomy Centre (University of Sussex)
• UK For Aurora: Aurora is a long-term programme from the European Space Agency for the exploration of the Moon and Mars.  One aim of this website is to help raise public awareness of Aurora and the benefits for the UK of involvement in the programme. Click here to download The Case for Aurora.

Astronomy Software

The following represents just some of the best and most useful software that’s out there on the Internet and which is in common use by our members.

• DarkAdapted:A gamma control application program which modifies your screen gamma settings so that you can preserve your dark adaptation while using your computer to acquire CCD images.
• Cartes Du Ceil: Powerful, full-function freeware planetarium software.
•  Ascom drivers to allow Cartes de Ciel (and many other programmes) to directly control your GoTo mount as well as focussers and domes can be downloaded from here.
• CCDCalc: CCDCalc is a very useful tool for calculating the field of view for different telescope/camera combinations.
• EQMOD:The EQMOD project consists of a suite of open source applications that can provide an alternative to the hand controller on supported German Equatorial Mounts.
• The Gimp: The Gimp is a very nice image editing programme which has many of the same features as Photoshop.
• iMerge: A brilliant image-stacking and mosaic-making program and all in a 36Kb download (best things come in little packages)
• IRIS: Astronomical image processing software.
• K3CCDTools: Astronomical mage acquisition and processing software.
• Neat Image: A filter designed to reduce visible noise and grain in photographic images produced by digital cameras and scanners – useful for tidying up CCD images.
• Registax: Astronomical mage processing softiware.
• Stellarium: A free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D.

Other Useful Astronomy Resources

• Cassini/Huygens Mission:  Latest mission news.  ”Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for ?”   Robert Browning.
• Consolidated Lunar Atlas: New Lunar Atlas. Lots of thumbs, but the full size pictures are superb and well worth the downloading time.
• Eclipse Info: Searching for somewhere to take your better half on Holiday? Then look no further, here is the definitive web site on both Solar and Lunar Eclipse details.
• The Hubble Telescope: Some great images for the armchair astronomer
• The Best of the Hubble Space Telescope: Another amazing Hubble resource
• The Planetary Society: A space-interest group dedicated to inspiring the public with the adventure and mystery of space exploration
• Science Archive Facility: Includes the ESO Sky Survey
• Spaceguard UK: the national focus in the UK for studies into the threat posed to the Earth by collisions with asteroids and comets
• Stars: Stars and Constellations. This is a site written by James B. Kaler. Professor of Astronomy, University of Illinois. Author of The Ever Changing Sky and other astro books.

Member’s Web Sites

• Astroimaging: A web site documenting an astro-imaging expedition to Mt Teide (Tenerife) by John Moore and Donal McDonnell. Some stunning images.
• John Moore: Planetary and deep sky imaging with an Artemis and modified ToUCam.   The Artemis is a new range of CCD Cameras designed by Steve Chambers and Jon Grove.  John designed the PCB layouts and was fortunate to be involved in testing the beta models.   We thoroughly recommend a look at John’s stunning images of Saturn and Jupiter.
• Theo Pittas: SAC7b images by Theo and his daughter Louise.  Theo has built a lovely roll-off roof observatory in his back garden to house his 10″ LX200.
• Danny Thomas: In his web site, Danny has documented details of the equipment and techniques he is using to explore astrophotograhy – contains details of some interesting projects..
• Peter Campbell-Burns: Peter, our Membership Secretary and Web Site Editor started planetary and deep sky imaging with a webcam, and more recently has been trying his hand at deep sky and wide field imaging with an MX7c.

Local Information for Farnham and the Surrounding Area

• Discover Farnham: A local council web site with lots of information for visitors
• FleetHampshire: A very useful  site containing links to community information and local resources
• Farnham Community: A site dedicated to providing you with information on f Farnham in Surrey, UK and the surrounding villages.
• Local Farnham news:  The Farnham Herald newspaper
• Local Fleet news: The Fleet news and Mail