Celestron SkyScout is here at last

The eagerly awaited SkyScout is now available in limited quantities. We received our first delivery today and after filling back orders we have a few units to spare. The SkyScout is a hand-held device that tells you what it is pointing at in the sky. Based on GPS technology with built-in gravitational and  magnetic field sensors it is simple to use and can either locate the object you select or can identify the object you point at.

It is an excellent tool for helping you find your way around the sky. Not only that, its built-in database contains a wealth of information about the most popular objects and you can listen to a commentary on the object you select. It has proved very popular in the USA with individuals, schools and astronomy clubs, and we expect it to be equally popular here.

It is excellent value at 349 pounds and the ones we are offering are genuine Celestron imports which fully comply with ROHS regulations and have full UK warranty cover. You can place your order online or by telephone on 01954 211288.

Willman Bell Books

Willmann Bell publish specialist astronomy books that can be hard to obtain in the UK. Out of interest I tried finding the first three we list on our web site at Amazon. The first was unobtainable, the second two were about 50 percent more expensive than our price. So, why not take a look at Willmann Bell in our Books Section. We only list the most popular as we have to ship in bulk to keep the price down. However, if you find a book on the Willmann Bell site and are prepared to wait for our next shipment we will gladly add it to our order.

The Weather

It hasn't been the best weather for astronomy in recent weeks and if you are unfortunate enough to have been flooded I am sure you have much more pressing problems to think about. In this case please accept our commiserations.

However, it has been possible to see the sky, or at least parts of it, from time to time so I hope you've been able to get out occasionally. It is interesting to note that transparency between the clouds can be quite good but seeing tends to be poor. Contrast this with settled weather resulting from high pressure where the stars don't seem so bright but the seeing is better and the stars are steadier.

Identifying stars is harder if you can only see part of the sky. This is where the SkyScout is especially useful.

Opportunity at Victoria Crater

It's amazing that the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still working away on the red planet and sending back valuable scientific data. They have exceeded all expectations for mission life and distance travelled many times over. Opportunity is now at Duck Bay waiting to enter Victoria Crater but a dust storm has delayed its entry by a few days. The main problem is that dust in the atmosphere cuts down the amount of solar energy reaching the solar panels that power the rovers.

Scientists at NASA don't know whether Opportunity will survive its descent into the crater so they want to give it the best chance possible. If you are outside in the early hours and can see Mars low in the eastern sky, spare a thought for the two little rovers still plodding along so far from home. So far their mission has lasted over three years; it was only designed to last three months.

Looking South at 11 p.m.

Hercules is high in the southern sky and can be recognised by the 'keystone' shape made up of four stars. The keystone lies between Corona Borealis, (the northern crown), and Vega, the bright star in Lyra, and is perhaps best known for the globular cluster M13 which lies about one third of the way down its right-hand side.

Messier is reported to have described M13 as a round nebula containing no star. We now know it is a cluster containing hundreds of stars, many of which can be seen in a good amateur telescope.

M13 is the best visible example of a globular cluster in the northern sky but there are several more in this general direction. Globular clusters occur just outside the galactic plane and contain some of the oldest stars. The Milky Way runs down the sky to our left as we look south making this a good direction to locate other globular clusters.

Close to the horizon you should be able to see Jupiter shining brightly. If you compare this to a winter apparition when Jupiter is much higher in the sky it will help illustrate how the ecliptic at night is high in Winter and low in Summer, the opposite to the Sun (and hence the ecliptic in daytime).

About five degrees below Jupiter is the bright red star called Antares, which means the rival of Mars. It is in the tail of Scorpio which just pokes up above the horizon from the UK.

Between Hercules and Jupiter lies the large constellation of Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer. I don't find it to be a shape that readily identifies itself so suggest you use a star chart (or a SkyScout) to find it. Its most prominent star is Rasalhague which is at its head. When the International Astronomical Union agreed the current constellation boundaries it caused the Sun's path to pass through Ophiuchus making it the 13th constellation on the ecliptic, the other twelve being the signs of the Zodiac. However, Ophiuchus is not generally considered to belong to the Zodiac.

Bat Detectors

Batbox UK have redesigned their two popular bat detectors, the Batbox IIID and the Duet, giving them improved performance and meeting current recycling regulations. Batbox IIID now has a digital frequency display and is designed for one-hand operation making it even easier to use. It retains the best features that made its predecessor so popular with field researchers and amateurs around the world, and it remains one of the best low-noise heterodyne bat detectors available.

The Duet incorporates both a heterodyne and a frequency-division receiver and is designed to make analysis of bat sonar signals fast and easy.

Bat detectors do more than just detect bats, they allow you to listen to their sonar signals and work out what type of bats they are and what they are doing. And the bats are often flying while you're waiting for the sky to clear. For more details please see our online catalogue.

Campaign for Dark Skies

Last year I attended the European Dark Skies Symposium in Portsmouth and found it an interesting and enjoyable weekend. The speakers gave me a much better insight to the less obvious effects of light pollution and how to persuade people that cutting light pollution makes sense in so many ways.

This year's symposium is to be held in Bled in Slovenia and I'm hoping to attend it. My last visit to Bled was over twenty years ago when it was still in Yugoslavia but it is a beautiful place and I am looking forward to a return visit. Easyjet offer low-cost fares to the nearby Ljubljana International Airport (Brnik) and accommodation costs are quite reasonable.

The symposium is sub-titled "Light Pollution and Global Warming" so if you are interested in either of these issues, and would like to learn more in pleasent surroundings, why not go to the symposium. It is on October 5th and 6th 2007 and full details can be found at www.darksky2007.si

There is additional information on the BAA web site at http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/conferences/slovenia.html

Is there a Meteorite out there with our name on it?

It's 99 years since a meteorite exploded over the Tunguska River in Eastern Siberia, devastating 800 square miles of forest. The blast is thought to have occurred about 5 miles above the ground and to have been a thousand times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Italian scientists now believe that a nearby lake may be a water-filled crater caused by one of the fragments. Let's hope there isn't something similar heading our way in the near future.

And finally...

John Ruddick is leaving us to retire to sunnier climes and will be moving to Crete with his wife Gillian. We wish them both the very best of luck in their next adventure.

Best wishes and Clear Skies

Neil