Bargains on the Way

Our annual stock-take is nearing completion and we've identified quite a bit of stock we want to move quickly. Over the next few days we'll put together some attractive offers ready for our Mad March Sale. Don't forget that the preview evening is at 7 p.m. on Monday March 10th when you will be get first chance to see and buy our sale offers. The sale opens to the general public on Tuesday 11th March.

Better News about the Gemini Telescopes

Regular readers will be aware that the UK announced its intention to withdraw from the Gemini Telescopes despite having spent many millions of pounds and much time and effort helping to build them. This created an uproar in the UK professional astronomy community, and led to attempts to retain access to Gemini North on Hawaii. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have just announced that the UK will remain a full partner in Gemini, quite a U-turn. However, their press release notes that Gemini partners are free to sell their telescope time to other partners in the consortium, and, with Gemini board approval, to others outside the consortium. It looks likely that some reduction in the UK's participation in Gemini is still on the cards. The Gemini Web Site is here.

Astroblast 2008

The date and venue for Astroblast 2008 have now been confirmed. It will be held at Bedford School on Sunday 2nd November 2008 and promises to be bigger and better than ever. Bedford School is siutated close to the town centre in Bedford but has extensive and attractive grounds. The school has its own observatory and planetarium and is very active in promoting astronomy within its own community and through local organisations. It should be a great day out for all; details are being posted on the web site at www.astroblast.org.uk as they become available.

Budget Eyepieces

Should you buy one or two really good eyepieces or a large selection of cheaper ones? There's no single answer to this question as it depends on how you like to observe, your level of experience and many other factors. But one thing is certain, poor eyepieces will give poor results, no matter how good the telescope, so you need to avoid them. We sell eyepiece kits from several manufacturers that offer a wide selection of eyepieces at very reasonable prices, but do they represent good value for money? We asked Ralph to try out the Revelation Eyepiece Kit and let us have his opinion. His natural inclination is to recommend saving up and buying the best eyepiece you can afford so he was a bit sceptical about the eyepiece kits. However, he was pleasantly surprised by the quality and you can read his report on our web site.

Ralph still recommends buying really high-quality eyepieces when you can but suggests that the Revelation Eyepiece Kit is an inexpensive way of gaining experience of using different magnifications before you decide which expensive ones to buy. Read the report at www.green-witch.com/revepkit.html

The Coldest Place in Scotland (and the World?)

The UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC) in Edinburgh has just shipped the most complex instrument it has ever built to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Hawaii. It is called SCUBA-2 and follows the successful SCUBA instrument that revolutionised observations at sub-millimetre wavelengths.

SCUBA-2 detects radiation from extremely cold gas clouds that gives an insight into the formation of early galaxies. These clouds are typically around minus 200 Celsius and to detect the faint emission the detectors in SCUBA-2 have to be cooled to within one tenth of a degree of absolute zero. Prior to being shipped, the detectors in SCUBA-2 were undoubtedly the coldest place in Scotland and probably in the whole world.

SCUBA-2's big advantage over its predecessor is the size of its detector array which has 10,000 pixels, an enormous number for a sub-millimetre detector. The original SCUBA imaged around a hundred primeval galaxies in its eight-year life; SCUBA-2 will be able to image several hundred in a single night.

The UK leads the world in submillimetre astronomy and has done so for the last two decades. Let's hope the current funding crisis doesn't prevent this excellent work from continuing. There are more details about SCUBA-2 on the UKATC web site.

Lunar Eclipse

Did you stay up to watch the lunar eclipse? I have to admit that I didn't. Lee took a peak but concluded it was too cloudy to be worth getting up for. If you would like to see an image of the eclipse there is quite a good one on Wikipedia

Fragile Earth

Not only did I sleep through the lunar eclipse I also missed the earth tremors a couple of nights ago. Described as a 'typically British earthquake', ie nothing much happened, it was the strongest tremor to hit the UK for 25 years. Many people who were awake for it found it quite frightening at the time and it was a gentle reminder that we are still at the mercy of the forces of nature, no matter how much we feel we have tamed the world around us.

It reminded me of the coincidence of solar eclipses in Turkey and subsequent earthquakes. No-one to my knowledge has even hinted at a link but I wonder if anyone has studied the possible effect of a sudden cooling of the Earth's surface along a narrow, well-defined path such as that produced by the moon's shadow. Chaos theory is illustrated by the oft-quoted example of a butterfly flapping its wings to produce a hurricane. Could a solar eclipse possibly trigger an earthquake?

Worldwide Telescope

If you are familiar with Google Earth and Google Sky you may be interested to hear about Microsoft's imminent launch of Worldwide Telescope, scheduled for Spring 2008. Described as an observatory on your desktop it will allow you to pan and zoom seamlesslessly over the whole sky and at multiple wavelengths. The aim is to stimulate young people in particular to take more of an interest in the wider universe. Preliminary (sparse) details are at worldwidetelescope.org and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

Looking South at 10 pm (from Cambridge, UK)

Our southern meridian at 10 tonight is a bit short of prominent bright stars and shapes. Orion, Gemini and the dog stars are to our right and Leo is approaching from the left. One of the constellations of the zodiac, Cancer, is right on the meridian so this would be a good time to look for this less-prominent constellation if you are not familiar with it. It is often shown as an inverted Y made up of five stars. None is brighter than magnitude 3.5 so the shape doesn't stand out. It is worth looking for because it contains the Beehive Cluster, also called Praesepe or M44.

Praesepe doesn't show up particularly well to the naked eye in UK skies but is easy to find in binoculars. It's a very attractive open cluster with a visual magnititude around 3. This means it should be easily visible to the naked eye and in clear, dark skies it is. It is one of the objects that really highlights the difference between good skies and the ones that most of us experience for much of the time.

Another open cluster you might like to search for with binoculars is M67. This is near the 'bottom left' of the inverted Y.

Below Camcer lies the head of Hydra, the water snake. It is the largest constellation in the sky, extending from Cancer in the north to Centaurus in the south, well below our horizon, but it does not stand out. Its brightest star is Alphard, the solitary one, which is a second magnitude and reddish star a little way down the body of the snake. One way to find it is to use Castor and Pollux as pointers, but if you can identify the head of Hydra you should be able to find Alphard to the left of our meridian and about 30 degrees above the horizon.

Close to the horizon lies the small and insignificant constellation of Pyxis, the compass. Originally part of Argo Navis, the ship that Jason and the Argonauts sailed in their quest for the Golden Fleece, it is difficult to see unless you have a clear horizon to the south.

And finally...

Many astronomers have advocated Antarctica as a good location for a ground-based observatory. High, dry plateaus with very little wind, coupled with absence of pollution are plus points but it is somewhat remote and a bit chilly. Now astronomers have built a pioneering automated observatory at Dome Argus (or Dome A) about 600 miles from the South Pole. If things work out well it could be followed by many others. And we thought a British winter night was long and cold...

Clear Skies and Best Wishes

Neil

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www.astroblast.org.uk
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In response to the newsletter Chris Jenkins sent in this image taken in Oxfordshire to show that not everyone in the UK was clouded out.