Venus and Jupiter

You probably heard on the TV and radio that the Moon occulted Venus at the beginning of this week. I didn't see it as we were clouded out but at our late-night opening on Tuesday the sight of Venus and Jupiter together, with the crescent Moon nearby, was a lovely sight.

The two planets are now about five and a half degrees apart so it's well-worth taking a look at them as it starts to get dark. If you go out while it's still light you can challenge the kids to see who finds them first.

NexStar 6 SE with a low-light camera

Later on Tuesday Evening Tom Moss-Evans brought over his Watec camera for us to try on the NexStar 6 SE. With a small monitor he rescued from a skip we soon set up outside the showroom and went for our first object, the Ring Nebula. After a little experimenting with gain, contrast and integration time we soon had a bright image of the ring looking like a polo mint in the sky.

I haven't played with low-light cameras since commissioning the Isaac Newton Telescopes in an earlier life-time so was pleased to see how effective a relatively inexpensive camera can be.

We used the camera at f/10, simply putting it in place of the eyepiece. We plan to try it with the Hyperstar at f/2 when we get chance.

Whilst setting up for observing I enjoyed looking at a few old favourites such as the Dumbbell. The NexStar 6 really is a lovely telescope to use and I tried out the new UHC filter from Optical Vision. Its performance is impressive and it made the Dumbbell much clearer and easier to observe. It's probably the best-value UHC filter available just now and I would certainly recommend it for your first nebula or light-pollution-reduction filter.

Meet a Moon-Walker

How would you like to meet a man who has walked on the Moon? Apollo 16 was the fifth manned lunar landing mission and was flown between April 16th and April 27th 1972. The crew consisted of John W Young as spacecraft commander, Ken Mattingly as command module pilot, and Charles M Duke as lunar module pilot.

Charlie Duke is coming to the UK and will be giving a lecture in Norwich on Friday February 6th 2009. The venue is the St Andrew's Hall, Norwich; doors open at 5:30 pm and the lecture starts at 7:30 pm. Full details are on Andy Green's web site.

Another Celestron Bargain

One of the best bargains around is the CPC 800 from Celestron. This 8-inch, fully computer controlled, Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope has come down in price and is now less than 1500 pounds. That's a saving of over 700 pounds.

It's an excellent telescope and can be fitted with Hyperstar so will fulfill all your needs, from high-quality visual use to wide-field astrophotography. Come and see it in our showroom or check it out in our online catalogue.

Teddy Bears go to Space

Did you hear about the four teddy bears that travelled to the edge of space on Monday 1st December from a playing field in Cambridge, UK? They were launched on a helium balloon and rose to a height of 30,000 metres where a camera recorded them before parachuting back to Earth.

The organiser of this expedition was Cambridge Univeristy Spaceflight, a student organisation with ambitious plans. The teddy bear flight was an experiment to determine which materials would provide the best insulation against the cold. Local 11-13-year-old pupils designed the space suits worn by the teddies. You can read the full story here.

Light Echoes

Astronomers using the Japanese Subaru Telescope on Hawaii have been studying light from the supernova first observed by Tycho Brahe in 1572. But the light they are seeing has been reflected from distant dust clouds and has thus travelled much further than the light that Brahe saw. In fact, they are now seeing the supernova as Brahe saw it and can study the actual explosion.

In 1572 the supernova was so bright it outshone Venus before fading from view over several months.

Betelgeuse Bow Wave

You may be familiar with the Solar Wind, a stream of material emitted continuously from the Sun's surface. It is this material that causes the aurora and accasional problems with communications and power systems in satellites and on Earth.

Other stars have a similar wind, including the red giant Betelgeuse that we see at the top left corner of Orion. Its wind is prodigious and as Betelgeuse travels through space at around 20 miles per second it creates a bow wave in the interstellar medium. It's currently poughing through a stream of material that originates in Orion's belt and a Japanese spacecraft called Akari has produced an infra-red image of it.

Launched in 2006 Akari is no longer operating since its coolant ran out in August 2007, but the data it sent back shows the bow wave in some detail. Its apparent size is approximately the same as the Moon. The presence of a bow wave was first detected by the IRAS satellite more than a decade ago.

Greetings Cards for 'Curious People'

If you are looking for something a little different to send to your friends and family, why not try one of our greetings cards that also doubles as a working astrolabe, or sundial or nocturnal? You can find them here in our online catalogue together with several working model kits of scientific instruments that also make excellent presents.

Our range of replica scientific instruments may contain just the present you are seeking for the person who seems to have everything.

Looking South at 10 pm from Cambridge UK (6th December 2008)

The constellation Perseus is overhead and its most famous star, Algol, lies right on our meridian. Algol is an eclipsing binary, ie two stars of different magnitude revolve around each other such that each passes in front of the other in our line of sight. This causes the light we see to vary as the eclipses take place. The magnitude change is from 2.1 to 3.3 and the period is 2.7 days, so the stars must be very close together.

Perseus is the legendary hero who saved Princess Andromeda from the sea monster. She lies to the right of our meridian and high in the sky.

A little lower and to the left of our meridain you will be able to see the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. Count how many stars you can see in the Pleiades with your naked eye then look at them through binoculars to see how many more you can count.

Level with the Pleiades and on our meridian lies the zodiac constellation of Aries, a relatively indistinct shape. Its two brightest stars are second magnitude and lie to the right of our meridian.

Beneath Aries is the head of Cetus, formerly linked with the sea monster from the story of Andromeda but now considered to be a harmless whale. Most of Cetus lies to the right of our meridian

Below the head of Cetus is the immensly long constellation of Eridanus, thought to represent the River Po into which Phaeton plunged when struck by a thunderbolt as he drove the sun-chariot. The end of Eridanus is way below our horizon and is marked by the bright star Achernar, which is the brightest star anywhere near the southern celestial pole. Eridanus does not stand out as a shape but you might like to try tracing its path using a suitable star atlas.

If you look to the left you will see the best of the Winter constellations appearing with Orion as the centre-piece. Between Orion and the Pleiades look for the bright star Aldebaran marking the eye of Taurus the bull. Around it you can see the open cluster of stars called the Hyades.

Clear Skies and Best Wishes

Neil

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