My Astronomy

 

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My Telescopes

My Main Telescope - C14 and Paramount ME

My new Paramount MyT and 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien Telescope

MyT Hand Controller

My Meade 12 inch SCT on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

My 4 inch Meade Refractor with Sky Watcher Guidescope and ZWO camera on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mount with Canon 40D

 

My Solar setup using a DSLR and Mylar Filter on my ETX90

DSLR attached to ETX90. LiveView image of 2015 partial eclipse on Canon 40D

Astronomy Blog Index
About the Site

 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

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Friday
Oct272017

Waxing Moon and Mojacar Light Pollution makes for difficult observing

The Moon is waxing and is sitting in Capricornus in the south west with a phase of 49%. To the north the bright lights of Mojacar Playa and Garrucha form a dome of light extending high in the sky. Ursa Major, very low in the north west, with its plough shape parallel to the horizon has the crooked shape of its handle  replicated by the shape of the foothils of the Sierra Cabrera mountain range below, behind which the buildings of Mojacar Pueblo are almost completely hidden. The summer triangle is still there as I stand looking west from the terrace of the villa. Looking through my birdspotting scope I manage to find Mizar and Alcor and that fainter 8th magnitude intermediate star Tycho 3850:257, forming a little triangle. The image below was taken with my Canon 40D in 2014. The chart below identifies Mizar and Alcor and the nearby star Alkaid.