Moon, Jupiter and Venus

[scottland]

Thanks for the pics,I got a good close up of the half moon this evening,that thing sure got hit by a meteor shower at some point in its history.

[Lucky Poet]

Lovely! I'd all but forgotten about that - I now remember gazing at it from a balcony 13 floors up in Muirhouse while hammered on Pimm's (which was nice). Great shot

[Peekay]

If youz is out'n'about tonight you can see the lost toolbag from the space stration


http://spaceweather.com/flybys/search_results.php?lat=55.8&long=-4.28333&offset=0&country=UK&state=East%20Renfrewshire&city=Giffnock
PK

[BrigitDoon]

Not at magnitude 8.1 I won't.

While we're on the subject of space debris, does anyone know if it's possible to pick up the moon-buggy through a telescope?

(aside: I believe it was the most expensive car ever built and was put together by General Motors' Oldsmobile division. Oldsmobile is now defunct, but I wonder if its most accomplished product is still going... We'll find out if an eccentric friend of mine has his way. I swore to help him recover it over a few ciders one night. A former MOT tester, he's now the landlord of my old local and I think he'll need to sell a few more beers before he can afford to fund this ambitious project.)

Years ago (I was eighteen at the time), I took an O-level in Astronomy. The course book was written by Patrick Moore, of course, and anyone who had watched ten editions of The Sky At Night stood a good chance of passing without breaking sweat.

A generous parent had donated sufficient funds to the school that they could afford a 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector. This was mounted on a sturdy concrete base with its support and motor-drive; the whole was encased by a green dome and sat on prominent ground with a clear view of Glastonbury Tor.

I knew the head of Avon schools' science as a child, he was a near neighbour and had access to the 18" Newtonian reflector atop the Mendip Hills at Charterhouse. He used to boast that, on a still night, he could see the filaments in the aircraft warning lights on the Mendip transmitter above Wells, fully eight miles to the East.

We had no problem picking up ladybirds climbing the Samuel Hood Monument at Butleigh, two miles away.

As a senior pupil, I had the keys to the dome. My cousin and then-time drinking buddy had a Mini van and we'd make for the dome of a mid-week evening if the weather was clear. We used to sketch what we saw to report back to the astronomy class so that everybody could copy it for their coursework.

Having the place to ourselves with Auntie's oxtail soup to keep us warm was a treat. We trained the telescope on everything we could think of. The Orion nebula was a treat and so were the globular clusters. We watched the inner moons of Jupiter, but my favourite was Saturn. The telescope focused it so that it felt as though it were at arm's length and the size of a golf ball. It felt as though one could nurse it in the palm of the hand, delicate ring system and all.

My eyesight is no longer as sharp as it used to be in those days and I must confess to a certain frustration at not being able to appreciate the night sky as I used to. I remember the clear winter nights of rural Somerset when the street lights used to go out at 11pm; I remember seeing the whole of Scorpio for the first time in the clear thin air of the high Himalaya; I hope there are still places within easier reach to admire the beauty of the heavens. Tonight, Orion has been conspicuous from the kitchen window.

Nowadays, I keep an eye on the aurora forecast. I missed the only display visible in Somerset in living memory as my part of the county was beset by an overcast. It was green though...

[Peekay]

There's one of these white dome observatories on a house in Mansewood Rd. Quite a big thing too, 'bout the size of a large garden shed. Incidently it was also Compo/Foggys house(I can't remember which one) of Summer Wine fame!

PK