davep's astronomy

#Meteorwatch

2009-08-05T09:51:00.003+01:00

Here's one for your diary:

Following on from the success of #moonwatch back in May this year (an event which attracted people such as Maggie Philbin, how cool is that?!), Newbury Astronomical Society, in association with IYA2009UK, are going to run #meteorwatch.

The event will happen on the night of the 11^th and 12^th of August, coinciding with the expected peak of the Perseids meteor shower.

The Twitter Meteorwatch will start at 21.30 BST on the 11th of August and will continue through to the evening of the 12th of August. Amateur and professional astronomers from the US and other countries are invited to join in and take over from the UK, when the sun comes up here, helping make the event run for over 24 hours and be truly international. The event will close in the UK, in the early hours of the 13th of August 2009.

See the main page for the event for more details, and be sure to follow @NewburyAS over on Twitter.

Now that I've got an Android phone, which runs a twitter client (twidroid), and now that I've got a laptop with a WiFi connection, I should be in a good position to take part. All being well, weather permitting, I'll be out in the garden, doing my best to add to #meteorwatch.

See you there?

Google Sky Map on Android

2009-05-12T22:58:00.004+01:00

Just recently I acquired a new mobile phone, one running Android (in my case a HTC Magic) and I've had a quick look around for some astronomy software but didn't find much.

Then, this evening, I noticed this tweet from Stuart and went and did a little digging about and finally found it.

I'm stunned.

Rather that try and explain it, I'll just go with Google's video explaining it:

The one warning I would give is that it takes quite a while for the application to start. It will look like your phone has hung (and, if you try and do something, you'll probably be told the application is taking too long and would you like to force an exit or wait) but just wait a little, it's simply slow to start. Once it's running it's nice and snappy.

If you've got an Android phone and astronomy is this thing I'd call this a "must have" application — even if you do know your way around the sky.

Colour Lubitel Star Trails

2009-03-17T15:49:00.003Z

I've done some star trails with my Lubitel 166B. Initially I'd been using black and white film — first on Ilford FP4+ 125 and then one on Ilford HP5+ 400 — but I've been meaning to have a go with colour for a while now.

Back on 2008-11-22, while doing some observing at Woodland Waters, I finally did some using Fuji Provia 100F. I'm rather pleased with the results:

Twittering the International Space Station Close Encounter

2009-03-12T16:54:00.006Z

As I'm sure many people will know by now, at 2009-03-12 16:39 UTC the International Space Station had a close encounter with some debris. I won't bother going into any serious detail about that, I'm sure that, by the time you read this, others will have gone into this in much more detail.

The thing that I find really interesting about it is that I even know anything about it, right now, right at this moment, as I type this. And the reason I know about it is I use Twitter and TweetDeck.

I'm not sure who posted about it first, whose "tweet" I saw first, but I first saw mention of the problem about 50 minutes before the closest approach of the debris (this is where TweetDeck comes in, I always have it running on a screen, very handy). From then on I was able to follow links, get more information (including checking what "11:39 CDT" was in real money), get a live audio feed from the station via NASA TV.

And then, as 16:39 UTC came about, and the feed from the ISS had gone quiet, the tweets from the people I follow pretty much went quiet too. There was a moment, a fascinating moment, where I really felt like I was doing the same thing as lots of other people who share my interests and concerns — we were all just watching and listening and wishing the crew of the ISS well.

And then the moment passed and we could hear the ISS talking again (first in Russian, then in English) and there was an obvious huge sigh of relief.

Two things really stand out for me:

It's amazing that I was able to follow it at all. That's some incredible transparency. The fact that I could listen to the conversations taking place, how amazing is that? (and that's leaving aside the technology involved in making that happen)
By the time the danger for the ISS had passed the BBC news site had just managed to get a "BREAKING NEWS" banner on the front page. It wasn't until after the danger had passed that a page for the story appeared. By then, for me, via twitter, it was "old news".

Here's the TwitScoop graph for mention of the ISS as of the time of writing:

SPA Convention 2009: Photographs

2009-03-11T15:53:00.002Z

Last night I processed some of the photographs I took at the 2009 Society for Popular Astronomy convention. You can see the photographs over in the album SPA Convention 2009.

I hope to do a report on the day some time soon (although time is against me at the moment) but, for now, I'll say it was an excellent day. I managed to attend all the talks and each one was enjoyable and fascinating.

Thee Years of Sunspot Counts

2009-03-06T14:37:00.003Z

It's now three years since I decided to make a point of doing sunspot counts as often as possible (I say "now", I'm actually a few days late make a note of this).

While weather, and other things, do often get in the way, I've managed to log 378 observations so far. The sunspot graphs are coming along pretty nice too (even if they are a bit flat due to the solar minimum).

The sunspot/active area observation list is starting to get pretty long now and, at some point, I might have to think about reworking it so it pages or something. On the other hand the active area timeline is doing fine (and it shows rather nicely just how quiet things have been of late).

I hope things start to pick up this year. It would be nice to see some significant solar activity again.

Finally Seen Comet Lulin

2009-03-02T15:56:00.003Z

Last night, after waiting most of the week (and being defeated by cloud), I finally got to see comet Lulin.

There was no sign of it with the naked eye but I could see it (after a little bit of searching) with my 10x50 binocular, and also with my 20x60 monocular. Not the most impressive of comets, at least not at this point. There was some obvious elongation, but I wouldn't say I could see any kind of tail. There wasn't any obvious "concentration" to it at all, it was more of a large ghostly colourless patch than anything else.

F-16 on Mars

2009-02-03T17:16:00.003Z

I'm sure most people know that there's a new Google Earth available for download. I'm sure most people know that they've added Mars to the mix. I'm sure most people know that Google Earth has a really simple flight simulator built into it.

Well, it's obvious what comes next isn't it?

Okay, it's no X-Plane, but it's still kind of fun (let's not mention the fact that the physics are probably totally wrong).

SPA Convention 2009

2009-01-27T09:31:00.003Z

It's that time again! The Society for Popular Astronomy have announced that their 2009 convention will be held at the Institute of Astronomy on March 7^th.

Having been to the 2005 convention and also the 2007 convention (photographs of the day can be found here), and having really enjoyed them, I'm looking forward to this one — even more so given that it's IYA.

Member of a UK Astronomy Society?

2008-12-03T09:31:00.002Z

Are you a member of a UK astronomical society? Are you interested in helping promote it a little more? If so, this post on the SPA BB might be of interest to you:

As part of IYA 2009, I have volunteered to put together a Google map of astro societies in the UK (I hope it hasn't already been done but I don't think so)

Quite a few societies are members of Fedastro, but I assume there are some that are not.

The sort of info I need is where they meet (venue with postcode is possible), dates of regular meetings, website, contact name and email address etc.

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

Interactive Constellation

2008-11-18T09:42:00.002Z

Recognise this constellation?

Probably not. Or perhaps it reminds you of one, but looks wrong? Chances are, if it does remind you of one, you might be thinking of Leo.

That's a screenshot of the rather nifty interactive map of Leo by Krystian Majewski. Using that application you can drag your point of view around and see how Leo would look from other points in space. Neat.

If you like that you might also like his interactive map of the nearest 32 stars.

Astroblast 2008 - Photographs

2008-11-03T09:31:00.003Z

Despite some pretty awful weather my son and myself managed to make it down to Astroblast yesterday. The new venue (Bedford School) was tricky to find — we managed to end up at what appeared to be the back gate, all locked up with a view of some of the fun in the grounds, d'oh! — but overall it was a pretty straight run down.

Thankfully the rain didn't put too much of a downer on events and we had a fun time visiting the planetarium and especially the rocket building workshop put on by Out of this World Learning (if you ever get the chance to see them in action, do it, they made the whole thing loads of fun and my son really enjoyed himself — so did I come to think of it <g>).

Like with last year I took my camera and I have a small selection of photographs on my main website.

Death from the Skies

2008-10-22T13:48:00.003+01:00

Finally! After some delay with Amazon.co.uk, it's here!

Finally! Some Solar Action! (Redux)

2008-10-12T20:24:00.004+01:00

Back in May this year I noted that the Sun appeared to have gone quiet again, as of 2008-05-08 I'd not observed a sunspot since 2008-03-31. At that time the quiet period hadn't been quite as long as the one I'd observed towards the end of last year but it turned out to be a very long run of a blank Sun (as seen on the days I observed and with my equipment).

Finally, today, I had my first view of a sunspot since the end of March this year. New active area 1005 had two small spots visible.

It's quite nice to see a little blip on my sunspot graphs. They were starting to look a little boring. ;-)

Astroblast 2008

2008-10-10T13:37:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I was reminded that next month is Astroblast 2008. This year, rather than being held at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, it is being held at Bedford School.

Having attended in 2006 and 2007 I'm hoping I can make it along again. The past two years have been very enjoyable events.

Large Hadron Collider Up and Running

2008-09-10T14:17:00.002+01:00

Well, that's it, the Large Hadron Collider is up and running. They've had two beams go all the way round (one clockwise, one anticlockwise). Thanks to the webcast I've been able to follow it pretty much all day (twittering as I went).

It's been absolutely fascinating. Like I said over here, I wasn't old enough to remember it (or, indeed, at the exact time, wasn't even anywhere that had a TV) but I imagine this is what watching the Moon landings must have felt like.

Although, of course, no actual collisions have happened today (and won't happen today) so I guess the "main event" hasn't really happened yet. As such, perhaps today was what watching Apollo 10 felt like?

No matter, I think this is one of those "I remember where I was/what I was doing" days.

AVM Microformat Generator for GNU emacs

2008-09-02T14:27:00.003+01:00

Now that Stuart has blogged about the AVM microformat generator I thought it time to upload a little hack I did for GNU emacs when he first pointed me at the generation tool he'd written.

The tool is called avmmf.el (download it here) and it adds a command to GNU emacs (avmmf-insert) which prompts you for an object, talks to the AVMMF generator, gets the resulting code and pastes it into the current buffer. I'm thinking it might be handy if you're writing some (X)HTML by hand.

Partial Lunar Eclipse Live Webcast

2008-08-14T09:40:00.002+01:00

Via this post on the SPA BB:

2008 AUGUST 16 -- PARTIAL LUNAR ECLIPSE
Webcast live from Peter Grego at St Dennis, Cornwall

I will be producing a live webcast of the partial lunar eclipse on the evening of 16 August on my website www.lunarobservers.com. The webcast takes place from 19:30 to 22:45 UT (8:30 to 11:45 pm BST). Images are updated every 20 seconds when live (640x480 resolution). The umbral phase of the eclipse lasts from 8:36 until 11:44 pm BST. If the event is clouded out a real-time computer simulation of the eclipse will be broadcast.

More details over here.

Comet Perseid

2008-08-11T18:22:00.002+01:00

No, really, that's not a typo. Keep an eye out for Comet Perseid.

;-)

Seen via a post on the SPA BB.

Building a Portal to the Universe

2008-08-06T20:20:00.002+01:00

Do you have one or more RSS feeds whose content is related to astronomy? If so Dr Pamela Gay would like to hear from you.

And, just as important:

If you are a content provider, can you please put out a request on your feeds, your Facebook, and your twitter, to help me find the hidden content providers – the grad students telling their stories of the stars and the research scientists silently slaving over their blogs – so that I can help get their voices heard in the Portal to the Universe.

So, if you're reading this, and you've got a way of shouting about this.... do so. Go do it now.

50th Anniversary of NASA

2008-08-06T16:29:00.002+01:00

Via this tweet by Will Gater: 50th Anniversary of NASA.

The music is good enough (I'm finding that I'm tending towards the 1970s, which is kind of funny given that I turned 12 in 1979 — Pink Floyd and Neil Young just work <g>) but the thing really worth watching is the Ares I animation you get when you click on the Ares rocket in the 2000s.

Go play with it. It's fun.

Today's Eclipse: A Short Photo Diary

2008-08-01T15:36:00.003+01:00

Just to add a little to my log of today's eclipse, a short photo diary of the session:

The session didn't start out too well, the Solarscope went flying in the wind so I had to come up with a method of making it heavier. I knew all those old power supplies would come in handy one day:

With the flying 'scope problem pretty much solved, the main event got under way:

However, the wind picked up, so more weight was needed. This is why you should never throw away that old laptop battery:

Soon, it got cloudy. Time to photograph my amazing solar observatory then:

Of course, because we were getting close to mid-eclipse, it wasn't a case of the whole sky being cloudy. Oh no. Towards the Sun it looked like this:

Whereas behind me:

However, around mid-eclipse, things did clear up:

So it wasn't a total loss. :-)

Eclipse Observing Log

2008-08-01T13:50:00.003+01:00

I've now uploaded my observing log from today's eclipse. There's a handful of photographs in there too. Nothing too special, just captures of the view as seen via the Solarscope.

I'll probably get around to uploading some more elsewhere at some point. I'll post here when I do.

The eclipse is over for me

2008-08-01T10:51:00.002+01:00

Well, that's it for me. The earlier fair weather turned increasingly cloudy and, at around 10:50 BST, I was pretty much clouded out.

I had a reasonable run though. Managed to see the very start of the eclipse and got a good, albeit short, view around mid-eclipse. You can see the updates I made over on Twitter and Plurk (the latter being a new one to me but I thought I'd give it a go to see what it's like).

I'll try and type up my log later on. I've also got a bunch of photographs which I took on my Canon PowerShot G9. Once I've downloaded them and processed them they'll appear in the photography section of my main site and also over on my Flickr stream.

Looking good so far...

2008-08-01T08:54:00.004+01:00

With about ½ hour to go to the start of the partial solar eclipse I've got mostly clear skies with just a few little fluffy clouds floating about.

Fingers crossed things go better than back in March 2006.

I'll try and make frequent updates over on Twitter.

If You're in London on Friday 1st August...

2008-07-31T10:05:00.002+01:00

If you're in London tomorrow, and have some free time in the morning, this might interest you:

The society have got permission to take a few telescopes along to Hyde Park in London, near Speakers' Corner, to view the partial eclipse on Friday morning, which is between 9.32 and 11.03 am BST, with mid eclipse at 10.16. The Sun will be about 20% covered (see separate thread for what this means).

Any members who care to join us will be very welcome, though we only have permission for a few small telescopes so we don't need any more. It is possible that the media will be there as well as we are sending out a press release.

Any Canon EOS 400D/Digital Rebel XTi Owners Out There?

2008-07-16T15:11:00.002+01:00

Anyone out there own a Canon EOS 400D (AKA Digital Rebel XTi, AKA EOS Kiss Digital X) and have access to any of the following cities: Abu Dhabi, Athens, Baghdad, Beijing, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Copenhagen, London, Moscow, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Rome, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo. Washington D.C., Wellington (NZ)?

If so, this thread on the SPA BB might be of interest to you.

X-Files Plot

2008-06-30T16:54:00.001+01:00

Happy X-Files plot day everyone. ;-)

Nodding Prof

2008-06-06T16:08:00.003+01:00

Via this tweet

Now I want a Prof Brian Cox nodding doll for the back window of my car. :-D

FAS Convention 2008

2008-06-06T15:49:00.002+01:00

This post has just turned up on the SPA BB.

The UK's Federation of Astronomical Societies will be holding its 2008 convention on September 20^th 2008 at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

Mars Pheonix on Twitter

2008-05-21T09:59:00.005+01:00

Via Stuart (of Astronomy Blog) who got it via Will Gater and Orbiting Frog: the Phoenix Mars Lander is on Twitter.

That's pretty cool.

And it takes me back almost 11 years. Back on 23^rd June 1997 I subscribed to the Majordomo mailing list for Mars Global Surveyor. It was a great service, with emails coming every so often with reports of what was happening and the status of the spacecraft. The last report I received was on 9^th April 1999:

Mars Global Surveyor initiated normal mapping operations on Sunday, April 4. The spacecraft is now in the nadir pointed configuration with the High Gain Antenna tracking the Earth. The spacecraft and instruments have been operating nominally, but the combination of a sequence error and DSN tracking problems have caused several small gaps in the returned data. As of Friday, April 9, these problems appear to have been completely resolved and all acquired data is being successfully returned.

I'm not sure if that was the last email ever sent out, or if I unsubscribed after that.

It's kind of interesting to note what's changed in that time. Back then it was done via email, so it was sort of slow and was always "in the past" (for significant values of "in the past"). These days it's happening via twitter so, thanks to my constantly open Psi window that is connected to Twitter, I can see things as they happen (well, as they're written about and sent out).

Add to that the fact that, these days, I can know what the Lovell telescope is up to at any point in time (not forgetting that that's true for all the other Jodrell Bank 'scopes) and it's pretty clear that getting information about what's happening in astronomy and space exploration is easier than ever.

To all those people who work hard to make it happen: thanks.

World Wide Telescope: Reflection?

2008-05-13T18:10:00.002+01:00

I've been noticing a few "mystery objects" while browsing around with WorldWide Telescope, most look like they're aircraft trails and similar things. The most unusual (well, the most attention-grabbing, for me) seems to be a bunch of these:

I'm guessing it's some sort of "reflection" within the telescope?

WorldWide Telescope: A Mandelbrot Set?

2008-05-13T13:30:00.002+01:00

Look what I just found in WorldWide Telescope's planet browser:

Some sort of easter egg, or an example of how you can extend the application and use it for other things?

WorldWide Telescope: The first 5 mins

2008-05-13T13:20:00.003+01:00

I've now got WorldWide Telescope installed. The download and install was fast and painless and I was up and running in no time.

My initial impression? Wow! It's nice. Very nice. Very, very nice. It's easy to navigate, things feel like they're set out in a pretty logical way. Things like the little tray of "bookmarks" along the bottom of the window, which change as you move around the sky, are a very nice touch. I also like that you've got the ability to view different planets in a Google-Earth-a-like way.

The only complaint I have at the moment is that some of the images seem slow to download (on my setup anyway) and, while this is happening, it isn't always obvious that something is going on so you're left wondering if it's working or if it's died.

Back to some more playing... (and perhaps looking into how hackable it is too)

WorldWide Telescope

2008-05-13T12:59:00.002+01:00

Oh, hello! It looks like Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope is available for download. I guess I need to go play at some point real soon...

Quiet Sun Again?

2008-05-08T20:22:00.002+01:00

This evening I've been catching up with my observing logs. Recently all I've been managing to do in terms of observing is sunspot counts and I've got a nasty habit when I do them. Given that I do the counts during the day (dur!) I tend to pop into the garden with the solarscope, do a quick count (or not so quick if things look interesting — I'll even photograph the sunspots if I think it'll be interesting enough), and then pop back into the office and write the key details on a scrap of paper and place it under my monitor.

The problem with this is I tend to let them pile up. Eventually I crack and write them up in my observing logbook and then type up the XML log file that gets turned into the online log.

This really is one nasty habit I should break.

The thing that I did notice when sorting out these latest logs this evening is that I've not seen a sunspot since 2008-03-31 (the last one seen and recorded being part of active area 988). While this isn't quite so long a time as late last year it does seem rather quiet again, at least in terms of the days I've been able to observe and what I can see with my modest equipment.

It's all making my sunspot graphs look rather bare.

Jodrell Bank: The Song

2008-04-16T12:07:00.001+01:00

Via Astronomy Blog, the Jodrell Bank song:

Catchy.

Save Astronomy: The Government Responds

2008-04-08T16:38:00.002+01:00

I've just had an email to alert me to the fact that the government has responded to the physics funding petition.

And now I'm trying to make sense of it. At the moment I'm struggling.

Two Years of Sunspot Counts

2008-04-04T17:40:00.002+01:00

A little earlier I was typing up some recent solar observation reports and I realised that it's now over two years since I started observing the sun as often as possible and keeping a log of sunspot counts.

The weather seems to have been against me lately. Over the past few months I've not managed to log many observations (see March this year for example: only 6 counts recorded) and that's kind of frustrating.

Still, the graphs of solar activity seem to be coming along nicely. Even though there's a fair bit of data missing due to days when I couldn't observe there does seem to be a general hint of the recent solar minimum.

EVL PROF

2008-03-28T16:58:00.002Z

Given that he seems to have appeared in an xkcd strip the other day, and given that he's obviously part of the team who are going to destroy the Earth, this kind of had to be done... ;-)

And, yes, really, that's Professor Brian Cox to you.

Sometime in the very near future...

2008-03-26T10:06:00.002Z

xkcd tells it like it will be. ;-)

And, is it just me, or is the one with the black hair Dr Brian Cox?

Another Lubitel Star Trail

2008-03-17T12:59:00.004Z

Further to my last attempt at some star trails with my Lomo Lubitel 166B I've now received a scan of the developed film of one I did I did during a session on 2008-02-09.

This time I was using Ilford HP5+ 400. Conditions were less than ideal, the sky was rather hazy for the whole observing session and everything got rather damp pretty quickly (hence the reason there's only one trail for the whole session). However, despite all of this, it's turned out better than I thought it would.

Thanks once again go to Tim Haynes for processing and scanning the film.

Google Sky Map is Here

2008-03-14T08:15:00.003Z

Yay! Finally! Google Sky Map is here!

I've had a quick 5min play and so far so good.

I really must pull my finger out and go and have a play with the API and see how I could possibly use it on my own site.

Edit: There's a Google blog entry discussing the history of the project and, of course, a YouTube video:

Jodrell Bank: Future Funding

2008-03-11T13:58:00.003Z

The Jodrell Bank website now has a handy page that outlines the problems that could be caused by any cuts in funding. Head over there and bookmark it, it might be useful to refer back to at some point.

Jodrell Bank: Petitions

2008-03-07T10:41:00.002Z

Via Stuart's twitter:

[10:40:26] astronomyblog: Just found a Downing Street petition to save @jodrellbank http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/jodrellfunding/

[10:40:57] astronomyblog: There appear to be two petitions http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RadioAstronomy/

Jodrell Bank: Article on the BBC website

2008-03-06T17:57:00.001Z

The BBC are now carrying an article about the possible threat to Jodrell Bank.

Jodrell Bank: Article on The Guardian website

2008-03-06T15:51:00.004Z

More news about worries over Jodrell Bank, this time from The Guardian.

Choice quote:

"If Merlin does not run, Jodrell Bank does not exist"

Jodrell Bank: Official Response

2008-03-06T13:04:00.003Z

Via this tweet on Jodrell Bank's twitter: an official response the STFC Programmatic Review.

Jodrell Bank is faced with closure?

2008-03-06T09:17:00.004Z

Even more bad news under the save astronomy banner: The Times is running a story today suggesting that the famous telescope at Jodrell Bank faces closure.

I'd gathered from the list of possible cuts on the Save Astronomy website that Merlin was under threat but I hadn't even considered the idea that this might mean that the Lovell Telescope itself would be under threat.

This whole STFC nonsense was depressing to start with, it's almost impossible for me to find the right word to describe my mood now.

Is this it? Has this country given up on physics and astronomy? Has this government now decided that it's really not worth the time or money? I disagree. I'd try and say why I disagree but there's little point when Nigel Hawkes at The Times has done a far better job:

Do any of these discoveries matter? To most people their significance is as remote as the objects they describe. But astronomy is not meant to be useful. It is not a science designed to give us new products or better devices, but to help us to place ourselves in space and time. The understanding of the cosmos begun by the Greek astronomers and carried on by Kepler and Newton has fallen in this generation to astronomers who use radio and X-rays and satellites to deepen our knowledge.

As a parent I can't help but wonder what the trickle-down effect of all of this is. If this carries on it has to have a negative effect on the understanding and teaching of science in our schools. If we, as a country, fail to encourage and support physicists and astronomers who will be around to do the outreach? Who will be around to inspire parents and children alike? Is my son facing a future where only the mundane is taught, where only those things that help him become a good little worker and consumer matter? Will I be left with more of what I experienced yesterday when the main thing he could tell me about his day at school was that he'd been taught a first century zombie story, complete with all the gory details, as if it were fact and as if it were important?

I worry for people like Stuart and Megan. These two (to pick two examples who are associated with Jodrell Bank) people have, one way or another, been an inspiration and have provided lots of encouragement to me personally, even if they didn't know they were doing it. Just the simple fact of knowing that professionals were reading my silly little blog, and were evening linking to it, gave me more confidence to natter on about my small interest in the subject. That in turn encouraged me to try and get more involved in promoting a popular interest in astronomy (to the point that I help out where and when I can with the Society for Popular Astronomy).

I can only see one positive in this news of possible closure. Us Brits like our icons. You don't mess with our icons. You get rid of a British icon at your peril. Jodrell Bank is one such icon. I can only hope that any suggestion of closing Jodrell Bank is akin to a suggestion that funding should stop for the Red Arrows.

Please, somebody tell me this isn't happening. Please, somebody tell me I don't really live in such a short-sighted country.

Please?

The Flash Planetarium Project

2008-02-29T16:46:00.002Z

Via this thread on the SPA's BB, a new online planetarium written in Flash. To quote the opening page:

The Flash Planetarium Project aims to produce the best online planetarium available, allowing you to view the night sky from anywhere in the world from within your browser (no telescope required!)

If you've a passing interest in Astronomy or you're are an enthusiastic amateur astronomer or science buff, then we're sure that you'll find this site interesting and above all, fun!

Pop over and take a look. It's still in the early days of development and Andy is looking for feedback.

UK Earthquake

2008-02-27T10:32:00.001Z

Okay, not exactly astronomy, not really astronomy at all to be honest, but.... it was pretty cool anyway.

I was woken up by an earthquake last night, quite a strong one by UK standards. I've written more about it over on my general weblog.

Next week's lunar eclipse

2008-02-15T14:18:00.005Z

I'm not sure if I'll get to observe next week's total lunar eclipse (assuming the weather will be fine) due to the fact that a) it's during the working week and b) all the fun stuff happens at silly hours. Which is sort of annoying given just how enjoyable the last one was (even if I did manage to destroy a pair of glasses).

However, if anyone is thinking of staying up for it, you might find this article by the Society for Popular Astronomy useful as it as all the information you'll need. This includes details of the planned LunarObservers.com live webcast.

The Drake Equation

2008-02-15T10:32:00.004Z

You've got to love xkcd:

:-)

Lubitel Star Trails

2008-02-04T11:13:00.000Z

Last week I managed to finish off the film in my Lomo Lubitel 166B which contained some star trails I did during an observing session on 2008-01-05. After some developing and scanning by a friend (thanks Tim!) I finally got to see the results.

And they're not too bad either:

Obviously those thumbnails don't do them justice so click on the images or visit the whole set to see the large versions.

Astronomy Blogs Timeline

2008-02-01T15:59:00.000Z

This is cool (he says, catching up with something a few days old):

Stuart, over at Astronomy Blog, has use SIMILE's timeline code to produce a timeline of astronomy blogs

Shooting the Moon

2008-01-25T13:40:00.000Z

Just recently I purchased a second lens (a Tamron AF 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 Di II LD) for my Canon EOS 400D. It wasn't until yesterday that I managed to give it a proper test.

Just before bedtime I noticed it was clear and that the Moon was pretty high so I thought it would be interesting to see how large it appears when captured with the new lens attached (previous efforts amply demonstrated that — no surprises here — the Moon doesn't appear very large at 55mm). So I wandered outside, set the lens to 200m and ran off some shots hand-held.

The result isn't actually that bad. If I'm in a position to observe the lunar eclipse next month (during the week, during the early hours of the morning, typical!) it might be worth trying to get a few shots.

Of course, now, I'm wishing for a 300mm lens. ;-)

Floodlighting Petition Response

2008-01-21T18:13:00.000Z

I just received an email from the UK government's ePetition system to say that there has been a response to the floodlighting petition that I mentioned back in November 2006 (wow, really that long ago?).

You can see the response over here.

Dr Brian Cox

2008-01-18T12:19:00.000Z

Being a member of The Society for Popular Astronomy, and being interested in photography, it's no surprise that when I attend an SPA event I take a camera with me. I tend to publish many of the images and I've also got an agreement with the editor of Popular Astronomy (the magazine published by the SPA) which lets him use any of the images in the magazine if he thinks they're useful.

The nice thing about this is that I generally don't know which he'll use, if any, so when the magazine turns up it's always a nice surprise to find an image or two in there.

At the last SPA meeting, in October last year, we had Dr Brian Cox giving the main talk (and a cracking talk it was too). I took a handful of photographs, my favourite being this:

So you can imagine how chuffed I was when I sat down last night to read the latest edition of the magazine and found this:

Insert smiley face here.

Also, don't forget, the next meeting of the SPA is a week on Saturday.

Comet Holmes Still Naked Eye Object?

2008-01-08T16:33:00.000Z

Last Saturday I managed to get out for my first "proper" observing session in a while. I had a pretty good night and managed to get views of Mars, M42, Saturn and M81 and M81.

But that wasn't the best part. The best part was the bit when I spotted something odd near Algol:

While stood looking at the Double Cluster with the naked eye I spotted something close by, near Algol, that appeared to be about the same size and of a similar brightness to it. Initially I was confused about what it was. I quickly grabbed my monocular and had a look and could see that it was a faint but noticeable misty patch. Given that I wasn't aware of any object in that location, and given that I couldn't find any such thing on my charts (not that I expected to — I'd have known about such an object if it were a "fixed" item in the sky), I suspected that it was comet Holmes.

Further visual checks at the time and checks with online charts for Holmes suggest that I really was seeing the comet.

This genuinely surprised me. It's been a while since I last observed it and I'd assumed that it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye any more, that it might even have faded beyond a point where I'd be able to observe it with any of my equipment.

Anyone else out there still seeing it this way?

Also, totally aside from the above, I also decided to try something a little different (for me) in terms of astrophotography (not that I do much astrophotography). I took along my Lomo Lubitel 166B, loaded with Ilford FP+ 125, and during the observing session had it pointing at various parts of the sky for around ½ hour at a time. I've no idea what, if anything, I'm going to get out of it, but I needed to use up some frames on the film and the chance to do some astrophotography with a TLR, on black and white medium-format form, was too good to pass up.

Heck, if it turns out reasonably well I might give it a go with colour next time. Might even mount the 166B on the back of the 130M and use its drive to go for some non-trailed shots.

In Support of UK Astronomy #4

2007-12-20T12:24:00.000Z

This email just in from AuroraWatch:

Dear AuroraWatch subscriber,

You may remember that in spring 2006 we contacted you to raise awareness of damaging funding cuts to the sub-auroral magnetometer network (SAMNET) - the scientific experiment on which the AuroraWatch service depends. We received over 2,500 emails of support which were forwarded to the research council who fund activities in this area. Unquestionably, this had the desired impact as we were able to secure additional funding to keep SAMNET and AuroraWatch running until April 2008. A big "thank you" to everyone who took part! AuroraWatch is alive and well, but alerts are currently quite rare since the Sun is currently at it's lowest point in the 11 year solar cycle.

Having survived a critical period, we were confident that we would secure additional resources to keep the system operating over the coming years (towards solar maximum and more disturbed geomagnetic conditions) and we were expecting a funding announcement before Christmas. Unfortunately, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (the agency who now fund Physics and Astronomy research in the UK) have recently announced an 80 million pound hole in their budget. This surprise announcement is going to result in massive cut-backs to the grants available to universities to carry out astronomy research and the closure of many astronomical and solar-terrestrial physics facilities. Indeed, you may have seen stories in the media about the cuts (typing "STFC funding cuts" into google gives a sample of some of the uproar).

One of the sweeping cuts announced is the withdrawal of support for ground-based facilities for solar-terrestrial physics - the area of astronomy concerned with our planet's connection to the Sun. As a result SAMNET faces closure and along with it, the AuroraWatch service. Other victims include the British ionospheric radars used to study the aurora and the UK's involvement in the Gemini telescopes.

In order to register the tide of anger at these cuts (in part brought about by cost over-runs elsewhere in the council's portfolio), an online petition has been started on the Prime Minister's website. We would encourage AuroraWatch subscribers to visit the site at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Physics-Funding/ and support the motion urging "the Prime Minister to reverse the decision to cut vital UK contributions to Particle Physics and Astronomy".

Also, if you are a member of an Astronomy Society, perhaps you could spread the word locally? Petitions with more than 200 signatories have to be responded to by the government. In the first day, the petition attracted over 2,000 signatories so we are guaranteed a response, but imagine how high that number could be if only a fraction of the 25,000 AuroraWatchers added their voice to the protests!

Thanks once again for your continuing support.

The AuroraWatch Team at Lancaster University

In Support of UK Astronomy on Facebook #2

2007-12-20T11:21:00.000Z

Further to the Facebook application I knocked up, Tim Haynes has created a Save UK Astronomy Facebook group.

If you're on Facebook please think about joining.

In Support of UK Astronomy on Facebook

2007-12-20T11:06:00.000Z

I'll admit here and now that I know nothing about developing Facebook applications so this is a very quick hack with no bells or whistles.

However, I was thinking it might be nice to have a Save Astronomy "badge" on my Facebook profile, so I quickly knocked up something to do the job. It ends up looking like this:

It's quick, it's dirty, but it works.

If you're on Facebook please considering adding this application to your profile.

In Support of UK Astronomy #3

2007-12-20T09:18:00.000Z

More on the threat to astronomy in the UK:

Philip Stobbart made the following interesting post on the SPA's BB:

If you want to stick a topical slant on your letter, the Solar Terrestrial Physics community, which carries out observations of the Earth's upper atmosphere that are then used as inputs or validations of climate models are also being cut. In terms of ground based facilities run by the UK, the cut is 100%. In terms of ground based facilities contributed to by the UK, the cut is also 100%, which has sent quite a few of the international radars to the wall. They all run on very finely balanced budgets at the best of times and take decades to fund, design, build and get stuff out of. All done in the middle of the international heliospheric/polar year, which is a two year international research focus on STP.

A letter to the times was sent by one group here.

Results from the facilities to be shut or threatened by this include such minor things as the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer and observations of a part of the atmosphere that is very succeptible to changes in the global climate.

So, let me check that I'm reading this right: On the one hand we've got a government that claims that climate change is a serious issue and that something has to be done about the problem but, on the other hand, that same government is cutting out our country's involvement in producing data that informs the science behind the claims that the planet's climate is changing.

Interesting, don't you think?

In Support of UK Astronomy #2

2007-12-19T20:40:00.000Z

Further to my earlier post, I've just received an electronic bulletin from the British Astronomical Association and, given that it's got lots of extra handy pointers, I'll reproduce it here (I'm hoping that it's okay to do so — given the nature of the issue I can't imagine that it would be a problem):

Dear BAA Member,

Astronomy is a subject close to my heart and to yours no doubt. You may therefore be alarmed to hear that its future here in the UK is under threat owing to recent announcements by the government. In particular, there have been dramatic developments within the Science and Technology Facilities Council or STFC: the research council that funds astronomy research in the UK. What seems to have happened is a fundamental shift in what the Council and the government see as research priorities, with severe cuts planned in research areas such as Astronomy and Particle Physics.

These cuts will lead to the closure of / withdrawal from a large number of major telescope facilities. In the area of ground-based astronomy, withdrawal from the Isaac Newton Telescope Group on La Palma, and from Gemini South are pretty much decided, but Gemini North, UKIRT, and the Liverpool Telescope in Hawaii are also under threat (we have already pulled out of the Anglo-Australian Telescope). This will be accompanied by cuts in research grants to universities which use these facilities. Likewise, Solar Physics and Space Astronomy will be hit. In short, astronomy research in the UK, currently amongst the best in the world, will really suffer.

All of this came with little warning, and with little consultation with the research community, and at a time when the government is concerned about the number of students taking up science topics in schools and at universities.

PLEASE HELP. A petition has been set up at:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Physics-Funding/

which states, "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to reverse the decision to cut vital UK contributions to Particle Physics and Astronomy."

If you wish to offer your support, and have not done so already, you may add your name to this fast-growing petition by going to the above web address and following the directions on signing the petition.

In my view, this is the most serious threat to UK Astronomy in decades and so any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Richard Miles
Vice-President
------------------

N.B. Background information is available at various websites including:

* STFC's decision to withdraw from Gemini

* STFC's delivery plan 2008/9-2011/12 (see p.6 for the plans in Astronomy)

* A BBC article on the STFC funding crisis.

* RAS 'dismay' at deep cuts in UK Astronomy research.

* UK pulls out of key physics and astronomy projects (New Scientist).

* Physics and astronomy research face "catastrophic" cuts (Nature).

* Science council struggles with cuts (Guardian Education).

* Listen to Radio 4's Today program with James Naughtie broadcast on December 14.

* Times Higher Educational Supplement.

Google Sky Map Pointers (With Added iPhone)

2007-12-19T15:56:00.000Z

Ogle Earth has a couple of nice pointers to early uses of the new Google Sky API.

The iPhone demo is just too clever:

In Support of UK Astronomy

2007-12-19T14:12:00.000Z

Further to last week's depressing news, Robin Scagell has posted this article on the SPA's BB. The main body, an email he's received from elsewhere, reads:

Dear all,

I forward to you this message from a colleague at UCL, for your urgent attention, apart from what you hopefully may have done about this by other means (like writing to your local MP, which is usually very effective, please also visit www.saveastronomy.co.uk).

There is now an approved (e)-petition online to collect signatures regarding the funding situation for physics and astronomy. Petitions with sufficient number of signees are forwarded to the government who then needs to come back with a response.

Its quick and easy;

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Physics-Funding/

Please sign it and then forward this on so that it might reach critical mass.

In addition, write to your local MP at:

www.saveastronomy.co.uk

-------------------------

some background information:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2228679,00.html

http://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/index.shtml (scroll down to the STFC item)

Obviously, please forward this to as many people as possible. A government review on this matter is planned by early January.

best regards,

francisco

Edit: Please see over here for more pointers to more information about this problem.

Google Sky Map on the Way?

2007-12-14T12:30:00.000Z

Via Ogle Earth:

Sky Maps coming soon: Being finalized in the Google Maps API Group: Google Sky’s data accessible via the Maps API, ready for embedding in your website.

That's great news (see the demo over here), this is the sort of thing I was hoping would turn up at some point. Google Sky is great and all but the ability to create applications on your own website that make use of their sky map... That could be very interesting.

Finally! Some Solar Action!

2007-12-12T14:05:00.000Z

As I noted last month the Sun has been very quiet of late (as it turned out I didn't observe a single spot during the whole of November) and I've got used to popping outside with the Solarscope and seeing a totally blank Sun.

So I had a bit of a surprise today when I went out, fully expecting to see nothing, and saw active area 978. It's quite an impressive set of sunspots too. While no individual spot is that large the area itself is one of the bigger ones I've seen for a while.

If you've got a safe method of observing the Sun then get out and have a look. If you don't have a method of doing so, head over here instead.

Depressing

2007-12-11T14:24:00.000Z

I'm not a "real" astronomer, not by any sensible measure. But I still find this as depressing as hell.

Astronomy is Painless

2007-11-28T16:35:00.000Z

A little earlier today I was having a wander around RedBubble and I happened upon this t-shirt design. It caught my eye for two reasons: the first was the design, which I thought was rather striking, the second reason was the title.

Wondering what "astronomy is painless" actually meant, I decided to have a proper look and found myself totally bemused by the description given for the idea behind the t-shirt. It seems the general idea of the designer is that we're making a right old mess of this planet (debatable, I know, but let's take that as a given...) and, because of that, we should stop "looking up". Apparently we should stop investigating the universe.

Huh?

Why?

What's the reason?

Well, apparently:

The nearest star (apart from the sun) is about 4.2 light years away, which would take about 90,000 years to get to in Voyager 2. So we’re not getting there anytime soon.

Assuming that year figure is correct (it doesn't really matter), and ignoring the idea of someone travelling "in" Voyager 2, what the hell does that have to do with anything? Really?

Should we only ever observe things we can touch? Should we only ever try and learn more about things we can walk up to and kick? Is turning a blind eye to things that are personally out of reach really a good message to send?

The designer goes on to say:

At present we appear to be destroying this planet, and aware of it, so really that’s a lot like suicide. Priorities people.

Well, you know, he's probably got a point, apart from the "priorities" part. Astronomy and the related sciences are probably one of the few things that can really help people understand and appreciate just how hostile a place the universe is and how unique our little safe zone is. But, because we appear to be messing up in some ways, we should turn our backs on what we can learn and we should suggest that astronomy, of all things, is in opposition to treating our planet in a sensible and sane way?

Sorry, doesn't make any sense to me.

But it's still quite a neat t-shirt.

Edit to add the following a day later:

Well, it seems we're supposed to take it "metaphorically" and that we can take anything from it that we want (dur!). It seems that, having seen the metaphor and having seen that it doesn't seem to quite work, for me, and having tried to engage in debate — something the creator appears to want to spring from their work — it appears that the individual behind that t-shirt is perturbed by the idea of debate and has gone out of their way to acknowledge this by updating the description and changing the title to specifically name me.

That'll teach me for thinking that someone who wants to promote debate wants.... debate.

Bad Astronomical Advertising

2007-11-21T10:54:00.001Z

The Bad Astronomer has a fun, if terribly self-promoting¹, idea.

Given that I live about ½ hour's drive from Woolsthorpe Manor and I own a copy of his book... Hmmm.

1: Not that that's a bad thing.

Quiet Sun

2007-11-14T18:00:00.000Z

I've just been catching up on my observing logs and I've just noticed how long it is since I last saw a sunspot.

So far this month I've not seen a single thing on the Sun. Neither did I see anything during the whole of October. Almost all of September was quiet too with the last time I saw a sunspot being September 1^st.

You can see from my graphs that this is quite a prolonged quiet spell.

From what I've read solar minimum now seems to be predicted for March next year. Now, okay, I know these things can be ±6 months or so, but it has got me wondering if I'm in for a very quiet winter when it comes to solar observing.

In other news: I managed to get another look at comet Holmes last night.

You could fill a book... Part III

2007-11-02T16:37:00.000Z

My short session observing comet Holmes a couple of evenings ago was also another little milestone for me. I finally filled my third log book.

This third book has taken quite a long time to fill. I filled the second one just over a year ago and it took less than a year from me filling the first one.

The main reason for this is that observing has been quite slow this year. While I've done a fair bit of solar observing, evening/night observing sessions have been few and far between. When I got out to observe comet Holmes back on Monday that was the first non-solar session since May!

The reasons are many and varied, but most revolve around weather, some illness and, now and again, a lack of motivation. Something "special" in the sky is always a good motivator and the summer months were totally devoid of anything to observe that was "special" (yes, Jupiter was about, but was so low that you generally couldn't see it from my garden).

Thankfully Holmes has given me that taste again, got me back into that habit.

It was good to have a 'scope out again last night and I think I've finally got that bug back again.

More Comet Holmes

2007-11-02T09:38:00.000Z

Last night I finally had the chance to get the Antares 905 out and have a quick session observing Comet Holmes.

Much as I expected it was more impressive in the 'scope than it was in the binocular. It was interesting to see how different it looked at different magnifications and how subtle details in the structure of the coma seemed more obvious at one magnification than at another.

The view I had was generally very reminiscent of Tim's photographs of it from a couple or so days back (which remind me a lot of the binocular view I've had), or Joe's amazing sketch of it. However, unlike Joe's sketch, I couldn't see any hint of a tail whatsoever. I do notice that there was a significant different in brightness of the outer ring of the coma on one side when compared to the other and that does seem to correspond with where Joe has drawn the tail he was seeing.

I've not written up my notes yet, I should be doing that in the next day or so.

If you own a binocular, or even a modest telescope, and you've not had them out to look at the comet yet, do so while you've still got the chance. It's a very easy object to find and it's a very rewarding view.

Finally! A View of Comet Holmes!

2007-10-30T09:33:00.000Z

Typical, isn't it? For the few days since news of comet Holmes started doing the rounds it's been cloudy here. Last night I needed to be out for part of the evening, not getting back home until at least 20:30.

Guess what.

Yes, that's right, it's was nice and clear.

However, even while I was out busy doing the thing I needed to be doing I could see that something was wrong in Perseus. I could see there was a star there that shouldn't be there and, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, it was just a little "fuzzy" when compared to other stars.

When I finally got home it was still clear, just. A huge bank of cloud was rolling in from the west so I had about 15 minutes at the most to get a reasonable view of the comet. I grabbed the Meade 10x50s and headed out into the garden.

Wow!

Yes, I know, "wow" is one of those words that get easily used when something novel turns up in the sky. But, really, wow! It's quite a sight in the bins. Mostly it reminded me of a very bright planetary nebula, the view reminded me somewhat of when I've observed M57 (although, obviously, it was bigger, more circular, brighter and less ring-like — but you get the idea, right?).

Tonight is looking like it could be another clear night.

Guess what...

Comet Holmes

2007-10-25T12:40:00.000+01:00

News of the outburst of comet P/Holmes (17P) sort of caught me out yesterday in that the first news I saw of it turned up just as I was finishing work for the day.

So, this morning saw me trying to catch up with various requests to add or update information on the SPA's website. I won't bother prattling on with all the details, all the usual suspects have already blogged about it some some length, but I just wanted to mention that a thread about the comet is under way on the SPA's BB.

Of course, where I live, it's cloudy and from what I can see at the moment there's little prospect of things clearing up in the next day or so. :-(

Astronomical Art

2007-10-15T15:57:00.001+01:00

Equal to astronomy in my lists of interests is photography. As with astronomy, I won't claim to be terribly good at it, but it amuses me, it's something that you can keep on learning and, most important of all, it keeps me out of trouble...

Recently I started making use of a site known as RedBubble. I now use it on the off chance that someone might want a print of one of my photographs. I've even had a photograph appear in their featured section (oh, yeah, and I've bought work from there too).

The astronomy connection?

RedBubble is still very much in development and one of the features they added recently was groups (anyone who has ever used Flickr will be familiar with the idea). Last week I got to thinking that there should probably be an astronomy group.

Now there is.

It's early days, and there have been a couple of hiccups (generally people not getting what astronomy-related work really means — but people have been cool about having works removed from the group), but it seems to be coming alone pretty well.

So, if you're on RedBubble and you're reading this, please do join (even if you don't have works to add to the group there's the discussion forum waiting for people to natter about astronomy stuff). If you're not on RedBubble and you've got work you'd like to add why not sign up and come join in? On top of that, if you're looking for some astronomy related works to hang on your walls, or you're just looking for a neat astronomy related card, have a look at what's kicking about at the moment.

You can even own a copy of the back of my head (as featured on Bad Astronomy, so it must be good <g>).

Battlestar Galactica

2007-10-02T11:12:00.000+01:00

I adore the new take on Battlestar Galactica. No kidding, I think it's one of the best, if not the best, SciFi TV series ever made.

Really, it's not just good, it's very good. Amazingly good. So good I don't know how to actually say how good it is.

In other words, I quite like it.

It's the start of a new month. Often, at the start of a new month, when I look at the monthly stats for my websites, I'll find forums out there who are hot linking to images that I host. This annoys me (mostly because the person who has done this is, in effect, "stealing" bandwidth) and I generally go and do something about it. I do, however, try and make a point of seeing what's going on first.

Now you're wondering what this has to do with BSG. Well, last night, I was checking the stats for my astronomy site and I saw some hits from the forums on SciFi.com (before now I don't think I knew they had any, but it makes sense). Thinking that it might be someone hot-linking I went to have a look.

I found that the links came from this thread. Seems that a bunch of people are geeking out over where the colonial fleet are "currently" located. Someone had even gone to the trouble of trying and find a map or two that relates to a chart that is seen in one of the episodes. And this is where the two things link up: Where do they go to get their chart? Here! :-D

Of course, within the universe of the show, there are massive problems with that. As someone in the thread points out:

This makes finding where they are even trickier... Unless the colonies were in OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, there's no way that they could possibly have the same star maps...unless the prop department just grabbed a bunch of star charts (which since they were two dimensional ground perspective maps would be virtually useless in interstellar navigation...) and told the actor to "point there"... Which once again worries me that the writers have no idea where they are...

(which had me laughing out loud for a number of reasons — props? They use props!?! On a TV show!?!?! <g>).

So, yeah, I got a bit of a kick out of that. A bunch of people geeking out over the finer points of a SciFi TV show (which I totally get, I totally get the geeking out thing) and they've done so while referring to something on one of my sites.

In my little geeky world I find that cool. ;-)

Google Sky Paper

2007-09-12T16:10:00.000+01:00

Via Ogle Earth, the authors of Google Sky have a paper about Google Sky on arxiv:

Astronomy began as a visual science, first through careful observations of the sky using either an eyepiece or the naked eye, then on to the preservation of those images with photographic media and finally the digital encoding of that information via CCDs. This last step has enabled astronomy to move into a fully automated era -- where data is recorded, analyzed and interpreted often without any direct visual inspection. Sky in Google Earth completes that circle by providing an intuitive visual interface to some of the largest astronomical imaging surveys covering the full sky. By streaming imagery, catalogs, time domain data, and ancillary information directly to a user, Sky can provide the general public as well as professional and amateur astronomers alike with a wealth of information for use in education and research. We provide here a brief introduction to Sky in Google Earth, focusing on its extensible environment, how it may be integrated into the research process and how it can bring astronomical research to a broader community. With an open interface available on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, applications developed within Sky are accessible not just within the Google framework but through any visual browser that supports the Keyhole Markup Language. We present Sky as the embodiment of a virtual telescope.

I suspect this might be the first paper I've ever seen on arxiv that I actually stand a chance of reading and understanding. ;-)

LovellCam for iGoogle

2007-09-07T18:25:00.000+01:00

Sort of following on from Astronomy on Your Google Homepage and More Astronomy on Your Google Homepage, how about a Lovell Telescope Camera on your Google Homepage (although, these days, it's called iGoogle):

If you use iGoogle and want to give it a spin just add this to your home page.

A plan for more openness

2007-09-04T21:16:00.000+01:00

I like where Stuart is going with this.

Contrails: Not always a bad thing

2007-09-04T18:19:00.000+01:00

Well, when I say "not always a bad thing", I don't really mean it. Of course they're a bad thing for most observers. But, sometimes, just sometimes, a contrail can put on a really nice display:

Almost a poor man's noctilucent cloud.

Horizons in Google Sky

2007-09-04T14:29:00.000+01:00

Just recently I got an email from Ryan Scranton, one of the developers involved with Google Sky. He was replying in relation to what Google Sky is, what it does, and what other people would like it to do (by the looks of things the point of the product does appear to be that it should be a platform on which other things can be built rather than it trying to be yet another planetarium).

One complaint about the product appears to have been the lack of a horizon. This isn't something that bothers me, I'd go use a planetarium if I wanted that, but it also appeared reasonable to assume that someone out there would come up with something akin to that at some point soon.

And then Ryan pointed me in the direction of Hey, What's That? (actually he pointed me at this blog entry on Ogle Earth). Stand alone that's a pretty neat application. I can imagine using it to try and figure out what I'm seeing in a landscape photograph, for example (well, okay, perhaps not a Lincolnshire landscape, it's a bit flat around here — perhaps for Scottish landscapes then? <g>).

But, here's the clever bit: the site also has the ability to export an actual horizon for an actual location and let you use it in Google Sky. Now, I'll be the first to admit that it's not as pretty as the view you get in something such as Stellarium, all you get is a grid for the sky and a line that marks the horizon (lumps and bumps and all), but for those who hanker after such a facility in Google Sky, it's a start. I think it's a really nice example of Google Sky providing a platform on which other people can build handy tools and applications. It seems to be a nice illustration of what I was saying the other week.

On the wider issue of what Google Sky does and doesn't provide: I'm told that the people behind it are reading what people are saying and they are very interested in the thoughts and ideas that people have been expressing. They also seem surprised (in a good way) that it's had so much attention and people have been checking out all sorts of details (and finding interesting little quirks).

So, if you've got ideas for what's missing, what's good, what could be better, would would be a nice addition, etc... post away.

Feel free to post them as comments here if you like.

Google Sky: Microwaves

2007-08-28T20:00:00.000+01:00

I've just been having a quick play with this KML file for Google Sky. It's the data from the WMAP mission, put together so that it overlays the sky (although the "Earth, Sky, there's no difference" quirk does mean that it can also appear as a "skin" for the Earth — which looks kind of odd).

I'm finding that having that image overlaid on the sky, especially when I dial down the transparency, is really helpful in understanding what some of the "hot spots" (for want of a better phrase?) really are.

SIMBAD, ruby, and a little bit of hacking

2007-08-24T18:30:00.000+01:00

Caution: Contains geekness

Following Al's suggestion in a comment yesterday, I decided to take a look at the name resolver web service. Never having worked with this sort of stuff before it took a little bit of reading (even more so since perl and me fell out a long time ago so I tend to use ruby when messing about with script-like stuff) but I finally got something up and running.

I've knocked together a very simply test script called aresolve. The only point of it is to take a name of something on the command line and print some information about it (in this case the RA/Dec and all aliases).

And it works:

davep@hagbard:~/temp$ ./aresolve M45 RA...: 56.8500000 Dec..: +24.1166667 Alias: M 45 Alias: C 0344+239 Alias: Cl Melotte 22 Alias: H 0346+24 Alias: [KPR2004b] 47 Alias: NAME PLEIADES Alias: NAME SEVEN SISTERS Alias: OCl 421.0

Sweet!

Yes, I know, to those who do this sort of stuff every day it's probably no big deal but, well, you know, when you try something yourself for the first time...

So, thanks to Al, I've got a solution. Now to go find a problem...

Straw Scope

2007-08-23T19:53:00.000+01:00

Via this Jodrell Bank twitter

The @LovellTelescope has been recreated in straw near Nantwich: http://www.snugburys.co.uk/sculpture.htm

How totally pointless and amazingly cool is that?

More Google Sky

2007-08-23T09:02:00.000+01:00

Yes, yes, I know, Google Sky is so yesterday...

Continuing on with the theme of the point and purpose of Google Sky, I see that even Phil Plait has taken the easy route to reviewing it and decided that it isn't as good as some venerable planetarium software. Well dur!

Like I said yesterday, I think it's missing the point to look at Google Sky like that. This is how you should look at Google Sky:

I've spent the afternoon poking around with the internals of the VOEvent broker and the KML documentation and I currently have a live network link (KML) connected to the broker. This means that any OGLE, Robonet-1.0, ESSENCE, SDSS, GCN or other event messages that flow across the backbone will be automatically published to Google Sky.

See where this is heading? See that it's about data and information sharing? See how it's not about trying to be yet another bloody planetarium?

The two big problems I see with the whole Google Sky approach at the moment are this: First, there's no online version. By that I mean there's no sky.google.com in the same way we've got maps.google.com. I think that's a serious downer. Providing a way of embedding maps into other sites is seriously useful and I think it's one of the really big wins of the whole Google Maps/Earth arena.

The second big problem I see at the moment is that, with Google Sky, the only extension service that appears to be available is via KML. What I've not yet seen in the documentation is any hint of any ability to "search" and find things as part of some presentation. If that doesn't make sense, consider an example:

Suppose I wanted to knock up a layer that presents my observing logs. As it happens, I don't record the RA/Dec of the objects I observe, ever. What I do record are names and IDs of such objects. So, for example, I know all the times that I've observed M13. To create a KML for Google Sky I need a way of converting "M13" into RA/Dec. From what I've seen of the documentation so far there's no obvious way of doing this.

Over in the Google Maps/Earth arena, this problem is covered. There's ways of, for example, turning a postal code into a lat/lon. So, in the Google universe, is there or will there be an API for turning Messier IDs or NGCs into positions in the sky? And, if not, why not?

All of which brings me to the point that does disappoint me about Google Sky. There's a project out that that has been addressing the above issues and has been doing it for some time. I first noticed it late last year. It's Sky-Map.org.

Now, at this point, I was going to point to a couple of examples of how you can do handy little things with the Sky-Map.org API, how it has the astronomical equivalent of the post code lookup facilities I was talking about above. Problem is, while Sky-Map.org itself seems to be up and running, the documentation for the API appears to have gone AWOL.

That aside though, let me give one example of how I do currently use Sky-Map and how I use it in a way that, from what I've seen of the documentation so far, you can't use Google Sky. In the markup I use for my observing logs I have a way of marking up a star. When I generate XHTML from that XML I simply turn that markup into a URL that takes the reader to Sky-Map.org, to the location of that star, and I don't even need to worry about the location of the star because Sky-Map.org does it for me. I only need use:

http://www.sky-map.org/?object=<star name>

For example:

http://www.sky-map.org/?object=TYC5575-473-1

This is the sort of stuff I need to make Google Sky useful. I don't care how badly it isn't Stellarium, Stellarium does a pretty good job of being Stellarium.

I want it to be like Sky-Map.org, with bells on, and other things I didn't know I needed.

The point of Google Sky

2007-08-22T17:31:00.000+01:00

Over on Twitter James of Backyard Sketches says this after trying out Google Sky:

closing the new version of google earth as I have already paid good money for stuff that does it better

I might be reading him wrong but I get the impression that he's not overly impressed by it. But, given the comment, I think he might be missing the point slightly.

Astrogeek says more or less the same thing:

As a tool that introduces some basic astronomy concepts, it’s cool. However, as a tool for use by anything more than the greenest amateur it falls short.

While it's obvious that Google Sky isn't (currently?) up to competing with much of the planetarium software that most amateur astronomers use (Stellarium, Starry Night, XEphem, Cartes du Ciel, etc...) I doubt that's really the point of it. As I see it, the one important thing that Google Sky offers is a common meeting ground for lots of little projects that people have yet to think up.

We've seen this with Google Maps, Google Earth and lots of other Google projects. The thing that Google tends to deliver best is an API or some sort of common platform that others can use to create useful things. From where I'm sat it would appear that this is the aim of Google Sky too.

For example, I can imagine that it would be easy enough for a keen astrophotographer to publish their images as a Google Sky layer in much the same way as I've done with my conventional photography. I can imagine Stuart providing a KML feed that works alongside his radio telescope twitter feeds. I can imagine using it as an alternative way of navigating an index of my observing logs. I imagine that there's people out there, right now, hacking on layers I've not even thought of yet (and probably never would).

In other words, it strikes me that if you're interested in sharing information, if you're interested in building and maintaining a community, if you're interested in trying to contribute to the popularisation of amateur astronomy, it's easy enough to see that Google Sky is potentially a very useful (cross platform) interface in which interesting things can be built.

I can't help but think that quickly looking at it and seeing that it's not as rich as some of the existing planetarium software is missing the point.

Google Sky: It's "Official"

2007-08-22T16:06:00.000+01:00

Finally Google have a page up for Google Sky.

The intro video is a bit cheesy:
At least the demo video isn't quite so bad:

Google Sky: A new star cluster is found

2007-08-22T14:07:00.000+01:00

I've had another quick play with Google Sky and just noticed something slightly amusing.

Back in January this year, while following a friend's lead, I added a Google Earth feed to my gallery of photographs. It's nothing that clever, it simply adds a little icon to places I've taken photographs at and you can click through to see each album.

I've got that feed enabled in my copy of Google Earth.

So, there I am, scanning around the sky, seeing what there is to see inside Google Sky itself, and I notice lots of little white dots. Not stars, but tiny little while icons, different from the coloured ones I'd noticed earlier on. I click on one and it splits apart into a handful of little white icons (the usual thing that Google Earth does if multiple items exist in the same place).

So I zoom in, and suddenly I realise what it is I'm seeing:

It seems that the feed for my photographs is still live when in sky mode. It's not obvious to me if this is a bug with my feed, or a bug with Google Earth/Sky. What I do know is that if I turn on the feed from my Panoramio photographs (to use a different example) I see the same effect (although I get thumbnails from there, not my own icon, obviously).

Google Sky: First 5mins

2007-08-22T12:09:00.000+01:00

Given that I still couldn't see any mention of Google Sky on the Google Earth website I decided to update my copy of Google Earth anyway and see if the facility was in there. It was:

A quick click on the button and, instead of looking at the Earth, I'm looking at the sky, with all the obvious constellations and asterisms marked.

The sky is littered with various dots of different colours (red for Messier, Blue for NGC, blueish swirl things for Hubblesite), when you click on them you get the usual Google Earth pop-up bubble thing with information about an object at that location.

As you'd also expect: pick a DSO, zoom in, and Google Earth downloads nice pretty pictures for that item.

Well, that's it for the first 5min play. It's pretty much what I expected it to be. I can't imagine that I'll be dropping my use of Starry Night for this any time soon, but I can imagine that this will be useful for other purposes. The first thing I want to look at is what's required for a KML file that can be used in Sky mode — I can imagine using this for a few things (and I bet Stuart will be looking into that pretty soon too).

Google Sky

2007-08-22T09:35:00.000+01:00

By the looks of things a Google tool some of us have been waiting for for some time is now available (or, rather, will be later today). I first saw this about ½ hour ago on the BBC TV news. There's also an article on the BBC website:

The constellations of Andromeda, Hydra and Vulpecula are now just a mouse click away for amateur star-gazers, following the launch of Google Sky.

The tool is an add-on to Google Earth, a program that allows users to search a 3D rendition of our planet's surface.

Sky will allow astronomers a chance to glide through images of more than one million stars and 200 million galaxies.

I've been over to the Google Earth site and can't find any evidence of it at all. I'm sure we were told a URL in the interview I saw with Ed Parsons but the URL, as I recall it, doesn't work. Then again I think he said something about Google Sky being released "later today". So I'm guessing that we're supposed to wait for the US to wake up first?

Doubtless the "heavyweight" astronomy bloggers (you know who you are ;-)) will be along soon to write more about it (checking my RSS feeds at the moment, nobody I follow has given it a mention so far) but, when I finally figure out what and where, I'll probably chime in too.

ROG Blog

2007-08-17T10:20:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Stuart I see that ROG now has a blog. That's an instant add to my RSS reader of choice.

Brian May: Astrologer

2007-08-06T14:01:00.000+01:00

Ahh, the good old Daily Mail, you can always rely on them to get a story totally wrong. From this story:

Guitarist Brian May was always known as one of the most famous stars of rock, which probably explains why the music legend has now taken up studying astrology.

Brian May, the lead guitarist from the rock group Queen, is gearing up to study an astrology PhD.

In case you've not got it right away, read it again, carefully.

Yes, the good old astronomy/astrology mix-up. Of course, this being the Daily Mail, they wouldn't see why this is a problem.

Best part is, even if they'd said "astronomy" instead of "astrology", they'd still have the story wrong. Far from "gearing up to study" the subject, he's (if I recall correctly) just recently finished and submitted his thesis and will be defending it towards the end of the month.

Space Signpost

2007-08-03T14:42:00.000+01:00

Via this thread on the SPA's BB:

Hi, I’m writing from a small market research firm in Bath. We’ve been commissioned by the Open University to conduct market research into the commercial potential for an educational astronomy-related product that’s under development.

The product is called ‘Space Signpost’, and it’s a desktop gadget that will physically turn and point to the exact location of any astronomical body. Here’s a link to the Space Signpost web site, which shows some of the educational prototypes to date; I can also post a sketch of some of the thinking for potential design of the commercial product, which is a much smaller desktop version, with specific features as yet undetermined.

There's not that much information about it at the moment, although it's an interesting idea if the large-scale versions are anything to go by. I can imagine that it might be a useful prop of you're the sort of person who gives tours of the night sky to groups of people, but I'm struggling to think of a personal use (other than the gadget-value anyway).

My response to the questions can be found here.

All seems well down at the Zoo

2007-08-02T15:22:00.001+01:00

I just received a copy of the first ever Galaxy Zoo newsletter. It opens with this:

To date, unbelievably, 80,000 of you have viewed and classified more than 10 million images of galaxies. Our initial target of having each galaxy (there are a million in our initial sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) viewed once is more than done, but we still need your help. Our NEW target is to have each and every galaxy classified by 20 separate users.

All that and, what, they've been running live for less than a month?

Impressive!

Hug the Bad Astronomer

2007-08-01T15:55:00.001+01:00

Go on, you know you want to.

Careful With That Saturn V Picture, Eugene...

2007-07-31T17:40:00.000+01:00

Via slashdot:

"Get ready to surrender your data sheets, study reports and blueprints of the Saturn V to stay in compliance with ITAR. Armed guards are reportedly taking down and shredding old Saturn V posters from KSC office walls that show rough internal layouts of the vehicle, and a Web site that is a source for various digitized blueprints has been put on notice it may well be next. No word yet if the assignment of a Karl Rove protege high up in NASA has any connection."

This has got to be a joke, right? Tell me it's a joke. The US can't be that stupid, can it?

Getting More Involved

2007-07-30T16:08:00.000+01:00

It's now well over 2 years since I joined the Society for Popular Astronomy and started to get involved, as a user, with their BB.

A little later on in 2005 there was a problem with the SPA website and, more by accident than design, I lent Jeff Stevens a hand with figuring out what had gone wrong. As part of that process I ended up being made an moderator on the BB and then, a short while later, got bumped up to administrator status.

After that I got to helping out with little bits of HTML hacking for the main site and even knocked together a couple of "fun" pages outside of the main content (first was the BB user map and, some time later, the astronomical event timeline).

Recently Jeff has had other demands on his free time and, sadly, found that he needed to step down as the SPA webmaster. It was suggested that I might like to step into the role. Well, I accepted and, as of last Saturday's SPA council meeting, it seems I'm officially an officer of the SPA.

It's quite exciting and daunting all at the same time. It also feels a little odd too. As a child I was a member of the Junior Astronomical Society (as the SPA was called then) and, to a young lad living in York, those grown-ups all the way down in London seemed very remote — now I'm one of them!

Jeff will be a hard act to follow (same goes for Paul Sutherland who was the webmaster before Jeff) and I hope I can manage to serve the society as well as he did.

Mars "Hoax": That time again?

2007-07-24T15:53:00.000+01:00

Ian is reporting that the Mars "hoax" is back again.

That explains something.

This morning I was checking the stats for my astronomy site and I noticed that an old Mars as big as the Moon post had reappeared in the list of referrers. I've not seen that post in my logs for quite some time.

Well, it's almost August again isn't it?