Society for Popular Astronomy

I haven't seen it yet, but last night the BBC did a 30 minute tribute programme about Sir Patrick, it's available on BBC iPlayer until Tuesday 18th Dec in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01psbjf/Sir_Patrick_Moore_Astronomer_Broadcaster_and_Eccentric/ The synopsis reads: A look back at ...

....However the appearances of 'celebs' likes of Brian May and .... I agree with you with some of the others but Dr Brian May, who colaborated in recent years with Sir Patrick, whose PhD is in astrophysics. Yes he was part of one of the most successful bands of the 70s and 80s but that's not the re...

I came on here for the first time in quite a while to post about the passing of Sir Patrick and then I have to read the vitriol in this thread. Whether you liked him or not, now is not the time to spout off in that manner. Any visitors to this site and any budding astronomers would read and be put o...

Around the time of Jesus Polaris was at about 80deg, luckily for the mariners who first traversed the Atlantic it has been close enough to the true pole to use as a simple navigational aid. Polaris will get closest to true north in the year 2104, when it will be about half a degree away.

The only worrying thing is that when it does explode, anywhere between today and the next couple of million years, the amount of cosmic radiation that will head our way could be quite devastating is considering its relative closeness to us. Whether it be a threat to the biology of Earth is one thing...

I was wondering whether anyone would be able to point me in the direction of any legislation that covers street lighting that spills onto private property? I am in dialogue with my local councillor who is rather helpful but unfortunately he has been stone-walled by Hertfordshire County Council, who ...

Thanks Eddie, As I said in my first post, imaging isn't high on my priorities at the moment, primarily due to additional cost of the equipment required. The 3" Newtonian I have now would be useless for the job hence my desire to get a larger telescope now. Once I can see deep sky objects and le...

Thanks everyone for your help. I fully understand that in the case of Dobs one can have a larger mirror than a Newtonian for the same cost but the mount is quite off putting; and as I suspected, not suitable for imaging unless motorised. I did see the scope that Colin is selling, and whilst it looks...

I forgot to mention that some of these scopes come with a red dot finder rather than a finderscope. My current kit has a finderscope, which I'm used to, but would I be right in guessing that a red dot finder is simply a laser? If so is it any good on a perfectly clear sky?

It's been a while since my last post, so here's an extra long one... It's about time I had a new scope, the 3" reflector that I've been using up until now has served it's purpose and now I want to got to the next level of viewing. The 3" scope was excellent for a beginner and gave stunning...

It's calculated by using the Lorrentz transformation: T(Earth) = T(Rocket) / [sqr root(1 - [V(Rocket)/V(Light)]^2)] However if V(Rocket) was impossibly going at the speed of light, the equation would return infinity. So if the rocket travelled at 99% of c, then T(Earth) would be about 7 times that o...

Today there was an annular eclipse, for quite a while now I would like to learn more about how eclipses are calculated. I know that the Saros series allows when they are calculated within a cycle with a period of 18.3 years and that after each of those cycles the path of the moon's shadow slowly mov...

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8440392.stm Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope has detected its first five exoplanets, or planets beyond our Solar System. The observatory, which was launched last year to find other Earths, made the discoveries in its first few weeks of science operations. Althou...

From what I think I read somewhere I gather most of the delegates had gone home when the IAU got round to considering Pluto (?) Yes that is true according to the book, also at the time some members tried to cobble together a sub-clause and the whole thing got over complicated. For what it's worth, ...

I received this book (title in subject line) at Christmas and I can very much recommend this quite enjoyable read. The author, Alan Boyle, mentions in the forward that like a number of astonomers he too agreed that Pluto should be relegated without giving it much thought. It was after sitting down a...