Society for Popular Astronomy

I have recently acquired a pair of Celestron 25x100 binoculars. Does anyone have any idea of a relatively cheap but workable bino. support for this heavy beast ? The problem with standard photo tripod and head is when you want to observe anything higher than about 45 deg. Not only does stiff neck s...

Nice, Mike - I know the name-loss experience only too well -- and I was thwarted for some time by my insistence on mis-spelling 18 across.

Nicely entertaining diversion (although too many anagrams made it easier than it needed to be), made slightly more challenging by the clues for 25A and 19D being reversed!

Re Armchair Astronomers: We'll probably never all agree on this (& so what? Diversity confers strength to a species! :D ), but I would really hesitate to exclude all but active observers from the definition of "(amateur) astronomer". To my way of thinking, someone who (for example) doe...

David Frydman wrote:Are armchair astronomers, astronomers?

Yes. But they are not observational astronomers.

Edit: To remove ambiguity.

Thanks, Dave. This is always very useful.

The Binocular Sky Newsletter for October 2013 is now published. This month's issue contains: * The usual stuff on good Deep Sky Objects to observe * Charts for comets ISON and Brewington * Variable Stars * Lots of lunar occultations of bright stars To grab yourself a (free!) copy, go to http://binoc...

Data Points:

Stargazer's Lounge has just shy of 30k members. Not all UK, but then not all UK amateur astronomers are SGL members.

The petition is now just shy of 35k votes.

Some of the radio coverage has suggested that there is already a lot of science and astronomy on TV. It misses the point that S@N is specifically for active amateur astronomers, probably because (a) most people probably haven't got a clue what an amateur astronomer is and (b) the BBC (& most med...

Clearly some one has high hopes of turning toddlers into astronomers! Quite so. The IgglePiggle astro-binocular was devised, entirely of her own volition, by my (then) 2-yr old granddaughter about 18 months ago. bella-binoc(sm).jpg (Yes, I know I lose Brownie-points for not teaching her to hold it ...

. Sorry, I don't know why one would use a red filter for observing the Moon. Having been given the hint by another amateur a few years back, I now use a Wratten #29 (Deep Red) as a lunar filter. I find it better than a ND. Others who have tried it have tended to agree. Possibly its effect is due to...

Several of us from Fordingbridge Astronomers tried to observe the event. The cloud teased us, then revealed the Moon seconds after the occultation! The reappearance was completely obscured. I did try just after 1900 BST, to see if I could spot Spica. I could not do so in 10x42 (sky too milky), but i...

Generated with Guide v9 Jupiter satellite events (all times UT) : (Filtered to include only those events where Jupiter is above the horizon and the Sun below -6°. Altitudes for approx 51°N 2°W ) (Using code tags to preserve formatting) Satell Event Date/time Alt SunAlt II : Sha start: 3 Sep 2013 1:0...

Generated with Guide v9 I have edited out the below-horizon transits and those for which the Sun is above -6deg while the GRS would otherwise be visible. Great Red Spot transit times (UT): 2 Sep 3:08 5 Sep 0:39 7 Sep 2:17 9 Sep 3:56 12 Sep 1:26 14 Sep 3:05 16 Sep 4:43 17 Sep 0:35 19 Sep 2:14 21 Sep ...

The Binocular Sky Newsletter for September 2013 is now published. This month's issue contains: * Nova Delphini 2013 * Variable Stars * The usual stuff on good Deep Sky Objects to observe * Four Asteroids * Lots of lunar occultations of bright stars (including a daylight occultation of Spica) To grab...