Society for Popular Astronomy

No goddam s*x please, we’re British.

Jeff, Thanks for posting your uplifting image of the conjunction. Bob and Lesley Steele

Swept up this evening in the 16x42 finder at 1615 UT. In the 90mm refractor at x82, low across the road and to the right of bare winter trees in a twilit sky. Jupiter is very bright with a couple of satellites visible. Saturn is dim and chromatic with the ring coming in and out of focus. Yay, wife a...

Nice one: It should be called the Christmas Tree! Bob

These 60s Japanese refractors usually have decent objectives, though the eyepieces are tiny and basic by today's standards aren't they? At any rate I am not surprised an old zoom ocular doesn't give a sharp projected image. But before you set it aside, consider that the Sun is low at this time of ye...

The latest Utopia fantasy.

Carry the torch, Skybrowser, a lot of us are getting too old for that kind of meteorthon.
Bob

Apparently the tin pan can’t do radar Brian, which was a big thing with Arecibo, for imaging NEAs etc. Arecibo was more versatile. Bob

Hello Skybrowser, I project the Sun with a 90mm refractor stopped down to 60mm at F15. Please excuse my lack of certainty (I’m not into the technicalities of sunspot identification - I just record what I see) but I did project the Sun yesterday and recorded a group of 4 spots amid faculae near the f...

Interesting image! It’s similar to the view, resolution-wise that l have had in my 90mm refractor this opposition. Thanks for posting this. Bob

2020 Dec 14, 2255 to 2310 UT. One geminid seen, mag 0.0, red, near zenith, travelling se to nw. Bob

New Farnley, south-west Leeds, 2020 Dec 13, 2334 to 2352 UT, looking east and south, 3 Geminids seen: one south mag 0.0, one ssw mag minus 1.0, one east through Cancer maybe (hard to position because no naked eye stars in the area due to artificial light) minus 5, white fireball, one second ending i...

Hello, interestingly there is quite some uncertainty about our old friend's distance, size and luminosity these days: however, the variability is something we can all see with the naked eye. I made a more reliable estimate this evening at 2120 UT. Compared with Pollux, which was at the same altitude...

Hello, my estimate for Betelgeuse at 00.30 UT on 13 Dec 2020 is Procyon minus 1 or 2 steps: an odd impression of it being somewhere between the two. I know that’s a daft statement but with Procyon at mag 0.34 I would put Alpha Ori at 0.5. Other, better estimates would be welcome!
Regards, Bob

Michael, this author also wrote an interesting book on the history of astronomy in the search for stellar distances: it’s called “Parallax”. I enjoyed it. Bob