Society for Popular Astronomy

late summer evening flight of a hot air balloon at a range of 5 miles plus.
Bob

Interesting and informative web site Nigel, I really like the deep sky notes.
Kind thoughts, Bob

The "simple" stars are much neglected and its nice just to pick them and look, you never know what will be revealed. Bob

Dear Cliff, you've opened an interesting thread. Lowell came to astronomy latish and he was not really regarded as a "professional" observer by some others (even though his mathematical ability was not in question). Lowell saw what he so much wanted to see when he looked AT Mars, whereas, ...

Hello Cliff, Haven't seen the NS article but I think there is also a suggestion of another planet in the Proxima data - more work needs to be done to be sure. As far as canals go, the only experience I have of them is being locked in a loo next to the Leeds-Liverpool once upon a time! Bob

Germany's "Der Spiegel" is reporting the unconfirmed discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting the habitable zone of our nearest stellar neighbour, red dwarf Proxima Centauri. The anonymous leak alleges the discovery was made at the ESO. The ESO is refusing to comment, although the new...

Sorry, the bit I recall reading about what started Peter's early interest was not in the above forums, it was (embarrassingly) in the Director's Profile page of the SPA Lunar Section!
Blob

Brian, there's a couple of threads on Cloudinights and Stargazerslounge - in one of them a writer includes info about Peters early interest and activities in astronomy.
Kind thoughts to his family, Bob

Yes quite so, M54, the present situation reminds me of the Michelson-Morley experiments in the late 19c to "prove" the ether - there just HAD to be a spatial medium in order to propagate light, according to the physics of the day. It was very puzzling when they discovered that the speed of...

Cliff, I can guarantee that camping in Scotland with a keg of whisky will produce a measurable deviation from the vertical, though not necessarily in a plumb line. I had a similar experience in Snowdonia in my youf. Bob

Mike, coincidentally I was observing variables last night (8/8/16) with 10x50 binocs and around 21.55 UT what could only be a Perseid slashed through the 5 degree field that was centred around the Cepheid eta aquilae. I estimate mag approx -1, colour white and red hues. Like yours the direction and ...

Brian, please can you move this to the Astrophysics section? Thanks
Bob

Cepheid variable stars have proved to be important "standard candles" in estimating spatial distances. Now they are being used to plumb the depths of time as well. Recent findings indicate a huge volume of space near the galactic centre that is devoid of cepheids. The implication is that n...

Many thanks for your comments chaps. Cliff, I think your approach to all this ccd stuff is very practical - your iconic image of the Heath-Meredith spot on Venus comes up a lot on internet searches. David, I had not noticed the faint parhelic ray until you mentioned it. Where halos etc are concerned...

Hello David, unlike Cliff, I am not skilled in photography or ccd stuff; the camera bit on my wife's Samsung pad is a simple mobile phone type lens and has obviously introduced some distortion in the image. I do remember that there was an outer secondary halo at maybe 40 plus degrees when the phenom...