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International Year of Astronomy 2009

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Professional Societies

Blogs, Information, Links and Archives

This is where you will find the latest blogs and information posted onto the website together with archive material from the past. If you have material that could be featured here please send it the the webmaster.

Please click on any of the following links:

LAS News

New Telescope CCD Camera

Phil Norton acquired the new camera and brought it over for a brief test on Tuesday 22nd December. We pointed it at M42 and within a couple of minutes and a bit of messing about we had the following picture.

Obviously it's a bit out of focus but considering the time we had available it's not bad at all. We will continue to work on mastering the new technology during our Tuesday night sessions.

Phil's second try on the 16th January 2010 is below. Much better and much more to come, i'm sure.

M42 by Phil Norton of Lincoln Astronomical Society

Enceladus.

Moon of Saturn

Why has everyone started talking about it?

Saturn's tiny, icy moon Enceladus has recently been visited by NASA's Cassini orbiter on several very close approaches - once coming within a mere 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the surface. Scientists are learning a great deal about this curious little moon. Only about 500 kilometers wide (310 miles), it is very active, emitting internal heat, churning its surface, and - through cryovolcanism - ejecting masses of microscopic ice particles into Saturnian orbit.

Evidence that Enceladus retains liquid water. From BBC News

Hunt for Life on Enceladus. From 'Wired Science'

Is there life on Enceladus? Read the 'Time' article

HubbleCast

The European Homepage for
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

Vew the latest videos and pictures from Hubble.

International Year of Astronomy

Blogs, Links and Stuff

The Dewey Blog

Galaxy Zoo Blog

Sandlins To Blog ot Not to Blog

Portal To The Universe

Black Holes and Astrostuff

Professor Astronomy

The JODCAST
from Jodrell Bank
and The University of Birmingham

Jodcast

A twice-monthly podcast about astronomy. It includes the latest news, what you can see in the current night sky, interviews with astronomers and other things we liked the sound of. It is created by a bunch of astronomers from The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank (UK) for anyone who is interested in things out of this world.

10th October 2009

International Year of Astronomy Celebrations

Lincoln Astronomical Society 50th Anniversary will be held on
10th October 2009 as a part of the IYA celebrations.

It will be at St Georges Church Hall, Eastbrook Road, Lincoln (subject to change for circumstances beyond our control)

Admission will be by Ticket Only as the hall has limited capacity. To obtain your tickets please contact the secretary David Swaby
by phone on 01522 531591 or email david.swaby@lincolnastronomy.org

Tickets are £10 each, children under 18 years £7.50

The timetable for speakers are:

10.15am to 11.15

Paul Money, local Amateur Astronomer, Broadcaster and Writer.The subject of his talk will be announced nearer the date.

11.45am to 12.45

Mark Hurn of the University of Cambridge. The subject of his talk is ‘Failed to find Neptune’

14.00pm to 15.00

Peter Rae of Cleethorpes Astronomical Society. The subject of his talk is ‘Panoramic Moon’.

15.00pm to 16.00

Dr Andy Longmore of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. The subject of his talk is 'Astronomical Adaptive Optics (Taming Atmospheric  Seeing)'

16.15pm to 17.15

Professor Barrie Jones of the Open University. The subject of his talk is ‘Pluto Sentinel of the Solar System’

17.15

Closing Address


The backup speaker will be Michael Czajkowski of the Open University and member of Lincoln Astronomical Society.


Liquid refreshments will be available all day.


17.30 - 20.00

Following the closing address at St Georges Church Hall, the Observatory will be open for visitors to make use of the telescope and other facilities. As this will be staffed by non paid volunteers your donations will be gratefully received.


IYA Public Open Evenings

We are also planning numerous public open evenings at the observatory during 2009 to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy:

On 25th July the observatory will be open for ‘Moon & Sun’ observing from 2pm to 4pm.

On Friday and Saturday 30th & 31st October and 27th & 28th November the observatory will be open for a 'Moon Watch'.

Please come and join us for these events.


Visit the IYA Website at:
www.astronomy2009.org

 

14th August 2008

By Alan Dyer

Click here for the full blog

Lunar Eclipse

Eclipses come in pairs. Two weeks ago (has it been that long already?!) I chased a Total Eclipse of the Sun. Thousands of others did as well, traveling to the far ends of the Earth to stand in the Moon’s shadow, to witness the Moon cover the Sun. This Saturday millions of people will be able to watch the Moon itself disappear, into the shadow of the Earth.

The occasion is an eclipse of the Moon, when the Full Moon lines up directly with Earth and Sun, and passes into our planet’s shadow. Our three worlds were precisely aligned on August 1 to produce the total solar eclipse. Now, two weeks later the orbital angles are still lined up well enough to produce another eclipse, this time with the Moon on the other side of its orbit. Instead of it being between us and the Sun, blocking the Sun from our view, it is us, Earth, that is in the way. Earth will be blocking sunlight from hitting the Full Moon.

11th August 2008

Vern's Weblog

Click here for the full blog

Jupiter and Ganymede

Animation from about a half hour before red spot transit last night (11:57 pm) to half hour after. Images acquired with Celeston Nexstar11 with Phillips Toucam 840K at cassegrain focus. Mostly cloudless sky but only fair seeing, about 5/10 at start but deteriorated to maybe 4. Animated gif created from 24 videos (1800 frames), each stacked and aligned with Registax4.

North up and east to the left in the image more or less. Shadow from Ganymede is the black spot in the north of rotating to the right. I think red spot jr is there too, off to the lower right of the great red spot. Appears to be another one to the lower left of the GRS, not sure what that is, I’ll have to do some checking.

Transit of Venus 2004 On Tuesday 8th June 2004 the visible surface of the Sun was crossed by the planet Venus. This is a very rare event and was last seen in December 1882. The page has pictures of the transit, click on the pictures for larger images.
Building an Astrograph This article describes how to make an Astrograph that can be taken out into the country and used on a car roof, or any flat stable surface.
Space Station Viewing Times The International Space Station can sometimes be seen fom Lincoln. It appears as a bright star, moving across the sky from West to East, travelling faster than high flying aircraft and usually brighter than most stars.
Testing Telescope Optics Testing is usually carried out on a bright star at night. Before this is done, several conditions should be met.
Current Solar Activity Realtime graphs of Solar Activity including X-Ray Flux, Electron Flux, Proton Flux, Magnetometer and KP Index.