Monthly Archives: February 2013

Simon Parkin at the New Forest Observatory on near miss night

Simon Parkin and the Meridian Weather film team – together with satellite transmission van – did a live broadcast from the New Forest Observatory on 15/02/2013, the evening of the near miss flyby of the asteroid.  Here are a couple … Continue reading

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Quasars with proper motion – Houston we have a problem!

I have long sided with Halton Arp regarding quasars.  Like Halton Arp I also believe that quasars are not undefinable objects at extreme distances radiating unimaginable power – but are objects much closer to us who exhibit an odd redshift … Continue reading

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Abell 1377 in Ursa Major

Using half-hour subs on the mini-WASP array this is the result of imaging the Abell 1377 region of Ursa Major – together with some advanced processing techniques courtesy of Noel Carboni.  A negative B&W image is shown in order to … Continue reading

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What the NFO is – and is not

The New Forest Observatory is a private observatory run by Prof. Greg Parker from his home in Brockenhurst, Hampshire.  At the current location it is not, unfortunately, open to the public.  However, if the current plan to change the Sodium … Continue reading

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The New Forest Observatory with an Orion background

Too much water vapour in the air tonight for any serious imaging – but you can still see the stars – so I took out the DSLR.  Here are the two New Forest Observatories with an Orion background and plenty … Continue reading

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ISS pass tonight

So it was completely clear ALL DAY and I therefore had both observatories powered up and ready to go before dark.  Soon as it gets dark we have wall-to-wall cloud.  This is now well beyond any sort of joke.  Anticipating … Continue reading

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The mini-WASP configuration 17/02/2013

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Mini-WASP array bolt on goody

Although I cannot use the Altair finder as a guidescope as intended, I can still bolt it onto the top of the array with the video camera.  I can then use this for the occasional polar alignment check, or to … Continue reading

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Asteroid 2012 DA14

Well although I was clouded out last night I still managed to image asteroid 2012 DA14 through the thinnest part of the cloud 🙂  A single solitary one-minute exposure as the asteroid was moving through Draco at 22:51.  The planetarium … Continue reading

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Wall to wall cloud

Well as predicted – the only way I’m actually seeing the little blighter is via the live feeds.  Sky clear while Meridian weather did their live piece from here, even got the mini-WASP array focused up and ready to go … Continue reading

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