Most of the BASEG membership attended the Practical Astronomy Show held at the Stoneleigh Park show grounds on 23rd March 2024, luckily admission and parking was free.
My first impressions of the show was that it was smaller than I expected and this was because a couple of the industries well known vendors such as First Light Optics and Rother Valley Optics were unfortunately not present and I think the experience was lacking due to their absence 🙁 Of the vendors present there was good selection of items that we normally see at the other shows held during the year in the UK.
One of the group take interest in the Starlight Express stand where a prototype of their new active optics guiding (AOG) unit was on the table. The team told us that the unit was still currently in the design stage but hopefully would be available in the near future.
At the large Altair Astro stand which was always busy, the Pegasus Falcon Rotator 2 and Focus Cube 3 Universal focuser appealed to me in particular being a Pegasus fan. After some soul searching I decided to purchase them although I’m not yet sure which scope to attach them to !
One of the group bought an ZWO AM3 mount to replace their traditional mount which clearly was purchased for the BASEG Mount Teide (Tenerife) trip this coming July. Another decided to purchase the ZWO Seestar S50 which I’m sure will very likely to also make an appearance at Mount Teide !
Quite a few of us spent time at the stand hosted by the Webb Deep Sky Society. Here the amount of available publications was outstanding and as usual Owen Brazell was ever present. If you are into visual observing then it is highly recommended to join the society.
Webb Deep Sky Society Stand
The following week after the show there was the announcement by Pegasus of the NYX-88 harmonic mount which is billed as the smaller brother to the existing NYX-101 mount. This was a real shame that a unit it was not available to be shown by one of the dealers.
I did get to walk around most of the vendors and chat before we left but I forgot to pop over the brilliant W&W Astro to look for a spare dew strap, so I will need to do that online at some point …. sorry Barbara 🙂
An informative Youtube video of the show was published by Astrobloke where he chatted to the various vendors in some depth.
Astrobloke PAS 2024 walk around
A common comment amongst the group was the lack of adequate seating, especially given the amount of empty floor space in the venue as well as the long queue for refreshments. A shout-out should go to the vendors and organisers who took the time to travel to the venue as it make take some effort but especially to the site/security staff at the show who were polite and very helpful – thank you !
The group has just returned from the 2023 expedition to Mount Teide and the Parador. We have already booked next years trip back to the Parador and the wonderful staff who really our stay comfortable.
Following the introductions the group walked up the Greenwich Observatory Planetarium for a presentation. Unfortunately even though the resident astronomer did an interesting talk, the comfy chairs, lack of sleep and early start meant quite a few eyes started to close !
All the talks were informative ranging from Helen’s talk on her outreach efforts working with schools and enabling the students to submit their comet observations and as a result being cited on publications. The talks on Comet analysis, estimating magnitudes to the techniques and equipment used to perform spectroscopy on the coma, ion tail and dust tail.
The final section of talks was covered the charismatic Dr John Mason talking about predicting the future meteor storm intensity based on the earth passing through different dust clouds of past comet passes.
Professor Alan Fitzsimmons talked about the recent efforts and discoveries made on exocomets using new observatories like TESS and JWST.
Our gratitude goes to the BAA, Flamsteed Astronomical Society and the fantastic Greenwich Museum staff for providing us with a great day.
BASEG Members
Hopefully at some point in the near future the talks will be found at the BAA’s Youtube channel.
So BASEG have recently booked our flights and hotel accomodation for our Tenerife 2023 Expedition. We now have a grand total of 11 participants and as long as the world does not have a repeat of global ‘Human Malware’ epidemic or a deranged lunatic doesn’t try to blow the world up then we will going to Mount Teide for Astronomy/Astrophotography.
Quite of few of the group have been purchasing Harmonic Mounts (ZWO/Pegasus) in an attempt to reduce their travelling weight. It will be interesting to see what scopes are used on the mobile mounts …. interesting times.
After a hiatus of over 2 years due to COVID-19 and the ensuing pandemic, a group of 6 amateur astronomers have made it out to Tenerife. Alan Lorrain, Bob Trevan, Ian Piper, Mark Radice, your truly Dave Shave-Wall and newcomer Lawrence Saville.
Parador by night
Staying at the Parador hotel, situated just below the base of mount Teide at 2,158m (7,057 ft), with stunning views of the mountain towering an additional mile above our heads.
This trip was the first time more than a couple of us were staying at the Parador, due to not wishing to travel the hour up and the hour down the mountain every night and morning. Also we had been unable to make contact with the MONS telescope personnel at the observatory and the website no longer worked to allow bookings, so we were in need of accommodation, facilities and power. The Parador seemed like the perfect choice.
Relaxing during the day
We took a sensible flight out to Tenerife with BA at 1:25pm on Saturday, with their generous baggage allowance, most of us opting to fly Business due to the manageable cost which included an upgrade of the allowance from 1 x 23kg to 2 x 32kg checked luggage and the additional 23kg carry on plus an additional allowance of a laptop of 23kg! A couple of us including myself booked 2 further bags as we were carrying heavy equipment.
In hindsight we would look to travel on a different day next time due to the volume of travellers flying from T5. The BA lounge was great and a welcome retreat from the hustle and bustle of the concourse just outside. We took off slightly late and then arrived 4 hours later due to the headwind all the way and it was indeed a pleasant flight.
Nearly there … La Palma sighted
We then went through a quick security check including for our health check verification which we had completed on the SPth site prior to arrival and then waited for our bags. This turned into a lengthy stay of over an hour at the airport and then the realisation that some of our bags were still in London! So with slight annoyance and heavy hearts we set off to Cicar to collect our vehicles and head up the mountain.
The following day Lawrence and I took a trip down to the airport and were reunited with our bags sitting amongst the 50 or so that had made the trip that morning. The route back up the mountain is now our favourite with very few twists and turns and only 1 hour in duration. You take the TF-1 West out of the airport, stopping briefly at Lidl for supplies, then all the way up to Los Gigantes and then take a right, briefly following the TF-82 heading to Chio before turning left onto the TF-38. We follow the TF-38 for about 30km to the T-junction with the TF-21, turning right for the last 7km to the Parador.
Reunited with bags
Dinners at the Parador were superb, the selection was good, the quality amazing and the portion sizes were large. We were all fairly stuffed after 1 hour of eating by 9pm in time to setup in the evenings, which took place out the back of the hotel in the relative darkness by the indoor pool building.
(Dinner)
Textures of Chocolate
The Parador hotel could not have been more accommodating, they moved Bob to a new room to facilitate coming out of the lifts and getting to his room without the need to traverse the stairs. The laid out extension leads for us to various places around the patio to the rear of the hotel where the pool resides. They even turned off all the lights, closed curtains in the restaurant early and left various doors open for us to enter when we needed. They were simply wonderful!
Patio
So what was the the site like for observing? Well whilst we thought the southern horizon was going to be a problem I was observing Omega Centauri at +02 deg altitude at 11:30pm! So pretty amazing. There were various places to setup, most of us choose the corner of the patio area away from the pool building and where several piers were located.
Some setup down by the pool are also and again several piers were located there also.
BobIanAlanSkywatcher Esprit 120 ED
The piers can be booked, in case someone does turn up with a booking, through Klaus Peter Schröder, email Klaus-Peter at kps@astro.ugto.mx An interface plate needs to be made so the first visit would require taking measurements of the top plate to marry the interface plate to. Bob made up a plate before arriving for his Tak mount which worked a treat.
I now have good templates for each of the pier tops if anyone would like an interface plate making up … Bob
Time for some Solar observingSync on Venus for daylight observation after some sleep
The EM-2 and Sky90 was left tracking Venus so we could observe Venus during the day. We successfully did a meridian flip and reacquired Venus and then attempted to find Jupiter during daylight using the setting circles, but unfortunately failed but were able to re-acquire Venus.
The seeing was mixed during the week. The first night was average, the second night much better, nights, 3 and 4 were varied throughout the night. Some of use took 5min subs and others 30s or 2mins. What we found was taking shorter exposures allowed us to discard those frames where the seeing was poor and retain those where the seeing was excellent.
Omega Centauri
One evening we took a trip by foot to the the caldera where we used DSLRs to take skycape’s, a welcome break from either visual observing or telescope imaging. A variety of objects were seen and imaged and we had a lot of fun with the different rock formations. A favourite was the actually the church on the way back to the hotel.
Church
Many of us came sporting astronomy T-Shirts, Lawrence kept surprising us by showing off his cool ones we had not seen before. What a geek!
Lawrence is here!
Nights were long which was splendid and days were longer. This gave us time to process images, relax on the patio and have a beer.
Relaxing during the long afternoons
So would we recommend the Parador for an astronomy holiday? Absolutely! Will we come back for BASEG 2023? I think we know the answer to that 😎
Faint Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE as the sun sets at Lasham
I had seen a photo about a comet that had brightened and since tonight was the first clear night in a few weeks, it was a Friday and I was free, I thought I would venture out. The comet was C/2020 F3 NEOWISE and was very low, around +6.8 degrees altitude in the North at sunset, dipping down to +3.0 degrees around 1:30am and then starting to rise again.
I asked on the BASEG WhatsApp group where people would go locally with a good horizon and JBS (John Barrie-Smith) came back and said, come on over to my place at Lasham Gliding Club and see the comet from there. A flurry of messages and Lawrence, Gingergeek, Shane, Bob and I were now on for a night out!
We arrived about 9:20pm and all gathered at the gate to the airfield, we then followed John in convey around the airfield to the observing site for the night on one of the airfield pads. We then proceeded to setup and see if we could see the comet above the trees…..
To our surprise the trees looked high but due to the distance the comet was high above them. What follows are a selection of images from the nights observing, taken by myself (Dave Shave-Wall) unless otherwise stated. The comet can be seen in most of them.
Bob and Lawrence observingBob observingSelection of equipment and carsComet C/2020 F3 NEOWISEMy Esprit 120ED on Paramount MyT imaging comet almost horizontalGlider with Milkyway just to leftJupiterGlider and MilkywayComet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE by Gingergeek – 10s Exp no calibration FSQ85 & Atik460Lawrence observingGingergeek imagingGingergeek imagingComet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE and Noctilucent Clouds by John Barrie-Smith
The cooling fan on my Atik460EX mono CCD started to make a disturbing sound one Spring night during an imaging session setup. Given it is some six years old I decided it was time for a much overdue service.
I contacted Atik support via email and enquired on the cost of a service. The reply was quick, the estimate for a fan replacement/service was around £80 exc vat and shipping. I sent it via Royal Mail insured/recorded delivery and I was updated when it was received at the office. I was updated again when it had returned back from the labs in Portugal ready for delivery to me. This allowed me to make arrangements to be at home in order to sign for the parcel.
Atik support informed me that the failing fan had been replaced, a faulty temperature sensor replaced, the desiccant recharged and the Sony CCD sensor cleaned.
Previously the 460 struggled to reach 15-20℃ below ambient when the product literature states that the device should be capable of reaching 25℃ below ambient. This was a real problem during the recent summer nights where the CCD barely reached 0℃ at full power.
Once I was told the temperature sensor was faulty then suddenly made my past cooling experience made sense. I performed some simple tests in a 14.7℃ ambient temperature room via a PegasusAstro Environmental Sensor. At 100% power (1A single stage Peltier cooler) I was able to get the CCD down to -18℃. Now the CCD can run happily at 100% power all night without detriment but I set the cooling temperature to -10℃ and the power usage dropped to 73%, which was a ~25℃ delta.
All in and all I’m happy that the camera so is now back to functioning normally as it should. It is now in a better shape ready for the up coming BASEG trip to Southern France in September. I guess now is the time to create a new darks library for the various temperatures I’m likely to use.
Alan, Paul and I (Dave) are back off to the beautiful island of La Palma in April assuming the current Coronavirus 19 pandemic has not shut down the TUI airline we are using. We are booked to stay at Tobias’s finca’s at the lovely location some 4,000 ft altitude on the North-West of the island in a vineyard off the beaten track. Turns out to be great fo self-isolation!
I will be taking my large 4″ binoculars, due to weight restrictions by TUI whilst Alan and Paul will be taking travel scopes for astrophotography. During the visit we have 2 finca’s and I hope to get some more objects ticked off my list from the Night Sky Observing Guide (NSOG) book I used last visit doing visual and recording some of my observations as drawings with my new set of pastel materials for my birthday.
So after much debate and research at the end of 2019, we finally settled on a group expedition to the south of France. The destination is Massaguel which is just South-East of Toulouse.
Chateaux at Massaguel
We have rented an entire Chateaux within the grounds of a private estate to sleep all 10 of us in separate rooms!
one of the many rooms
Below is the website address
https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p10085221
We have arranged car sharing for the trip, some of us are going to travel down over 2 days and also back over 2 days also. Some are going via other destinations where they are lucky enough to be retired. I am personally taking my new Tesla Model 3 on the road trip and will be going via the Tesla Supercharger network with my friend Shane as a co-driver. We will stop overnight at a hotel with a supercharger on the way down and a different one on the way back. We are also going to travel via Eurotunnel.
Car route for Tesla
The location affords us the ability to take as much kit as we can carry in our vehicles. This helps as we have more recently been affected with tighter and tighter restrictions on luggage capacity on planes.
My own setup required 4 x 25kg suitcases so going in the car is great. The only other way is to fly British Airways and pay for 4 x luggage or to fly business with them and get 2 x 32kg as standard and upgrade for the rest.
A view from the front
The chateaux looks beautiful and is owned and run by a local couple. It resides in a nature reserve and has acres of grounds with enough space for us all to spread out. In conversation with the owners we can run extension cables which we will need to bring with us, outside from internal sockets to run our equipment all night.
Outside
The internals of the chateaux affords us many rooms to gather in, meet, cook, hang out as well as sleep
We are all really looking forward to the trip and hope dearly that by the time September comes, the current Coronavirus 19 pandemic is over.
An impromptu invite from Mark Radice to head out to Salisbury Plain and observe, tempted me to pack the car with me travel scope. This would be the first time I had taken my new travel setup out and so it would prove to be both a shakedown for the scope itself and a practice for me to see if I could remember everything.
Small travel scope
So with the car full I headed off to Salisbury Park, the service station on the A303 to meet Mark and Lawrence.I arrived slightly early due to good driving conditions, Mark a short while after then Lawrence in his very large Land Rover with his new special Ursa Major number plate.
Nice astronomy plate!
A short chat and then we headed off to Salisbury Plain near the shooting range. On turning left into the range we headed up and out onto the plain with its wide open and pleasantly hight with great horizons, parking up in the dirt and dusty car park again on the left.
I started to setup around 9:30pm, however 3 other friends of Marks turned up and pleasant chats ensued. Over the course of the next 2 hours I setup the scope from scratch, chatted about astronomy to my new friends and tucked into some brownies from Mark to celebrate his birthday and some coffee from Lawrence which was very nice indeed.
Setting up
Mark setup his fantastic bino chair which looked like the gunner position of the Millennium Falcon, which I did not get chance to use unfortunately due to the time it then took to setup.
Bino Chair
Meanwhile on the setup scope front, I polar aligned ok and then connected to the QHY168C CMOS camera to EZCap on the Mac. I could cool the camera down and take a preview, however I could not use the Capture page to take an image, it just came out black. I tried everything including applying different histograms. Anyway, I sort of gave up and even restarted the software to no avail.
However the most channelling part of the evening was the Flares being used by the army, the tracer fire and the convoy of trucks speeding past us several times and kicking up dust.
