January 2010
- Observing evening 26th January 2010
It wasn't a promising start to the evening with only the Moon visible through the clouds. But everybody perked up as Mars started to peak through the ever expanding gaps. In the end we had quite a good night with lots of lunar and martian views.
A highlight for me was helping one of our members view a crater that was originaly name after his grandfather (now Crater Macdonald). It was a bit tricky to find as it is only 8km across and there were few landmarks to guide us to it, but I think we got it in the end.
A few brave souls tried for M42 and succeeded in seeing the trapezium, but the nebula itself was hardly visible.
So despite a poor start we ended up with a successful evening with a good range of 'scopes present from a 12" dob to 6" SCTs and Newtonians.
November 2009
- Observing evening 17th November 2009
We had a reasonable nights observing for the November observing session despite the patchy skies. Members got to see M31, M15, M1, M57, M37, M38, Jupiter and Alberio. Unfortunately, none at high magnification thanks to a combination of wind and poor seeing. We also managed to get one member better acquainted with their scope.
On a less series note I discovered that between them society members now have one of each kind of scope (i.e. refractor, newtonian & SCT) using Celestron's goto mount. And we're agreed that the skyalign feature is not much good, but the basic 2 star alignment works well.
- November's main meeting
Mr Kim Ward is head of the Space Engineering and
Technology Division at Rutherford Appleton Labs, and his
talk was about RAL’s involvement in designing and building
scientific instruments to be carried on craft in Earth orbit and
beyond.
He gave a very detailed account of all the variables that
have to be borne in mind when sending an instrument
package into space:
- The location of any space junk that might cause
damage.
- Is the Sun very active? Will its radiation damage
equipment? Did you know in 1972, in the period
between the Apollo 16 and 17 missions, there was a
long spell of high solar activity that would have killed
any crew who went up at that time? Not that we
knew at that time.
- Small is best. Minimise everything and mill out holes
in any aluminium or carbon fibre structures in order
to reduce weight.
- Power expenditure needs to be kept as low as
possible. Mobile phone technology has helped a lot
with this.
- How do the materials react to a vacuum or high ultraviolet
radiation? Certain plastics and lubrications can
emit gases which could damage optics or machinery.
Once you have your instrument planned you have to build
it and test it, so you need to create a suitable space
environment and carry out vibration checks to check it
will survive the launch. Then check adjacent instruments
won’t interfere with its function or that dirt or other
outgassings don’t get into the works or onto the optics
when it’s finally deployed. RAL has a space test chamber
which can simulate vacuum conditions with a temperature
range of -170°C to +150°C. RAL also has a vibration
tester which can create various types of vibration.
Our after-tea speaker was our ever-intrepid Bob, who
went to the grand opening of the Hanwell Observatory,
north of Banbury. We were treated to views of rather
unusual telescopes in the open air, including a 30-inch
John Wall folded refractor (I had to check my notes!) and
a 12½-inch reflector whose support looks like three
beehives one on top of the other. There is also the 30”
Millennium reflector for public use. It has a platform you
stand on so you rotate with the telescope as you look
through the eyepiece.
Christopher Taylor owns the ground and has some good
connections when it comes to getting grants for public
equipment. He got some commercial telescopes and
wants to use CCDs on them but the location is dubious in
its suitability (as well as there being no power source
anyway). Bob amused us with lots of slides of trees
blocking the views and the small bit of southern view he
did find will give you superb views of Banbury’s light
pollution, two miles south….- that’s if you haven’t fallen
down one of the banks by the path in your half mile walk
from the car park. Well done Bob for surviving to tell the
tale.
October 2009
- October's main meeting
We have a brand new acquisition for our library, namely ‘Fred
Hoyle’s Universe’, a very impressive tome donated kindly by
our last guest speaker, Dr Jane Gregory of University College
London.
Her talk was based on her biography of him, but what he
achieved is way beyond the scope of just one evening’s talk.
It seems he was quite a quiet rebel from even his early days as
a schoolboy in Yorkshire, when he used to skive off from
school and spend his time reading up on astronomy in the
local library. Grammar school and Cambridge University
(1936) followed and he was still a poor attendee, especially
when he found out that his heroes Arthur Eddington and
Ernest Rutherford were rather disappointing in real life.
It says a lot about the man that he still managed to graduate
and went into radar development when war broke out. He
ended up in the USA looking at radar installations but again
got into trouble for gallivanting around astronomical
observatories instead.
He later came back as a lecturer in Cambridge and got into
research on how the heavy elements could be formed in the
universe. He believed in a steady state continuous creation,
and he himself coined the name ‘Big Bang’ for the theory that
had been put forward by the American George Gamow in
1946, namely that the universe had a sudden and
explosive birth. Hoyle was actually being derogatory, as
he thought that had to be nonsense!
The later part of Hoyle’s life is quite intriguing:
- His BBC radio series on the nature of the universe
earned him the 1950 title of radio broadcaster of the
year.
- In 1965 he set up an Institute of Theoretical
Astronomy in Cambridge in order to stop people from
wanting to go abroad (yes, the ‘brain drain’ was a
worry in those days too). And the radio evidence
from that time (Penzias and Wilson’s famous cosmic
microwave background) from that time, made him
accept that the Big Bang theory was probably correct.
- In the mid-1970s he joined forces with Chandra
Wickramasinghe with theories on the building blocks
of life originating in space dust. (‘Lifecloud’ 1978)
- Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) was knighted in
1972. He also wrote a lot of fiction, the first of his
books being ‘The Black Cloud’ (1957).
- Larkmead School open evening 10th October 2009:
Abingdon Astronomical Society helps out at Larkmead School's open evening.
Larkmead school held their open evening for prospective pupils and their parents on the 8th October this year. As part of the IYA2009 the school has received a telescope from the SPA and they invited AAS to come along and help them set it up and show prospective pupils what could be seen through the scope. AAS members Chris Holt, Owen Brazell and Ian Smith attended.
The scope turned out to be a 70mm refractor on a simple Alt/Az mount. It was setup between the music block and the science block so with all the lighting around not a lot could be seen! However we pointed it at Jupiter and spent the next 2 hours showing the planet off to the students. There we're lots of oohs and aahs and "cool" as this was the first time many had had a chance to look through a telescope.
We had a steady stream of pupils and parents. My particular favourite was when a little girl, who'd hadn't had any success with telescopes before, suddenly saw Jupiter and 3 of its moons. Overall a successful evening.
September 2009
- September's main meeting
Grant Privett lives in Wiltshire but still associates himself
with Shropshire AS, and his own title to his talk sounds much
better than what we put in the programme: “Going deep, or,
in pursuit of the stupidly dim”. In other words, imaging deep
deep-sky objects.
He is not ashamed of admitting that he likes the thrill of the
chase – he chooses the deepest deep sky objects because (in
his words) everyone’s done the bright ones and someone can
always do them better than you anyway.
He then goes into how to do it:
- Keep your equipment simple – telescope easy to stabilize
and align. You don’t need fancy optics, as the dimmest
objects don’t need better than one quarter wavelength.
- Chair and small chart table. Lots of insulation layers and
cavity soled shoes essential. [Ed. Anyone heard of cavity
sole insulation?]
- Watch out for stray lighting. Keep 90 to 120 degrees
away from the Moon and other lighting, which can get into
the scope otherwise, sometimes through the focuser. (Even
reflections off phone lines can intrude – he’s getting really
serious here!)
- Keep the optics clean and well-collimated.
He then discussed actual picture taking and stacking images in
order to remove background noise. Pixel mapping removes
the effects of dud pixels on your CCD screen. Grant
recommends stacking at least around 100 images to get the
best noise cancellation. He admits to stacking 1600 images
once (sadly he didn’t say on what).
He uses a 250mm reflector and regularly gets down to
20th mag. One of his shots was of dwarf galaxy Leo 1,
whose brightest star is 18thmag. Another favourite of his
is Gyulbudaghian’s variable nebula, not just because he
likes the name, but because you can see the nebula change
from week to week. (I googled it and it belongs to the
very young variable PV Cep.). He has also imaged dwarf
planet Eris (UB313, 19th mag).
Just like a typical adrenaline junkie, he is never satisfied,
and one day he hopes to get down to 23rd mag, because
that was the limiting magnitude of the great Mount
Palomar telescope.
April 2009
- Solar and Lunar Viewing Sessions
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2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, held to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's use of a telescope to study the night sky.
As part of the celebration, Abingdon Astronomical Society held a free solar viewing day in conjunction with the Museum of the History of Science. Society members set up telescopes outside the Sheldonian Theatre, in Broad St, Oxford, between 12pm and 3pm on Saturday 4th April 2009 so that the public could safely view the Sun and see dark spots on its surface, known as sunspots, and huge flares, known as prominences, ripping off the edge of the Sun.
In the evening Sunningwell Village Hall, just outside Oxford, was the venue for a talk about the Moon and a chance to view it through society telescopes. Read more about our Solar Viewing and Moonwatch events and see pictures here.
Both events were well-attended by locals and tourists alike.
Actually it is a little-known fact that it was Oxford’s own Thomas Harriot who made the first drawing of the Moon through a telescope in July 1609 several months earlier than Galileo.
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August 2007
- Blewbury Show

Several society members attended the Blewbury Show and took along telescopes to gives attendees views of the Sun, Moon and Mars.
July 2006
- Oxford Museum Talk
- Members gave a talk one Saturday afternoon at the Museum of Oxford in St Aldates. This complemented the Museum's summer exhibition on astronomy and spaceflight.
April 2005
- NASA Award
- Abingdon Astronomical Society has received a certificate from NASA to mark our contribution in spreading the knowledge of astronomy in the community in Oxfordshire.
14-17 October 2004
- Kielder Star Camp
- Five members of the society drove to Kielder in Northumberland for the annual star camp there. Despite heavy rain and some tents being flooded there was one five-hour long clear patch on the Saturday evening during which time the Milky Way arched spectacularly overhead.

26 June 2004
- Society visit to the Herschel Museum, Bath
- A society outing was organised to the William Herschel Museum in Bath, from where Sir William Herschel and his sister Caroline made many astronomical observations and discoveries, including that of the planet Uranus in 1781. Approximately 10 members travelled to Bath on a rainy summer's day, and enjoyed well over an hour visiting this caringly maintained Georgian house.
8 June 2004
- Venus Transit
- Many of our members took the opportunity to witness this day what had not been seen by anyone alive at the time - the first transit of Venus across the face of the Sun to occur for over 180 years. Several members opened their gardens to others to view the transit through a telescope fitted with a solar filter, or used to project an image of the event on to a white card. Venus took several hours to cross the face of the Sun, so there was plenty of time for observations and photographs. And for once we were blessed with clear skies for the event.

- Venus, mid-transit, photographed by Andrew Ramsey using an Olympus C220-Z digital camera down the eyepiece of the society's 6" Newtonian reflector fitted with a Baader Astro-solar film filter.
3 September 2003
- Public Lecture on Mars, Sunningwell Village Hall
- This must have been our most popular public lecture yet. More than a hundred people turned up at Sunningwell Village Hall - we really did have to trun people away! After the showing of the SPA's presentation on Mars, the planet itself rose on cue and all visitors had a chance to observe Mars through one of the telescopes that members brought along.
31 August 2003
- National Astronomy Week 2003
- For NAW, Abingdon Astronomical Society laid out a stall in Abingdon's
Market Place on Saturday 30 August. A table top display of Mars-related
images and general astronomy information attracted much interest from
shoppers and passers-by. Guidance on viewing Mars was provided, together
with information on the Society and its forthcoming public meeting about
Mars on 3 September. Robin Scagell's Galaxy Picture Library postcard
commemorating the Mars approach was a popular purchase, and the freely
offered educational leaflets, generously provided by PPARC, were widely
taken. On this sunny day, however, the biggest attraction, was the solar
filter-equipped 100 mm refractor. At times, queues formed to observe the
sunspots, with guidance provided by experienced solar observers.

- Photo of the NAW stand in Abingdon,
photographed by Brian James.
8 February 2003
- Grant Win
- Abingdon Astronomical Society is pleased to announce it has received
a grant of £4,756 from the National Lottery's Awards for All
programme. We plan to purchase new presentation equipment, such as a
video projector, to enable members and visiting speakers to show digital
images of the heavens and provide computer aided presentations to the
public. In addition, the society will be able to cater for those members
and visitors who are hard of hearing with the purchase of a radio mike
for use with an induction loop. The grant comes just in time for the
Society to use the new equipment for this years National Astronomy Week
in August. Club chairman, Bob Dryden, said, "This generous award
will help us introduce local people to astronomy with vivid images of
planets and distant galaxies".
