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Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Colin Pillinger’s new book My Life on Mars is now available. It’s for anyone who was a fan of Beagle 2 – the British Interplanetary Society has just published Colin’s Autobiography including the complete FULL story of Beagle including all the bits some people didn’t want anyone to know.
PS If clubs have enough members wishing to buy the signed book they can order a box (8 copies) post and packing free.
My Life on Mars flier (pdf)
Stargazing Live
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010
Look out for the Stargazing Live programmes presented by Prof Brian Cox from 3-5 January 2011 on BBC2. The series coincides with a number of astronomical phenomena that audiences across the UK will be able to observe – including the alignment of Jupiter and Uranus, a partial solar eclipse and the Quadrantid meteor shower.
CADAS may be hosting associated events so keep an eye out here for further details.
AstroSouth Directory
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Issue 4 of the AstroSouth Directory is available online (pdf). It’s well worth a look.
Jupiter South Equatorial Belt Revival
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
BAA e-bulletin, 2010 Nov.10
Jupiter: The SEB Revival is beginning
A spectacular bright plume has appeared in Jupiter’s faded South Equatorial Belt (SEB), and is expected to become the source of spectacular disturbances leading to revival of the belt. The small bright spot was discovered by Christopher Go (Philippines) in an image which he took on Nov.9 at 12:30 UT. He announced it immediately by e-mail, and it was confirmed 11-12 hours later by Donald C. Parker (Florida, USA) and Gary Walker (Georgia, USA), when it was already brighter.
Don Parker’s images included infrared, ultraviolet, and 0.89 micron (methane) bands, and the new spot was amazingly bright in all of them, showing it to be a convective plume of cloud reaching to very high altitude. Indeed it was already visible in a methane-band image taken in poor seeing by A. Yamazaki (Japan) on Nov.9 at 14:14 UT. On its third rotation, Nov.10 from 09:00 UT onwards, images by many Japanese observers and by C. Go and T. Akutsu (Philippines) confirm that it is the brightest spot on the planet in all wavebands. Its longitude is L2 = 290 (L3 = 149). (The Great Red Spot is at L2 = 159.)
This plume has appeared inside a cyclonic circulation, called ‘barge B2′, which had been very dark a year ago, but turned white in 2010 May-June. (Details are in our reports:)
http://www.britastro.org/jupiter/2010report05.htm
and
http://www.britastro.org/jupiter/2010report08.htm [Figure 11].
Thus the former barge already comprised a white spot, but it was not methane-bright (up to Nov.7: Chris Go). It was still quiet on Nov.8 (Sadegh Ghomizadeh, Iran). So the much brighter plume was new on Nov.9. We had already suggested that the SEB Revival might begin with such a plume in one of the barges, as it did in 2007; the event is a striking confirmation of this hypothesis.
This rapidly brightening plume is so energetic that we can confidently expect it to develop into the SEB Revival. The SEB Revival is usually spectacular, so we can expect impressive and rapidly changing disturbances over the next 3 months, until the end of the apparition. As the SEB is so thoroughly whitened, and the outbreak has appeared in an isolated location, we can hope to see the phenomena displayed in their most complete form. Normally, disturbances continue to arise at the same source, and spread out in three branches: northern and central branches, prograding, and a southern branch, rapidly retrograding. If they develop as usual, both the central and southern branches could impact on the Great Red Spot in January. Observers should monitor all aspects of the spreading disturbances, but also monitor other longitudes, as a secondary source might also appear. Observers have the chance to make this the best-observed SEB Revival ever.
John Rogers
Jupiter Section Director
The Bradford
Saturday, November 6th, 2010
Comet found by amateur astronomers
Saturday, November 6th, 2010
Ron found this. Worth keeping an eye on and a good reminder of the contribution amateur observers make to the science.
BAA electronic bulletin
Comet 2010 V1
A comet has been discovered visually by Japanese amateur observers,
Kaoru Ikeya (Mori-machi, Shuchi-gun, Shizuoka-ken; 25-cm reflector at
39x; diffuse with some condensation; coma diameter 1′ on November
2.831 UT and 2′ on November 3.812) and by Shigeki Murakami
(Toukamachi, Niigata-ken; 46-cm reflector at 78x; coma diameter 4′
with a 2′ tail in p.a. 90 deg on November 3.801; moving eastward at
approximately 2′/hr). [IAUC 9175].
The comet was magnitude 8.5 at discovery by Ikeya, and 8 the following
day. It seems to be brightening rapidly, as visual observations by
Juan Jose Gonzalez on November 4.2 put it as bright as 7.6 in 10x50B.
This may indicate that it is approaching perihelion, or alternatively
undergoing an outburst.
An ephemeris is not yet available, but one can be generated at the
NEOCP at http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/iau/NEO/ToConfirmRA.html if
you select ObjX1. It is a morning object with an elongation of 33
degrees and moving south. It is in Virgo a few degrees from Saturn.
Further information will be distributed when the orbit is known.
Jonathan Shanklin
Bud on the radio
Thursday, October 28th, 2010
Jupiter photographer extraordinaire (and CADAS member) Bud Budzinski, having already been featured in the Western Gazette, is going to be on Somerset Sound at around 8.45am on Saturday 30th October. Make sure you tune in!
Astro imaging course.
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
The astro-imaging course we arranged with Ian King and Nik Szymaneck was held at the White Hart in Crewkerne on 25 Sept. About 20 people attended, some of whom had traveled a very long way to be there . Excellent presentations and lots learned! Ian and Nik are hoping to start running advanced courses soon. Courses are aimed mostly at deep sky imagers but lunar/ planetary bods would still get a lot from the lectures.
International Observe the Moon Day
Sunday, September 19th, 2010
We’re a bit late because it was yesterday, but September 18th was International Observe the Mood Day. So if you didn’t go out and have a look at it yesterday, make sure you get out tonight!
(Via Bad Astronomy.)
New website
Saturday, September 11th, 2010
Welcome to the new look website. We hope you like it!
Please leave any comments or suggestions you may have about the site below.