four or five planet evening

Clear skies, cold still weather: good seeing.  So, about half past six this evening, we looked for the planetary alignment.  We saw (with the naked eye) faint Mercury close to the still faintly pink horizon, spectacular Venus dominating the western sky, bright Jupiter near the zenith, and red red Mars a little further round.  Binoculars made them brighter, but still point like, except for Venus.  I could convince myself I could see Venus’ phase, but it was so bright, it was hard to be sure.

Later, 8:30-9pm, it was much darker, and we used the big telescope.  Venus and Mercury had set by then.  Jupiter was lower down, but still visible: we could see all four Galilean moons, and some dark bands on the planet itself.  Mars by then had moved close to the zenith.  Last time we tried to view it at that angle, we couldn’t see through the finder, so we bought a 90 degree adapter for it at AstroFest a few weeks ago.  It works!  We got to see the red planet as a disc.  Beautiful.

We had a quick look at the Pleiades, as they were in the vicinity.  My god, it’s full of stars!

We then used the autofinder to try for Uranus.  We could see a bright object near the centre of the field of view.  It could have been a very small disc of a planet, or just a point source of a star.  I choose to believe it was Uranus.

So, definitely four planets, and maybe even five.

relaxing train

While waiting for my train from Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh, for the first leg of my journey home, I was amused to see the destination on this other train:

view from a hotel window

I'm in Glasgow, visiting some colleagues at the University of Strathclyde, for our new LoCoMo project that started after I retired!  Yesterday afternoon we had a good chat about a paper (from a different project) that has been stalled since pre-Covid times, and figured out how to solve the issue.  I have been tasked with writing the new section we agreed on, as I now have the time!  Today we talked about the new project.  Tomorrow I'm looking forward to a lab tour, to see what the experimentalists are up to in quantum computing with Rydberg atoms (we are doing some vaguely related theory, but looking at cool kit is always fun).

Meanwhile, this is the view from my hotel room window (nice hotel: very quiet!)

scanners upgrade in vain

 Last night, my Windows 11 machine did an update, to version 24H2.

Today, my Canon scanner didn't work.  After switching it off and on again, and unplugging and replugging the cables, I resorted to Google.  Apparently this is a "known problem" (since December 2024!), and the solution is ... undo the upgrade.

Start > Settings > System > Recovery > Go Back

I now have version 23H2.  And my scanner works again.

new toy

AstroFest has a lot of exhibitors.  Last year we bought a small SeeStar telescope, and a dome for the big telescope we bought back in 2020.  This year we were a little more restrained.  

We had recently been looking at Jupiter with the big telescope; we had also tried for Mars.  But Mars is high in the sky at the moment, which means the telescope is almost vertical.  We have a 90 degree adaptor for the eye piece, but not for the finder scope.  It was too difficult to limbo down to look up through the finder, so we didn't see Mars.  Thanks to this year's AstroFest, we now have a 90 degree adaptor for the finder, too.

A quarter of a century ago, August 1999, we viewed the total eclipse of the sun.  For that, we bought a Lightline Solar Projector, a clever cardboard tube and lens contraption that allowed us to project an image.  We have been using it since to view the sun, but it's not particularly good for seeing sunspots, and is getting a bit battered.  We have a solar filter for the new SeeStar telescope, which gives us a spectacular view, but takes a while to set up.  While wandering around the exhibits, I saw a variety of "solar binoculars", binoculars with built-in solar filters, so they can be used to directly view the sun (and nothing else!)  I was debating whether to get a pair, when one of the other attendees struck up a conversation.  She said she had bought a pair previously, and had spent many a happy time watching the sun.  She convinced me, so I bought a pair.

The weather forecast is cloudy for the next week.  So I'll have to wait to try them out!

view from a hotel window

Another year, another AstroFest.  We stayed at a different hotel this year (next door to the previous one), in the hope it would be quieter: it was!  But the view wasn't quite as interesting:

Two days of fascinating talks again, on aurorae (the ones last year were some of the most southerly viewable ever), Mars, forthcoming eclipses, astrophotography (the quality of "amateur" photography today is streets ahead of professional photography several decades ago), black holes, observatories on the moon, star surveys, the UK Space Agency, star formation, the Antikythera Mechanism, exoplanets, and Enceladus.  Something for everyone.

And the exhibitors had bigger than ever telescopes on offer, including one mount with four large telescopes on it!  A bit beyond our budget, but nevertheless, the shape of amateur things to come?

The train down (Thursday afternoon) was 12 nearly empty coaches.  The train back (Saturday evening) was eight packed coaches: we had to stand.  Two different people offered me their seat: I must look older than I think I do!  I politely (I hope) declined: I had after all been sitting down all day at the event.