Tuesday June 15 Pedros 2010

Although not that clear a very well attended evening - numbers upto 30
Still dodging the clouds we saw
The Moon 3 days old
Saturn
M4 near Antares (Scorpius was an excellent sight rising in the SE )
Omega Centauri
Southern Cross and the "Jewels"
Alpha Centauri
The Double Star in Scorpio ( Graffias )
Trifid Nebula ( the steam from the teapot rising over the Palm trees! how exotic!)
Apart from the Society Dobsonian I bought my small 60mm refractor along - for a few photos of the moon which came out well

Nick tried to shut the meeting down at 9:pm but with little effect - a very busy evening

Tuesday May Pedros

Not sure why we turned up and why it was attended as well as it was!
Possibly because the very bad run of bad weather on these seeing nights.
Typically bad on the Society night - brilliant the following evening as was the case in April

Spent about 1 hr trying to see the gap between the clouds

Peter bought his refractor along - and then tried to sell it- nice scope but too expensive for me though as have no real need for it at the moment. Buyer needs a good mount for it too

18 March Pedros 2010

The last meeting on the 16th Feb was cancelled due to bad weather.

However this meeting proved much more successfull though not in large numbers . An additional crowd was supplie dby the Fine Arts Society who were also using Pedros - though our meeting had much less wine!

So as the evening grew dark we initally saw Venus and the Moon. Visiblity was clear though slightly hazy . As the evening progressed some cloud started to come in but otherwsise viewing was acceptable.

Apart from out old Friend the Orion Nebula (M41) we also saw a number of Globular and Open Star Clusters : M42 near Sirius , the fairly large open cluster M35 as discussed in the newsletter in Gemini and my current favorite the Salt and Pepper Cluster in Auriga M37

We also saw two satellites but in particular a nice pass of Lacrosse 5 at Mag 2.8 (predicted)

For a double star we chose Castor which is a tight double of only 4 arc seconds- it was nicely resolved in the 10 inch Dob though

We then spent some time trying to identify the constellations to the south of Canopus - in particular groupings in Carina and Vela which misled some members in thinking we had the False Cross.


After most memebers had made their excuses and drifted away we then saw Saturn, which was the highlight of the evening. Thats the way it goes folks!

Sunday 17th January 2010 Pedros Castle

This was the first general meeting of the year open to the General Public.
We have had two members only evenings since our last public meeting - these were held in an alternative dark site further North. On both occasions good dark skies were seen though the second included cloud cover!

On Sunday however we had a typical tropical clear but hazy sky. Jupiter was seen just before Europa disappeared behind the planet iteslf at around 07:15 PM An Iridum Flare satllite was also seen just after (Mag-1) .

The Orion Nebula was particulary fine tonight allowing high magnification.

As the evening progressed a high amount of dew became more apparent on the view finders as well as a fair bit of "tent" dodging due to the the new Governers visit there the previuos Friday The Andromeda nebula and M41 were not "bagged" though we did manage to see the "Salt and Pepper " nebula in Auriga.

At around 8:30 PM Mars was spotted in the East - some surface features were observed but no sign of any of the polar caps.


Much talk is of the new Meade SX 200 telescope just been donated to the Society , We need somewhere to put it!

Geminids last Night

Fantastic count - over 30 in a few hours with some big fireballs too . It seemed to peak before midnight (11:30PM?) but I also went out at around 6 AM this morning to see another fireball. Its probably the best display Ive personally seen from the Caymans in my 4 1/2 years here On-Island.

November 19th 2009 Pedros Castle

Seeing Conditions:
Started clear with lovely sunset however after dark there was substantial background haze.
The new spot lights in the Castle grounds didnt help either. As the sky darkened a wonderfull large white owl swooped across too.

Jupiter: We were lucky enough to find a predicted transit of the red spot on Jupiter timed for 7:30 PM local time, however there was much debate on whether we could actually see the spot through the 10 inch Dob and haze!

The 4 satellites were clearly seen but as the evening progressed Io disappered behind the planet itself

M31 : Andromeda Galaxy seen easily tonight but a spirited attempt to find M33 failed - too much haze. The same fate for the Ring Nebula in Lyra.

We settled for more obvious objects - The Pleiades and Alderbaran rising in the east.

We saw two unaccounted for satellites but a predicted Meteor 1-4 rocket at Mag 3.7 almost overhead wasnt visible at all Two random meteors were spotted both in the South

Albereo went down well too- a red and blue double star marking the head of Cygnus the Swan.
At one point the laser beams describing the constellations members resembled a scene from Star Wars

Next month promises our old friend Orion


We are starting a new "drive" to recruit memebers- three people officially joined tonight
Plans are to introduce special evenings and newsletters for members - which will not be free after the new year. If anyone is interested in astrophotography let me know at cpcooke@aol.com

Late Fall 2009

The Web/Blog site has been "resting" for a while - a combination of bad weather, and personal matters, however with a new camera and a DIY project involving mirrors (!!) its time to start writing again

Over the summer (July) there was a solar eclipse- Heres a few photos (see at the end of this blog) -I know a few people from the Island made it to China too on seperate "expeditions: but we havent had chance to meet up yet.

Septembers Meeting almost didnt happen due to the bad weather but we set up in the car park instead. Peter Hughes bought along his small refractor and we had excellent views of Sagittarius inspite of the light Lesson... always go into the Castle Grounds

Also In September Richard and I had an attempt to run an Astronomy Course at the College- but the minimum threshold of required attendees failed to materialize.

Octobers meeting was cancelled due to bad weather (though the following evening was very clear)

Since then we had the Orionid Meteor Shower on October 21st - I got up early at around 4:30 AM and saw one..... No moon but again weather wise it was hardly clear.

So as we approach Novembers meeting the skies are shall we say mixed- fingers crossed

Three photos of the Eclipse on July 22 2009 taken from Hangzhou China , most of China was in Cloud and we were lucky. Even here a few hours later we had torrential rain !

For the eclipse itself the skys cleared but it still had a fine haze. At totality the Corona was not visible to any great extent . The photos were taken through a "modest" 60 mm refractor and a small Canon Powershot attached to the eyepiece.

It was certainly the darkest eclipse I have seen due to the length of the eclipse itself - the longest this Century (over 5 minutes!)