BBC The Cosmos – Episode 3

BBC The Cosmos – Tue 21 Aug, 7:30 pm – 8:00 pm 30mins The third episode in the series asks how far out into space and back into time could we see? Adam Hart-Davis travels across Chile’s ultra dry Atacama desert to the world’s largest telescope, the appropriately named Very Large Telescope, to discover how

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Annual Perseid Meteor Shower Night

At the beginning of the evening of the 12th August, I thought we we’re going to have cloudy skies as at around 9pm the heavens opened and it was raining heavily, but at around 11pm when I looked out the sky was crystal clear. I managed to stay up until 00:30am and then I ventured

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Free BBC “The Cosmos” Posters

There are 2 free posters accompanying the BBC series called “The Cosmos”. They can be obtained by telephoning: 0870 900 0312 Calls do cost, so get the bill payers permission, but it took me only about 1.5mins to record my details. Or you can go to the Open University website: www.open2.net

The Cosmos: A Beginner’s Guide New BBC Series

Saw Adam Hart-Davis discussing his new series entitled The Cosmos on BBC Breakfast TV this morning, from the clips it looks really good and a definite must watch for us astronomers. The series spans five weeks. First Episode of The Cosmos – Tue 7 Aug, 7:30 pm – 8:00 pm Life in the Cosmos Are

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Wow, what a bright night!

What a bright night sky, due to the full moon, which was incredibly bright tonight. The brightness of the moon literally blinded me when looking through either the viewfinder or an eyepiece. The brightness also knocked out a lot of the night sky and a number of stars became invisible. This brought it’s own new

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Moon Watch 22-07-07

I could not believe it another clear night. I decided to out a bit earlier tonight whilst it was still light and set up. The moon was out and a nice site in my garden. I decided to try and take some video of the moon using my Philips SPC900 to try and compare the

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Shooting the night sky with my Canon

The second clear night in a row – was this possible? Tonight (19th July 2007) I decided not to take out the telescope but just take out my new Canon 400D and my remote control and tripod. I had ideas of trying out the Bulb setting which everyone talks about and trying out some photography

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My Nights Viewing on 18-07-07

At last after what seems forever there was a clear night on the 18th July. The only problem was that because it had been raining earlier in the day the dew level was amazing. The telescope was absolutely soaking, and I was more worried for my laptop and new Canon 400D – but I had

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Philips SPC900 Webcam Arrived

Just a quick post to tell you all my Philips Webcam SPC900NC arrived today. It appears that all Pixmania products are shipped from France. Anyway I have managed to take the webccam apart and screw in the webcam adaptor, now I just need a cloud free night to give it a go and compare it

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Setting Circles – Good, Bad or Ugly?

As a very amateur astronomer I find it hard to locate objects in the sky, it could be me or my Meade Bresser 130N, but anyway, I tried polar aligning the telescope last night to Polaris and set the latitude to about 52 degrees, then reset the declination to 90 degress, or on my scopes

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