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Notes and News Notes and News From the President Meteor Section Director The Robotic Telescope I am pleased to let you know that at our Project April meeting, Council approved the ap- pointment of Dr John Mason as Director of Peter Meadows and the Meteor Section. John took over running Nick James gave a the Section in an acting capacity following short talk at Win- the sad death of Neil Bone in 2009 April and chester about the has now confirmed he is willing to serve as BAA’s Robotic Tel- Director for a period of three years. John is escope Project keen to encourage more active observers of (RTP). This offers a meteor showers to help the Section maintain 50% subsidy to its excellent observing record. members who wish During transfer of the Section records to to use the Sierra Stars John following Neil’s death, the most up to Observatory Net- date copy of the Section membership list work (SSON) re- was unfortunately lost, so if you (or your motely operated T Pyxis in outburst at about mag 7.9, imaged on 2011 April 17 local society) have submitted observations telescopes in Cali- using the SSON 0.61m Cassegrain telescope by Nick James to the Section within the past ten years, could fornia and Arizona (see text). you please send your contact details to John and provides advice and support to help you you enjoy your membership, it is likely that to make sure that he has you on his list − his get the most from the system. your astronomical friends who are not yet e-mail address is [email protected]. The RTP provides a unique opportunity members will also do so, so take advantage for BAA members to make observations of this offer while it is available. An applica- they could not achieve from the UK, either tion form was distributed with the April Jour- Another fine Winchester weekend because they don’t have suitable equipment nal and extra copies can be obtained from of their own or because the target is not the BAA office. This year’s Winchester weekend course at visible from the UK. The new project Sparsholt College was a great success with website at http://www.britastro.org/ record attendance and one of the best pro- robotscope/ contains examples of current Binders for your Journal collection grammes of talks in recent years. We heard projects and an application form. Peter’s about recent developments in professional presentation at Winchester, which gives a Council has approved the purchase of a sup- astronomy and received practical advice on good overview of the RTP, can be ply of commercially made looseleaf binders the latest observing techniques for amateurs. downloaded as a pdf file from the website. which will each hold 12 copies of the Jour- There will be a short feature about the event As an example of how SSON can be used nal. The binders are red with ‘Journal of the in a future issue of the Journal. The dates to obtain an observation impossible to make British Astronomical Association’ and the for 2012 are March 30 to April 1 so put from the UK, Nick James requested images BAA logo in gold on the spine, with labels these in your diary now. of the recurrent nova T Pyxis to be taken at for the relevant years. There is an image of SSON during the Winchester meeting. Notifi- the binder (though without the logo) on the cation had been received that T Pyx had just BAA web page at http://www.britastro.org/ gone into outburst for the first time since 1966 journal/images/jbaabinder.jpg. You will be and at declination −32° it is barely visible from notified as to their availability and price (ex- Come to C O A A the UK. (An attempt to see it visually by pected to be around £8.50 including postage noted variable star observer Gary Poyner and and packing) by e-bulletin and by adverts in (Centre for Observational As- others at Winchester was thwarted by low the Journal, so do look out for these. tronomy in the Algarve), the well- haze.) The false-colour image shown here, known astronomy centre in synthesised from the resulting SSON images Portugal. We provide dome- in three photometric bands, V, Rc, and Try out a Solar Stormwatch Ic,shows the nova at around magnitude V=7.9. mounted 0.3m and 0.5m telescopes This is another of the Zooniverse citizen sci- and we are close to the superb Al- ence projects which I mentioned in a previ- garve beaches. Your discount for recruiting a new ous article. The motivation for this project is B&B costs 39 euros with discounts BAA member that the two Stereo spacecraft observing the up to 25% for families or groups of Sun are sending back more data than the project Remember that we have a special subscrip- four. Ask for our colour brochure: scientific team can handle on their own.This tion discount available at the moment for data needs human interpretation, it cannot COAA, sitio do Poio, introducing a new member to the Associa- be done by computer, so the team want to 8500 Portimão, Portugal tion. For each new member you introduce engage the public in helping them recognise 37° 11' 29.1" N, 008° 35' 57.1" W up to a maximum of 5, your own annual and track solar storms as they head towards subscription at the next renewal will be re- the Earth. You can find out more about the Tel: 00351 282 471 529 duced by 10%. (This applies to astronomi- E-mail: [email protected] project, and give it a try yourself, at http:// cal societies also!) With subscriptions com- solarstormwatch.com/. http://www.coaa.co.uk ing up for renewal in August, now is the time to act to get a reduction on next year’s sub. If David Boyd, President J. Br. Astron. Assoc. 121, 3, 2011 127 Notes and News ‘Back to Basics’ in Macclesfield − a huge success! A rather cool and blustery day did noth- ing to dampen the enthusiasm of the many people who attended the ‘Back to Ba- sics’ workshop, jointly organised by the BAA and the Macclesfield Astronomical Society, held on 2011 March 5 at the splendid 19th century town hall in the centre of Macclesfield in Cheshire. It was apparent that the event would be well attended as the main lecture room was filling rapidly long before the official start time. Indeed some adjustments to the pro- gramme had to be made to better suit the much larger than expected gathering. The opening session entitled ‘So what astronomy can I do?’ was presented by the chairman of Macclesfield AS, Mr Andrew Greenwood. Mr Greenwood gave a broad overview of what objects can be observed in the night sky, espe- cially by beginners. BAA speaker Dr Stewart Moore then spoke on ‘What equipment & books do I need?’ Dr Moore certainly got it right during his talk Whilst the audience was being entertained little maths. The speaker enlisted the help of covering the basics like planispheres and the catering organisers were working their the audience to solve the simple equations star charts, as the BAA Sales stand had dif- magic as the attendance exceeded all expec- and several smartphone owners were seen ficulty keeping up with demand for these tations and had now reached 130 people. tapping away at their screens to provide John items later in the day. During the lunch break the traders’ room was with the answers. The final session was led Three BAA speakers covered how to ob- well attended, as were the posters and dis- by Lyn Smith, demonstrating the more prac- serve the brighter objects in the sky − Dr plays by Macclesfield AS, who brought an tical aspects of solar observing. David Arditti, talking on ‘Observing Saturn array of telescopes ranging from a 16-inch The feedback at the event was very posi- & Jupiter’, showed some nice images taken Dobsonian to a 66mm refractor mounted on tive on all aspects of the day including the from his own light-polluted observatory in a simple photographic tripod. enthusiasm and knowledge of the speakers West London. Martin Morgan−Taylor cov- After lunch the presentations were given and the overall organisation of the event. ered Lunar observing using various tech- as practical workshops. John McCue dem- Subsequent e-mail feedback has reinforced niques, and Solar observing was introduced onstrated his technique for observing and the positive result for both the BAA and by Lyn Smith who extolled the benefits of measuring double star separation by using Macclesfield AS. Maybe your society would warm daytime observing much to the amuse- two nice green apples drifting through a simu- like to be involved in a BAA ‘Back to Ba- ment of the audience. lated eyepiece field on a flip chart, and a sics’ event? − let us know! Tony Morris [[email protected]] The traders’ room was busy. Photos by Andrew Greenwood, Macclesfield AS. 128 J. Br. Astron. Assoc. 121, 3, 2011 Notes and News Aurora Section The turn of the year saw the start of a series of auroral displays between mid-February and early April which were seen from north- ern Scotland, those of mid-February and March being seen also from central Scotland and Northern Ireland. Solar activity seems to be very much in the ascendant and we are all now looking forward to more frequent and active displays next autumn and winter. Thanks to all who saw displays and passed on their reports and images.
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