The VAS website explains it, so to save me attempting to do so, here are the details in full from the VAS website:

“Vectis Astronomical Society (VAS) is pleased to invite you to:
The Public Launch of
The Isle of Wight Dark Sky Initiative
Newport Parish Church Centre, Town Lane, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 1JU
7.15 pm on Friday 24th May 2013
Bob Mizon – a senior member of the British Astronomical Association and Campaign for Dark Skies, and Martin Morgan-Taylor – board member of the International Dark Skies Association will give a presentation entitled
“Dark Skies – Dark Future?”

This will be followed by a short presentation outlining details of the VAS application for International Dark Sky Status for the Isle of Wight

Our Island is already well known for its dark skies, as celebrated each March by the “Isle of Wight Star Party” attended by around 100 observational astronomy enthusiasts and professionals. This event has featured in recent editions of Sky at Night and Astronomy Now magazines.
Professor Bill Martin of the University of Hertfordshire Centre for Astrophysics and Atmospheric Instrumentation Research has operated a dark sky monitoring station on the Island for several years, and has stated:
“with the data we have from the Isle of Wight you potentially have the best combination of dark skies and clear weather in the UK.”
Most types of pollution are being tackled but, so far, light pollution seems to have had little attention even though it can affect all our health and well-being.
VAS is committed to reduce light pollution on the Isle of Wight and believes that achieving International Dark Sky status for the island through the International Dark Sky Association will:
Strengthen the island’s tourism industry Improve the well-being of the population Reduce environmental impact Enable further education and scientific research projects Recognize our Island as one of the most environmentally friendly and enjoyable places to be on earth.

Please send letters of support to:
Isle of Wight Dark Skies Initiative, 35 Forest Road, Winford, Isle of Wight, PO36 0JY”

Please support VAS’ initiative and go along, if you’re on the island that evening or, if not, please send a letter of support to the above address, thank you.

On the Wight have also got an article (much the same wording).

Now, for the clouds to sod off, so we can actually see something…

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If you look at the foot of the page you’ll see a drop down menu, titled ‘Blog post archives’, this will make it easier to find posts from previous months and years.

2012 seemed to be a diabolical year for astronomy, the weather was useless, particularly through the summer months, with August in particular being very cool and wet, and I did very little from May onwards. However, looking at my clear sky spreadsheet, which I’ve kept going through all that time, paints a somewhat different and not quite so bleak picture which is somewhat surprising. I guess another factor in putting astronomy aside for a while has been burnout; simply put I’d been thinking of and doing nothing but astronomy for the previous few years so, combined with the cold, miserable summer we had, a fairly cloudy autumn season and a very cold and snowy winter, it’s not surprising that I put it aside in favour of my other interests for a while.

Anyway, this is what I have so far (ignoring the latter half of 2009, as I only started doing this in July of that year). For the purposes of this, I consider ‘partly clear’ to mean 50% or more of the sky to be clear; these are ‘observationally usable’ nights, in that I can at least do something.

2010 – 116 totally clear nights (32%); 54 partly clear nights (15%); Total = 170 (47%)

2011 – 104 totally clear nights (28%); 52 partly clear nights (14%); Total = 156 (43%)

2012 – 101 totally clear nights (27%); 48 partly clear nights (13%); Total = 149 (41%)

2012 was a leap year and 29 February was partly clear and not cloudy.

It looks like a downward trend, we’ve gone from 116 clear nights in 2010 to 104 in 2011 and 101 last year, but as this is so far only representative of three complete years, it’s too early to say whether this will continue. Obviously I hope it won’t but a decade or, preferably, two of this unscientific method of mine may reveal more.

As I type, the weather is quite chilly, windy and showery, not unusual for early May but I sincerely hope we get a reasonable summer this year. Even an okayish summer will be better than last year.

Because it was well-placed, I decided to observe galaxies in Leo Minor. The conditions were chilly, 4°C, with humidity of 77%, no clouds and no wind and I used my 18″ f/4.3 Dobsonian reflector with TeleVue 22mm Panoptic (90x) and 9mm Nagler (219x).
Over the course of three hours I observed NGC 3611 (in Leo and I’ve seen it before but it was easy to find and a quick way to get back into finding stuff again!), NGCs 3381, 3395 and 3396 (very nice pair), 3430, 3424, 3413, 3158, 3160, 3163, 3161, 3159, 3150 and 3152, all in Leo Minor. The last four were faint little buggers, especially 3152 which was the faintest of the lot.
Finally I took a look at Saturn, which looked nice with its rings wide open, Cassini’s Division easily visible and at least 5 moons on display. There was also a bit of detail on the disk, including the shadow of the rings before moving on to NGC 4565, one of my all-time favourite DSOs and then finishing with a look round that busy area of Virgo with Markarian’s Chain before the fog came up and I packed up.

Nice to be observing again!

After 11 months of crap and cold weather plus a bit of de-motivation on my part, my observing stuff has been found and gathered together and the 18″ scope is out awaiting assembly later. I am hoping to knock off a few galaxies in the usual constellations this evening but I am also hoping it doesn’t cloud over. It shouldn’t do, according to the forecasts, but BBC/Met Office forecasts should be taken lightly. Anyway, the weather is predicted to go downhill after tomorrow.

It’s TSP week this week, I wish I was there but, from what I’ve heard the forecast isn’t looking promising for them either. Hopefully they’ll have a good week but they’ll have their work cut out to beat last year, which was epic.

I was quite pleased with these shots – especially as they were the only two in focus!

Comet PANSTARRS, 14th March 2013. Canon EOS 6D w/100-400mm lens at 285mm, 8000 ISO, f/6.3, 0.3 sec

Comet PANSTARRS, 14th March 2013. Canon EOS 6D w/100-400mm lens, at 130mm 8000 ISO, f/6.3, 0.4 sec

]]> http://www.fjastronomy.com/comet-c2011-l4-panstarrs/feed/ 0 http://www.fjastronomy.com/isle-of-wight-star-party-2013/ http://www.fjastronomy.com/isle-of-wight-star-party-2013/#comments Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:49:30 +0000 FJA http://www.fjastronomy.com/?p=2567 The 2013 Isle of Wight SP, which finishes tomorrow, was held between 7th and 11th March. I had planned to stay at Brighstone again but things didn’t work out and, as it happened, it’s probably just as well as, for the first time the weather has not been kind to the star party-goers. I had to work Thursday, Friday and Monday at my temporary job, so it wasn’t worth staying there, but I did pop over on Saturday afternoon to visit and see my friends.

I took a few photos of the site, with my small Pentax bridge camera (I am currently DSLR-less because I’ve part-exchanged my 7D for a 6D, which is full frame, simply because I want to get into taking more wide angle astrophotos, landscapes and maritime shots and the 6D’s high ISO performance is supposed to be nothing short of superb. I am hoping it arrives on Tuesday).

Despite the grotty weather, people had a good time and even managed to do some limited observing through sucker holes, plus some solar observing when the sun put in the occasional appearance. I was sorry I couldn’t stay longer than the couple of hours on Saturday but there’s always next year.

Hopefully the weather will clear this week because we have a bright comet to look forward to, Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) will be visible in the west after sunset. Wednesday is looking good and I hope the new camera has arrived by then.

Winter lasts as long as winter lasts, but this winter seems to have been interminable, probably because 2012′s summer was so poor, and there have been no real opportunities to observe. I hope 2013 will be much better. We can hope, anyway.

Highlights were the IoW Star Party in late March. As usual this was a superb event and we were rewarded with quite a bit of observing time. Also the Texas Star Party, my fourth, in late April. Every single night was clear right through, if cold, and I did more observing that week than I did all year. I managed to do most of the Astronomical League’s Globular Cluster program during TSP, using a 10″ Orion dob I borrowed from San Antonio Astronomy Association. More importantly, though, I caught up with my friends, which is more of a reason to go to TSP than just the observing.

Lowlights – well, 2012 was completely rotten as the weather took a turn for the worse in April and stayed that way. Next time a water company official or a government minister states we need rain and asks for water measures to be put in place, will someone please gag the twat?

The deaths of Sir Bernard Lovell and Neil Armstrong, in August, and Sir Patrick Moore, in December, meant it was a particularly bad year in that respect, too. On a more personal note, I was sad to hear of the passing of John W. Smith, one of the founding and most long-standing members of Vectis Astronomical Society. Although he was more into astrophotography, John was an influence on me in my first years in astronomy and he will be sadly missed by everyone at VAS.

I also got made redundant, with no sign of anything new on the horizon as yet, so I am hoping 2013 will be a better year!

At the age of 89, someone’s passing is never a huge surprise but still a sad loss.

R.I.P. Sir Patrick.

2012 has been a bad year for the fields of astronomy and space exploration, with the deaths of Neil Armstrong, Sir Bernard Lovell and now Sir Patrick Moore.

I decided to experiment and try to get a shot of Orion with the ship’s forward superstructure and bridge in the foreground. One shot came out and I am quite pleased with it, considering that I was using no tripod, no cable release and I was leaning the camera on one of the spare propeller blades which are kept on the public area of the ship’s bow. Oh and I’d had four pints of Stella Artois by this time, so it’s a miracle even one photo came out (cocktails came later!).

I am fed up with this and am this >-< close to saying ‘fuck it’, packing it in and selling my stuff. My interest is at an all-time low thanks to the crap weather and encroaching light pollution and, if I had the money and means to do so, I would emigrate. I think that if I encounter any more smug Australians I’ll end up being arrested for assault – if it’s so good, why don’t you piss off back there instead of telling us we live in a dump? We know we live in a dump, so there’s no need to rub it in.

The summer was dreadful, apart from 8 days in May, a few nice days in June or July and the first week of September when we did get some good weather and reasonable temperatures. It’s rained almost constantly and, because the ground is saturated, there’s a lot of moisture when it does clear.

Oh, and I am now redundant, with not much else in prospect, which doesn’t help.

The view from the dining room window this afternoon: