A Nerd's Eye View of London

So I recently went on a trip to London to visit the blog-famous Joanne! It was a brilliant trip, and Jo very very nicely put me up in her house for the few days! While I was there I (obviously!) fully took advantage of the awesome science-nerd activities that are available in London... and there are a lot of them!

(Jo works on the top floor of the tallest building in Canary Wharf! The view is amazing!!)

We went to the Dickens Inn for dinner when I arrived and I found a knight to cuddle on the way home!

Next day, I started in the Natural History Museum! They have dinosaurs, therefore it's awesome!

       

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(Bawww!!!)

Click to see more pics!

A night of Jupiter-gazing!

Last night was the most beautiful night I've seen in ages! I spent hours outside, and by the time I got back in I couldn't feel my feet! For the rest of the night, no feet!! But it was so worth it! The atmosphere was so still and the seeing was beyond perfect!

I hadn't been planning to go out, but on the way home from the cinema, it looked so wonderful, I couldn't stay indoors! It meant I had nothing planned though, and my red-dot finder is still battery-less, so I spent most of the night aimed at Jupiter.

(You can actually make out banding on the planet through the scope.)

I managed to get this snap of Jupiter and it's moons holding my (lovely new) camera up to the eyepiece. Not the ideal way to image planets, but I'm still working on getting a webcam setup... One day I promise I will take a decent picture of Jupiter. It is my favourite planet after all! 

Just before it got too cold and my fingers stopped working, I moved slightly north of Jupiter, up to my favourite star cluster, the Pleiades! I always forget how spectacular it is through the 25mm eyepiece! So beautiful! Again, my camera doesn't even remotely do it justice!

In reality, it was much brighter and there were hundreds more stars visible! 

In other news, I'm thinking of slightly changing the focus of my blog... Still probably going to be mainly astronomy, but with more general science and nerdiness thrown in! Think costumes/crafty things I've made, tv shows/books I'm raving about and so on... Doctor Who will definitely be included, sorry Jo! 

Anyhoo, it's a beautiful night out again tonight, so I'm off to brave the cold and give the scope another whirl! 

A triumphant return!

So after waaaaaaay too long, I was finally able to take out my telescope last night! The nights are getting darker again, and it was a fantastically clear night. I had just heard the news about Neil Armstrong passing away and decided to go take a look at the moon. It was beautiful out, perfectly clear and dark. I watched the moon go down through my scope, passing behind a tree before disappearing from view. It was very cool to actually see movement, it reminds you just how dynamic the universe really is! I snapped a quick photo as the moon was setting...

(Not great, but it set really really quickly!)

Once the moon had set, I decided to take a bash at finding the Andromeda Galaxy for the first time. There's far too much light pollution in my garden to see it with the naked eye, and the battery in my finder scope is dead, but it was just too nice to go inside! After a few mins of faffing around with the scope, and looking from the sky to Stellarium and back again, I finally found it! And it was gorgeous! In my scope, it wasn't much more than a fuzzy patch, but using averted vision I could see it pretty well. And because I'm a dork, I said out loud to myself 'It's coming right for us! Ahh!' It was pretty exciting! 

(I even managed to capture Andromeda in a pic!)

And as it got later, and the sky got darker, and my night vision kicked in properly, I realised that the Milky Way was almost visible overhead! I aimed my camera up and took a ton of photos with the aim of stacking them, but I haven't quite figured out the software, so this is just a single image, with as much detail pulled out of it using PS Elements as possible! 

(You can sort of see the Milky Way!!!!!!)

So all in all, a great return to astronomy. 

Thank you Neil Armstrong, for reminding not only me, but thousands of people around the world to look up.

Safe travels, Commander.

Neil Armstrong passed away today. 

“He will be mourned by his families and friends; he will be mourned by his nation; he will be mourned by the people of the world; he will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send one of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in his death, he binds more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But he was the first, and he will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”

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I'm going outside to look at the moon for a bit.