October 2024 – News
19th October
OM Radcliffe Society Meeting: A group of 7 Old Marlburians, who left in the early 1970s, with three partners and friends spent the day with GKWJ and JAG. They were all active members of the Radcliffe Society when at the College. They enjoyed a campus tour during the afternoon, seeing the instruments that they used in their day, now resident in GKWJ’s lab. The sky was clear enough at the start of the evening observing session to spot Comet C/2023 A3 in binoculars and the 10-inch. A deteriorating sky limited observing to brighter objects; Albireo was admired and then the Double Double was viewed at increasing magnifications, 90x, 120x and 225x, being an easy though tight split at high magnification. The group thoroughly enjoyed their trip down memory lane, especially with a selection of Radcliffe Society log book entries unearthed by JAG in the Archives.
18th October
Telescope Visit: A post-doc lecturer from the University of Leicester with partner and a Friend came to the Dome to see the Thomas Cooke 10 inch on a fact finding mission. They have recently acquired a 5 inch Cooke and are embarking on its renovation.
17th October
Comet Hunting: The clouds finally parted and GKWJ seized the opportunity to search for Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas). Finally, the comet was sighted in the west through binoculars. JAG joined to witness and a selection of photos were taken. The comet is quite faint, but with a very long tail, stretching some 20° or more; an antitail was just visible in the photographs.
11th October
GCSE Observing: A small group of 4 GCSE Astronomers came to the Dome with GKWJ to hunt down Comet C/2023 A3, but were unsuccessful.
6th October
Friends Observing: 13 Friends came to the Dome on a wet and miserable evening with GKWJ & JAG. No observing was possible, but the Cloudy Alternative explored the imminent comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas), looking at observing prospects, orbital details and comets in general.
5th October
Open Day Observing: There were sufficiently large gaps in the cloud for GKWJ and JAG to set up the mobile solar observing kit (Eclipse specs, Celestron 8-inch with White Light filter, and Lunt 50mm hydrogen alpha telescope) in Court for the Open Day. Around 50 children and parents enjoyed excellent views of the Sun with naked eye, where two huge sunspots were clearly visible, a detailed view of the Sun’s disk with its multitude of active regions, and prominences around the edge. A huge CME was observed over the course of around an hour as material spewed away from the off-going lower limb.
3rd October
GCSE Observing: The clouds finally parted to allow the Remove GCSE Astronomers to come to the Dome for their first observing session with GKWJ. The 5 pupils had a Sky Tour that pointed out the main asterisms, constellations and lines in the sky that they are learning about in the classroom. The group then moved to the 10-inch where they observed Saturn with 5 moons visible, including Titan just below the disk of the planet, globular cluster M15, and double star Almach.