Author Archives: james

Focus motor drive for Startravel 80 & 102 Review

Posted on February 15, 2011 by james

One of the problems with the ST80 and ST102 on the EQ1 mount is the amount of “wobble” when changing focus, which not only takes a while to settle down afterwards, but makes it more difficult than it need to … Continue reading →

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Cider Apple Pressing 2010

Posted on February 15, 2011 by james

Behind our house are a small number of cider apple trees around twenty-five years old. Three of these I have identified as Yarlington Mill, two are Dabinett, four are, I’m fairly sure, Somerset, and the remaining three I have not … Continue reading →

Posted in Cider-making, Smallholding | 2 Comments

UK light pollution map

Posted on February 14, 2011 by james

Someone pointed me at an excellent interactive UK light pollution map the other day, apparently done as an overlay on Google Earth. It’s quite shocking to think that all those bright areas represent wasted fuel, wasted energy and, especially in … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 13/2/2011

Posted on February 14, 2011 by james

Around 11pm the sky eventually cleared after a day of heavy cloud and rain to show a sky mostly washed out by the moon. This was my first chance to try out my new (to me) Startravel 102 though, so … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 7/2/2011

Posted on February 14, 2011 by james

Another night with fairly poor seeing and some cloud, but I wanted to catch up on some of the things I’d missed a few days earlier. Again I had to give up on M77 and M79, but this time I … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 2/2/2011

Posted on February 14, 2011 by james

Not the clearest of skies this evening, with some bubbles of cloud drifting across the sky, but you have to take what opportunities you’re given. I thought I’d do a bit more Messier Object hunting this evening. First on my … Continue reading →

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The Tree House Project

Posted on February 11, 2011 by james

(Apologies in advance if you’re confused by the feet-and-inches measurements. I was brought up with metric at school and imperial at home and tend to use whichever comes to mind first. 6′ is near enough 1.8m and 8′ is 2.4m) … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 30/01/2011

Posted on February 11, 2011 by james

It’s been a beautifully clear day here, so I put the scope outside as the sun was going down on the off-chance of getting some clear sky despite the signs of cloud coming in. At 8pm there was still some … Continue reading →

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Observation Report 18/01/2011

Posted on February 11, 2011 by james

I had two trips out with the scope today. The first time was around 8am when the sky was clear and Venus was visible about 15° above the horizon before the sun had risen. The planet was a clear crescent … Continue reading →

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Nuisance phone calls

Posted on February 10, 2011 by james

We’re ex-directory and on the TPS lists, but lately we’ve been receiving a fair few random sales and “you have won a Caribbean holiday!” type calls from “international, number unavailable” sources. I used to just hang up, but of late … Continue reading →

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