Observation Report, 19/8/2011

Posted on September 12, 2011 by james

We’ve had the occasional clear night since May, but mostly when the moon was very close to full, leaving little to observe except the moon itself, but last night was the first time I’ve been able to spent a significant amount of time looking at DSOs for more than three months.

Unfortunately my wife was out and I was looking after the kids so I had to stay near the door which meant that I couldn’t look for some of the Messier objects low on the southern horizon as I’d hoped because of the trees, but I did at least have time to spend hunting for those slightly higher in the sky in Ophiucus, the higher part of Sagittarius and Scutum.

Ophiucus was up first, and my lack of practice showed as I too about fifteen minutes to find M10 and a further five to realise that it was actually M12 It wasn’t all bad though as I estimated the position of M14 based on a couple of stars (“hmm, it looks about 2/5 of the way between these two…”), put the red dot on the spot and there it was, bang in the middle of the EP.

The bad news is, I’m afraid, that M107 has disappeared. I star-hopped down from zeta Ophi and found a little “arrow” asterism that has M107 hanging off the bottom end of the arrow head. Only it just wasn’t there. I tried all sorts of magnifications, averted vision, nudging the scope, but I just couldn’t find it. It’s gone.

Moving around I quickly found M26, but “star” (as it were) of the night was the Wild Duck Cluster. I spent ages looking at it trying to see more detail and it seemed to take magnification well. As impressive in its own way as, say, M13, I thought.

The moon was washing out a fair bit of the sky by this time, so I fought with the AZ3 until it would hold the ST120 roughly vertical in a steady position and found M29 in Cygnus, but the view wasn’t great so I’ll come back to that another time.

Since it was there and as I’ve actually had very little opportunity to look at it when it’s been anything other than full, I spent a good three quarters of an hour exploring the moon and finding a few more of the Lunar 100. Once there are some shadows it really is amazing how much detail it’s possible to see. I can kind of understand why people think you should be able to see the stuff left behind by the moon landings. At 100+ magnification it just feels like you could reach out and touch it. I had to keep reminding myself that those features that look really tiny and can only just be made out are actually very large. It’s easy to lose all sense of scale.

I rounded off the night by having a quick look at Jupiter, but perhaps there was some light cloud low on the eastern horizon as it appeared very mushy. Having had such a good evening thus far I decided there was no point spending further time on it and called it a night.

Here’s hoping it’s not another three months until the next one…

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Honey Harvest 2011

Posted on September 12, 2011 by james

This year I took on four hives belonging to a local farmer in addition to the hives in my home apiary. There have been beehives on his farm as long as anyone can remember and he was keen to keep the tradition going, but the previous bee-keeper was trying to cut back on his workload and wanted to give them up.

The bad news when I first visited the hives early in the Spring was that one colony had died out over the winter. There were clear signs of something, probably a woodpecker, having a go at the hive, so it’s possible that’s what caused it. The good news (or further bad news if you’re that way inclined) was that once the weather warmed up thirty-five acres of oilseed rape burst into flower in a field half a mile away. I took around 90lbs of OSR honey off those three hives shortly afterwards.

I can’t imagine anyone will argue much about the summer being very poor and whilst I know of some people who did ok, I also know of people who were having to feed their bees when they should have been harvesting their honey crop, so whilst disappointed I was happy to have approximately 70lbs of honey when I took the harvest in August.

The summer honey is now bottled and sales will begin as soon as my new labels arrive. It doesn’t perhaps have the immediate sweet hit that some other honeys do, but has a very creamy feel on the tongue and to borrow a few wine-tasting terms, has very good “length”, with a little touch of spicy heat. The OSR honey I plan to make into “set” honey once all the additional bits arrive. I’ve never made set honey before, so it’s going to be a bit of an adventure. I’m quite looking forward to it.

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Solar PV Installation

Posted on September 12, 2011 by james

For a long time I’ve been tempted by a solar photovoltaic (PV) installation, but been unable to convince myself that it would be financially worthwhile. A couple of months ago however a friend was telling me about his new installation and I decided to look at the figures again. Our house has a large area of roof that faces south-west and originally being thatched is of steeper pitch than many modern houses, giving the potential for better performance during the winter, so I was quite hopeful.

The current domestic Feed-In Tariff (FIT) payment levels are 43.3p per kWh generated, regardless of whether the power is used on-site or exported, and a further 3.1p/kWh for power exported, though at the moment unless you have an export meter 50% of your production is assumed to be exported, giving an average figure of 44.85p/kWh generated. The payment levels are linked to the RPI and free of income tax for domestic installations generating electricity mainly for use on-site.

I had a rough idea of what a 4kWp installation should cost to install, so set up a spreadsheet to work out payback times based on different changes in the RPI and in the cost of electricity based on sunlight levels at my location (I’m told the government-mandated models use the sunlight levels in Sheffield). The figures actually worked out quite well, paying back the installation cost in around six to seven years and earning in the region of £75,000 over the twenty-five year period, so I decided to get some quotes from local suppliers.

The company that impressed me the most of all of the suppliers who quoted was Somerset Solar Electric, who emailed a number of drawings for different arrangements of panels as well as suggestions for three different sets of panels with a list of pros and cons for each. In the end we went for a system of fourteen Sungrid SG-260 panels which gave us an output close to the maximum Western Power would allow us to feed into the grid on a single phase.

The installation itself took three days from start to commissioning despite being done a little out of the order I was expecting because they were delayed on a previous installation due to bad weather. The electrician arrived first and ran the cabling to connect the inverter in the loft to our incoming supply in the cellar. As luck would have it I had lots of the floor lifted to do some plumbing work, so we took the opportunity to run the cable neatly inside the house rather than on an outside wall. I got the impression the panels were a relatively easy installation, partly because the roof comes down to the first floor ceiling level and partly because it is tiled rather than slated, allowing tiles to be slipped aside to fix the mounting brackets to the rafters. To install the mounting rails and get all the panels in place took just over a day and a half and the system was fully commissioned the same afternoon, on 1st September.

The weather since has been really quite poor in terms of hours of sunshine, but despite that we’re still producing 10kWh per day on average. The inverter we’re using, a Power One Aurora, as an RS232 connector through which I can get actual production figures on an ongoing basis, so once I have that figured out I’ll set some “real-time” graphs up. And get my weather station running again so it’s possible to relate power production to the weather. Given that we’re not far off the Autumn solstice it seems reasonable to use that 10kWh figure as an average daily production figure for the year, in which case my original spreadsheet models have under-estimated production slightly, so I’m happy about that.

For the record, the installation is 3.64kWp, on a roof of approximately 45 degrees pitch, facing south-west.

I’ve now filled in my application forms to sign up for FITs and sent them off to Good Energy. Roll on my first payment…

Finally, a couple of pictures of the installed panels:

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Observation Report 13/3/2011

Posted on March 14, 2011 by james

This week is apparently the best week this year for observing Mercury. It’s never going to be that high above the horizon once the sun sets, but now is about as good as it gets. I’ve never seen Mercury before, so didn’t know what to expect when I went out at around 6:45pm, but sure enough just to the right of Jupiter there was another “star”, not quite as bright as Jupiter, which had a clearly defined disc when viewed through binoculars. If the skies stay clear this week I’ll try to get another look at it with the Mak.

The moon being around half full it’s fairly bright now and whilst the sky was clear the transparency was poor, but I did also manage to find one more Messier object in Virgo, M49, (my fiftieth) with the ST102. Despite being 8.4 magnitude it was very difficult to pick out. I gave up trying to find M61 and M104. Darker skies are required, I think.

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Observation Report 7/3/2011

Posted on March 9, 2011 by james

It’s the 7th March. I received my first telescope — the ST80, for Christmas 2010. And tonight is the first really pin-sharp night sky we’ve had. I still haven’t sorted out the mount for the 127 Mak, so the ST102 is out again.

I’d planned to spend some time looking at multiple stars tonight following some of the suggestions in Turn Left At Orion, but had to have one more go at M106 first. This time I star-hopped over from Chara and within a couple of minutes there it was in the eyepiece. Don’t understand how I’d failed to find it previously. In fact, I recognised the stars around it as being ones I’d spent ages staring at on previous nights whilst completely failing to see the galaxy itself!

My first multiple star target was Castor which I found split very nicely giving two sharp star images with a diffraction ring around them. I think I also found the third star, but wasn’t able to match the positions of the stars I could see with Stellarium so need to visit this one again.

Next on the list were ι-Cancri and Struve 1266. ι-Cancri I found fairly easily and could split, but I’m unconvinced that I found Struve 1266 and will have to try that again another time. After these two I moved on to Cor Caroli and γ-Leonis without any problems.

Despite being still fairly early it was unusually cold and I decided I’d have a brief view of Saturn before calling it a night. I’m so glad I did. Even at 125x magnification with my 4mm eyepiece the image of Saturn was very sharp and I could make out three moons that I believe to be Titan, Rhea and Hyperion. Enceladus was in front of the planet at the time according to Stellarium, with Mimas and Tethys on the opposite side close to the rings. Dione should have been visible, but I didn’t see it. Very pleased to have had such a good view of the planet though. I look forward to getting the Mak into service soon.

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Observation Report 6/3/2011

Posted on March 9, 2011 by james

Another clear night, but again with unexceptional transparency. The more I go out the better I am getting at judging the quality of the seeing. I’ll still go out pretty much any night there are stars to be seen nonetheless. The practice at finding objects is well worth the effort, to be able to make the most of those times with the seeing is good.

Back to the ST102 for this evening and on with some hardcore Messier-hunting.

I wanted to revisit a few of the objects I’d first seen with the ST80 having gained a bit more experience finding them, mostly just to confirm my original sightings, so initially I found M1, M35, M42, M43, M44, M48 and M67 in quick succession before moving on to newer things.

As with my previous session the objects in the western sky were too obscured by the haze on the horizon to be worth spending time on. I think I’ll have to wait until the late summer before I can see them. So, the first new target for tonight was M106 and, like last time, another failure. With M88 it was a completely different story though. Working from Stellarium I put the red dot finder in what I thought was roughly the right place and as soon as I put my eye to the eyepiece a galaxy jumped out at me. Unfortunately, given the number of galaxies in this area of Coma Berenices and Virgo I couldn’t be sure which one it was. For the same reason I was able to hunt around, occasionally returning to the first one to find my bearings and pick out two more galaxies and by sketching their relative positions and those of the stars around them and comparing the result to what I could see in Stellarium I decided I’d found M87 first of all, followed by M86 and M84.

Given the locations of these three objects I decided I ought to be able to navigate around and find a lot more and was happy to have my deductions confirmed by finding a long list: M88, M91, M98, M99, M100, M58, M59, M60, M89 and M90. The last I visited was M98 which, being edge-on, is unmistakable in shape. I was very pleased to have found all these and to have identified where I was in the first place. I look forward to viewing these again when Virgo is higher in the sky.

To finish off for the night I decided I’d have another go at finding some of the galaxies in Leo that I’d failed on previously. Starting from ρ-Leo I managed to star-hop neatly to M95 and M96 and M105 was then an easy jump. I was surprised to see two fuzzy blobs in the eyepiece once I got to M105 though. According to Stellarium the second would have been NGC3384.

A busy night, but I’m pleased to have found so many objects, taking my total Messier count up to forty-eight. I think my “eye” is definitely improving. If only the seeing would…

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Observation Report 4/3/2011

Posted on March 9, 2011 by james

Another less-than-brilliant night, seeing-wise. Clear skies, but poor transparency. This was my first time out with the 127 Mak which I’d temporarily bodged onto an EQ1 mount though, so I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity even though I did end up hunting Messier objects with it when my ST102 would probably have been more suited.

Starting in the west, M32 and M110 proved impossible to separate from M31, probably due to a combination of the wrong scope, poor seeing and being low on the horizon. I abandoned M33, M39 and M74 for the same reason. After a such a sorry start I eventually managed to find M103, but it did take quite some hunting down and wasn’t visible as much more than a few points of light, if that. One to try with the refractor another time.

Having had such poor luck with the western sky I moved over to Canes Venatici and identified M3, M63 and M94, but utterly failed to pick out M106 when I’m sure I must have had the scope pointing straight at it more than once.

I also failed with my first target in Coma Berenices — M88, but located M53 with some difficulty and then M85.

Hercules hasn’t really been far enough above the horizon to view until now, but tonight my first sight of M13 was stunning, as was M92. Definitely ones to revisit with a refractor when they’re higher in the sky.

Finally for this evening I spent a short while viewing Saturn, but it was really still too low and the seeing in its direction (which is unfortunately towards the light dome of Taunton from my usual observation position) was too poor to make it worth spending a lot of time on.

Overall I was very pleased with the Mak, despite it being far too heavy for the mount and using it for viewing objects it’s not particularly well-suited for. I look forward to getting it onto an EQ3-2 mount and spending some more time looking at the moon and Saturn.

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View of ISS and Discovery on its way home

Posted on March 8, 2011 by james

I was looking at some galaxy information in Stellarium last night with my son when I noticed the ISS pop up over the horizon. I’ve never seen it before, so we rushed outside to watch it pass overhead and were treated to far more. Discovery had just undocked from the ISS and started its journey home and we were treated to a view of the shuttle leading the ISS by a few seconds across the entire sky. Fantastic to see, and all the more poignant because it is planned to be the last trip Discovery will make.

Shame I didn’t have a suitable camera and scope set up, but we were lucky to notice it happening in the first place.

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Spawny Frogs

Posted on March 4, 2011 by james

Once upon a many years ago, a cart track ran from a nearby road and turned at our yard to run down to the local corn mill. The track has long since fallen out of use, but a dip in the track next to the yard has slowly collected water and now contains a large population of frogs. Sadly it’s heavily shaded by sycamore weedstrees that shed their leaves into the pond each autumn. At some point I intend to get rid of the sycamore except where it shades the pond from direct sun and rake a lot of the leaves out to try to keep the water healthier.

A couple of weeks ago whilst chainsawing logs near the pond I stopped to rest and initially thought I heard a distant tractor engine, but eventually realised that what I was hearing was lots of frogs croaking. A quick visit to the pond revealed perhaps around fifty frogs with their heads poking through the surface of the water, croaking away. A couple of days ago I went back to see if they were still there. They weren’t, but this not particularly great image shows what I did find:

I don’t know why it seems to be two different colours. Perhaps two different breeds of frog, or different ages of spawn, or perhaps one isn’t even frogs. Maybe one day I’ll find out. I’ll try to remember to go back regularly to see how they’re getting on.

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Cider Press Construction (Part 1)

Posted on March 4, 2011 by james

For pressing my cider apples I decided I couldn’t justify the price of even the smaller commercially-produced presses and after a fair bit of research I felt I could build one myself that should do an acceptable job. As it worked out, the first one I built worked ok, but really wasn’t strong enough to withstand the twelve tonne bottle jack I’m using to drive the press, so I’ve rebuilt another to the same plans but with heavier-duty components.

The first job was to build the frame. It’s constructed from 6″x2″ planed square edge timber glued together and secured with 12mm threaded steel rod and large square washers:

The cutting list is:

  • 2 x 100cm for the outer base sections
  • 2 x 92cm for the outer top sections
  • 2 x 64cm, one for the centre base and top sections
  • 2 x 109cm for the uprights
  • 2 x 40cm for the “feet”

I started by laying out an outer base and top section and gluing the base and top centers and uprights to them to form a rectangle, holding all the parts together with clamps whilst I fixed the remaining top and bottom outer sections and again clamped them in position. I could then drill out all the holes for the threaded rods which I cut to length and bolted up. I chose to put two rods through each of the corner joints, one through the centre of the base (where the pressing load will be well spread out by the press tray) and two to strengthen the top beam (where the load from the top of the bottle jack is distributed over a much smaller area). That done I left everything to dry.

The final step for the frame was to attach the “feet” to the protruding ends of the base which I did with eight 4″ #10 screws.

Because of the large timber sizes and the additional metalwork, the press frame is heavy. I’d guess around 25kg to 30kg. I’d say it’s about the minimum for pressing apples in the kind of volumes I’m after though.

Next, the press tray.

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