Observation Report, 23 Jan 2012

Posted on January 25, 2012 by james

Clear skies were forecast today, so I got the Mak 127 out early in the afternoon so it would be cool as soon as I wanted to use it. Then the clouds rolled in and it started to rain. I was certain another night’s viewing would be written off because of poor seeing in the moist air.

Sometimes it’s pleasant to be wrong. By 10pm the clouds had cleared nicely and whilst there was a certain amount of haziness around the horizon, the sky generally was clear, bright and steady. Just as well, as I wanted to try out my new illuminated reticle eyepiece as well as counting the stars in Orion for the CPRE Star Count.

To centre a planet in the webcam image my usual method thus far has been to start with a 32mm or 25mm eyepiece and centre the image then keep stepping down the focal lengths to around 6mm, then add a barlow, and finally swap to the webcam, swapping back and forth with an eyepiece if it didn’t immediately show up on-screen. Plunging straight in, I lined up Mars with the RDF, centred it in the new eyepiece, added the barlow and re-centered and then switched to the webcam. The image of Mars was immediately visible in the capture program and needed nothing more than a little refocusing. I was most happy with this improvement and set about capturing some images.

That done I spent a bit of time just re-familiarising myself with the winter skies. There have been precious few opportunities to get out under good skies in the last six months, so I’m a bit rusty. Six stars were easily visible in the Pleiades, perhaps seven at a push, and the Beehive Cluster was quite clear for direct viewing with the naked eye, so I broke out the binoculars and took a closer look.

As soon as I put the eyecups up to my eyes a large fuzzy blob leapt out of the sky, causing me a few moments confusion. It didn’t look like I remembered M44 at all. It took a few moments to dawn on me that it was M67 I was looking at and a quick slide northwards revealed the Beehive in all its glory. Swinging back to Orion I had to have a look at the nebula. Not a huge amount of detail visible with the binoculars, but the extent of the gas cloud was vibrantly clear and impressive.

Three of the first few Messier objects I saw through a telescope were M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga. I clearly remember spending a couple of nights working out how to find them, probably with the ST80. Auriga was right in front of me now, so I scooted across to the southern end and hopped up to the first one following a “bent tuning fork” asterism. Within five seconds I’d located all three with ease. Having collected almost half “the set” now, it’s surprising how much easier it is to recognise a grey fuzzy blob when you see one…

Remembering that I also wanted to count the stars in Orion I ran through the constellation a few times picking them out. The “rules” are to count as many stars as possible visible with the naked eye within the rectangle formed by Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and Saiph. The “belt” stars count, but the four corners don’t. After a couple of recounts I decided that twenty-five was a fair result. I could possibly pick out a couple more with averted vision, but I couldn’t be sure.

By this time it was gone 1am and the sky was starting to become quite hazy so I happily decided to call it a night. More clear skies are forecast for the tail end of the week. Hopefully I can get some footage of Venus and Jupiter, and perhaps go hunting a few binary stars.

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A (Relatively) Cheap Illuminated Reticle Eyepiece

Posted on January 23, 2012 by james

When imaging with the 127 Mak and SPC900, getting the target somewhere the webcam will pick it up is one of the most awkward things to do. It’s made more tricky by the fact that if the scope is sufficiently far from focus then there won’t be a discernable image on the webcam to start with.

My previous solution to this problem has been to start with a 32mm eyepiece, centre the target and then run up through a range of eyepieces (25mm, 15mm, 9mm, 6mm) checking that the object is still in the centre and realigning as necessary before dropping the webcam in. At that point I turn the gain and brightness full up in the capture program and hopefully I can see something resembling a fuzzy blob on the screen that allows me to adjust the focus.

For some time I’ve been thinking about getting an eyepiece with an illuminated reticle to allow me to short-cut this process, but I’ve been put off by the prices. I discovered last week however that Sky’s the Limit who I’ve used for kit in the past had just such an eyepiece with a 12.5mm focal length going for less than £40 so I thought it would be worth a try. Here it is:

The LED is powered by two GP189 batteries (included). The knurled knob at the end of the LED unit turns it on and controls the brightness. There’s also a knurled adjuster on the top of the eyepiece. This is used to get the reticle lines in focus, but it does also change the point of focus of the telescope at the same time.

I’ve had a very quick test this evening looking at Mars and am happy that it does what it says on the tin. Unfortunately cloud prevented me from trying it out a bit more. What was quite surprising was how fast the image of Mars crosses the field of view at 120x magnification. I’m used to it happening, but somehow it seems far more obvious when you have some sort of visual reference.

I look forward to trying it out properly in my next imaging session. The only down-side is that I’ve run out of room in my eyepiece case…

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New Apiary Progress

Posted on January 22, 2012 by james

I found time this weekend to get out into the new apiary area and clear up the mess from felling the trees last time, including cutting one of them up into shorter lengths to dry out this year. That allowed me to get the digger in to form the second “terrace” level which turned out to be somewhat trickier than planned. Whilst the soil was quite deep under the top level, further down the slope I discovered that there was little more than 50mm of soil on top of solid rock. I had to change my plans slightly, but I think I’ve done an acceptable job in the end.

Once this area was clear I realised there were two possible bullace trees. Both had a fair amount of dead wood and one was very tangled with branches growing in all directions. I’ve pruned them fiercely, leaving five to six feet of trunk standing. Either they’ll come back this spring or they won’t. If they do, they should be able to grow in a far nicer environment where they have plenty of access to light and little competition.

Behind those I cut down some standing dead trees and started cutting the hazel down to size but eventually ran out of light. I also have one sycamore trunk I’d like to remove as it will overhang the apiary. Anything else can be taken out at a later time as it will fall in a more convenient direction.

So, here’s how it looked when I stopped work this afternoon:

Whilst working on the hazel I discovered a pile of seven or eight bottles lying underneath it. I have no idea how long they’ve been there, but they look very much to me like the old-style (1970’s) milk bottles I remember from my childhood. Each one has “CONTENTS 1 PT” moulded into the glass on the outside, so I guess it’s possible. I’m going to clean some up and have a better look as they’re rather green at the moment:

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Cleaning a Celestron Ultima Barlow

Posted on January 22, 2012 by james

I had a close look at my Celestron Ultima 2x barlow the other day having spent a few nights out imaging Jupiter and Mars and discovered that it was disgustingly filthy. No idea how it should have got so dirty given that when it’s not in use it’s stored in an eyepiece case with end-caps on, but there you go. This was more than just a couple of specks of dust that would probably get lost in the overall image, so I had to do something about it. Fortunately some time back I purchased some Baader Optical Wonder cloth and cleaning fluid for just such an occasion.

Dismantling the barlow was pretty straightforward, though I had no idea what to expect. I first unscrewed the two halves to leave just the lower metal barrel section containing the optics. From the bottom I then unscrewed the lens retaining ring by putting my thumbnail into one of the notches in the ring and turning it anti-clockwise. With that removed all the elements could be pushed out from the other end of the barrel. First item out is what appears to be a thick lens, but is actually two lenses cemented together, with the thinner one at what would normally be the open end of the barrel. Next was a thin spacer, and finally another lens that is convex side uppermost in the barrel. In this photo the parts are in the order they came out, left to right.

I following the instructions for using the cleaning fluid and it was immediately obvious that the lenses were much improved afterwards. It’s not particularly easy to get them all back into the barrel one at a time however, so I first stacked all the pieces up on the table, and then slid the barrel down over them before screwing in the retaining ring:

I mainly use this barlow for imaging and I’ve not had much time for that in the last few days, but I look forward to improved images next time I can get out.

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My First Full Double Rainbow

Posted on January 22, 2012 by james

From our position here, pretty much on the top of a hill we have a good view in all directions and that means we often see lovely rainbows. Even so it’s not particularly common to see one complete from ground to ground and so when I saw this one I thought I’d take a photo and rushed in to get my camera.

As I came back out of the back door I was confronted with something even better: the first complete double rainbow I have ever seen. I’d love to have found a better vantage point for taking the photos, but I didn’t dare move in case the rain stopped or the sun went in and we lost it altogether. The second rainbow is not wonderfully clear I’m afraid, but it’s the best I could do with my Ixus 40 and it’s definitely visible in at least some of the pictures.

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This Year’s Veg Plot Plans

Posted on January 22, 2012 by james

This week I finally got around to ordering most of the seeds for our vegetable plot. Somewhat later than I usually do it (I plan to get everything sorted in November if I can, but events have overtaken me somewhat this winter).

So, what have I got? Well, in no particular order, two different carrots, various lettuces, mizuna, red and green peppers, salad and maincrop potatoes (and International Kidney, aka Jersey Royal, for new potatoes), Jerusalem artichokes, mangetout, early and late peas, sugar snap peas, sprouts, melons, aubergines, parsnips, spinach, cabbages, three tomato varieties, sweet corn, cauliflowers, brown and red onion sets, pumpkins, courgettes, cucumbers, kale, purple sprouting broccoli, french beans, broad beans, garlic, calabrese, celeriac, leeks, celery and three different chiles. I also have a few other seeds left over from last year. It’s going to be a busy year in the veg plot 🙂

As soon as the tomatoes and chiles turn up I think it will be time to make a first sowing of those in the propagator. Before then I’d best get the greenhouse cleared out and make sure there’s room in the polytunnel. Garlic really needs to go in as soon as possible too. I already have broad beans in the ground under cloches and some early peas and lettuces in the polytunnel. I’ll do some early potatoes and mangetout in the polytunnel early on as well.

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Dads’ & Childrens’ Fishing Trip

Posted on January 22, 2012 by james

I’ve been talking about the idea of going fishing for some time now. I’ve never done it before and I like the idea of catching fish to eat. My son has been watching “Hugh’s Fish Fight” and was also very keen. As it happens a friend who lives locally is quite into fishing and having discussed it with him he very kindly offered to organise a trip, inviting a few others along as well.

So it was that at stupid o’clock last Sunday morning we boarded the Scooby Doo Too at Watchet Marina; four dads, six children and very little fishing experience between us. We were on a four-hour trip, two hours either side of high tide. The skipper and his crew were excellent, very helpful and seemed genuinely pleased to have so many young children interested in fishing on board.

We were taken out a short distance from the Marina so we’d still be relatively sheltered from the wind as it was a little choppy and the skipper was mindful of having so many first-timers on board. We anchored at a location with mud on the sea floor about ten metres deep and after a bit of explanation about using the rods, the hooks were baited up and dropped over the side with much anticipation. Fishing off the bottom like this were were told to expect some rays and conger eels amongst the catch.

In terms of landing edible fish I’m afraid to say we didn’t do that well. Whilst almost everyone landed a fish of some sort, we spent a fair while wrangling with quite a few conger eels (at least one of which was bigger than the child on the other end of the rod), caught some juvenile thornback rays and three or four small dogfish, but the only genuinely edible fish we ended up taking back were three whiting (one of which I caught, which was pleasing). Surprise of the morning was a whiting that was caught with a conger attached. The eel wasn’t on the hook, cut certainly wasn’t keen to let go of its breakfast either…

On our return to the harbour we dropped our gear and catch off at the cars and dropped into the nearest hostelry for a drink and some crisps and to introduce the children to their first games of pool and darts.

Despite the painfully early start I have to say it was a very pleasurable morning and I’m really looking forward to going again. Could be that we do a dads-only trip so we can get a bit more adventurous and stay out for longer, and save the next trip with the children until late Spring/early Summer and see if we can find ourselves some mackerel. In the meantime I guess I should try to find out a bit more about what I’m doing…

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MythTV Freeview Channel Scan

Posted on January 13, 2012 by james

Despite a few rearrangements of the channels on our local transmitter I’ve been putting off rescanning the channels for some time as last time I tried it broke things horribly. Nothing was due to record for a few hours yesterday evening though, so I screwed my courage to the sticking place and waded in.

First step was up upgrade all the XMLTV stuff on the backend. I took a backup copy of /usr/share/xmltv/tv_grab_uk_rt/channel_ids before starting so I could get some idea of what had changed. I’m running a CentOS5 box for the backend, so the upgrade was just a case of:

yum update '*xmltv*'

The differences between the two channel_ids files were enormous, so at this point I was starting to get apprehensive. To update XMLTV’s idea of what channels it could use I needed to add all the new channels to its config file (for me, in ~mythtv/.mythtv/Freeview.xmltv). As there were so many changes I basically did:

sed -e '/^#/d' -e 's/|.*$//' -e 's/^/channel /' < channel_ids > Freeview.xmltv

(after saving my old copy, obviously).

That done, I shut down mythbackend and backed up the mythconverg database. At least I should be able to recover if it all went chest uppermost…

Next I ran mythtv-setup on the backend server and selected the “channel editor” option so I could do a full rescan for channels. That worked fine, but gave me a large list of duplicate channels. I chose to drop them all. Also in the channel editor I updated all of the icons.

After downloading the missing icons I quit mythtv-setup, restarted the backend and checked to see if the existing listings and recordings looked correct using mythweb. They did, so I did a manual run of mythfilldatabase to check the update worked without problems.

Returning to mythweb’s setup interface, I then disabled EIT data for all those channels that XMLTV could find and disabled and/or deleted dross such as QVC. I also needed to add a few missing XMLTV ids for channels that XMLTV did have configuration data for.

And that was it. All astonishingly painless and not a recording missed. Next time I won’t put it off for so long…

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Paynes Polystyrene Brood Boxes

Posted on January 12, 2012 by james

Along with my poly nuc boxes I ordered some of Payne’s poly brood boxes, intending to use them this year with my own floors and supers. As with the nuc boxes, first impressions are good. Other reports on these had left me in two minds about them and I really wasn’t sure if they were going to be of sufficiently high quality. In fact I think I was worrying unnecessarily and I’m now fighting the temptation to order a few more before the sales end. The only real criticism I have is that I’d have preferred not to have handle recesses on the sides that are parallel to the frames and have thicker walls the entire way down.
The boxes come with slots already cut for castellated spacers, or they can be fitted with runners (my preferred choice). On the view of the bottom you’ll see that they also have cut-outs in the corners which are designed to locate on lugs in the Paynes open mesh floor which is a nice touch.
The really noticeable difference between these and the Lyson/Abelo boxes is the external dimensions. The Lyson boxes are the same size externally as a standard National. These are 15mm to 20mm bigger each way (though obviously not in height as that would muck up the bee space). I’ve taken some photos with a standard cedar super on top to show the internal and external fit. For me the largest problem this causes is that a standard National roof will not fit, but that shouldn’t be a problem I have to solve for a while.
Like the nuc boxes, these benefit from painting with water-based exterior paint. Once that’s done and the runners are fitted they’ll be ready to go.

Top View

Side View

Bottom View

With Super

With Super

With Super
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Polystyrene Nucleus Boxes

Posted on January 12, 2012 by james

I was going to make up some nucleus boxes this year. Quite a few people have been giving positive reports of the Paynes poly nuc boxes though, and the prices in their sale finally convinced me to buy some. They arrived this morning along with a few brood boxes and a large number of frames (also purchased in the sales) and I’ve had a chance to get a quick look at them.
Overall they look pretty good. Despite being polystyrene they feel solid, there’s a built-in feeder down one side and they come with a float for the feeder, a disc entrance cover, a clear acrylic crown cover and a snug-fitting lid. The base has a built-in mesh floor and the gap that allows the bees to reach the feeder has a slot to allow insertion of a piece of metal or plastic sheet to block access to the feeder. I assume that might be required to stop the bees building wild comb in the feeder if you have a higher volume top feeder in place. They also have lugs on the feet and roof that allow them to stack together nicely. All I need to do is paint them with some acrylic masonry paint, fix the entrance discs, put frames in and they’re ready for action.

Nuc Box

Inside View

Entrance Disc

Cover (still with backing)

Feeder float

  
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