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Venus transit revisited.

12/3/2013

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Back in June 2012 a celestial event that wont happen again for another 105 years occurred, it was the transit of Venus in front of the Solar disc.
At the time we were lucky enough to travel to the island of Santorini in Greece to see the transit as it would give us more time and hopefully better weather than further north where we lived at the time.

The whole trip was fantastic, the weather was perfect every day but then on the morning of the transit I woke to be greeted with the scene below.
Picture
Needless to say that this didn't inspire me with much hope of being able to catch the rising Sun with transit in full swing. Thankfully though the cloud was only localised over the island and down to the horizon it was clear leaving a thin gap between the ocean and the clouds.

I didn't take any specialised imaging equipment over with me just my camera and 75-300mm zoom lens and I also fashioned a white light filter for the lens from a Pringles container, still I managed to capture a few nice images and I'm glad I did because the next opportunity to see a transit of Venus is a long ways off.
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Picture
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Picture

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How to add Comets to Stellarium

11/26/2013

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Today I thought I would share a little "How to" guide I have written on a couple of forums on how to add comets to show up in Stellarium which is a free planetarium software that can show you the location of stars, galaxies and various other celestial objects.
The free Stellarium software can be found by following this link and is simple to install and set up.
 http://www.stellarium.org/

With all the current interest in Comets ISON, Lovejoy, Enke etc.. gracing our skies at the moment now seems like a good a time as any to make these easier for people to locate in the night sky.

Once the software has been installed there is a relatively straight forward process to follow below and you can add the name of any comet, asteroid or small solar system body to appear in the software.
Hopefully these steps are easy to follow and if there are any questions ask away.

I'm going to use comet C/2012 S1 ISON as the example comet here as that is the one that is garnering the most attention right now.

1. Press F2 to open the "configuration" window. Under the
"Plugins" tab in the "Configuration" window, select "Solar System Editor". Under "options" at the bottom
of the tab, click the "Configure" button. A
window for "Solar System; objects" will open. Under the "Solar System tab" of
the "Solar System objects" window, click the "Import orbital elements in MPC
format" button at the bottom
of the tab. An "import data" window will open.

2.Under the "lists" tab of the "Import data" window,
Select the "type" as "comets"; select the
"source" as "download a list of objects from the internet"; under "or select
from the list" click on "Select bookmark" and select "MPC's list of observable
comets," and then click the button
"get orbital elements."

A list of objects found
will load. Scroll down and check the box next to 
C/2012 S1 ISON , then click the "Add; objects". C/2012 S1 ISON
will then be added
to your solar system. Close the Solar System
editor and Configuration
window.


3.
If you want to see where ISON will be in the
sky, you'll need to update your location and
time.


4.
Find ISON. Press F3 to open the "Find object"
window. Type in "C/2012 S1 ISON " and you should only see one choice "C/2012 S1 ISON
" below the search box. Click the magnifying glass at the right of the
search box to lock in onISON. It will
automatically give you a view of the sky where 
 ISON is located.


So there you go, that should enable you to locate any comet you wish in Stellarium.
I hope this is of help to somebody.

In keeping with the Comet theme I have attached my first ever pic of a comet, C/2013 R1 Lovejoy.
The comet has since gone on and brightened considerably becoming observable to the naked eye and is currently visible in the early morning skies towards the East.
Picture
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Partial Solar eclipse from Spain!

11/7/2013

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On Sunday the 3rd of November there was a total hybrid solar eclipse that was best visible throughout middle Africa however here in Spain we were able to see a partial eclipse of the Sun and had great weather for the display with temps of 28°C and cloudless skies.
I had a couple of telescopes set up ready to go, one being a Ha pst mod and the other a white light filter on my Newtonian which is the telescope I used to capture some images with.

We had a great afternoon as a family viewing this event and as I could spend some scope time with my kids it always makes things a better experience.

I have included a couple of pics and a small gif animation of the partial eclipse, all in all it was a great day rounded off by a quick trip to the beach.
Not bad for first week of November. :)
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Picture
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Some pictures added!

11/7/2013

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Just a quick post to say that I have now added a few pictures under the "Pictures" link in the sidebar, all the links have been updated as well.
For the moment there are just a few but I will add more as time goes by.
http://astropaz.weebly.com/pictures.html
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Update

10/9/2013

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Stay tuned for updates in the "Latest" section in the unlikely event that I actually do something or for upcoming astronomical events and news that may be of interest.

P.S I can do requests if there is any call for it.

:)
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