Observation Log

The following are brief notes about our various adventures into the cold outdoors.
First, a word or two about the various locations we observe from

Tom's back garden - Situated in a suburb on the east side of Southampton, UK. Light pollution is abundant, however, not quite of city centre quality. The garden faces south west, and has several trees that make themselves rather annoying. Has large advantage of mains electricity for all our various bits of paraphernalia.

Old Winchester Hill - About 10 miles east of my house. Light pollution is reduced, especially the the north east. We do not use this site much, but has historical importance - first light with the Helios telescope was from this hill.

Butser Hill - Further east again. Highest hill around these parts. (270m) We can get there in 30 minutes from Southampton at late night motorway speeds. Much improved light situation, espcially to the north and east. Noted for the comedy value of trying to spot the burger van in the 10 mile distant carpark using the telescope.

New Forest - To the west of Southampton is the sparsely populated area known as The New Forest. Southampton itself prohibits any eastern observations, however, the conditions in other directions are good. Travel time is similiar to Butser Hill.

Win Green - The peak of Cranbourne Chase, about 36 miles west and a little north of home. Higher, darker and colder than all of the above. Our chosen spot for a long observing session. It is an hour's drive from Southampton, so you really have to mean it.

Little Pete's - Petes house, also in a suburb of Southampton, but further south than Tom's house. The view is quite restricted by the trees in the garden, however there are good views to the south west.

Saturday 22nd March
A trip to Butser Hill! PEte and I filled my car wiht laptops and telescopes and other assorted mountains of kit. This was basically an attempt to try and do imaging away from home. My telescope mount broke, and we were left with Petes LX200, however, my inexperience with using it for imaging, and the lack of a wedge left us with one picture of M13 and that was about it. Gather volumes of experience about getting our show on the road however!

Saturday 15th March
Large amounts of moon, however, we captured a series of Jupiter pictures. One set every 5 minutes for about two hours. When we finish the processing, we should be able to make a nice AVI.

Friday 14th March
The good weather continues.... basically a repeat of last night, but up much later as there is no work in the morning. Captured many images of the galaxies in Leo.

Thursday 13th March
A much better evening. Moon was annoying, but managed many more frames of M65 and M66, and the triplet in the northern part of Leo. Took some frames of M43 specficially - ignoring M42. Much better results this time.

Sunday 2nd March
A more pleasing evening in my back yard. Maanged to capture M66 and M65 on the webcam with long exposures. Not very convincing, but certainly looked like galaxies. Lots of room for improvement.

Friday 21st Feburary
Moon was not rising until nearly midnight, so out into Toms back garden in good clear conditions. Basically experimenting with the long exposure stuff on Orion (m42/43) some more. Took lots of aviof Juputer with the GRS in transit. Observed M65 and M66, put could not get them onto the CCD. Saw NGC 2392 (Eskimo Nebula) as well.

Monday 17th Feburary
First light with the modified webcam. Full moon and hazy skys from Toms backyard. The wecam kept crashing, the laptop was cantakerous, the bluetak not strong enough... but we managed a few 5 second frames of M42, and a whole bunch of frames of the full moon, which jools is industriously sticking together into another composite as I type.

Sunday 9th Feburary
Again from petes back yard. Testing out a video camera on the telescope. After a bit of fiddling and soldering we managed to capture a picture of Saturn. Not as good as those from the QuickCam, but certainly huge potential for improvement.

Tuesday 4th Feburary
In Little Pete's back yard, using his 10inch meade. Many views of Jupiter, Saturn, M42 etc. Looked at lots of open clusters - making the most of the telescopes GOTO functions!

Saturday 1st Feburary
New moon, and very late, about 2am from my back yard. Continue to analyse the various adjustments to the web cam and mount. Took 3 avis of total about 600 frames of jupiter, which was high over head. Observed M65/66 in Leo, but did not get any further pictures due to the lateness of the hour, and the observer ineptitude with the camera mount.

January 2003
December 2002
November 2002