Members of the society have been very busy in the recent couple of weeks with some great opportunities for group observing around the local area. We were very fortunate to have the opportunity for observing from our Ravenscar site two nights over the weekend of 24-26 January. Member and Secretary Andy Exton managed to capture some images of Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy), and many Messier objects were observed.
On Monday 9th February following the outreach session with Pickering Brownies and Guides, some members gathered in Low Dalby to take advantage of the crystal clear dark skies. This allowed members to search for many deep sky objects through the society 16″ Meade Lightbridge. Lovejoy looked very bright against the background stars through the 16″ telescope, but no tail was visible. However, a motion sensitive security light which we could not turn off hampered the effort to observe and image low in the Western sky.
Members have a increasing number of events to look forward to in the coming months. Later this month members will visit Humble Bee Farm for the annual members winter star camp. This has been a great relaxed experience for the last couple of years, so we are very much looking forward to our weekend.
The next scheduled observing event on the calendar for members is the annual Messier Marathon from Ravenscar. Fingers crossed for a clear night! Further observing nights will hopefully be possible, so keep an eye on your emails, the society forum and our members Facebook group for notice of these. Obviously we cannot always plan these far in advance due to weather forecasts changing. As the winter months draw to a close, the society starts to turn its attention away from the night sky and towards the Sun, with our summer meet ups for solar observing due to start in May.
Don’t forget to submit notes and reports of your observing sessions to Skynotes for other members to read. It’s always interesting to hear what other people have been doing and see images other members have produced.
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