Welcome!
Welcome to the on-line home of Bedford Astronomical Society! On here, you'll find lots of information about us, pictures taken by our members and an up to date program of events. Feel free to browse through the pages and if you want to get in touch, please visit the Contact Us page. Check out the latest Sky Diary - produced by Dave Eagle (member and former Chairman!), and keep an eye on the Events page for changes and updates to the current program. And if you want some more information on becoming a member, visit the About Us page. Clear Skies!
Latest News
Mars Observing / Imaging
As you all know, Mars is currently well placed for observing and imaging, although having just passed opposition it will now start to recede. Remember that observing is every clear Wednesday, and while Mars is viewable, we shall make the most of it! Dave Eagle, Linton, Phil and myself were lucky enough to try and get some imaging on Friday 29th Jan - Dave's image is below (click to see the full size) - and we were trying out some colour processing techniques whereby the Green is synthesised from the Red and Blue channels. After the initial processing results, we all wondered how the likes of Damien Peach and Pete Lawrence manage to produce their amazing results!!
Astronomy Course
Bedford School is starting a series of Astronomy Courses, aimed at newcomers to the hobby. Full details on the course can be found at Bedford School Astronomy Course so if you know of anyone who may be interested - family, friends, work colleagues - do let them know.
January Members Evening - Nick Howes, 80mm of Sky
We had an excellent talk from Nick on imaging the night sky with modest sized telescopes, and how we can ease ourselves into this fascinating aspect of astronomy without breaking the bank! Of course, the talk has plenty of the sort of pictures to make the audience go "Ooooo" at just the right places, but Nick also gave an appraisal of the various items of equipment needed - mounts, filters and so on.
Nick kindly left us a copy of his presentation, so I will pick out some choice images and post them up, along with some of the slides on equipment considerations
As many of you know, Nick reviews the latest astronomical equipment for Astronomy Now, and with a busy job and family, we are grateful to him for taking the time to pay us a visit - thanks again Nick!
Images Updates
Some new images have been uploaded to the Gallery - notably some excellent submissions from Dave Eagle, and an effort at M1 from our Chairman!
Dave says he has finally cracked guided imaging - and judging by the final result, I would agree!
He has also produced one of the best images of Clavius I have seen in a long time - a truly wonderful image, superbly processed to give an excellent noise free image! He says "Over 1.1gb of AVI went into this image and I have to say, I am pleased at the outcome". So you should be Dave!
Finally, our Chairman Darren, has submitted a Narrowband image of M1, the Crab Nebula. He says "Trying to get the colour data is proving quite frustrating, but I'll keep at it!!"
AGM Feb 24th 2010
Yes, it's that time of year again! The minutes of the 2009 AGM will shortly be available in the members area, and there will be an email of the access details coming round very shortly. For those of you that receive your newsletter by post, there will be a note in there too.
After the AGM, we are pleased to report that John Thatcher will be on hand to give us an update on the JWST project! Poor John seems to travel the world at a moments notice so we are very grateful for the time to come and see us again.
As always, anyone with reports or images or other articles of interest, please send them into the web-master address (se the contact us page) or bring them in to any of the committee/members meetings
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