Deep Sky Update – February 2020

A late February update – but it is still February!

With a storm every weekend for the past few weeks, there have not been many opportunities for observing sessions. I hope no-one has suffered any damage to home or observatries with the wild weather. Here near Tewkesbury the flooding has been comparatively mild. The river guage on the Severn topped at about 4.4m, which is a lot of water, but in 2007 when the floods here were really bad, the guage topped at about 5.5m!

Section meeting – 2020 March 14

Still time to book tickets – I hope to see you there – visit britastro.org/deepsky2020

Programme:
10:15 Callum Potter – Deep sky review of the year
10:45 Andrew Robertson – Astronomy on the Move
Taking a portable 12” F5 telescope to more exotic locations
11:40 David Davies – Fumbling in the Dark: Exploring the Deep-sky through Imaging
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Gary Palmer – Short run imaging
14:50 Gain Lee – A Galaxy Far Far Away! Observing beyond the Messier Catalogue.
15:40 Tea
16:15 Prof. Albert Zijlstra – Current research in planetary nebulae
17:30 Close

Parking: there is no parking available at The Diamond – nearest car parks seem to be Q-Parks at Durham Road or Rockingham Street, they are both about 10 minutes walk. The Durham Road one seems to be £5 for all day on a Saturday – pay by contactless card on way in and way out. There are also other council car parks nearby.
Q-Park: https://www.q-park.co.uk/en-gb/cities/sheffield/
Council parking website: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/home/parking/city-centre-car-parking

Some recent images

There have been some splendid images submitted recently both direct and onto members pages. Here are a few…

Hubble variable nebula by Randy Tatum

NGC 1365 in Fornax by Nik Szymanek
M81 by Les Dickens

NGC 2403 by Dean Ashton

Clear, dark skies,

Callum

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