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Glen's Astronomy Page
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The Tolansky Crater...
Professor Samuel Tolansky was
Head of the Royal Holloway Physics Department from 1947 to 1973.
He was one of the Principal Investigators who studied the moon dust
brought back from the Apollo missions, and a 13 km diameter crater not
far from the Apollo 14 landing site was named in his honour.
...Photo Contest!!!
The moon is 383000 km from earth, so a 13 km crater subtends
7 arc seconds. Given that this is well within the reach
of a small telescope, John Underdown has proposed that we have
a contest to see who can take the best picture of the Tolansky Crater.
The competition is open to all RHUL students
and staff. Please submit your entry to Professor John Strong, Head of
the Physics Department, by 24 May, 2002.
The prize???
Good question. Somebody please suggest a prize.
My entry...
So here is my photo of the Tolansky
Crater, taken 22 February 2002 using the Physics Department's
LX200 and QuickCam CCD, here is a
line drawing of the area, and here is a photo
of the entire lunar surface (by Lick
Observatory) showing where this is located. And here's another
attempt at Tolansky from
22 May 2002, a fairly windy night.
The RHUL Astro Twiki Page.
Here is a New Users Guide
to the RHUL Observatory.
A 10 minute exposure of the galaxy M74
taken on 8 December 2006.
A view of the partial
solar eclipse on 29 March 2006 (left-hand edge is the moon).
A spectrum of the Orion Nebula (M42)
taken by Rebecca Smith on 14 February 2005 using the new 12-inch
LX200 and nu-view spectrometer.
A sequence of images of Comet Machholz
taken by Melissa George on 13 January 2005 (animated gif by Cheryl Cowan).
The comet is moving around 5 arcsec/minute.
A spectrum of Vega
taken with the LX200 with QuickCam and Rainbow Optics diffraction grating
(18 October 2002).
Some info on QuickCam Astronomy.
The telescope page and image repository used
by RHUL astrophysics students.
The transmission data for our
Schuler UBVRI filters and for the
Sirius CE1 light pollution filter
A brief note on adapting jet finding
algorithms for finding stars in a CCD image.
Some pictures taken with the Royal Holloway Physics Department's Meade
LX200, a 25 cm Schmidt-Cassegrain with a 250 cm focal length.
- A false colour picture of the
sun taken 28 September 2001
using a QuickCam Pro 3000 CCD camera and f/3.3 focal reducer. The solar filter
was made with Baader AstroSolar [tm] safety film.
- Another view of the same picture (28 Sept. 01) showing the group of
sunspots and the sun's
granulation.
- A video clip (37M) of the sun
taken at the same time as the pictures above (28 Sept. 01).
- Another video clip (36M) of
the sun taken a week later (5 Oct. 01) showing far fewer sunspots.
- Some pictures taken 19 Oct. 01 with the QuickCam Pro 3000 and LX200 of
jupiter and
saturn.
- A video of the moon
(70M) taken with a f/3.3 focal reducer (28 Oct. 01).
- Another video of the moon
(28M) without the focal reducer (28 Oct. 01 -- pretty bad seeing).
- First light with the new QuickCam Pro 3000
on 9 Nov. 01 by GDC, RDE and PCTF: a double star
Dubhe,
a group of stars in the Pleiades including
Electra,
and some pictures of planets including
Mars,
Jupiter,
and its
moons,
Saturn,
Uranus,
and the fuzzy blob here is
Neptune.
- A picture of the Cigar Galaxy, M82,
taken with a SBIG ST-7E CCD camera (30 s exposure) on 14 Dec.
and a picture of the Triangulum Galaxy, M33,
taken on 18 Dec. 2001 (also 30 s exposure), and here is a 15 s
exposure of the Crab Nebula (M1)
taken 1 Mar 2002 and a much nicer view of the
Crab with a guided 240 s
exposure taken 5 Mar 2002, and a not half bad view taken
by me and Robin of M51 (guided
200 s exposure on 7 Mar 2002).
- A QuickCam picture of the Trapezium
and other stars in the Orion Nebula (M42), taken 1 Jan 02.
- A QuickCam picture of Mercury
taken 21 April 2003, 5 days past greatest eastern elongation.
Some pictures taken from Woking (near London) with my Meade 4504,
a 114 mm Newtonian reflector with a 910 mm focal length.
- A false colour image of the sun
taken 25 August 01 using a QuickCam VC CCD using positive projection with
a 26 mm eyepiece. The limb darkening agrees fairly well with
the expected I ~ 2 + 3 cos theta.
- A video clip (51M) of the
moon taken 6 Oct. 01 with the Meade 4504 and QuickCam Pro 3000 CCD at
prime focus. The moon was fairly close to the horizon and the
turbulence of the atmosphere is evident.
- A picture taken 18 Oct. 01 of
saturn (compare to
picture of saturn above from the LX200, same night).
Useful stuff (external):
- The
manual for the Meade LX200GPS (pdf file).
- The manual for the SBIG ST-7E
CCD camera (pdf format).
- UK suppliers of AstroSolar film plus mirrors, etc.,
SCS Astro.
- Info on the AstroSolar film from the manufacturer,
Baader Planetarium GmbH.
- Useful info on the
QuickCam Pro 3000 (with photos of the insides).
- A copy of the
USAF Optical Test Chart (ps file).
- A nice
moon map and another nice
moon map
with a
close up of the Tolansky Crater (the little one just south of
Parry; 9.5 degrees S, 16.0 degrees W, 13 km diameter). This is not
far from the
Apollo 14 landing site.
- The US Navy's time
site with a calculator for the
sidereal time.
From RHUL, use, longitude 0 degrees 34 min 0 sec West.
- A
Skywatcher's Pronunciation Guide.
Journals, etc.:
- The
CERN library electronic journals
- Astrophysical
Journal
-
ApJ Letters
- Astronomy and
Astrophysics
- astro-ph, etc.
- The
The NASA Astrophysics Data System
Weather links:
- BBC weather centre
satellite map of the UK.
- Weather information from the
Dundee Satellite Receiving Station.
-
Meteosat images compiled by the University of Nottingham.
- Greater London CloudCast from metcheck.
-
Astro weather forecast for London suburbs
Glen Cowan
