• The Author - Bart Busschots

  
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It’s become sort of a tradition that each year I give the Christmas lecture for Astro2 (The Astronomy & Physics Society of NUI Maynooth). Each year I give a talk on the Christmas Star and each year I change it up a bit and focus more on different aspects. I really changed the talk up quite a bit this year and got quite a bit deeper in the biblical end of things than I had before. I enjoyed giving the talk this evening, and the audience seemed to enjoy it too which is always nice!

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They’re coming thick and fast now! It’s only a few weeks ago that I happily blogged about my friend Dave McDonald becoming only the second person ever to discover an Asteroid from Irish soil. Well, another of the shining lights of Ireland’s amateur astronomical community (and another Dave as it happens) has discovered the third ever astroid from Irish soil! Dave is a very active amateur who’s involved with both Astronomy Ireland and the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies. Dave, if you’re reading this, congrats!

If you’ve ever wondered just how much of a needle in a hay-stack an asteroid is check out the observations of the asteroid on Dave’s website, the animation in particular rams home the point!

I’m absolutely delighted to be able to say that a local amateur Astronomer and friend of mine, Dave McDonald, has discovered an Asteroid. This is not just a big deal for him, it’s a big deal for Ireland. This is only the second ever asteroid discovered here, and the first since 18 something (about 160 years ago). Dave is one of the leading lights in the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies and was rightly voted Astronomer of the Year last year by the IFAS members. Guess he’s a shoe-in for this year too

Dave is the perfect example of an amateur astronomer doing real science. His setup is in many ways quite modest, but he has it tuned to perfection and has really nailed it’s operation. Dave is getting more out of his gear than anyone else I know. The asteroid he discovered was an insanely dim magnitude 19. This is also not Dave’s first success, last year he made the official confirmation observation of a supernova. I don’t know of any other sciences where amateurs can contribute so much real scientific work in this day and age.

You can find out more about Dave at his website, www.astroshack.net.

If you’re reading this Dave, I offer my heart-felt congratulations, I knew all your hard work and dedication would eventually pay off and you’d strike gold one of these days!

I was never very good at Chemistry. I cherry picked my way around it for the Junior Cert and didn’t take it for the Leaving Cert or as part of my science degree. I never really got beyond the three types of bond and the fact that electrons are in shells and that the amount of them on the outer shell is very important. I don’t think I ever considered Chemistry fun. However, I was really impressed by the work of the Chemistry department in the University of Nottingham when I stumbled across it last month. They have created a YouTube video about every single element in the periodic table! I’ve watched them all over the space of a few weeks (a few a day) and I learned a lot as well as being entertained. You get to see real chemists talking about the elements, as well as doing experiments with some (often involving explosions), and you get to see samples of most of them. Although I always knew what Gold and Silver looked like, I had no idea what Bismuth looked like! What’s also cook is that these videos are still being updated and expanded so you can watch the project grow.

You’ll find the periodic table of videos at www.periodicvideos.com. They also have a channel on YouTube where you can see all the videos and subscribe to their feed so you never miss an update!

It can be very nice to include the Moon in your shots of buildings or landscapes but it's not easy. The reality is that the Moon is very small in the sky and that it's hard to pick up detail on the Moon while also properly exposing your subject. That's why so many people cheat and get the Moon into their shots using PhotoShop. They stick on a massive zoom lens, shoot the Moon, then stick on a normal lens to shoot their subject and finally combine the two shots into one. If that's the way you want to do things that's your call, personally I look at it as cheating and would prefer to do it the hard way and actually capture the Moon and my subject in a single shot.

Technorati Tags: photography, DSLR, the Moon

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The last time I posted on the state of play for free Astronomy software for the Mac things weren't looking so good. At that time your best option was to build the Linux program KStars from source using Fink. A long, complicated, and rather daunting install for anyone who's not a Unix geek. I'm happy to report that things have improved a lot since then. There's now a choice of three apps and you don't have to compile any from source (unless you want to).

Technorati Tags: astronomy, OS X, Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel, KStars

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This week I've started on the next rung of the Astrophotography ladder. Until now I was just taking a few hand-held shots of planets in the evening twilight. While they were nice shots, there is a lot more to astrophotography than that! What I've started experimenting with this week is using my very bright F1.4 30mm prime focus lens for longer tripod-mounted exposures. I'm already in love with my prime focus lens but this is yet another reason it's the best €300 I've ever spent. I get a lot more use out of it than I do out of my zoom lenses.

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This will be the first of three Astronomy themed posts over the next few days. It's first because it takes the least effort on my part ... the other two will have taken more time and effort.

Anyhow, here's the vid.

Technorati Tags: LHC, Science, Dark Matter, CERN

While making my way through my RSS feeds this lunch time I came across a very well written but very disturbing article entitled Rigged by George Monbiot. It basically makes a mockery of the current attempts by governments to deal with climate change. On the one hand they talk about the need to cut carbon and tell us all to cut down and be more efficient but on the other hand they offer massive tax incentives to companies to encourage them to extract more fossil fuels. It doesn't take a genius to realise that all fossil fuels that are extracted will be burned, hence the governments talk about reducing carbon but actually incentivise its increase! What really makes this article so damming is that the author backs up all his points with references. The way this article is referenced it could be published in an academic journal. Anyhow, as Fake Steve Jobs would put it, here's the money quote:

The government’s climate change policy works like this: extract every last drop of fossil fuel then pray to God that no one uses it.

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, Fossil Fuels

Amazingly comet 17/P Holmes is still visible to the naked eye under good conditions. When it flared up way back in October no one dared predict it would remain visible for more than a week or two. The comet has changed a lot in appearance over the last month and a half though. It started out looking like a star and is not a massive and very diffuse blob which appears as big as, if not bigger than, the Moon. This new defuse character means that the comet is rendered invisible by any Moon light, haze or high cloud. Having said that I did manage to glimpse it last night from my back garden in Maynooth so it can stand a little light pollution when it is very high up in the sky (it was nearly over head when I observed it last night). I can't imagine this fascinating comet will still be visible one Moon cycle from now so make the most of the next few days to grab it before the Moon comes in to spoil the fun again, and probably for good this time!

Technorati Tags: Comet, 17/p Holmes

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