SLS Meeting, The Sharing of Knowledge.

The Wednesday, 25th July 2018 meeting of the Somerset Levels Stargazers, held at Othery village hall was again excellent. The main topics for the meeting NGC7000, the North American nebula and the planet Mars, as it reaches opposition today 27th July, were both very well presented and very informative. Two of the members – Brian and Richard ,who had set up their own observatory gave a presentation of their progress and showed some of the images they had taken thus far. Unfortunately one of the members can no longer prepair and present his highly regarded monthly Space News ( up to date news on all things spacecrafty and rockety ) due to work commitments, so I volunteered to do a small demonstration on how to stack and part process images, luckily I had some Ha images for part of IC1318, a nebulous region in Cygnus, near the star Sadr – Gamma Cygni, that I had captured a few nights before, and it seemed to go down well with the members, thankfully

For me, the highlight of the evening was actually during the teabreak. Talking to Mark, Brian and Richard, as our main interest is astrophotography we obviously have something in common and knowledge to share, we already decided that the common USB lead is rubbish and should have a means of firmly fixing male and female connections, like the QHY Polemaster USB lead. 

Me talking with Mark, Brian and Richard

QHY Polemaster USB male connection, note locking thumb screws

I dont even want to talk about tonights ( 27th July 2018 ) total lunar eclipse, the longest one for 100 years, other than to say – after weeks of clear skies, the GREAT BRITISH WEATHER has yet again decided to obscure another astronomical event with thick black clouds, virtually to the minute of it happening.