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Getting the Dome to Rotate
Usual apology for not posting things in a frequent or timely fashion. This post will probably be quite boring to anyone thinking “OK, where are the pictures of galaxies?” One of the hardest things we...
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Edo’s funny video and Bill the technician
So Edo had to make a blog for his summer project and as part of it he did this, which, I admit, is berlusconic genius :- Apart from that I was pleased to see that he had also got videos of one of the...
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Computer Control of the Dome
Over the past few posts I’ve been using the expression “We have done XYZ” a lot rather than “I have done XYZ”, which as any PhD supervisor knows probably really means “My student has done XYZ” at least...
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First preliminary images – Jupiter and the Moon
First Attempt at imaging Jupiter, this will improve! We’ve been up on the roof many times since the last update. Usually it’s pretty frustrating, I’ve become an expert in weather websites. We still...
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orion nebula first attempt
Orion Nebula M42 The 42nd object in the catalogue of Messier (M42) is called the Orion Nebula. We’ve recently taken delivery of our better quality CCD camera, which is an Atik 383L+ and we tried it...
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More Jupiter and Orion
We went out again last week, here is another attempt at Jupiter, it is getting better, although you can see the camera pixels on this one but we have two moons too, definite progress. By the way,...
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trying to see the eclipse
We tried to view the partial eclipse. Our optics group blacked out the entire seminar room with bin bags and tried to view the eclipse through a pinhole. the weather was awful, but they started to get...
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First Spectra – Methane on Jupiter
Those of you who have been paying attention to this whole telescope malarkey will know that one of the original goals of the project was to do spectroscopy. This is splitting light up into colours so...
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UK election analysis – low Labour turnout got Cameron in
There has recently been a general election here in the UK, this is the election that determines who is a member of parliament (MP) in the house of commons. There are 650 such MPs but four of them are...
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A few more pictures and the Sky at Night
Hello, we’ve been working to update the telescope a bit, Sunayana has been writing some image processing software to make the analysis of spectra faster for undergraduates and we have been cleaning up...
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Sunayana’s image processing Software
This post is by Sunayana who has been helping me with the telescope over the past year. Unfortunately she is now leaving us to pursue an MSc in Astrophysics at UCL but I sincerely hope she will find...
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End of Cloudy 2015
The weather has been horrible for months, its been mild but terribly cloudy. For example, the only two clear nights in London lately have been Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, both of which I had...
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That moment when you realise you’ve been handling ALL your image files...
Another post so soon? Well I’ve discovered something and its pretty significant. It’s really rather embarrassing, but well like I keep saying I REALLY don’t know what I’m doing and I try to pride...
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The Maxwell Society viewing the planetary line up
The undergraduates here at King’s College London have a society called the Maxwell Society. Named after James Clerk Maxwell, it boasts some famous members in the past including Peter Higgs and Arthur...
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Best Shot of Jupiter Yet
I have a new set of students doing their 3rd year projects on the telescope and they are very good. I will post some of their stuff soon. However, tonight I was out on the roof with them and after...
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Student Shots of the Orion Nebula
As I mentioned I have a group of students doing their third year projects at the moment. We got some stellar spectra and Jupiter like last year. I wanted to get them to do some imaging as well, we’ve...
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The Science Museum Archive
On Thursday I visited the London Science Museum Archive near Kensington Olympia (not far from Shepherds Bush, West central London, quite far from Tottenham). You cannot get access to this huge archive...
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Trying to Understand the Brexit Vote
People have asked me to write a blog post about the current Brexit situation. I voted remain. I have noticed that many of my friends in London are surprised and upset about the decision people have...
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Some Random Images
The astronomy weather has matched the politics lately – awful. I was going to go out tonight but it’s looking cloudy now. Again. So I’m going to upload a few images that have been hanging around on...
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You can still see the Moon through the pollution in London
It hasn’t been a great year for the telescope, the weather has been pretty cloudy since the Summer, and when it has been clear, the pollution has been horrible. Let me be clear, not light pollution,...
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