BBC Stargazing Live at the Waters` Edge Visitors Centre. 16th Jan 2012

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Reviewer

North Lincs Astro have teamed up with The Waters Edge Country Park and the Lincolnshire Wildlife trust to host a great event in conjunction with BBC star gazing live.

Date. January 16th 2012. 6pm till late

Location. Waters` Edge Visitors Centre, Barton Upon Humber. North Lincolnshire

Parking and enterance are free.

  • North Lincs Astro group
  • East Riding Astronomers
  • Take a look at whats going on (subject to change)
  • Tour of the winter skies – Talk with Paul Money
  • Starlight Quiz – A self guided walk around the park
  • Minature Planet – View interesting things from our Planet through telescopes
  • Moon Buggies – Make self powered buggies from recycled material
  • Astro Mobiles – Make mobiles of stars and planets
  • Nocturnal Mysteries – A guided walk with night vision scopes
  • Winter Moths – A display of Moths that can be found in winter
  • Feed the birds – Make bird feeders from pine cones
  • Dinner time – Display of Owl pellets. Can you work out what he had for dinner ?
  • Nocturnal Disguises – Bat and Owl masks to make and wear
  • Bookmarks – Bookmarks to decorate and take home
  • Wildlife zone – Badger, Bats, Hedgehogs and birds of the Night
  • How to do imaging – Demonstrations on how to take photos through a telescope
  • Binoculars – A chance to buy binoculars from the centre on the night
  • Free hot chocolate to keep you warm
  • Cafe

Waters` Edge Country Park Website

 

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North Lincs Astro at Star Gazers Live 2012

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Reviewer

North Lincolnshire Astronomy society will be part of the Star Gazers Live week on Monday 16th January 2012.

The venue will be at the Waters Edge Visitors Centre at Barton Upon Humber in Lincolnshire. Time 6pm till late

Many more talks , stalls and exhibitors will be in attendance

 

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Opticron Aspheric WA 8×40 Binoculars Review

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Reviewer

Evey now and again a pair of binoculars will come along, and no matter how hard you try, you can not find a fault. The Opticron Aspheric WA 8×40 binoculars come in this category.

They come packaged in a quality hard case. First impressions of the binoculars is the build quality. They feel very solid. All the controls are silky smooth without feeling loose. The twist eye cups are of a very high quality. The eye relief seems longer than the stats suggest. Although I found when not wearing glasses, the best setting for the twist cups was around a quarter way out.

Handling is superb. Not the lightest in class, but this is mainly due to the build quality. As the W/A suggests that you get a picture window wide view. This is very true. The flat field gives a bright and crisp image across the whole panorama. Colours and contrast are well on par with many roof prism 8x42s costing £150.

Although they will not focus as close as many modern roof prisms, they are excellent for bird watchers and general use. The wide field of view, good depth of field, long eye relief and easy handling makes them very user friendly

Recently these binoculars won a best in class award for 8×40 binoculars for astronomy. I used these to look at the Moon. Apart from a little reflection (ghosting) they gave a superb view. The craters were easily visible, and all this while hand holding. The Moons of Jupter were easily seen. I can imagine these will give superb wide field views of rich star fields from dark skies.

At £89.00 the Optcron WA 8×40 represent excellent value for money. As already mentioned, I could not find any faults. OK the eyepiece covers were a little tight to remove at first, buy hey, that,s really scrapping the barrel to find something wrong.

Top class binoculars, that wont disappoint

 

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Hawke Premier 8×42 Binoculars. Customers review

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Reviewer

 

A customer recently came to the Northern Optics retail outlet looking for a good quality pair of binoculars. Key requirements were to be compact and lightweight.

Despite looking at smaller 8×25 binoculars, they opted for the Hawke Optics Premier 8×42.  From the customers point of view they ticked all the required boxes. Lightweight, compact, great handling, superb optics and could easily fit in a jacket pocket.

The fact they cost only £65 was a surpise and added bonus

Click here to buy

 

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Lincoln Astronomy Society. Next Meeting 10th January 2012

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Reviewer

Lecture Meetings

  The next lecture meeting will be on Tuesday 10th January starting at 7.30pm. The speaker will be the writer and broadcaster, Paul Money and his talk is ‘Images of the Universe Vol 4’

Paul Money
The lecture meetings are open to Members and Non Members, although a charge of £3 applies to non members, which is payable on the night.Tea and Coffee refreshments will be available following the lecture at approximately 9.30pm.

 

Lincoln Astronomical Society Website

 

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North Lincs Astro. Review of Celestron Ultima 80mm spotting scope

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Reviewer

At the North Lincolnshire Astronomy Society on the 5th December 2011, we had the chance to test a members Celestron Ultima 20-60×80/45 spotting scope on some astronomical targets.

We were not disappointed. At 60x Jupiter showed the main cloud belts clearly. There was no false colour evident. The image was steady, and the 4 Moons showed up well. This was well on par with many dedicated astronomical scopes of a similar size.

The Orion Nebula was the biggest surprise. Again at 60x the shape of M42 was very bright and clear at 60x. This despite a bright Moon nearby.  Averted vision was needed to get the best out of this target, but was by no means faint when looking direct.

Summing up. It is now quite clear why this spotting scope won best in class in the BBC Sky at Night Magazine. I was fearing that using at full zoom (60x) we would be let down by a narrow and dim view. How wrong I was. This is a superb all rounder.

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North Lincolnshire Astronomy Society. 5th December 2011

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Reviewer

We had a great evening at the North Lincs Astro club on the 5th December 2011. Around 15 members turned up. Despite a little cloud cover and a very chilly wind, we got some super views of Jupiter, The Moon , and the Orion Nebula (M42)

Scopes used were a ST80 short tube refractor, 76mm Celestron reflector and a Celestron Ultima 80mm spotting scope. We were all amazed at how good the Celestron Ultima was when used for astronomy. No wonder it won best in class in the BBC Sky at Night magazine.

The raffle prizes on an astronomy calender and a red light torch were donated by the club and Northern Optics

Thank you as always for the Lincs Wildlife trust for the use of the facilities


North Lincs Astro web site


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What is a refractor telescope

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Reviewer
 

 

 

 What is a refractor telescope
There are three basic ways to bring light rays to a focal point. The earliest method used by telescope makers, was to bend the rays by passing them through one or more pieces of glass which had curved, polished surfaces. This method produces a type of telescope called a refractor.

Refractors have several advantages over other designs. They are enclosed so that dust and moisture doesn’t enter the optical tube.
They have fixed optics so that they don’t require routine collimation, which means that the optics don’t have to be aligned by the user.They do not have a central obstruction, which reduces the amount of light entering the tube and causes an alteration of the diffraction pattern. The resulting high-contrast, fine-resolution images produced are considered ideal for planetary viewing. A problem with refractors is that since many wavelengths of light are passing through glass, the uneven bending of the rays causes false colour, around bright objects. This must be counteracted with additional lenses and special glass. Since at least four lens surfaces usually have to be very accurately shaped, polished and coated, they are more expensive to produce than other telescope
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Visionary Fieldtracker Emerald ED 8×42 binoculars review

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Reviewer

 

The Visionary Fieldtracker Emerald ED 8×42 binoculars received a great review in Birdwatching magazine 2011
Click here to read the full review (3.92MB download)

Click here to buy

 

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Astrophotography (part 1)

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Reviewer

Astrophotography is a most rewarding hobby for many amateur astronomers. It is a wonderful way to capture and hold on to the beauty of the celestial objects we most admire, and provides us with a way to easily share them with friends, even when the telescope is not around.
It was once thought that astrophotography was something that only seasoned astronomers dare try. But, this is certainly not the case, and with the advent of digital cameras and eyepieces, astrophotography is becoming more accessible to more people all the time.
There are several types of astrophotography that vary in terms of difficulty and costs. Fortunately, some of the easiest kinds of astrophotography can be accomplished at the lowest cost. So, you don’t have to break the bank to get off to a good start.

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