Return to Bowland

On Tuesday I went out for the first time in four months to look for the Milky Way. With it only just being past the summer solstice it wasn't the best time I know, but I was I was wondering how dark it got in our usual spot in the Forest of Bowland. The answer is, not very - certainly not dark enough to see the Milky Way properly, although the murky high level clouds didn't help. No noctilucent clouds either, which was another thing I was hoping for.

As my broken tracking mount has still not been returned, I could only take a wide angle set up with me to do some constellation shots.

So I didn't come back with much except for a few shots like this one showing Cassiopeia and Andromeda - can you see it? The best thing was meeting up with John and Susan Walsh and having a chat at an appropriate distance.

A very small and faint Andromeda is ringed in the above photo.

Jupiter and Saturn over Pendle Hill, looking south from Bowland. It wasn't this light, but the camera can make it seem brighter. And that's no sunset, it's the light pollution from Clitheroe. A bit over-sharpened I'm afraid.

So not many photos to process for once, but here's a couple of annotated asterisms to finish with:

L.A.S. Inaugural Meeting in Bowland

The Leigh Astro Society (L.A.S.) had its inaugural meeting in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire on the 1st October 2019.  This trip to our nearest 'Dark Sky' location had its seeds in a casual discussion with two birding friends (George Pike and Paul Richardson) from Leigh Ornithological Society (L.O.S.) when I discovered that George had always wanted to see Andromeda and that Paul had beed an astronomer since his early youth. As Paul had an old telescope lurking in the back of his wardrobe, I decided to arrange a trip and on that night the L.A.S. was born. The founding members are Paul, George and myself with Paul being duly elected as Chairman of the Society because he has telescopes and knows stuff.

The actual idea to form a 'Society' all started off as a bit of a joke whilst we were out there, with me making up the initials to be the same as our esteemed birding Society. We'd recently been given a talk by one of the L.O.S.'s founding members who explained how the Society started nearly 50 or more years ago.  So in a comedy parody of that talk I started saying ...

"It was in the winter of 2019 when three intrepid lads forayed into deepest and darkest Lancashire in search of Andromeda that the foundations of the L.A.S. were laid"

I also made fun of the fact that in a recent radio interview with one our L.O.S. members, the presenter couldn't the Society's name right (well it is rather a mouthful) and so some sarcastic suggestions included the Leigh Astrophenomical Society and the Leigh Astronomological Society before we eventually settled on something short and sweet - the Leigh Astro Society.

Anyway, it was on that night that George and I had our first views of Andromeda and Saturn thanks to Paul's help.  We were based in a small lay-by along the BXXX out of Waddington and it was pretty dark - there was just a distant glow from Preston to the west. But we could see so many stars compared to our suburban homes in Leigh and Tyldesley, Greater Manchester.

These photos are not much, but they mark my initial steps into the field of Astrophotography. Some would say it's a minefield, others a wonderful hobby. I've already experienced both!

Work in progress - ignore the notes below.


Notes ....

George Pike, Paul and I had a great night viewing the skies above Bowland and this inspired me to look for a tracking mount so that I might do longer exposures of deep sky objects (DSO's) such as galaxies and nebulae as well as the Milky Way.

We had a great night and George (Pike) got to see Andromeda (one of his long-felt needs) and I reawakened my interest in the starts all under the superb guidance of our resident astronomy guru Dr. Paul Richardson. We also saw Saturn, the Hyades and Pleiades and a host of other stars which just can't be seen from suburban areas.

Update:
I've since set up a light-hearted, fun Facebook group which all those with an interest in astronomy, the night sky and astrophotography are welcome to join. We also have a WhatsApp group for reporting interesting sightings, aurora alerts and anything else that's relevant.