My Solar System

The Sun holds little excitement for me. 

At best it's entertaining when there's an eclipse. Most times I think of it as light pollution that is stopping me from seeing the stars!  Ironically, as an astronomical body, it leaves me cold!

Having said that I had a look though a Hydrogen Alpha filter telescope at HAW19 and the view was awesome. In H-alpha light you really get a feeling that the Sun is a star and we are so close we can get a great view of its turbulent globe.  White light views are so two dimensional it's like looking at a flat circle of paper. No fun at all.  But the H-alpha scope was quite inspiring.

Pic: If you think this is a picture of the crescent Moon - Look again!  This picture is of the partial solar eclipse, 9th of March 2016.  Taken in intermittant cloud and haze with a Fuji DSLR zoomed to 300mm in the visual spectrum.  I had to drive eighteen miles south to get out from under thick cloud in South Yorkshire.

Location Note: I finally found a spot in a Derbyshire Location where the cloud cover was breaking up.  I like the dramatic artiness of this shot. Click the address links to see this location. If a location is bold and underlined (see Derbyshire Location above), you can click the link to see a view of it if I haven't got a pic of my own: All these location links are from Google Maps, copyright Google. Don't forget to return by clicking the back button!

Projecting the Sun:

The first time I observed the Sun with a telescope was probably January or February 1977. I was using the 60mm Astral Telescope that I had been given for Christmas 1976. Having read all the caveats about observing the Sun, and duely throwing away the 'Sun Filter', I set up the telescope to project the Sun's disc onto some white cardboard.  I arranged for there to be another square of cardboard at the front of the tube to cast a shadow over the projection screen and uncapped the refractor.  With a bit of jiggling about, I finally had the image of the Sun on the screen and observed several sun spots. So far so good.  The image, I noticed, was becoming blurry and less defined, but I stuck with it and observed some more. 

The next time I tried observing the night sky there was a definite mistiness about the star images. They looked a little out of focus no matter what I did.  I asked my dad to have a look the next day and what he discovered, inside the smoke filled telescope tube, was a good deal of melted plastic around the front part of the eyepiece.  He took the focuser off one end, and the object glass off the other. He cleaned the smoke particles off the lenses and used a craft knife to remove the plastic that had dripped from the eyepiece down in front of the field lens.   We discovered that when you are projecting the Sun's image, if the light (and HEAT) doesn't go directly through the lenses, and hits internal parts of the telescope, the plastic round the eyepiece for example, then the plastic will melt and smoke and generally ruin a good telescope (or a poor one - Physics is not picky!)  I feel that this is a particular problem in multiple focus instruments with the ratcheted magnifications as the front lens of a zoom system is close to the focus of the OG.

I learned my lesson, and I never again used a good telescope to project the sun without a Baader filter in place! Baader filter foil goes in front of the object glass and stops nearly all the light and all the heat from entering the optical system. A much safer plan!

How to avoid this happening to you:
1: The safest method is to use some 'Baader foil' in front of the object glass.  With the foil, you use the telescope normally. Make sure the foil is secure - You don't want it falling off when your eye is at the eyepiece!

2: If you are projecting the Sun - Rack out the drawtube to its maximum extension, and focus the Sun as you slowly turn the focus wheel to move the tube inwards. This avoids the possibility of the eyepiece being at the OG focus point.  If the eyepiece is always outside the focus point, then there is less chance of it burning!

Pic: A 'Click-Stop Zoom' eyepiece on my HOC 10-30 x 30mm drawtube refractor.  Different magnifications are selected by pulling out the eyepiece or pushing it in: This arrangement is not recommended - Avoid!

Note: Sun filters used to be a thick and very dark piece of glass that cut down most of the light. They fit into the eyepiece in front of the field lens, but had a tendancy to shatter when the heat built up too much. They were supplied, but weren't recommended, even in the carefree seventies!

Solar Eclipses:

The first solar eclipse of any kind I witnessed was 30th May 1984. (I really got into astronomy in 1976. You will read about that later. It seems that I have had to wait at least eight years, and usually more like ten, for everything!)

This was a partial eclipse, visible from the UK, and a warm and sunny afternoon. I used my 10x50 binoculars by projection method, with only one side uncapped, to observe the Moon encroaching on the disc of the Sun. I set up on the drive of my parent's house. I was 21 years old in 1984, and a year away from having a house of my own.  It wasn't a large partial, but certainly entertaining for my first solar eclipse. The sun was lowering to the west and it was a pleasant afternoon in Astley, Greater Manchester. 

Location Pic: Eleanor Drive, Astley, Manchester, UK. Arrow A is where I made the eclipse observation, looking off the drive and across the road. 

Additional: Arrow B is where I first saw Halley's Comet a year later - I had to set up so I could see through the gap between the houses looking toward the large cloud in this pic. There was an inconvenient tree if I set up in the back garden!

The most memorable, though disappointing solar eclipse was the long awaited 11th of August, Cornwall 1999 total eclipse. A date that had been eagrely awaited since I first read about it in The Penguin book, 'Space Exploration', in about 1973. Like most of the country, I had a view of a very thin crescent of the Sun through intermittant thick clouds. I didn't go to Cornwall to be rained on all day as so many did. The weather forecast for the whole country was bleak for the eleventh!  At that time I lived in  College Park, Horncastle. The home of the BAA Horncastle Astronomy Weekend (HAW). HAW used to be at the Further Education College in Horncastle - A bonus of living there!  But, in the late morning of August 11th 1999,  from my back garden in the east midlands, the clouds parted at times to reveal a very thin partial.  I had a sense of accomplishment at even seeing the crescent, and cursed the forces of nature that, after twenty six years of waiting, presented me with a cloudy day as a reward for my patience.  I have no photos of this event, momentous as it was!

I have seen several other partial eclipses of the sun since then. They are inspiring events and I would recommend you to observe one when you get chance.

There are several ways of observing the Sun safely.  The easiest is to make a projection onto some white paper or card. As seen in this picture.  I simply held some binoculars with just one side uncapped and projected onto some paper on a clip-board.

Be careful with your focusing, make sure the edge of the sun is as sharp as you can get it (If there is an eclipse the edge of the Moon will be sharper to focus on - see pic). Any sunspots will be visible as dark points on the disc of the Sun at this stage. You have to get a shadow to fall on the paper for best results. This isn't usually difficult with binoculars as you're there in the way, holding them!

Pic:  A photo of a partial eclipse projected using binoculars taken just north of Puerto del Carmen, in the hillside village of Lower Mächer, whilst living in Lanzarote at 09:45 UT, on Oct 3rd 2005.  I took the photo when the Moon was half way across the Sun's disc.  This was seen as a total eclipse in central Europe. My friends in the UK were too far north to see totality, and I was too far south!  My typical astro-luck!

Projecting a Partial Solar Eclipse with a Pinhole Camera:

On the morning of March 29th 2025 there was a partial eclipse visible in the UK.  I decided to experiment to discover what can be seen with a simple pinhole camera.

The idea of a pinhole camera is that light from the object, in this case the Sun, passes through the pinhole and is focussed, by virtue of the parallel nature of light, onto a screen. The screen is kept in shade and observed from the side.  Because the light rays from the Sun are (practically) parallel, a reasonably sharp image is formed when the light passes through the tiny hole.

I kept the expenses low for this project, so I could be sure anyone could replicate it! I used a 600mm long box, which would give an image scale of about 6mm for the Sun's disc.  You arrange the box so the image of the Sun falls on the projection screen (A piece of A4 paper in my case) at the back of the box and observe through the slot in the top.

I used a piece of aluminium foil to make the pinhole in. I cut a square out of the box, about 3cm square, and taped some foil over it. Then I used a cocktail stick to make a hole of about 1mm diameter.  This was quite bright enough and you can see from the image that it was quite well focussed.

Note: The larger the hole the brighter the image, but also the less sharp it is. There is plenty of light imaging the Sun, so I used a 1mm hole that wouldn't have an image that was too bright to photograph. This particular picture was taken at 10:55 and was the best image obtained.

It worked very well and I could see that the Moon was encroaching on the disc about one minute into the eclipse!  Not bad going.  I followed the Moon as it moved onto the Sun's disc until just after maximum coverage at 11:10 am.

I was really surprised, and very pleased with how this project worked out, and how clear the image was and how well seen in the dim box (See pic - Taken through the slot at 10:55am).

Thoughts: If you would like a larger image scale and sharper focus, you could try using a longer box.   Some experimentation with length and pinhole size might be in order!  I calculate that a 0.75mm hole and 1,000mm distance to the projection screen would give a nice sharp image about 1cm across which would still be bright enough to photograph well.

... Now all you have to do is wait for another eclipse!

Solar Observation with a Radio Telescope:

I never had much interest in the radio universe. I was and still am, a visual observer!  However, on a number of occasions, as a devotee of science in general, and astronomy in particular, I have been to the Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope Visitor Centre and used the visitor controlled 7m radio dish that used to be sited just outside the visitor centre main hall.  I don't think it is still there today.

Observing the Sun using a Radio Telescope: One of the days between Boxing Day 1978 and New Year's Day 1979 my dad took me, and two of my science mad friends, Jeremy Glass and Mick Leonard, to the Jodrell Bank visitor centre. (More of these two duffers later!) At the time we lived in the famous seaside town of Blackpool. Jodrell Bank is only about a ninety minute drive from Blackpool, but it's far enough to go in winter. As it happens it was a reasonable day but could have been horrible, weather wise! The sun was poking through when we arrived at ten thirty-ish and cleared later, allowing us to make our solar observation, at about 14:30, just before we came home.

Picture:  Jeremy Glass, ready to go!  Standing outside the back of the Carlton Hotel, Blackpool (See Mercury section). 

An intelligent, brilliant, funny and loyal friend who is sadly missed. R.I.P. Jeremy, 1962-1988.

We spent an entertaining five or so hours, looking at the radio telescopes and learning all about them.  There were lots of interesting scientific exhibits and interactive things to do for three science mad guys and dad. There was a table Orrery (a mechanical model of the Solar System) about 1.5m in diameter that fascinated me, and several seventeenth and eighteenth century brass telescopes of various kinds in the museum. I bought some astronomy subject projection slides to remind me of the day. There were also many displays and models with historical information about the Jodrell Bank observatory. All brilliant stuff, and Well worth a trip!

In the main visitor centre there were windows all around that looked out over the fields thereabouts, from which you could see the enormous Mk. I telescope (The famous one!) and just outside one bank of windows, by a technical building of sorts, there was a radio telescope of about seven metres diameter which could be controlled by the public. It had a radio receiver inside the main hall, which could detect various objects' frequencies. We set the frequency selecter to 'Sun', and set to, to make our observation. 

I used the joystick to move the dish left/right and up/down, until the shadow of the protruding central aerial was in the center of the dish, indicating that the telescope was pointing directly at the Sun's disc.

Picture:  The 7m telescope available for public observation and recording of solar activity in radio wave frequencies. As you can see from the shadow of the aerial in this pic, it needs moving to the right and a little higher to center the Sun. I don't think the 7m telescope is there any more!   The 250 foot diameter Mk. I telescope (in background) is amazing!  It is eleven times the size of the 7m telescope. The difference between the diameters of Earth and Jupiter!

The alignment was quite a 'hit and miss affair' as the scope moved in a series of small jolts! When we were happy that the scope was pointing directly at the Sun, one of the guys pressed the button on the receiver to record the observation.  The printer spat into life and out came a ticker-tape reading of about three metres length of the Sun's radio activity. We couldn't begin to interpret the holes that could only be read by computer, but it was a valid observation of the Sun in radio wave radiation frequencies. We shared the tape between us - About a metre each. At the time I thought it was cool, but in retrospect it was not very exciting for a teenager!  We all had a fantastic day in rural Cheshire, but none of us was particularly turned on by our dip into the world of 'invisible astronomy'.  This remains the only radio observation of an astronomical body I have ever made!

The Moon: Everyone has seen the Moon!

It's bright enough to fish by at night. My grandad and I often did that, as he told me about the stars. But it was not he who started this whole thing off. Everyone has seen the Moon. But not everyone has seen it through a telescope, and the first time I did, it changed my life!

I was five (and a half, as any self respecting small child would insist!). I've worked out it was late November in 1968, around the 26th as I clearly remember the Moon was just about half phase, and we had been making Christmas decorations at school. The smell of aerosol paint was in the air from the decorations I had persuaded mum to spray gold for me. That evening, about five thirty or so, my mum shouted me to come outside. I went to the front door and there was a half moon shining in a bright and crisp black sky in the south. It was a chilly night, feeling frosty, and I was keen to get back inside in the warm. Mum had my dad's little 30mm telescope with her.  If I open a drawer in my desk, right now, I can put my hand on that very telescope!

Picture: For the purposes of this photo, I opened that drawer, on the 1st June 2026, after 58+ fun packed years behind the eyepiece, and took out the first telescope I ever used on some far away, bright autumn night, in November 1968.  

Back in 1968: Mum had my dad's little 30mm drawtube telescope firmly held against a metal pole that supported the porch roof outside the communal front door, that led to our flat. No. 42 Stanley Avanue, Poulton-le-Fylde. She encouraged me to have a look. I put my eye to the eyepiece and said something like, “Yeah, the Moon.”

Mum checked the alignment, she knew I hadn't seen the Moon, and suggested I had another look. I did. “It's the Moon,” I said again, without much enthusiasm.

Mum persisted, and my life changed forever: I had a third look through the telescope. This time, instead of the telescope showing a patch of black empty sky, there was the nearly half-full Moon filling the view.

A brilliant white half disc with craters in stark relief. Mountains and valleys and the darker lava seas and the ragged terminator. The detail seemed to jump out in the first instant. “The Moon. The Moon. Mum, I've seen the Moon!!!”, I shouted jumping with excitement. (I think this is where I learned to use too many exclamation marks.) After a few seconds, I returned to the telescope and spent maybe a whole minute looking at what I could see.

That was it. I learned that you can see amazing things with even modest instrumentation. At the time I didn't know it, but that little telescope had set my life on a course that has led me through some amazing views of things I never thought possible.

Location Pic: The observation place with metal pole, where I had my first astronomical view of any kind through a telescope.  The building is aligned east/west. The front faces due south.

Lunar Eclipses:

A lunar eclipse takes place if the Moon passes through the shadow cone of the Earth, opposite the Sun.  These eclipses are rarer than you might imagine because of the tilt of the Moon's orbit.  I remember well the first Lunar eclipse that I saw.  At the time I had just started regular correspondance with Patrick Moore about things I was discovering. I had lots of questions, which Patrick courteously answered every month for at least the next year or so!  It was in one of these letters that he made me aware of the upcoming Lunar eclipse.  It was the partial eclipse of April 4th 1977,  and fourteen year old me had to get up in the middle of the night to see it. I duely set my alarm clock for 04:20 BST ten minutes before it all started. The beginning of the eclipse was 03:30 UT and the maximum shadow coverage was 04:18 UT.

Picture: The Moon moves into the shadow of the Earth, which extends 870,000 miles into space. The Moon moves right to left in the sky by its own diameter every 56 minutes approximately moving East ('left') while the sky appears to move 14 degrees to the West ('right' in the Northern hemisphere). The Earth's shadow at the distance of the Moon, 251,600 miles, is just over two and a half times the size of the Moon!

Note: Basically, the Moon moves across the sky slower than the sky turns. While the sky moves 15 degrees West every hour, the Moon only moves about 14.5 degrees.  This is because the Moon is in orbit round the Earth in approximately 29 days and the Earth is turning beneath the sky of stars in about 24 hours.  (Of course in science these numbers are very accurate, but we don't need to consider accurate figures in this description of the mechanism).

It was interesting to see that as the Moon entered the shadow it appeared to have a bite out of it.  It didn't look at all like when it's in a phase. The disc remained white and the shadow was black. As this was only a partial eclipse there was no spectacular reddening of the Moon as you get with total lunar eclipses (see pic), and I got fed up quickly enough.  It was a cold night and I was tired. I didn't stay out long, just long enough to get past the maximum shadow coverage.  I was tucked up in bed and asleep well before the Moon moved out of the shadow of the Earth at 05:06 UT, I had to be up for school that bright Monday morning. I asked around among my friends, but no-one else had seen the eclipse . (Just me, the astronomy fanatic!)

Pic: The reddening of the Moon during the total lunar eclipse of 28th Sept. 2015. 03:30 on the border of Pisces and Cetus.

Lunar Eclipses in 2025:  There was a total lunar eclipse visible from anywhere east of Berlin on 7th September 2025.  The Moon rose in the UK just after the end of the event. Shame.

Note: Unlike Solar eclipses, if the shadow of the Earth falls on the Moon, anyone on Earth that can see the Moon in their sky can see the eclipse.  By comparison, in a Solar eclipse you have to be in the shadow cone yourself the see anything.

What I like about observing The Moon:

Watching the shadow move in retreat, across a crater floor, and the light touching the tip of the central peak. A tiny spot of light in the shadow darkness.  I like observing the cusp of the Moon to see tops of mountains illuminated off the end into the dark sky.

Pic: The (nearly) half-phase Moon photographed through my SkyWatcher 'Classic Dob 150' 26th Feb 2023 at 22:10.

This is an undriven, single shot, hand held, with Samsung J6+. The Pleiades would have been in a wider angle shot to the right.  This phase is approximately equivalent to the first view I ever had through a telescope on 26th Nov. 1968. This is a much more detailed view, by virtue of the 150mm aperture telescope. Nevertheless, it's the view my 5.5 year old mind saw!

The first time I saw it I was specifically looking for it, of course. You don't generally just happen to notice Mercury. Though that is how it was discovered in antiquity by the ancient astronomers. At the time I lived in the famous seaside town of Blackpool.  I had walked the few hundred metres (yards in those days) to my best friend, Jeremy Glass' home. His father was the manager of the Carlton Hotel on the North Shore sea front.

Location Pic:  The exact position of my first sighting of little Mercury, approximately at its 'greatest Eastern elongation', viewed from the balcony arrowed, outside the residential lounge of the Carlton Hotel, Blackpool. This is a modern pic, copyright Google.

(R.I.P. : Jeremy Glass 1962 -1988 a very good and loyal friend, who is missed every day. My son is named after him.)

Jeremy and I stood on the front porch outside the lounge, he with his 12x50s and I with my 10x50 binoculars. We were looking out to sea, an excellent western vista. We had a good view of the hues of the dusk sky over the horizon, with Venus hanging resplendant that evening, like a drop of silver in the twilight. This apparition was in mid to late March in 1978.  It was easy to find Venus in the purple haze of the first onset of dusk, and just a degree or two above the brilliant white planet was a tiny point of light, looking for all the world like a star, nessled in the evening twilight above the wide expanse of the Irish Sea. It was the elusive crepuscular planet Mercury, slightly pinkish, but with no hint of its half phase in my binoculars.

I have seen Mercury, not many times, but a good few, since that evening. I photographed it when it appeared, yet again, within a few degrees of Venus on the 16th January 2015.  Thanks to Venus acting as an obvious signpost, and to some clear weather that lasted over a week, it was easy to find little Mercury for four or five nights of that elongation.

 Pic: The picture was taken with my Fuji DSLR - zoomed to 300mm lens, and I don't think I'm fooling myself if I claim that it looks slightly pink on this photo.  The two planets were about two or three degrees aparent separation and approx. South-West azimuth direction. This shot was taken from my back garden in Handsacre. 

(I don't stay in the same place for long, you'll discover! I've lived all over the place and never anywhere for more than nine years! The longest single stretch was my school years in Blackpool, 1972 to 1981)

 Note: Mercury is never visible as much less than half phase in the telescope. Because of the difficulties of seeing it, it is usually almost or at its farthest from the sun at just about half phase, when it is visible.

What I like about observing Mercury:

The mere act of observing Mercury is reward enough for this difficult object. Lots of things have to come together:

The right elongation parameters, a 'signpost', like Venus or the Moon close by, and the weather, in the few short days of the apparition, all must be exactly right to give you a chance!  Once the planet is found, the faint pink tinge is wonderful, if you can discern it in your instrument.

Pic:  My view west just after sunset. Tamworth in late winter, 2025. Showing Venus and Mercury.

NOTE: This was Feb 28th 2025 - The night we were told we could go out and see 'all the planets'. It is only just dark enough to see Mercury. How on earth are you supposed to see magnitude 8 Neptune, and magnitude 3 Saturn, in that bright twilight sky? Both these planets were lower than Mercury, towards the horizon, at this time. All the planets were said to be 'visible' by the notoriously incorrect and misguided journalists of the world's news agencies... They are always telling the public a load of hogwash! They shouldn't let a journalist within 13 parsecs of an astronomical story!

Transits of Mercury:

This is the rare event when the planet moves between the Earth and the Sun's disc. Using projection or specialised camera equipment, the event can be watched by amateur astronomers on the Earth.  Transits of Mercury can only happen in May or November!

I observed the transits of this little planet as it crossed the Sun's disc.   The first transit of Mercury I saw was May 7th 2003. I was living at 55, Spilsby Road, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, and I had set up a projection using a small refractor in the back garden looking east (This was the same house where I had welcomed the world famous John Dobson for a two night stay in 2002). I made this observation before I had to go to work. The transit started at 05:13 and went on until 10:32. I made my observation from 06:50 to 07:35. The planet was quite close to the Sun's edge when I began and got steadily further onto the disc before I had to give up on this transit and leave for work at the DWP in Lincoln. I was at work by 08:30, but I knew that as I looked out of the office window, Mercury would still be on the face of the Sun until about tea-break time.

The next transit I observed was May 9th 2016, this one was a little better, as it was later in the day, and I was off work!  By now I was living in South Yorkshire in the town of Rotherham at 99, Grange Road. I set up a refractor telescope to project the Sun in the back garden. I was trading telescopes by this time and I used a Celestron Astromaster 80mm refractor I had in stock to project the Sun's disc onto white card. I have no personal photographic evidence of these events (Sorry).

 Pic: On 9th May 2016, there was a transit of Mercury. The planet is below centre and a little to the right.

(Thanks to, and Copyright David Graham)

Note: The next transit of Mercury is 13th November 2032.

TARDIS: It may also be interesting to you that as Mercury is so close to the gravitational mass of the Sun, and moves so quickly, that, by the laws of relativity, if an observer on Mercury could see a clock on Earth, an hour on Earth would be seen to take only 59 minutes to pass, as seen from the surface of Mercury.  Seen from Earth, an hour passes on Mercury in 61 minutes!

Venus is a planet that doesn't normally need to be searched for, except, maybe, if you decide to observe this bright planet in the daylight sky of mid-afternoon, when many times I have picked up its brilliant white phase in a telescope, backed by a beautiful blue sky (As seen in the pic).

Venus is the largest apparent sized solar system body in our telescopes apart from the Sun and Moon, of course. It can grow to a minute of arc (60 seconds of arc).

Pic:  The planet Venus as seen through my SkyWatcher 200P f5 Newtonian on the sunny evening of the 6th of May 2020, at 19:06 UT.  I had been watching her intermittently from about 13:00 UT in the scope. What a pleasant and sunny afternoon in the back garden of my bungalow at 28, Queensway, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, during UK lockdown 1.

The first time I noticed Venus (and Jupiter), around Christmas 1973, curiosity drove me to find out what it was, such was its brilliance. I had noticed the pair of really bright stars in the west after sunset, especially as Dad drove me home a couple of times from my grandparent's house in Poulton-le-Fylde, heading home towards Blackpool, along the A586 'Garstang Road West'. There was a very low horizon looking toward the sea and for a few days the weather was nice and there was a lovely evening view of the planets together in the sky. Click the address links to see this location, The road and the view west copyright Google as are all these 'location links'.

My grandad knew a few things about the stars and planets, mainly through his interest in navigation at sea, and I asked him what the pair of super-bright stars was in the west after sunset.

“The bright, white one is Venus, the evening star and the other is Jupiter!”, he answered.

I was still not yet eleven years old. This observation was the catalist for my interest and I got bitten by the bug of astronomy proper after this Venus aparition. Venus represented "The Christmas Star" to ten year old me at that time. In an interesting twist, it is now thought that the actual 'Christmas star' was a very close conjunction between Venus and Jupiter! Almost exactly what I was looking at.

A little history: I started secondary school at Warbreck High School, Blackpool, in September 1974. I found myself placed into 'Form One-One'. That was the first year and 'top' class - Written 1¹  - I had done well in the primary school final exams. It was Mr. (Eddie) Whittaker's class. He was the head of year one, containing six forms of 40 pupils between 11 and 12 years of age and a remedial class of about 15 SEN students. Mr Whittaker was funny and an entertaining form master as I settled in to secondary school life. I began to excell and be interested in all branches of the subjects under the heading 'science': being good at Chemistry, Physics and Biology at school. Being involved with four or five like-minded school friends grew my science knowledge and nurtured that way of thinking. 

In 1976, (Third year: Form Three-Two: 3² with Mr Whalley) [Slight whistling comes from somewhere!] I took Chemistry and Biology as my chosen science subjects. Pupils could only choose two of the three! But, in September 1978, to add another science subject to my portfolio, I also did an external Astronomy O-Level evening course at Lytham St. Anne's College of Further Education. I passed my astronomy O-Level in June 1979, just before my final secondary school exams. It is a shame that Jeremy Glass's father wouldn't let him take the Astronomy O-Level. Jeremy wanted to, but his dad thought it would distract him from the exams he needed to pass to enter Army officer training, which he did after sixth form in 1982. (There is a picture of the college building where I did my Astronomy O-level in the Jupiter section below).  At school, we were entered into CSE and GCE examinations in biology and just once for the other science subjects and the humanities. I'm pleased to say I passed them all. I left school with four passes in science subjects: Biology, Chemistry and Astronomy GCE (O-Level) and also the Biology CSE! I also passed my GCE Maths, English and Art A Level (Those with an aptitude for Art did their O-Level in the 4th year in 1978). Due to foreseen circumstances, well within my control, I didn't attend a University (See Uranus section). I currently hold a 'Certificate of Higher Education' from the Open University, having completed university modules in maths, technology, computing, creative writing, and Spanish!  (An eclectic mix!)

Back to the story: In March 1976, I turned thirteen. On May 3rd, that year, I bought myself 'Star and Planet Spotting', a brilliant book by Peter Lancaster Brown. Reading this book and using the planetary location tables at the back, in conjunction with the star maps in the center pages, I was able to easily find the planets in the night sky for myself. I had to wait until nearly Christmas for Venus to crawl out of the Sun's glare.  I saw the brilliant white Evening Star over the rooftops to the south west from my upstairs bedroom of my grandparents' house in Poulton-le-Fylde.  I stayed there during most school holidays and it was where, together with my parents' house in Blackpool, I read and read and read anything and everything I could get my hands on from the public library about telescopes, optics, astronomy and its history. Whenever it wasn't dark or clear outside over the next four or five years I would be found learning as much as I could about this fascinating science and hobby, regularly looking out from the back door if dark, hoping for a break in the clouds.

The first time I saw the phase of Venus through a telescope was a few years after I first saw it paired in the sky with Jupiter. I got a very basic terrestrial 60mm telescope for that Christmas in 1976 and trained it on Venus at the next clear sky between Christmas and New year. I observed the planet in the twilight sky in the west just after sunset. The 'Astral Telescope' showed a beautiful crescent, brilliant, white and large in the eyepiece against a blue sky in the twilight. Despite only having a maximum of 60x magnification the planet was impressively large.

I remember thinking how odd it was to be able to see another world as a crescent. The only other body that is easily seen as such a thin sliver of light. I have always been good at spotting Venus by eye in the early evening sky, and my first telescopic observation was very similar to the pic above as far as the phase goes (But it was totally devoid of any cloud shading as you would expect in a so-so quality 60mm telescope with 60x magnification and no experience!).

Pic: The 60mm Astral Telescope. The Blackpool house had no grass, just a concrete back yard, but in Poulton-le-Fylde, I generally did my observations from the back lawn which had wonderful north, south and western views.  Although this telescope was very poor optically and in design, it was all I had, and did give me a reasonable view of the crescent Venus on many occasions.

What I like about observing Venus:

The large, thin crescent Venus, with faint dusky markings in an azure blue sky, in Spring, is the most wonderful sight. Although there's not a lot to see markings wise, it pays to have a large telescope for venus, the larger the better!

Transits of Venus:

This is a very rare event when the planet moves exactly between the Earth and the Sun's disc. Using projection or specialised camera equipment, the event can be watched by amateur astronomers on the Earth.  Transits of Venus happen in pairs separated by eight years and then there is a gap of 121.5 years before the next pair of transits.

Unfortunately, for newcomers to the hobby, there have 'recently' been a pair of transits in 2004 and 2012.  The next pair may be seen by very old persons who are as yet children, as the first of the pair of transits is in 2117!  As I write this in 2020, some who are as yet ungotten and unborn will pass away at a goodly age before the next transit of Venus - Which is a sobering thought!

PIC: On 8th June 2004, there was a transit of Venus. The planet Venus is a lot more obvious than tiny Mercury was!

Also notice that the edge of the planet is fuzzy. This is light passing through the top part of Venus's atmosphere and blurring the edge.

 (Thanks to, and Copyright David Graham)

I observed the transit of June 8th 2004 but not 6th June 2012.  Transits of Venus are easier to observe because the planet is larger and closer than Mercury, but also much rarer than those of tiny Mercury.  I was living in the house in Horncastle where I had made my first Mercury transit observation eleven months earlier, and set up a projection using the same refractor in the morning after sunrise and after morning clouds had moved on, when the transit was already in progress.  The transit started at 05:13, (Strangely, the exact same time as the 2003 Mercury transit!) and went on until 11:26.  It was great to see Venus against the face of the Sun, knowing that it was such a rare event.  At the time I hoped I would see the next transit in 2012, but it was not to be. Little did I know it at the time, but my first Venus transit was also my last!

Note: The next pair of transits will occur on 10th December, 2117 and 8th December, 2125.

Mars has always been a very disappointing world to me. Science fiction stories and films, and indeed the fascinating Percival Lowell story, made much of this planet, but the reality was rather less inspiring.

There are seven hundred and eighty days between successive oppositions. That's over two years! Even then, Mars can be unfavourably tiny nonetheless. Detail is something only seen by experienced  observers in almost any sized telescope! I can't ever recall seeing the polar caps very clearly in any instrument and the 'dark markings' also have always appeared very slight to me. I have great admiration for people who's eyesight and instrumentation have allowed them to see these things. But, for me, Mars has given little excitement over the years.

Pic: Mars at opposition (2020) with a good quality 6" (152mm) f15 with 2,300mm focal length. I had a good 9mm Plossl eyepiece which gave pin-sharp views. I used an Opticraft Sealed-Tube Cassegrain and very good seeing and 255x magnification. This image represents about the best I have ever seen the markings or polar caps. You see what I mean? Not exactly obvious those markings! I have had similar results with a SkyWatcher 150PL during the 2020 opposition, and later with my SkyWatcher Classic Dob 150 in Feb 2023, two months after opposition. Mars has an orbit that brings it closer to Earth at southern oppositions and farther away at northern ones. So, when Mars is well placed for northern observers it is always small in the eyepiece. 

NOTE:  I bought this particular Opticraft 6" Cassegrain telescope for just £26 (could you have resisted the urge? Could you be so lucky?  See my Second Hand Buying Guide)

I knew Opticraft had some production quality problems, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was "one of their good ones" - Not only that, but it was superb!  I sold it to a gentleman on the south coast for £236 - He knew what I paid, he read this website! - But, he was happy to get such a great instrument.

Back in the '70s: I didn't really expect to see Mars until I had my own telescope. However, it can be very bright to the unaided eye! There was going to be an opposition in late January 1978 and I had my mediocre Astral 60mm ready to observe the red planet in late December 1977. Being the school holidays, I was naturally at my grandparent's house, thinking about observing Mars as Christmas approached. On Thursday December 22nd, I realised that I could see the red planet rising if I took my scope into my grandparent's bedroom. There was a gap between the houses opposite, and Mars rose between the two houses at about 20:30.  I watched the surprisingly fiery but tiny globe rise into the slightly misty sky through the telescope to the strains of the Carpenter's “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” coming from Grandad's TV and watched 'Legs and Co.' dance among crude 'Blue Peter' style, spaceship models hanging on cotton thread! There was a Christmas Top of the Pops on the TV and they had had their hit in the October of that year.  As I observed with the lacklustre telescope and listened to the music, thoughts of 'War of the Worlds' echoed in my mind.

I learned just how bright Mars can be at that opposition, but was very disappointed by how small the planet is in the eyepiece. Remember, the Astral telescope magnified only 60x at 'best'. Mars is small, even at 200x.

I don't advocate viewing through a window (open or closed!) However, neither my enthusiasm or impatience knew any bounds in my early days of astronomical obsession. The view through the open window was a way of getting to see Mars before it rose above the houses proper half an hour later!

What I like about observing Mars:

Mars is a small world but rewards your efforts if you have decent instrumentation. A long focus telescope of 150mm if Newtonian, or a 120mm refractor will show markings and the polar caps in favourable conditions at opposition.  There are many times when the red planet is just a tiny bland disc, devoid of any detail. On the rare occasions when markings can be seen it is a magical moment.  This is sometimes due to the atmospheric seeing on Earth, but also because detail can be hidden beneath Martian dust storms that rage for weeks.

Location Pic: The very window through which I had my first telescopic view of Mars on 22nd December, 1977 at 18, Westwood Avenue, Poulton-Le-Fylde, Lancashire, UK. (The tree wasn't that big in the nineteen seventies). 

Interesting New Discovery:  I used to read about astronomers noticing that the dark markings came and went with regularity. They were said to darken over a period of about an Earth year, then go back to their original appearance again, after becoming almost invisible for a few weeks.  This was taken as possible evidence of vegitation growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, thanks to the rovers which patroled the red planet in the early 21st century, we now know that on Mars the summer heat creates many thousands of small tornados in Mars' atmosphere which pluck dust from the surface revealing swept lanes of darker bedrock below (the darkening of the features) and then, as the winter takes hold, an Earth year later, there are huge winds that drive hemisphere-wide dust storms and recarpet the ground with a uniform layer of dust (The fading and reset). The process repeats in the other hemisphere over the next two Earth years (One Martian year). The darkening and fading of the features is very real, but nothing to do with vegitation!

About six weeks later, in early September 2019, at 'HAW19', held at Minting Village Hall, I was given the opportunity to observe with Mark Dunnett’s 102mm f11 refractor on a superb motorised EQ Go-To robotic mount. We had been observing Saturn, since twilight, together with several other astronomers with their telescopes on site.  As it became proplerly dark, Mark said, “Here's Uranus,” and pressed a button. The telescope turned itself to point at a blank bit of sky.  When I looked in the eyepiece, there was the familiar sight of the tiny blue-green disc.

“Neptune?” he said, and the telescope slewed to another bit of sky. Once again I looked in the eyepiece and there was the blue gas giant, Neptune.  Then, in fairly quick succession, Mark showed me the bright asteroids on view that night: Pallas, my new friend, then a couple of others (I know not which as they aren't available in Stellarium for me to check!).

I had spent more than forty years waiting to see one asteroid, and he'd shown me Pallas and two new ones in less than the time it took me to star-hop to Pallas just forty odd days earlier!

“Hebe will be up later if you want to wait?”, asked Mark, helpfully.

I went home from that brilliant weekend with plans to get my own robotic telescope (I had always thought them a cheat, but having seen how easy they make locating difficult objects, especially objects that I had wanted to see for thirty years! I was sold!).  I got a very nice SkyWatcher 130P GTI-AZ brand new from my favourite supplier. It worked very well, and I saw plenty of asteroids for a few months. But along came 2020 and events took a turn. I had no option but to sell off all my telescopes, and move to Sheffield for personal reasons. 2020 has a lot to answer for.

Pic: The 130P GTI-AZ was a lovely instrument. Just for once a telescope that only needed a Red-Dot finder.  I changed it for a 'proper one' nevertheless! See pic. The more accurately you set up a GoTo telescope, the better will be the location of objects using it. A magnifying optical finder does the job much better than any RDF! If you do have an RDF, locate the star approximately using it, then centre the star in the telescope eyepiece using the app controls and a 10mm eyepiece, before clicking the app to say you've done it!  (Maybe this is how they expect you to locate the stars for aligning and I'm a bit of a grumpy old duffer?)

Note: The SkyWatcher 130P-AZ-GTI has its own WiFi system, and connects to the observer's mobile phone via an app to control the telescope. Initial set up of the scope is performed with the mobile app. Then, observations of specific objects are done by selecting the desired object off an extensive list on the phone, or by manually moving the telescope with direction buttons which activate the motors on the mounting axes.

Picture: The position of asteroid 4, Vesta, amongst the stars of southern Taurus (Tau), in November 2019

What I like about observing The Asteroids:

 Just finding these little worlds is a feat! I like to observe them moving past the background stars, indeed, this is the only way of knowing which of the tiny points of light is the asteroid!  They are further out than Mars but still move reasonably quickly. If they are close enough to a field of stars their movement can be seen in just three hours or so, and certainly by the next night.

Jupiter is a planet that welcomes viewers.

The real showman of the Solar System. He's always big and there's always something going on. Belts and bands come and go, the great red spot, elusive but detectable with patience and experience, and all the while the ringmaster juggles four easily visible moons, Io (which is pronounced Eye-Oh in the UK and EE-Oh in the US) Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, which range in their real sizes approximately between half the diameter of our Moon and a little larger than the planet Mercury!

 Pic: - The approximate view through the AE 12" Newtonian... The moons are little discs, and the elusive Great Red Spot is visible.

In secondary school, in Blackpool, in the mid-seventies, I was one of a group of five science mad friends. We watched Tomorrow's World on the BBC avidly every Thursday night, and all had a school subsidised subscription to 'New Scientist' magazine, which we discussed at break times. One day I was talking to my fanatical biology friend, Michael Leonard, about my interest in astronomy and he invited me to his house that night to have a look through his telescope. I was quite excited.

Time and Place: Sometime in mid-to-late November, 1976. The observation was made at Layton, Blackpool. Mick asked me to come to his house at about 6pm to try out his refractor, which turned out to be a 60mm f15 Alt-Az job. I cycled down Wharley Road with Jupiter on my right on my green Raleigh, a 'Coventry Eagle' racing bike, to Mick's house in the chilly evening air, with the late summer constellations still above so early in the evening. After a few minutes being introduced to his family, we went  to the porch where the telescope was kept. Mick showed me around it before we took it outside and set the telescope up on the front patio The area was a good place to observe from, a few pots with plants but no grass. From our position we had a good view to the west, south and south east.

Pic: Mick Leonard C.1976

Looking round the sky, we saw what Mick and I dubbed 'the Northern Cross', the constellation Cygnus, which was high in the south-west. There was no Moon that evening, and the only planet that we could see was Jupiter, in the south east. First though, we looked at the open star cluster of the Pleiades (It was the 'Seven Sisters' to us schoolboys in the '70s) before Mick trained the telescope on the bright planet, Jupiter. The views of Jupiter through that telescope poured fuel on the sputtering flames of my astronomical interest. Once I found out that you could easily see markings on the planet with an affordable 60mm telescope, I was buzzing. This was 'amazing'!

I rushed home afterwards, as fast as my little legs would propel me on my bike, to try out my dad's small telescope on the planet that very night. I found that you could see Jupiter and its moons with the 30mm, but the disc was just pale and featureless in that tiny telescope.  The next day I started the pester campaign that would result in me getting my own 60mm telescope for Christmas that very year.  The first telescope I owned (and didn't just borrow) was given to me on the 25th December 1976 - A 60mm 'Astral Telescope'. Nowadays, I advocate at least a seventy millimetre refractor for a serious start in planetary observation, but this was the nineteen seventies UK and a sixty millimetre was one of the biggest readily available telescopes to be had. Dedicated 'telescope dealers' and 'telescope shops' were a future thing in those days.

Back then, available to me, was 'Dixons' camera and Hi-Fi chain, three or four second hand telescope adverts in the 'Exchange and Mart', and the blessed Dudley Fuller at Fullerscopes 'Telescope house' Farringdon Road, London. He would sell you a three inch refractor (76mm) for seven times the price of the sixty millimetre I had to settle for.  I visited the Fullerscopes shop in October 1977 (Not far from the London Planetarium, which we also visited), though I still couldn't afford a 'proper' telescope. We spent an informative and entertaining afternoon talking to Dudley. His prices were fair, and his telescope optics were first rate, but his excellent instruments were well beyond my schoolboy pockets.  I remember there was a huge, highly polished brass, Victorian 6 inch f12 Broadhurst and Clarkson refractor in the corner of the shop with a £10,000 price tag on it... I thought it was a joke... It wasn't!  Blimey! You could buy three new family cars in 1977 with that kind of money!

Aside: In the summer of 1978 my parents took me and Jeremy Glass on holiday to Spain and we were amazed to find a camera shop in the little fishing village of Denia, which had a Parabolic115mm f8 equatorially mounted Newtonian in the window! The scope was 17,500 pesetas - About £150. I was very disappointed that we didn't have such things in the shops of the UK! Such a telescope would have been very much preferable to a £50 60mm f7 AZ refractor.  Denia is now a much more expanded port than it was in the late seventies.

Anyway - Back to 1976: While I waited two months for my persuasion campaign to bear fruit, I still had use of the little 30x30 refractor, through which I first saw the Moon, for my astronomy viewing. It had now been mounted on a lightweight photographic tripod, by dad. It wasn't ideal, but it was far better than trying to hand hold the telescope. There was a period of what seemed like three weeks of clear evenings, from about four o'clock, as twilight set in, when I could watch Jupiter rise over the roof of the house opposite and then, as darkness fully fell, after tea, I could take my scope out to the back yard where we had room to park two cars. We didn't have a garden. Or two cars come to that, at that time!  More often than not, there was no car parked in the back yard and it made an excellent place to observe from. The one street-light visible in the alley from my observing position (actually just by the corner of the yard) used to go out at midnight on a timer, and I was in almost pitch black (even with dark adaption in a large town, known for it's lights, I could see virtually nothing but the stars above. Amazing!)  This situation gave me a brilliant start to my discovery of the wonders of the night sky. This is also where I formed the belief that 'light pollution' only affects the faintest objects and observing from a large town is no problem for beginners in astronomy.  Blackpool has the world famous illuminations along the promenade between September and Halloween every year. It is a town of about 150,000 people.

After getting the 60mm telescope for Christmas 1976, I spent my first few night's observations looking at Jupiter, just as I had with Mick in Layton just five weeks earlier. Jupiter is a great subject for the small telescope.  I never saw markings on Jupiter with the 30mm telescope, but they were visible when I looked hard for them in the Astral 60mm, that I had pestered for. The moons were entertaining in both instruments and in my binoculars. And just to see the disc of the planet so large was amazing.

The Astral Telescope's eyepiece must have been shockingly bad, or maybe it was just the f7 optical system and the 60x maximum magnification and the inexperience of a young teenage amateur astronomer combining to reveal little? Years later, in 2003, with thirty year's observational experience under my belt, I oversaw the construction of an achromatic f12 60mm with some students for a project which I directed as Tutor of a 'Project Research and Development' course in Mablethorpe business centre. The students and I used it with a 12mm Plossl eyepiece and the bands and belts of the Jovian disc were very clearly visible in that, also at just 60x magnification!

My most memorable view of Jupiter, though, was through the A.E. Optics 12" f7 skeleton Newtonian at the Lythm, St. Annes Astronomical Society in 1978. An f7 twelve inch is a big instrument both optically and physically. It had a 305mm diameter 1/20th wave parabolic mirror which gave superb image quality and brightness. It took four of us to set the heavy telescope and mounting up, but the view was truly fantastic.  (I did have a Meade Lightbridge 305 12" Newtonian of my own for three months, however, it was the time when Jupiter was behind the Sun - I sold it before I got a chance to view mighty Jove with it.)

The Lythm, St. Annes Astronomical Society met in the College of Further Education where I took my Astronomy O-Level. The room was the one with the second and third window, to the right of the main door. This room, where I sat my astronomy exam, was also the Lythm St. Annes Astronomical Society meeting room. The building is now a library.

Location Pic: The exact position on the pathway where we set up the scope to view Jupiter. The trees are in the foreground, away from the telescope position on the path.  The southern view was excellent.

One evening I attended the society meeting and as it was a nice night, my mentor Kenneth Porter (Society secretary and Astronomy course tutor) suggested we get the college's telescope out for a view of mighty Jove... WOW.  I had never imagined that you could see so much detail. The moons were tiny discs, lo was distinctly yellowish, not just points of light as they appeared in smaller instruments I had used upto that point.

Elsewhere in this website, I mention seeing Jupiter through the 30" (760mm) diameter Dobson telescope. This was at the AAC summer Star-Party of 1986. The view at 200x was nice, but not spectacular as Jupiter was only twenty or so degrees altitude at midnight, in Aquarius, low over the warm ground of the hills of the Pennines across the valley (pic). The seeing was quite poor with the heat of the ground rising into the sky.  As I remember, Jupiter set behind the hills before they cooled down enough to get a good view.

What I like about observing Jupiter:

The detail available in a good telescope of 150mm is quite surprising. The belts begin to show some detail at this telescope size and the moons are very entertaining as they cross the planet disc, eclipse and occult each other.  There's always something going on in the Jovian system and there is always detail to be seen.  Some people spend their entire astro-life just looking at this entertaining world and its moons.

Gary Dean and others:

It is always sad when you lose a good friend, or just lose contact, either through them passing away, in the case of Jeremy Glass (1962-1988) or even when it is just because of circumstances (Good RUSH song!)

Gary Dean was just such a casualty of fate. I first met him in 1977, when we were working on an R2D2 life-size model and also, as a side project, Gary's Darth Vader helmet project at Tony Carol's 'Art Club' at Warbreck Hill High School, Blackpool.

We were in different forms and so didn't come into much contact with each other until the third year.  We hit it off straight away and were pretty much inseparable for four or five years, until I moved to Manchester and he moved to the USA.  He was a very good friend, and spent more time at my house than at his own, it seemed, for a while in the late 1970s, and he was very welcome to do so.  He had an inquisitive and open mind, and was fascinated by many things. He had an amazing sense of humour, loved cinema and Phil Collins! He was one of my five 'science friends' from school.

 Pic: Gary Dean C.1980

Many's the time we had a telescope out in the back yard looking particularly at Jupiter, our favourite, before heading back inside to have a hilarious and brilliant time listening to my dad's old Tony Hancock records, or the latest Monty Python album, or several tracks off my RUSH albums.  Gary used to say that whenever I opened the front door to him, I would scan the sky for astronomical objects.  It's true, dear reader, and as an astronomical fanatic, I make no excuses!

One such time, in 1979, I remember Gary and I had the telescope out in the back yard. It was the one that Ken Porter had lent me while I was doing the Astronomy O-Level, a 6" home-made Newtonian. A mutual friend of ours, Richard Turner, came by to have a look at Jupiter.  I knew Richard from primary school. He was the owner of a well built Airfix Saturn V rocket that stood in the corner of Mrs. Hunter's classroom when I first moved to Blackpool in 1972.  I was showing off with the EQ mounting and swung the telescope a little too fast and it toppled over onto the concrete of the yard with a sickening crack.  The telescope had a main connection to the mounting made of turned oak!  This had broken in two and the telescope wouldn't stay where it was put. It also probably saved harm to the telescope itself. The oak ring was the only damage!  That incident immediately put paid to our observing session, and Richard drove off, doubtless more than a little disappointed.  (Richard was the first of us to learn to drive - He had a car at seventeen!)

I showed the broken bit to dad who got someone at his workplace to weld an 80mm length of 25mm internal diameter steel tube at right angles to a 200mm x 125mm sheet of 2mm steel. They drilled a 3mm hole in each corner and countersunk them and sprayed the whole thing with anti-rust 'engineering green' paint! ... a good job!  So, after only two days, and after screwing the plate to the square section, flat-sided wooden 'tube', the Declination shaft fit into the tube and was fixed with the bolt. The telescope was serviceable again and, dare I say, a good deal sturdier than before!  I showed Ken Porter the replacement part and he was very happy, explaining that the telescope had been made on a shoestring and he didn't expect the oaken Declination joint to last forever, anyway.

Sadly, in those days, it was all too easy to lose touch when there was no internet or mobile phones.  It is a shame and I often wonder what became of my close friend Gary and indeed my acquaintance, Richard.  Gary and I shared many interests beyond science. Our weird and whacky humour was almost identical and evolving together, and our music tastes were shaped by each other's discoveries.  Our musical pathways followed similar landmarks with he playing percussion and I following the Bass and Guitar pathway.  Each time we met we would share our latest technique or ability. If you are brave enough: Monty Python, astronomy and my guitar coming together in one video!  It was a great time. We were the closest of friends and Gary is, and always was, sorely missed.  I always thought well of him.  Mr Porter, I know died in the 1990s - RIP friend, tutor and mentor!

Note:  A good bit of news is that Gary Dean has been in touch following his reading of this web-page, and we are finally reunited after all these years!

Was it worth it? Are you joking? Saturn, at sixty magnification on a freezing cold, still and black night in December, is an absolute wonder! 

“Saturn's rings!”, I kept muttering to myself, “I'm looking at Saturn's rings with my own telescope!”

Saturn takes about thirty years to go round the Sun once.  It has orbited the Sun about one and a half times since that first view on a cold, December night in 1976. When I first saw Saturn he was just a few years short of presenting the rings edge on, which happens twice per Saturnian orbit (Every 15 years or so).

Pic: Approximate view of Saturn in Paul Money's 14" Newtonian, November 2000. The moon in the picture, on the far left, is Titan, which can be seen in an achromatic 6x30 finder-scope. My most memorable view of Saturn was this view through Paul Money's superb 14", Dobson mounted Newtonian when the rings were nearly fully open. Following the remounting of the scope onto a more usable mounting, Paul had pushed the boat out and had the primary mirror realuminised. The planet was absolutely amazing on a night with superb seeing. (Pic courtesy Gareth Jackson)

Saturn can be a very bright planet when the rings are fully open (see pic), but when they're edge on, as they were in 1979/80, 1994/95, 2010/11... it's quite an unobtrusive object.  They will be edge-on again in December 2025.

Ooh! Imagine starting out in astronomy at a time when Saturn is just a plain globe without its show-piece! I've seen Saturn without its rings three times in my astro-life, so far. I wonder how many times I will see it again before I drift off to join the orbiting spheres?

Pic:  Paul Money (right in pic) and I with the newly remounted AZ 14" Newtonian pictured in May 2000.  I made the Dobson style mounting to get some use out of the old girl. The Equatorial mounting it had was just too heavy to keep carrying out to observe and the Dobson mounting was much lighter and easier to set up - The scope has had a lot of use since being remounted. Even after twenty years of use, Paul tells me, "The mounting is as good as ever!" (June 2020)

What I like about observing Saturn:

It has to be the rings when they're nicely open. A good, long focus 60mm refractor telescope will show them reasonably clearly. A 90mm will show ring A and B as different shades, and hint at the Cassini Division, a 150mm parabolic Newtonian will show the rings nicely defined. Anything over 150mm will present a superb view - Whatever instrument you see Saturn in first, it will be amazing!

Note: In December 2025 the rings are edge on, which is a sight to see in itself, but robs newcomers to the hobby of the most spectacular sight!  Saturn's moons are usually more difficult to identify because they aren't all strung out in a line, like Jupiter's, and that is because of the 29 degree tilt of Saturn's axis.  When there are no rings to be seen, the Saturnian satellites do string out and can more readily be identified. There are at least five that can be easily followed with a 150mm telescope.  The rings will be fully open again in 2040.

Paul Money FRAS FBIS: Paul and I met at the AAC work parties of the mid-1980s (See Neptune section later). We became good friends and did a lot together in the field of amateur and semi-professional astronomy. We formed an astronomical memorials company, called 'Skyby Night Publications', which we ran together from our homes in College Park, Horncastle. We got into the local newspaper and had an advertisment on ITV under a Prince's Trust initiative for local business. I attended many of his astro-talks and the BAA Horncastle Astronomy Weekend on many occasions, which Paul organised. He also publishes the 'Night-Scenes' astronomy yearbook, broadcasts on the radio (BBC Radio Lincolnshire mainly) and gives well over a hundred astro-talks a year to astronomy societies throughout the UK.

Pic: The Skyby-Night 'Memorial Chart' created for the Herschel Museum, Bath.  The details of Uranus's named moons were correct at the time!  (C.1999).  There are 'currently' 27 moons of Uranus.

It is very sad to say that Paul and I had a disagreement in the first UK Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, which saw us part company and not speak again (to date). It is sad, and I believe that our disagreement was a genuine mistake, it certainly was from my side! It wasn't brought about through malice, but more likely the stresses of living in that time, when noone knew what the future would hold, and noone knew how they would even manage! Paul is self employed and doubless was under enormous stress about his livlihood as we plunged into lockdown.  I miss having Paul as a friend and regret the events that led us to part our ways.  I resent 2020 for all the things that it bestowed on the world!  If you get chance to hear Paul speak at an astronomical society near you - GO!  It will be entertaining, informative and brilliant, I promise.

Uranus, the magician.

In late 1981, after deciding to leave college and not attend a university, I moved to a bed-sitting room in a huge villa in Bennett Road, in Crumpsall, North Manchester, to live near to my long term girlfriend, Deby Ryan. Deby was a lovely, but very shy person, and incidentally the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. We got together in the summer holidays of 1977 when I got to know her while she visited her nana Jean, and I don't think a week has passed by that I haven't thought about her since that date... sad to say, we split up in 1983.  She was my first proper girlfriend, the love of my life and she is, and has always been, sorely missed!

The room had a wonderfully large and fully operational sash window, over seven feet tall and about four feet wide, facing south. The room was small but nice, and the rent was just £11 a week! I had a nice low southern horizon looking out over low primary school building rooves, and beyond that over a car park. The school had hardly any lighting after nine o'clock, even in the winter months. There were some small trees around the perimeter of the school that helpfully shielded my view of the actual school and its lights. (The trees didn't shelter me from the racket at play-times!).                                           

Pic: Deby and Barry (SuperCooper) 1979

Note: You shouldn't observe out of an open window because of the warmer air currents spilling out of the warm house... I used to do my observations as soon as I got in from my girlfriend's house, at midnight or thereabouts - It wasn't warm in my flat at that point.  The warmer air, even at midnight in February, if anything, spilled in!

Crumpsall, April 1982: My first and ongoing observations of the planet Uranus - I'll never forget my first glimpse of this intriguing world. I had a pair of Hilkinson 20x70 binoculars, which I'd bought for £12 from a second-hand shop (Not a charity shop in those days).  Uranus was in the process of passing between a pair of stars in Scorpius. I believe there was a finder chart published in Astronomy magazine and I excitedly decided to have a go and see, what was for me at any rate, a new planet. My first view was just a few days before the planet was exactly between the two stars - It was an easy identification... I just had to look for the third 'star', not quite in a straight line and distinctly blue-green, and that was the planet.

The first time I looked for it, about 02:30 hrs UT on April 27th 1982, I couldn't mistake which one it was. The planet had a steadier light and the greeny-blue colour. In my 20x70 binoculars the colour was a dead giveaway. I was lucky to have a run of five or six clear nights and I watched Uranus pass directly between the two Omega stars on the nights of May 1st and 2nd 1982.  Magical. I watched Uranus over the next three months after it passed between the pair of stars, 'Omega 1' and 'Omega 2', and moved into a more reasonable time of the evening!  I lost it in the evening twilight sometime around the end of July. This was about the time when I moved back to Blackpool, with Deby, in preparation for her to start College in September of that year.

Location Pic:

The villa in Bennett Road, Crumpsall. There were four flats and my bed-sitting room in this building. I spent about a year living here, following my insatiable passions for both astronomy and Deby Ryan. I played my guitar, built radio-controlled model aeroplanes and observed if clear from that room to keep me occupied. We watched the story of the Falkland War unfold on the news on my little B&W TV set. I also visited several local astronomical societies (on my bicycle!) whilst I lived there.

In autumn 1982 Deby persued her life-long dream of living in Blackpool with her nana Jean, and she attended the Collegiate Sixth Form College in Blackpool after leaving school in Manchester. It was at college that she got to know Phil Wray (See Neptune section). She got a part-time job at his parent's fish and chip shop on Dickson Road. Deby introduced us, at Phil's request, when he heard that I was thinking of building a slope soarer radio controlled model of the Space Shuttle! Phil was very interested in rocketry, space travel and NASA's accomplishments. From that first meeting, Phil and I became good friends.

Deby missed her school friends, and her family in Manchester too much. She moved back to Crumpsall after Christmas 1982. We were still together, but, very sad to say, I took too long to follow and, unfortunately, we drifted apart after being 'an item' for a full five years and eight months. I think of those far-off, happy times with Deby often. We had brilliant times together and I honestly cannot remember ever being angry at her about anything. That's not bad for five years plus, is it?  The last time I saw her was at her parent's house in Crumpsall. I drove myself over there from Blackpool in my dad's car, only a few days after I passed my driving test and we had lunch with her family.  She broke up with me while we did the dishes on that sad, but sunny, April afternoon in 1983.

Good though, to recount that Phil and I became immediate, firm friends, and we still are, over 43 years later.  Good friends are like stars, you don't have to see them to know they're there!

Note: Interestingly, Uranus will repeat this same manoeuvre between the Omega stars of Scorpius between May 2nd and 3rd, in 2066, when both Deby and Phil will be in their 100th year!

Stephen James O'Meara (left in the pic) is famous for observing this planet. He was the NASA adviser on Uranus' rotation period for the Voyager 2 mission. He gauged the rotation period using nothing more than a 9” refractor to within ten minutes of the actual figure of 17h 13m 35s.  A truly remarkable feat.

Pic: Steven J O'Meara in white shirt, and me at HAW 2001.  If you ever get chance to hear Steven speak, go to the show, he is very informative, funny and very entertaining!

I have never seen Uranus showing a disc, which makes Steven's accomplishment even more amazing for me. It is small at an angular size just twice that of Ganymede.  With good seeing and a good 200mm telescope, the disc should be observable.  Good luck!

 Pic: This is my convertible Peugeot 205-CJ that I drove Steven to Paul Money's house after HAW 2001.  During the trip the roof was down, as it nearly always was!  I use the engine every time I drive, why not the convertible roof? If you've got it, use it. It was nice to have a car with astronomical pretensions - A driveable observatory.  Driving at night? Look up - there are the stars... Brilliant!

What I like about observing Uranus:

This planet has a distinctive colour, a greeny-blue. It makes identifying Uranus very easy in any instrument.  Finding the planet and knowing that it is so far away is the interest I have for Uranus.  I also love the story of its discovery and have been to the museum at Herschel House, New King Street, Bath.

Another memorable observation is a recent one - when I observed Uranus below the Pleiades on the 244th anniversary of its discovery - 13th March 2025.  Uranus was satisfyingly much higher in the sky than my first observation in Scorpius 42 years earlier (Almost exactly half a Uranian orbit!).

The planet was an easy find in my 10x50 Swift Ranger binoculars.  Using the 'star hopping' method I just had to drop down to the lower right, a little, from the Pleiades. The asterism of four stars were easy to find. Then, it was just a matter of looking for the pair of 'stars' to their left. Uranus was the lower, bluer one.

In the binoculars there was a hint of the blue-green colour, but I was observing in the gaps between the clouds, and there was a deal of whispy cloud about, making the colour a bit washed out.

Nevertheless, it was a good observation, and I was pleased to make it on the 244th anniversary of the planet's discovery in 1781, by Sir William Herschel.  He was using a Newtonian 6.2" f14, known as 'The Seven Foot Telescope', of his own construction. It had a main mirror made of 'speculum metal', a white alloy of copper and tin, that he had cast and ground himself.  The Herschel story is an amazing read!

Pic: My Star-Hopping finder chart! The area of sky, and the position of Uranus - 13th March 2025.  It was moving along its orbit on a 70 degree path up to the left on this illustration. It passed the star above it, quite closely on the left hand side, on March 25th.  I made several observations of the planet as it passed this star over the next week or so.

Note: Uranus will have made three complete orbits of the sun, since its discovery, on 13th March 2033. Uranus will only be about five degrees from the much more obvious planet Saturn in 2033.  Find Saturn and sweep 5 deg. to the right!

Neptune,

'the mystic', had to wait a few years after my first view of Uranus before I got my beady eye on him. The first time I saw Neptune was at a week long work party at the Amateur Astronomy Centre (AAC) in 1986 with my friends, Phil Wray, Paul Money and Nigel Brown. We would work on the site through the day, observe if clear by night.  Mars was going to be our signpost for finding the much fainter Neptune.

My First View of Neptune:  We got up early, after a quick two hour nap, for this observation. There wasn't much of a window of opportunity to see these two. As I remember, the planets didn't rise above ten degrees until 04:00 and it became too light to see Neptune after 05:00! This was going to be a poacher's observation!  Neptune would be at it's closest to Mars and easily spotted if we could just get this observation made... Would it be cloudy, or clear?

Pic: The 5" binocular telescope was on an alt-az stand and tripod. Slightly too short to be comfortable.  The chair was always close by for objects in the lower third of the sky, and a red plastic-covered seat cushion out of a caravan to protect the observer's knees on the ground, for use when observing objects that were annoyingly higher in altitude.  The inclusion of forty five degree or right angle prisms would have been a nice addition to this instrument, but it had straight through porro prisms and could be used for terrestrial viewing in the day time. I remember someone using them to watch me launch the Three Cool Dudes - Balsa gliders I had made, from the hillside across the valley. These all made it across the 300m of air, to land on the AAC site.

Luckily, it was clear enough, and we made the observation of a tiny blue point, close to Mars, on the early Wednesday morning, some time between 03:50 and 04:30, of 9th April 1986 (I think Paul had taken the week off for his birthday on the 11th). We were using a four inch binocular-telescope that belonged to the AAC and which could be borrowed by anyone visiting.  This was two identical 100mm telescopes mounted side by side with porro-prism eyepiece holders.  It was easy to find the bright firey red Mars. But then all we had to do was tilt the instrument slightly higher and there was this tiny little blue point. With the 50x eyepieces fitted to the binocular-telescope, the field of view of the night sky was about 0.75 degrees. One and a half Moon diameters.  Neptune was to be found about one and a half degrees above Mars.  About two 'views worth'! There was a moment of 'fingers crossed' about the whole operation as Mars exited the view and blank sky moved past imperceptibly, until the tiny blue point/disc of Neptune came into view - An unmistakable colour!  We took turns at seeing Neptune (for all but Paul, it was our first view). We observed until it was too light to see the planet and switched back to the brighter Mars, and then Saturn for a little while, before returning to our beds.

I am very pleased to say that Phil Wray is still a good friend, although he lives on the other side of the world now.  We do keep in regular touch. Our life paths took a turn after the great information technology revolution of the early 2000s and there are lots of different ways to keep in contact 'these days'.  He went to live abroad at about the same time as I moved to Lanzarote and we have kept in touch ever since. I have met up with him on his return visits to the UK after 2009 when I moved back to the UK following the 'credit crunch' and I lost all four of my part time jobs in a fortnight, due to them evaporating because of lack of tourists!  For example, I had a job at Arrecife Airport escorting tourists to their hotels. In the space of just one week, the number of flights went from 40 to just 4 flights. A number low enough for the regular, full-time staff to manage alone. The part-timers were all let go... No work = no money - We had to repatriate!

Back to the AAC: Phil and I nearly always went to the AAC together, and spent many, many days and nights there doing work and making observations.  One memorable episode was flying the three black free-flight balsawood gliders I had designed and built for something fun to do in the hours of daylight. We called the gliders 'The Three Cool Dudes', and sucessfully flew them from the hillside opposite the AAC members' caravans, across the valley, to land on the site of the AAC. It was a nice day in the valley, but up on that hillside, even in late spring it felt freezing!  

We worked hard at the site during the work parties and after work we spent time listening to the latest comedy releases. It was Nigel Brown that brought "Star Trekkin" by The Firm, and Tony Capstick's, "Capstick Comes Home", to our attention.  One cloudy night, we had a marathon, three hour long, 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', quiz.  Many's the time there was a guitar and a sing-song on those plentiful cloudy nights in the Pennine Hills.

The last time I met up with Phil and his lovely family, (together with his new grandson, Arthur,) was in November 2023. Sadly, the last time I saw Nigel was when I attended his wedding in 1990. We were all settling down and becoming parents in the late '80s early '90s, and with children comes a noticeable lack of free time.

Not going to the AAC regularly put paid to many friendships, before the advent of facebook and mobile phones. I can remember many names of the people I met at the AAC, some of whom I have seen a few times since at HAW and Astromeet etc. We had very memorable and great times at the AAC in the '80s.

Pic above: Phil Wray constructing some shuttering at a winter work party in March 1985 (Brrrr). We were working on the foundations for the 40" telescope observatory.  The spoil heaps visible in the background demonstrate the hard work that was necessary to dig foundations on the site of a demolished mill!

Observing Neptune: There's not much to be seen of this distant world with amateur sized instruments and I have never seen a disc in all these years. It's about the same size as Ganymede in your telescope... So, not at all an obvious disc. At around 2.2 seconds of arc diameter it's extremely difficult even to make out that it is a disc at all, in all but the largest telescopes in the best seeing conditions. The colour is obvious though and, having seen the images from Voyager 2, all the more evocative of those fantastic pictures that the probe sent back to our own 'little blue dot'.

Location Pic: The position where we sited the 5" binocular telescope just outside the members' caravans at the AAC, on the concrete apron is where I first saw Neptune. Here we see Phil Wray, Paul Money and Nigel Brown preparing to observe the Moon in daylight with Nigel's Mead 8" SCT.  People who know the AAC will see that Nigel hasn't bothered aligning his mounting in the daytime! The RA Axis is pointing east...  Naughty Nigel!

I used to visit the Amateur Astronomy Centre nearly every month for weekend work parties and occasional week long stays. Phil and I went for a week in February 1987 and the snow made the road impassable for the five days after we arrived. Luckily, the road, a 1:9 incline at some points, was cleared on the Sunday that we planned to leave. They had the regular Star Parties in spring and late summer. I attended every one from 1984 to 1990.  It was there I met and became friends with many of my astronomical acquaintances and helped to construct the 30" Dobsonian Newtonian and the observatory for the 40" Newtonian.  I joined by post from Blackpool in 1983 and became 'Founder Member, 357'.

AAC Work Party Memories: A 'Work Party' is nothing like a 'Star Party'.  There was typically no more than six or seven people working on site (excluding the three AAC 'staff' who would direct the works and do errands or whatever needed doing for the AAC). We would turn up after finishing our own work on a Friday evening and find out what jobs required our attention over the weekend. Members came from all over the country, though typically from within 60 miles for work parties. Paul Money was the exception and would drive 130 miles! Members from Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Derby and Swinton-Mexbrough astronomical societies were consistant visitors together with others sporadically turning up from time to time. I only lived 30 miles away in Astley, and later Tyldesley and Leigh during this time, and it was only about a 40-50 minute drive on a Friday evening.  After arriving we would settle in, eat, socialise, observe if clear, then sleep. On Saturday morning we would get on with the work around the site that needed doing, and continue, except for breaks and lunch, until tea time. After our evening meal we would observe or socialise and get to work again on Sunday morning, before returning home in the afternoon or evening. 

Pic (left pane): One memorable day we had to 'dismantle' one of the caravans!  See pic of me dismantling the caravan with a lump hammer. The job at a work party was always a satisfying and sometimes fun activity that helped the AAC and cemented firm friendships. Thanks to Phil Wray for taking this photo of me C.1985. 

Pic (right pane): The burning of the dismantled caravan. Phil and I still have a glob of melted aluminium each from this event. We calculated that the temperature in the heart of the fire must have been over 660 degrees centigrade!

I don't know if that is Venus or Jupiter in the sky over the hill, but I do remember I used my Zenit E SLR with 50mm lens and it was a 1 second exposure at f8 on 400ASA film... 

Q: How do I know that after all this time? 

A: l only had the Zenit E and 1 sec was the max exposure without using the Bulb setting, and I always used 400 ASA film because I might need to photograph the sky, and f8 because of the depth of field and the fact that it was still a little light. 

Additional: Yes, being adults, we deliberately waited for darkness before firing the wreckage!

AAC: The Amateur Astronomy Centre is now just called "The Astronomy Centre" and is located in a dark site in the Pennine Hills near Clough Foot, between Bacup in Lancashire and Todmorden in West Yorkshire. Star Parties there, in particular, were very good in the 80s. The wealth of instrumentation, camaraderie and good humour was amazing in those far off years.

Astronomer Joke!:  How do astronomers make sure they have a great star party?   Answer: They plan it!   (ie: Planet)

What I like about observing Neptune:

This planet has a very distinctive and beautiful colour, a gorgeous light blue. It makes identifying Neptune very easy in any instrument.  Finding the planet and knowing that it is so far away is the interest I have for Neptune.

Note: Neptune had made only ONE complete orbit of the sun, since its discovery in 1846, by September 2011. It was discovered through mathematical calculation following irregularities in the position of Uranus on 23rd September, 1846 - It has a 'year' of just under 165 Earth years.

Interesting: At the time of its discovery, Neptune was only about one degree from Saturn!   It amazes me they even bothered looking!  Imagine you're told that something rather massive is having a gravitational effect on Uranus and you're sent to search a bit of sky right where Saturn is! What would your assumption be?  It is a testament to their scientific method that Neptune was found on the very first night it was looked for in the position suggested by the mathematical calculations of John Couch Adams and Urbain J J Le Verrier.

Pluto? No!

'The King of the Kuyper belt', is a world I have never seen. 

It's an interesting statistic that only 1% of the world's population have seen Mercury, but less than 1% of the world's ASTRONOMERS have ever seen Pluto... Not an easy world to identify!

Picture: The telescopic appearance of Neptune passing its time out at 2.8 billion miles from the Sun. A lovely distinctive colour clearly visible in any small telescope! This planet has retaken the designation as the Solar Stytem's furthest planet from the Sun.

To see Pluto, you would need a telescope of at least 10" (250mm) diameter to have much of a chance in perfect conditions, but really something like Paul Money's 14" (355mm) diameter telescope would help to be sure. It is worth noting that although I had access to the 14", we never even tried to see Pluto, such is the difficulty!

Pluto skulks around the Sun just once in 248 Earth years at a brightness of around magnitude +13. Now that Pluto has been demoted from planet status, it's basically just another asteroid that I haven't seen!  The asteroids that comprise the Kuyper Belt are dark and very faint.  Beyond that there is the Oort cloud, where the comets reside, and yet beyond that is the realm of the dark planetoids that, unbelievably, goes out to about 300 Astronomical Units! Ten times further out than Neptune and half way to the nearest star! 

Pluto was discovered because of irregularities in the orbit of Uranus that couldn't be explained by the mass of Neptune alone.  These irregularities prompted the search for an extra-Neptunian body that could be responsible - And ultimately to the discovery of Pluto.  It turns out that Pluto is nowhere near large enough to have had any discernable effect on Uranus or even Neptune. From research done by the team at JPL, operating the probe 'Voyager II', Neptune was found to be quite massive enough to have made the Uranus errors check out after all!  So, Pluto was discovered entirely because of an estimation error!  There are many thousands of Pluto sized bodies out at that distance, and pluto is just the one that was discovered first.  In a way, Pluto is no more special than Ceres!  In other ways it is a very strange world, almost a double-planet with a very close and large moon, Charon.

Note 1: Pluto was discovered in 1930 by 'private means' from Percival Lowell's observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, by Clyde Tombaugh, a young astronomy student employed specifically for the task. Lowell was remembered in the naming of the body. It is touching to note that the symbol for Pluto is a 'P' and an 'L' joined together. This suggests 'PLuto' but is also the initials of Percival Lowell. 

Lowell is mainly, and unfairly, remembered for his misguided thoughts on Martian canals. He was in fact a very passionate and skilled observer who deserves to be remembered for his not inconsiderable contribution to astronomy - Not least, for starting the search that resulted in the discovery of Pluto!

Beyond Pluto: In a strange twist, although the asteroids out at the 300AU distance may orbit the Sun, there is the probability that our 'closest star', Alpha Centauri, is the brighter star in their skies, at times when the planetoid is between the two stars! The absolute magnitude of the Sun is 0.45 magnitudes dimmer, at +4.83, than Alpha Centauri which is +4.38. The absolute magnitude scale allows brightness comparisons between stars by working out their brightness when viewed from a set distance of 10 parsecs, 32.6 light years.  So, if you are approximately equidistant between the two, then Alpha Centauri will be brighter in your sky, even though you orbit the Sun!  On the other side of the same orbit, the Sun is the brighter of the two stars the apparent brightness of Alpha Centauri only being around half that of the Sun at that distance!

Comets, are another object class that I had to wait ten years to see.  In March 1973, the news on TV covered the discovery of Comet Kohoutek. The ten year old me tried to see it, but I did not manage to spot the visitor.  From then on I read many astronomy books on those many nights when getting out under the black and twinkly was impossible, due to cloud cover and rain in the north west of England. What I learned whilst doing that research, is that half the books will tell you a year that they were discovered or last seen, and the rest will tell you how long their orbital period is... But never the twain shall meet, it seems!  So, I had no idea of when any particular comet would again grace our skies, all apart from comet Halley of course, which everyone knew would return in 1985/86. I settled in for a long wait!

Then, as a complete surprise, in 1983, Comet IRAS–Araki–Alcock made it's pass by the Earth and there was sufficient location coverage on the BBC for me to be able to spot it. And spot it I did, on May 10th 1983.  It was a close pass by the Earth, just 4 million km distant (For a long time, the closest known pass of any comet - On October 14th 2024, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS passed by the Earth at just under 3m km distance.)

Pic: Comet Hale-Bopp which graced our skies for many weeks in 1997.

Comet 'IRAS–Araki–Alcock' was co-discovered by the well known comet hunting astronomers George Alcock (UK) and Genichi Araki (Japan) and the team supporting the operation of 'IRAS' (The Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite). 'Comet IRAS', as it was generally known, was passing close to the star Kochab, beta Ursae Minoris (The little bear) on the night I first saw it and was clearly visible to the unaided eye for several nights. It passed Dubhe and Merak, 'the Pointers', on the eleventh of May and then moved down through the back legs of Ursa Major. (Ursa Major is a constellation which actually looks a bit like what it's supposed to be!)  I also observed IRAS through my 50mm zoom binoculars and plotted its position on a chart for several nights in a row, thanks to an  unusual run of five clear nights!  My first comet didn't have a tail and appeared as many do, as a fuzzy ball of light moving against the background stars night by night.

Important Note: Comets don't 'whoosh' through the sky at all, they are visible for several nights or even weeks, in the case of Comet Hale-Bopp (pic at top). Neither do their tails stream behind them, they always point away from the Sun throughout the orbit. So, when the comet is moving away from the Sun, the tail goes first!

My observation of Comet IRAS-Araki–Alcock precipitated the first time I appeared in print for public consumption concerning astronomical events. Following my first observation of 'IRAS', I stayed up nearly all night, while I wrote to my local newspaper, the Blackpool Gazzette, about my experience.  I got a couple of hours sleep then took the information in person to the Blackpool Gazette office in town. I included information and a location map. A portion of what I had written was printed, but the finder chart was not. Unfortunately for me, the IRAS scientist that discovered the comet was married to a local teacher, and his story took up most of the newspaper article. My information was tacked on at the end. Nevertheless, I was mentioned by name, and this was my first foray into public information about astronomy.  Of course, this site, the SuperCooper Telescope Help website, represents my magnum opus on the subject.

Picture: My original observation of the path of 'IRAS' (The green line) Recorded in my copy of 'Star and Planet Spotting' by Peter Lancaster Brown. (My first proper astronomy atlas and reference book, purchased on the 3rd of May, 1976. I know this date because I wrote it on the inside of the front cover!  Previously I had read many library books, but this brilliant book was the first one I had bought for myself.  I still have it.)

There have been several comets since then: The disappointment of Comet Halley in the mid 1980s, a tailless apparition, which could barely be seen without optical aid.  The fantastic Hale-Bopp in 1997, with its two tails and beautiful bright showing over several weeks (See pic at top of section). The Comets: Hyakutake, NEAT, McNought, Lovejoy, Holmes, and Neowise have all passed by with different brightnesses and appearances. Some requiring binoculars, some seen without optical aid, some coloured green!  Of all those, in all those years, only Hale-Bopp and, for a day or so, Neowise, presented anything like the sort of view we expect of a comet!

Historical Note: Edmund Halley used to pronounce his own name 'Hawlee'. In the 21st century the convention is to pronounce his name to rhyme with Valley and NOT to rhyme with Bailey, as was the case in general public parlance in the 20th century.  However, you and I know that it should be Halley to rhyme with Crawley!

The best telescopes to observe comets with are short focus Newtonians.  Those with focal ratios of around f4 or f5 do particularly well with their wide fields of view and good light grasp.  10x50 binoculars are also very good for sweeping up a comet's position.  Many comets look similar to a globular cluster, eg. M13. Few have much of a tail, and fewer still are bright enough to be remarkable in our skies.

PIC: My image of Comet Holmes as observed from my 'observatory' in Tias, Lanzarote, October 25th, 2007. The observation was made with my wedding present, a SkyWatcher Explorer 150P f5 parabolic Newtonian at 75x magnification.

The Single Most Eye-Opening Astro-Thing I Ever Learned:

At the 2019 Horncastle Astronomy Weekend, I was listening to a talk about certain properties of Black Holes.  I think it was Dr Steve Barrett. He was speaking about Hawking Radiation and how a Black Hole evaporates over trillions of years - But that wasn't the eye opening fact!

The mechanism by which this happens is phenomenally precise. The evaporation is possible because there can be parts of an atom that are outside the event horizon, and parts of the same atom that are inside the event horizon.

Think about that for a few seconds. 

Something that is inside a Black Hole can be less than 0.0000000002mm from another particle that is OUTSIDE.

Nature is THAT precise!   Blew my mind and is a recurring thought whenever anyone mentions Black Holes!

Man-Made Satellites:

Observing satellites is fun for everyone!

Man-made satellites can be seen without optical aid as 'stars' that pass through the night sky.  There are many thousands and hardly an observing session goes by without seeing one or two. 

Sometimes they pass into the Earth's shadow and disappear from view. Other times they brighten and fade as the different parts reflect the sunlight differently. They are interesting to spot and all the more fun if you know which one it is, or when to look!

One impressive selection are the 'Starlink' satellites. They can be seen in an impressive line of forty or so as they pass overhead. They can be found by looking up your location with a finder web-page .  Many astronomers think they will spoil the night sky, but they are very impressive!   Pic: I found this GIF to give you some idea of the apperance of the Starlink satellites passing by. 

There is, of course, a webpage that allows you to find out when the Starlink Satellites will be visible for you:

Here> FIND STARLINK  (You will need to set up your location.)

Another impressive object is the International Space Station (ISS). This can be very bright as it passes over. A single satellite is about the size of a Ford Transit Van, but the ISS is the size of a football field! Size is 109m x 80m x 88m and weighs 450 tonnes.

Naturally, there is a finder website for the ISS too:

Here> ISS PASSES  (You will need to set up your location on the top right of the page.)

The Iridium satellites were remarkable. They had a flat reflective surface and could even be seen in broad daylight when they reflected the Sun.  They could reach magnitudes of MINUS 8, though -5 Mag to -6 Mag was more common. This is much brighter than the planet Venus!  The trick was knowing where to look in the daylight sky as the 'flare' would typically only last for three or four seconds!

There was a website that gave altitude and azimuth, for your position, of the awaited flares. To help identify that position I made myself an AZ pointer which I could turn to point to the right bit of sky. I called it 'Tycho's Finger' after the last great pre-telescopic observer, Tycho Brahe.(Pic).  The flares only lasted a few seconds but they were remarkable!  Sadly, these Iridium flares can no longer be seen as their era came to an end in 2019. Some people didn't like them, as with the Starlink satellites nowadays, but I did.

I was observing with a group of astronomers at HAW99 and we saw three starlike lights, about a degree by two degrees apart, moving steadily across the sky in a triangle formation. They were obviously satellites, but the formation was puzzling. One of the members of our group informed us that it was American military GPS satellites. They actually orbit in formation to provide an exact check on their position, this allows their military grade GPS to be accurate to under two metres!   (How much 'under two metres', is classified!)

UFOs: A perspective

I have seen none.  Thinking carefully and logically about anything you see in the night sky will usually sort out what you're looking at.

You think this might be a boring section?  It's actually quite fun - Give it a chance and read on!

Hand on heart, I can tell you that everything you see in the sky is natural in origin, or of human origin.  In all these 55+ years of looking at the night sky I have never seen anything that couldn't be explained simply.  Maybe one day there will be something totally unexplained, but for now, rest assured that anything you see in the sky is either natural or man-made.

Pic: Gareth Jackson sent me this pic he had taken on the night of 24th March 2025. We speculated about its nature by text. At no point did we consider it to be a visitor from another world.  It turned out to be a Space-X rocket venting after releasing some satellites and returning to earth! (You can see two satellites as small lines showing their movement during the exposure to the right and left of the gas swirl on this pic (Click to enlarge as always).

Commonly seen objects that are mistaken for extraterrestrial vistors include:

Stars and planets,

the Moon!

meteors and bolides,

man-made rockets and satellites: including the Iridium satellites, Starlink, the ISS, and Space-X,

aeroplanes and helicopters,

drones,

kites and sky-lanterns,

flares and fireworks,

balloons and air-ships

birds and insects,

light shows (lasers etc),

aurora,

weather balloons,

and clouds!

Any and all of the above can be seen in the sky from time to time, and low light conditions sometimes fool the eye into seeing odd things. I know hundreds of astronomers, and, of those, none claim to have seen anything from another world. Sorry - They are not here, yet!  One of them saw something he can't explain (yet) but hasn't jumped to the silly conclusion that it was a flying saucer from another planet!

Opinion: The Mexican 'aliens' (Sept 2023) are yet to be examined by a scientist who doesn't have a vested interest in their 'authenticity'.  So, for now, the science world is sitting on the fence about them!  My first reaction is that they are ancient statues carved in rock!

The Closest Thing to Life, Jim!

In 1980 I was observing the full Moon with my recently acquired vintage AE Optics 6" Newtonian and saw tiny blobs with little wiggly appendages moving slowly down the Moon's disc.  It looked for all the world like Space Invaders!  I thought about it for a minute whilst I looked at the oddity with interest. After a few confused seconds I refocussed slightly to try focusing on the blobs, and discovered that it was a skein of geese flying across the Moon at very high altitude.

The effect came about because the geese were just out of focus. The Moon, at infinity, was in focus, the geese at about 20,000 feet (6,000m), were not. With the geese out of focus they appeared as eerie wiggling diamond shaped blobs moving slowly down the Moon. 

Thank goodness I thought to refocus and discovered the truth before they moved off the Moon's disc, or this might be a very different section!

Pic: A mock up of the view with the Moon in focus (left) and the Geese in focus (right) In this case, the geese were moving across the Moon's disc 'downwards', as seen in the telescope. They took about five minutes to fly across the disc, there were about fifty in all.  I have never seen this since! Though I have seen birds fly across at lower altitude, which is much quicker! My first reaction wasn't, "Someone else is on our Moon!", but to think about it carefully and solve the question, "What could it be that I am seeing?".  This is the scientific method.

Note for the sceptical:

The Guinness Book of Records has certified geese flying at an altitude of over 30,000 feet (9,000m).  The birdies on the video below were much lower - Probably somewhere around the 50m - 100m altitude mark!

My personal instrumentation:

Featuring throughout this website!

Pic - The first telescope I ever used. HOC 30x30 Drawtube Telescope (1968 - date!) 

6x45 (Brand unknown, Grandma bought) 'Opera glasses' (1975-1976)

Prinz 15-60x Astral 60mm Telescope - AZ Refractor (1976 - 1978)

*Borrowed Ken Porter's Home made 6" f7 - EQ parabolic Newtonian (1978-1979)

AE Optics 6" f8 EQ - parabolic Newtonian (1979-1981)

Hilkinson 20x70 - Binoculars (1980-1983)

(Unknown make) 10-60x50 - Zoom binoculars (1983 - 1985)

Skywatcher 150P EQ3-2  - parabolic Newtonian (A joint wedding present from my wife and Paul Money, April 17th 2004 - 2009)

I.R.Vision 8x40 - Binoculars (2005-2016)

Swift Ranger 10x50 - binoculars (2015-date)

SkyWatcher 127SkyMax EQ3 SkyScan2001 - Maksutov-Cassegrain (2017-2020)

SkyWatcher 100ED-PRO EQ3 SkyScan 2001- ED Refractor (2018-2020)

SkyWatcher 200P EQ3 - parabolic Newtonian (2019 - 2020)

SkyWatcher 130P AZ-GTI - parabolic GoTo Newtonian (2020-2020)

(Look at those last four - As I said, 2020 has a lot to answer for!)

SkyWatcher ST120 f5 AZ3 - Refractor (2022-2023)

SkyWatcher 150PL Classic - Dobsonian (2023-2024)

It may interest you to discover that I don't have any telescopes at present, apart from the HOC 30mm and of course, my trusty Swift 10x50 binoculars!  Following a recent house move (Yes, another!) I haven't acquired any, nor do I have the desire to get anything. My eyes are not what they used to be and the telescopic image is always a little blurry nowadays!  The lesson there is "DON'T LEAVE IT TOO LATE TO START!"

Note: Since 2016 I have traded about 450 telescopes of all types, (but I don't regard them as 'mine', so thank goodness I don't have to list them!)  The end date of ownership for the telescopes above is usually a sale (But I don't regard those as 'trades'). The 60mm Astral Telescope was cannibalised for the project of my Astronomy qualification in 1978-79.  One of the course projects to be undertaken was to 'Construct a homemade telescope' - The view with that hand-made telescope was better than the Astral when it was when new! I had no problems seeing markings on Jupiter using a 10mm eyepiece (Leading me to think that it was the multi-variable-eyepiece optics that were the reason the 'Astral Telescope' was so laclustre - Once again I suggest that zoom eyepieces should be avoided.).

* Kenneth Porter was secretary of the Lytham St.Anne's Astronomical Society. I was a member of the society from 1976 to 1981. As a measure of my enthusiasm I travelled alone, by bus, the six miles to Lytham St.Anne's College of Further Education from thirteen years of age. Ken, a friendly Welshman, was a good mentor and was keen to pass on his astronomy knowledge. He also ran the Astronomy 'O' Level astronomy course at the college. While I was studying for the qualification I borrowed a home made 6" f7 Newtonian from the college (one Ken had made). This was a lovely instrument. I passed my 'O' level in 1979. Then I had to give the telescope back. Feeling the loss, I bought myself a very good vintage AE Optics 6" f8 Newtonian. I had it for two wonderful years before I sold my large telescopes when I moved to Manchester in 1981 (I seem to have always had a pair of binoculars to use on the night sky, and I recommend 10x50s as the perfect all-round pair to have - See Binoculars in Astronomy section of this website)