June 2023

June 29th 2000 GMT Moon

 I tried using Pro mode on my phone camera and took some lunar shots in hope. Maybe, just maybe, it was a shade better than my effort on 25th but still no craters.

June 29^th 0545 GMT Sun

 

I had a totally unexpected clear sky! It had been 100% cloud cover and the forecast for the day was far from good. Even better, the Sun did not disappoint. There were what appeared to be two large sunspots but the professional observatory images showed that they were large groups, each with a prominent central spot. Although it was only four days previously, it had seemed a long time since I had seen anything.

June 25th 1935 GMT Moon

 

I found that there was more I could do in Pro mode than I thought. I also tried shooting a shorter video so I could transfer it to my laptop. I like to try lots of things out. My wife says I am very trying.

The video didn't load into Registax. One of the photos showed some "seas" so must go down as a limited success, although it was worse than my first-ever astronomical photo taken on December 31st 2003, which showed craters.

June 25th 0830 GMT Solar Session 

 

It was not a good Session, just like the captain of a football team might say when they are 5 nil down at half time!

As Friday, I had trouble finding the Sun but this time trouble extended to complete zilch. The intermittent cloud did not help. A Binocular scan showed that I wasn't missing a lot, as all sunspot activity had faded below Binocular resolution.

A hydrogen alpha session similarly showed a bland, red disc. I took some shots, more in hope than expectancy. I caught some features on camera, though.

June 25th 2345 GMT Visual Session

 

When astronomers think of summers past, they think of observing in shorts and T-shirts while browsing the delights of the Milky Way and it's surroundings. Chocolate lovers undoubtedly think of Galaxy. That is where I started. The brightest galaxy visible in the northern hemisphere is the Andromeda Grand Design Spiral Galaxy. It was far from its autumn best but its fuzzy shape was like seeing an old friend after many years. 

Being the only galaxy that was realistically visible to my binoculars, I moved on to other objects. The open star cluster Melotte 111 was surprisingly still visible in the west. Moving southwards, the Wild Duck cluster was prominent but looked more like a globular star cluster. With nearby M26 looking fainter, it looked like a smaller, fainter patch of light. The open cluster Melotte 20 showed its main stars, despite almost hugging the horizon.

 On the subject of globular star clusters, through powerful binoculars they look just like a Galaxy. M13 was a neck-breaking view as it was high in the sky. I was able to see M3 and M15. They were lower in the sky but much fainter.

 I did not try to capture the double stars in Draco, as they were almost overhead. The Lyra double stars, Epsilon and Delta were even harder than M13. Alberto in Cygnus, a great colour-contrast double star looked magnificent, as usual. The final double star was the well known Mizar/Accor pair.

I had a browse around the Milky Way and I could see it without binoculars.

The highlight of the session came at 0011 GMT when a very bright meteor appeared west of Lyra and Cygnus and it moved slowly before breaking up near Cassiopeia. Being brighter than Venus, it met the official definition of a fireball.

June 25th 2335 GMT Constellation Shoot

 

Venus and the Moon had long gone. It was just about as dark as it gets, only 4 days into summer. I set my DSLR at 35mm focal length, ISO 1600 and 15 seconds exposure. I took multiple shots of Cassiopeia and Aquila. A test shot of Sagitta suggested that I might get away with not decreasing the exposure time at 80mm focal length.

 

At 0011 GMT, I caught a meteor (left) and satellite trail (right) in the same photo! The meteor was probably an Anthelion, which is not a true shower but several meteors are known to originate from a patch of sky opposite the Sun.

At 0019 GMT I caught a meteor trail pass the Coathanger asterism.

 

My Aquila shot also caught Delphinus.

A second shot showed the Milky Way in the same area of sky.

 

Not only did my Sagitta shot work but I caught the Coathanger in the top right. It is not a true star cluster, as the stars are all at different distances and not associated with each other.

I reverted to 35mm focal length and aimed at Bootes, hoping to catch a few Bootid meteors. 

At 0113 GMT, I caught a meteor near Arcturus.

I did not manage to photograph Bootes, as it did not fit in the frame but I caught Corona Borealis.

June 24th 2040 GMT Moon and Venus

 

I took some full disc snaps of the Moon and Venus. My webcam had no charge, so I did some experimental shots with my camera phone with the intention of stacking. The Moon was a bit disappointing, although it showed some surface details.

My disappointment with my Moon photo disappeared when I saw my Venus shots. These shots showed a more realistic view of the phase at about 30%, unlike the 45% that my camera phone suggested.

I was unable to get the videos of the Moon to work because the files sizes were too large. The best of the Moon and Venus shots together worked well, though.

June 23rd 2110 GMT Moon and Venus 

 I did a repeat of the shot the evening before. I was tired and did not want to carry my telescope outside. The only difference was that the separation between them was too great to capture with my longer focal length lens, so I took the shots at 35mm focal length.

I tried to overlay the photos of Venus and the Moon onto the original but it did not work as I hoped. Im preferred the original.

June 23^rd 1110 GMT Sun

 

Do not underestimate the difficulty of finding an object and focussing on it when it is about 60 degrees above the horizon. Add in a lower quality finderscope and broken camera and it becomes much harder! I finally managed to get a few solar images but was dubious about their quality. As it was, the final result was not needle-sharp but showed a lot of detail that I cannot capture in binoculars.

June 22nd 2045 GMT Moon and Venus

 

There was a patch of clear sky. The Moon and Venus were still quite close in the sky. I caught them with my DSLR at100mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. I zoomed in to 300mm focal length to try and catch each object on its own.

The phase of Venus showed as slightly less than 50% but the actual phase was probably somewhat smaller.

I did not nail the Moon shot.

Just after 2100 GMT I could not resist another shot of the Moon and Venus. this time with my phone camera.

.

June 22nd 1735 GMT Sun

Despite seeing many sunspots on the Learmonth images, I only saw the large one from the day before.

June 21st 2105 GMT Moon and Venus 

 

The Moon and Venus were much closer in the sky. I could not detect the phase of Venus, although the lunar phase showed quite well for a camera phone.

June 21st 1815 GMT Sun

I was expecting to see the same sunspots as before, except that they would have rotated. However, I was disappointed to see just the largest one. Perhaps the sky was not quite as clear as I thought it was. In a difficult month, even a single sunspot counts as a positive. 

June 20th 2110 GMT Moon and Venus

 

There was very heavy rainfall between my solar viewing and bedtime. I tried some closeup shots of Venus and the Moon using my 'phone camera. I did not catch the phase of Venus at all and the lunar shots showed the phase but no surface detail. The shot showing both worked quite well, given the limited technology.

June 20^th  1735 GMT Sun

Wow! Clear sky, at least for a short while and I manged to see some sunspots through my binoculars and filters.

June 18^th Lunar Reprocess

 

It was a cloudy Sunday, so I had another go at reprocessing another lunar close-up.  Despite placing sample points on features and the limb of the lunar disc, I ended up with another fuzzy image.

June 17th Lunar reprocess

 

I had an awful weekend with lots of cloud. Apart from writing,I decided to experiment with sracking lunar closeups again. I tried aligning on multiple features but this attempt did not work. 

June 16^th 1110 GMT Sun

 

The date brings back many memories for me, relating to fishing. For many years I went fishing and it was fishing that lured me into writing for magazines. Time has moved on and I would say that my time as a fisherman was mostly successful. Whilst, ideally, I would still like to go, the reality is there is only room in my life for one major hobby. So instead of hauling fish out on the first day of the season (I never failed to catch a fish on opening day), I was knocking spots off the Sun.

 

The Sun was a bit more active than on my previous observation, so I recorded the sunspots I had seen through my binoculars and filters. New hobby, new life, new writing.

June 14^th 1200 GMT Sun

 

I did not habitually carry my Mak and DSLR into work. However, a pair of binoculars and filters was a different matter. It was a way of recording sunspots by my traditional means. I saw three sunspots, which was interesting enough, although showed a quieter sun than the previous few weeks. On the other hand, it was nice to be able to observe anything at all, given the awful winter and early spring viewing conditions we endured in south west England.

June 13^th 0610 GMT Sun

 

Insomnia is a curse. Most of us suffer it at some point in our life and astronomers are no exception. It explains why some of our observations are made and photographs taken at apparently strange times of day or night. I knew that late morning or lunchtime, tiredness would hit me like a sledgehammer but I had been awake for a while and had breakfast and the Sun had cleared the neighbouring rooftops and our fence, ready to full victim to my Mak and DSLR. I got 5 frames ready to stack later and came back inside to start work.

June 9^th 1110 GMT Sun

 

Hay fever or not, I hadn’t had a decent solar photograph all month. I took a series of shots with my Mak and DSLR, with the intention of stacking.

June 8th 2035 GMT Venus 

 

It was early dusk and Venus was high in the  south west but getting lower in the sky. I snapped it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure.

June 8^th 1130 GMT Sun

 

A solar binocular scan showed just a single sunspot, despite there being several on the professional observatory images that were almost as prominent.

June 7^th 1210 GMT Sun

After a very cloudy start, only a thin haze was left by lunchtime. I could see two sunspots, one prominent, one faint.

June 4th 1200 GMT Sun 

 

With bad hay fever and a sore back, I limited my solar activity to a Binocular scan. The two sunspots to the right of the solar disc had rotated off, leaving a single sunspot visible, although there were some fainter ones around below the limits of my binoculars.

June 3rd 1215 GMT Sun

 

My back and hips were sore after moving the lawn, one of the disadvantages of being in my late 60s. Fortunately, my eyesight was good enough to spot three sunspots through my binoculars, which are much lighter than my telescope.

June 2nd 2130 GMT Moon

 

The Moon was 2 days before full and very low in the south east. I took some closeups with my webcam, then full disc shots at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

Unfortunately, the webcam session produced only corrupt files.

Apart from a chunk of the Moon missing, it came out OK.

June 2^nd 2030 GMT Venus

 

I snapped Venus with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. I managed to nail the half phase.

June 1st 1949 GMT Moon

 

I did a visual session on the Moon before sunset. It was low in the south west and a large gibbous phase, nearly full. Despite the daylight, I could see lots of detail. The Ray systems of Tycho, Copernicus and Kepler were very prominent. Plato, the walled plain or lava-flooded crater showed well, with the lunar Alps on show. Linne, a bright crater near Kepler was very bright. I could also see a few small craters near the terminator.

June 1^st 1245 GMT Sun

 

The day started with 100% cloud cover but cleared later, leaving a thin haze. It was transparent enough to see three sunspots through my binoculars and filters. 

2023 Writing Blog

Astronomer Reinvented November 21st 

The usual obstacles of weather and general busyness conspired to restrict not only the writing but also the photographs I needed to have anything to write about.

I added some images of new objects during October but never got around to blogging about them!

Gamma Arietis is a double star that I managed to mis-identify before getting the real one.

I also photographed a star cluster NGC 752, which I confused with the Pinwheel Galaxy.

I added a few more deep sky objects and some lunar close-ups taken by webcam in September.

Astronomer, Reinvented September 16^th

Maybe the lack of posts about my work-in-progress (WIP to writers) suggests that I had made little progress in over two months. That would be somewhat correct! Most of the writers on social media are novellists. All you need to write a novel is time, energy and imagination, not that those qualities are easy to come by. For non-fiction, the challenges are different, especially when the journey of the subject is uncharted territory. I recall, over a decade ago, I decided to observe a group of objects known as the Messier Catalogue. It consists of 110 objects, varying from the well-known and easy to the downright difficult. Many of the objects can only be seen for a few weeks every year. One spell of bad weather and, well, its was another year to wait. It took four years to finish my observations and, hence, the book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935694669/ref=syn_sd_onsite_desktop_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&pf_rd_p=364912db-e534-48ad-9b87-1666e0a1ca2b&pf_rd_r=71TR3ATT0PFHXRJ43997&pd_rd_wg=19SZH&pd_rd_w=PgTeg&pd_rd_r=73c4afd2-7a42-42ac-a5e8-8ddafa96d7a5.

Astronomer, Reinvented follows a similar path. I am trying out new astrophotography techniques. Like my previous book, I need enough clear sky and when I'm not working or sleeping. The year 2023 was notoriously bad for weather, meaning that I had little opportunity to take the photographs I wanted or I was restricted to photographing brighter objects, such as the Sun and Moon.

Just because my progress was slow did not mean that it was zero. I had applied some of the new techniques I had used on the Sun and Moon on the planet Venus, that had emerged into the morning sky in September.

I had also revisited some constellations, trying some different camera settings.

Novellists, short story writers and non-fiction writers alike have several things in common: we don't concentrate on our WIP, we day-dream about other projects! Sometimes we end up working multiple projects but I gave that up when old age set in. I still have a day job and, maybe one day, I might make a significant astronomical purchase from the proceeds!

Astronomer, Reinvented July 2^nd

As previously discussed, time to work on the book and time to do the experiments that formed the content of the book, were both at a premium. That is the reality of life for most writers, as most of us have day jobs, etc. Yet, the book had reached 37 pages. That is not a milestone but, to me, it was a sign that I had made progress. Slow progress, yes, but progress nevertheless. At this stage, I only knew part of the content I was going to write, due to the nature of the book. I knew, at some stage, there would be a time that I would have enough pages to fill as book but, how many? I think a minimum of 300 and maximum of about 400. Don't mention word count to me! Much of the book, so far and intended for the future, would consist of images. Here's some images that I have created so far.

Astronomer, Reinvented June 14^th

 

I had another bout of wanting to be a novelist. It’s like the old cliché of the comic who wanted to become a serious dramatic actor. Do why can’t an astronomy writer be a novelist? The main reason they might not be able to is that they wrote a novel and it didn’t sell. Despite a two to three year lull, my astronomy writings have sold, not enough to make a full-time living from them by a long shot but they have sold enough over the years to make me think I had an audience. Yet, that same audience did not embrace my novel. Maybe a novel with an astronomical content could work.

 

I am well aware of the dangers of having multiple projects on the go, especially since I returned to full-time work.

 

Nobody likes to identify as a “successful” writer. It was refreshing to read that even John Steinbeck suffered from what we now call imposter syndrome. Yet, I have twice written books that have spent time in the Number One spot of their genre. Better to be a successful astronomy writer than am unsuccessful novelist, or a successful comic than a poor Shakespearian actor.

 

So, “Astronomer, Reinvented” hit a milestone. No, I did not complete the first draft!. I have set no time limit for its completion. What I did was complete the first section that describes how I managed to make a huge leap forward in photographing the Sun. The next stage will be to describe my giant leap with full disc lunar photography.

 

Due to the nature of the book, the final contents will not be known until I continue to complete my experiments until I have enough content for a book.

June 13th The Grapes of Wrath

I had heard of the John Steinbeck novel for many years but had neither read it, nor seen the film. We studied “The Pearl” at school and I had recently read “Of Mice and Men”.

 

What struck me was that the edition of the book I had borrowed had an enormous volume of front material. As a reader, I would have skipped over it and gone straight to Page 1 but, as a writer, it intrigued me, even though I only got halfway through it. Many writers I know talk about the pressures of being a writer in the modern world., yet Steinbeck and, perhaps others, had written diaries about their writing! The only difference is that he did not put them on blogs. His diaries were published after his death, maybe future reading. In the preface to this book, it is noted that he suffered the same sort of doubts that writers express on social media platforms all the time. Initially, Steinbeck had day jobs but for less than a decade. There are very few writers that I am in contact with that don’t have a day job. From what I had read, Steinbeck was both skilled (despite his self-doubts!) and lucky enough to make a full-time living from writing, although there was no suggestion that he led a “celebrity” lifestyle. He spent most of his time isolated in a small room and sometimes travelled to research his books. It seemed that this isolation was one of the main causes of the breakdown of his first marriage, ironically one in  which his wife, Carol, was a major contributor.

 

In addition to day jobs, most writers have romantic partners, usually non-writers. This can cause a lot of friction. More on this later but I was trying to finish a section of my latest work-in-progress before bedtime when my wife instigated a conversation about a domestic purchase and told me off for being stuck to my computer. Whilst most writers would feel that she should not have done this, I did not communicate that I was writing. She has not explicitly stated this but her attitude seems to be that I achieved my goal of being a published writer years ago and that I should just tick the box. Yet, I have to admit she is right, in a way. The amount of income by writing contributes to the household income is insignificant and only pays for one weeks’ worth of grocery out of 52. I would make more per hour if I had an evening cleaning job. Probably most people reading this would envy me for having any writing income at all. The main point is that unless one’s writing income is hitting double figure percentages of the household income then it is only a hobby. The fact that I have difficulty completing  any sort of task if interrupted is my problem and not the rest of the world’s. It seems that Steinbeck had similar problems, even though his writing was his only source of income.

 

The final point about Steinbeck is that although he never completed a degree, he studied creative writing at university. People in the writing world know that I have enjoyed some success as an astronomy writer but my only novel flopped. Is it possible, or even likely, for someone to write a novel without some sort of formal training? For a while after reading, I daydreamt about a second novel that was going to establish myself as one of the great writers of my time, like Steinbeck, Shakespeare et al. Then I realised that the reality was that I was going to write an astronomy book that would end up being self-published and scrape into the top 100 000 sellers on Amazon!

Astronomer, Reinvented May 9th

This will be, whenever and if it ever gets finished, an account of how I started to make a significant leap forward in astronomy, hopefully without spending a lot of money.

I wrote the introduction, then promptly deleted most of it! The angle was that sounded  that I was being driven purely by my perceived popularity as an astronomer and writer. Of course, that is part of it but, I wanted to produce better images and better viewing experiences, even if I never sold another book.

Hiatus May 8th and from here?

I never intended to stop writing forever. I noticed an approximate doubling of engaging on my online content, averaged over most channels. During my break, I had started posting on Mastodon, Pinterest, Tiktok and Reddit. My Astronomy Shorts were getting noticed on TikTok, with a few likes on YouTube.

I had some increase in sales during April and early May 2023 but this could have been just a normal variation, as I have had some fluctuations up and down in my sales figures. I hadn't gone viral but who knows? Maybe? One day?

In the meantime, I had a maelstrom of possible writing ideas. It was impractical to do them all, especially as my writing time had been somewhat limited. Yet, as long as I did not have the ambitious writing schedules that a traditionally published book would entail, I had a great idea for a project, or did I?

Hiatus May 8th Website: Key Additions

Long before my hiatus, in fact years ago, I had a lot on my website about equipment reviews and astronomical objects. By checking the statistics, people were only visiting my home and index pages. As I started hosting much of my content externally, people started to visit it but, before the hiatus, interest dropped off.

I don't think I have over-saturated my website with my books but have included more about them and put links to the book information in strategic places:

Philip Pugh's Website: About Phil's Books (epizy.com)

I don't consider myself an interesting person, Indeed, the image of authors being hunched over typewriters (well, laptops these days), fuelled by coffee, is not entirely inaccurate. However, that is only part of a writer's life, as most of us have partners, children and jobs. Yet, people are naturally curious about the person behind the book or magazine article and this is my attempt to shed light on my life behind the computer screen:

Philip Pugh's Website: About Phil (epizy.com)

I have added an astronomical calendar, showing not just astronomical events but world, major national and religious dates:

Philip Pugh's Astronomical Calendar (epizy.com)

The final major addition is of the monthly summaries since January 2023:

Philip Pugh's Website: Monthly Summaries (epizy.com)

Hiatus May 8th Website

Unless writers have become legends, they need to promote their writing. The how, where and why of this, depends very much on what you are writing about. In my particular case, I am an astronomy writer. In order for people to be interested in me as a writer, they must also know me as an astronomer. Love it or loathe it, astronomers need to engage with the general public and other astronomers though images. My website has always had a lot of images but, during my hiatus, I improved the number and quality of images on my website. I also started to refresh my background images more frequently, to stop my website from going stale.

Starting with my home page: Philip Pugh's Website (epizy.com):

I have drop-down menus to access my most frequently-visited content (such as my blog and photo gallery) and another for external content (such as the BBC site and NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day).

I have 3 background "decoration" photos: non-astronomical, solar system and deep sky.

Finally, under the Announcements heading, is a list of recent additions to my content.

A full menu of content is available on my Master Index:

Philip Pugh's Website: Master Index (epizy.com)

Hiatus May 7th 

I had not been totally idle during my hiatus! I decided that I would continue to record astronomical objects that changed a lot (like the Sun) or were transient events, such as meteors. I would abandon frequent, low quality images and replace them with less frequent, higher quality images, aiming to get the best I could from my equipment. I also vowed to experiment a lot.

Not only was this to stimulate interest in my online content but I had even felt that I was stagnating. Yes, I proved I could photograph the Moon with a DSLR camera without a telescope but did people REALLY want to see hundreds of such images. No, people want to see lunar craters in detail. They want to see clear, sharp images of sunspots, not blurry, indistinct ones.

I had also decided to improve the volume and quality of my online content. To date, I am getting more hits, likes and positive comments.

Details to come in future posts...!!

Hiatus May 6th (Coronation Day)

I'm expecting a lot of opposition, lots of agreement but probably more writers will sit back and think. There has been a lot of debate in the past that writers should write every day. There is nothing inherently wrong in writing every day. If it works for you, do it and I have no desire to stop you!

But I see it as too difficult for most of us. Even the lucky ones of us to be published and receiving an income from writing, have day jobs. As writers, we are also people and people have families, often including caring responsibilities, we have friends, we have household chores. Small wonder that many writers give up. The image of the writer as a solitary figure, usually female, middle-aged and unmarried, is a very worn cliche. I also see it as a terrible offence to women, especially women writers! Many are young, have full-time jobs and children.

No, males and females of all ages and marital status who write must accept that it is something that has to be balanced with the other components of our lives. It is that difficulty that prompted my hiatus. Although it officially started on December 31st, it had started a few weeks before hand. Between 2018 and 2022, I wrote annual summaries. Having completed the 2022 one up to September, it would have seemed a shame to abandon a project so close to completion.

From late summer 2022, I was facing increasing difficulties in work-life balance and simply lacked energy. Now, of course, I could have cut down on other activities to accomodate my writing but therein lies the other part of the problem! Like it or not, the world of the modern writer is dictated by clicks, likes and best sellers' charts. Whilst we know that popularity is neither the sole nor the most accurate criterion for judging the quality of our writing, it is the most readily-available barometer of our success.

The sad truth is that my sales figures had plummeted and people were not engaging with my online content. Had I suddenly become a bad writer overnight? If I was a bad writer, then I was already. My sales figures were affected by the general economic climate but also, my relative rank had also fallen.

So it was that I decided to take a break from writing, so I could not only get my breath back, literally, but so I could re-invent myself as an astronomer and writer. At least in the eyes of the public, I had gone stale and I had to do whatever it was, much as I had few ideas.