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Hardraw astronomy weekend by Mark Randles
As a relatively new member to Macclesfield Astronomical Society and an armchair astronomer, I have never actually studied the real sky. When the opportunity for a viewing weekend at Hardraw came up I decided to sign up and see what it was all about.
On Friday I made my way up to Hawes. The journey was fairly straight forward, although once off the motorway the roads are narrow and twisting. Not much fun in the dark especially when I realised I was going to be a bit late at the rendezvous at the fish and chip shop. Luckily when I arrived, several members of the group were still there heartily tucking into their meals. After a well deserved meal for myself, during which other members arrived, we set off for Hardraw.
Hardraw is a very small village only a short drive from Hawes. Our accommodation was an old school converted into something resembling a youth hostel. There were several rooms with bunk beds, a large hall, kitchen and a shower block. Several members were already there along with the most impressive array of telescopes I have ever seen.
The viewing area is located at the back of the school. It is a dark site with the only light coming from the nearby farms. Viewing conditions were not too good on the first evening, but in between the clouds and some slight drizzle we spent quite a while viewing. We were up until about five in the morning!
I had brought along my own pair of binoculars but everyone was happy to let me look through their ‘scopes. Malcolm in particular spent quite some time showing me objects through his.
Not everyone was using a telescope. Chris spent the evening comfortably lying in his chair counting shooting stars of which he saw several. Every now and then someone would shout that they had spotted a shooting star, but when I looked it was gone! I felt as though I was missing out until I also spotted one. After that I saw two others - one very bright indeed.
On Saturday morning after a lie in and a late breakfast/early lunch some telescopes were brought out to observe the sun with the use of solar filters. Chris had brought along a special hydrogen-alpha scope that was fascinating to look through. We could see several sunspots and a prominence.
Later I walked with Jason to see the waterfall, Hardraw Force, which was in full flow with all the rain we had had recently. It is well worth seeing.
In the evening we had a pleasant walk across the fields into Hawes for a nice Indian meal. It was dark by the time we made our way back to Hardraw along the road. The sky was very clear so while trying to avoid the occasional car we looked up to the sky. We actually spotted the International Space Station passing overhead. It appeared as a small bright rapidly moving object that became fainter and fainter as it arced overhead.
Luckily we got back just before a heavy shower of rain. But this soon cleared and we had fairly clear skies with good views of the Milky Way.
This evening was colder and I was feeling the cold a bit, but I still managed to last until around 3 am. I must remember to pack my thermals next time.
On Sunday morning, once every one was up we had breakfast, packed, had a group photo, then we made our separate ways home, tired but satisfied.
All in all it was a very interesting weekend. I had a great time getting to know the other members and I am most grateful to them for letting me look through their ‘scopes and explaining what I was looking at. I look forward to more viewing in the future.
----
Chris Hall
The trip to Hardraw was for me a real dark adapted pupil opener.
Between the rain showers I was able to see to magnitude 6 with the naked eye, possibly even better. I was able to see the North American Nebula (NGC 7000) withed naked eye and M31 looked enormous compared with the view from home!
With the constant need to bring scopes indoors, I decided on a programme of naked eye meteor observing, (what else did you expect from me?) With only two minor meteor showers active I was not expecting to see too much but I was most pleasantly surprised. In a total of 105 minutes I recorded the details of 20 meteors. Some were missed, evidenced by the shouts of my fellow observers whist I was looking down recording the data, but that is inevitable.
My recently acquired Coronado PST was put to good use on the Saturday morning. Andrew managed to digitally record some H alpha images which he processed and showed us later. He even recorded a faint prominence that had become detached from the solar surface, this had not been noticed visually.
A great time was had by all but the overall impression that I was left with was how well we got on with each other throughout he weekend. Well worth the trip and most relaxing.
----
Megan Argo
Once again, a group of hardy and dedicated observers from MAS spent the weekend in Hardraw (in deepest darkest Yorkshire) with an array of telescopes of all shapes and sizes.
Friday evening was highly entertaining, despite the cloud that hung over us for most of the night. We got a couple of hours of good observing in (and this time, when Andrew claimed to have found NGC7000, several people confirmed it* ;-), but the weather eventually forced us back indoors for the night. During the clear spells the Milky Way was prominant overhead, the rift running through Cygnus showing quite a bit of structure. One odd thing that we noticed was that, as the cloud built up and stars began to fade, the Galaxy was still visible as a diffuse fuzz, even after many other stars had vanished.
After retreating back into the warmth of Harris House, an entertaining and wide-ranging discussion developed that covered topics from cosmology and the fate of the universe to the frustrations of the battle against light pollution (including that light in the car park at Jodrell).
Despite the brief amount of observing, the last of us still went to bed at 6am, conclusively proving that you don't need stars to make an observing weekend fun.
The next morning people gradually surfaced and a leisurely breakfast was had at about 11am. Most people were up and about by then, although Mike managed to sleep through and had to make do with cereal and toast.
As the clouds were coming and going, Chris got out his new toy - a Coronado PST (a specialised H? telescope) and we spent a few hours observing sunspots and flares. There were also a couple of telescopes with white light filters and it was interesting to compare the images. Andrew took a few images through the PST using a digital camera (which will no doubt feature at the next workshop session).
In the evening we headed over the fields to Hawes for dinner. By the time we finished eating and managed to pay, the Sun was long gone and the sky was dark and cloudy, but clearing.
There was a general air of anticipation as everyone pottered around putting on extra layers and sorting out their kit. Unfortunately it then began to rain! With no sign of clear skies returning we set up the projector and settled down with mugs of tea (laced with whisky, an unusual combination, but very warming!) to a demonstration of image processing with Andrew's solar pictures from earlier in the day.
After a while the sky cleared once again so we trooped back outside to the small gravel area at the back of the house, most of the yard being unusable due to the fact that it is still a veritable quagmire. Quite a collection of deep sky objects were observed, including NGC7000 and the Veil supernova remnant, along with many satellites (including a couple of tumblers) and several spectacular meteors. Again the Milky Way was prominent and the Scutum star cloud was especially obvious.
After a couple of hours the weather once again defeated us and we retreated indoors as quickly as possible to avoid getting wet. It was at this point that the one disaster of the weekend occurred: Andrew's telescope suffered a bit of a mishap and fell over. Still, Andrew being Andrew, he took it in his stride and, when the sky cleared up once more, was back outside observing with another mug of tea.
We watched Cygnus dip towards the horizon, saw several more meteors, and observed Saturn as it rose beyond the roof of the hut. It was very enjoyable to just sit and look at the sky - I spent an hour or so sat on the wall just looking up. I got a very cold bum, but I think I could see the North America nebula naked eye... (cue a chorus of incredulous laughs).
Quote of the weekend:
When looking at the area of NGC7000 through the refractor:
Andrew: "Can you see it?"
Jason: "There's definitely a grey area there..."
[ ^ ]
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 March
and April updates ...!Apologies for the late updating of the MAS website for March. As a result I decided to put twice as much work into the update and include April too ... Some of us (depending on when you're reading this) will be either getting excited at the prospect of going to see March's total solar eclipse, or wondering when on Earth the next one will be - thinking 'I simply must see another one!' No doubt images of the beautiful event will adorn the pages of this website in the coming weeks. The following sections have been updated: This month's night sky, Observations and Gallery. 
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