Hampshire Astronomical Group

Established 1960, Online since 1998

Observatory Accessibility

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Hampshire Astronomical Group welcome you!

The Hampshire Astronomical Group, operates from its Clanfield Observatory on the border of the villages of Horndean and Clanfield, and is reputed to be one of the best equipped amateur observatories in the UK. The observatory is situated on the edge of the beautiful South Downs National Park.

From autumn to spring we run our very popular Open Evenings for the general public. These always book up very quickly so please keep an eye on the website for the release of new events.

We also take private visits from Guides, Scouts, U3A and other interested groups. Details can be found on the 'Schools and Club Visits' page.

Also popular are our astronomy courses which start in September and January. More details on these can be found in this website under ‘Astronomy Courses’ and then choosing ‘Astronomy for Beginners Course’.

Our monthly public lectures are held at Clanfield Memorial Hall. The latest program can be found on our ‘Public Talks page’. All are welcome and admission is £3 for non-members.

Thank you for visiting our website and we hope to see you in person in the not-too-distant future. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us via the ‘Contact Information’ page.

Steve Bosley
Chairman:  Hampshire Astronomical Group

 

What's on in the next month...

Friday,
8th December
2023
Deciphering the Black Hole
A talk by Professor Marika Taylor
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Saturday,
9th December
2023
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Saturn & Jupiter
- start time 7:15pm

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Sunday,
10th December
2023
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Saturn & Jupiter
- start time 7:15pm

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Astronomical Events for December 2023

Moon

Third Quarter
5th December
New Moon
12th December
First Quarter
19th December

Full Moon
27th December

8 December – 06:30 UT – the Moon will be just above Spica.  Look for them in the south-eastern horizon.

9 December – 06:30 UT – the Moon will be less than 5° from Venus.

9 December – Lunar libration makes it a good opportunity to view Mare Orientale.

17 December – 19:30 UT – The Moon will be 4.3° below Saturn (mag. +0.8).

22 December – early evening – The Moon will be 3° from Jupiter, look for them as the sky darkens.

23 December – 17:30 UT – the Moon will be close to Uranus; the planet will be just below and to the right of the Moon.

24 December – early morning – the Moon can be seen 3.1° from the centre of the Pleiades open cluster.

Transits of Jupiter’s Moons

2 December – 03:08 UT-04:56 UT – Transit of Ganymede.

15 December – 14:03 UT-15:58 UT – Transit of Ganymede’s shadow.

15 December – 16:47 UT-19:11 UT – Europa will transit Jupiter.

23 December – 18:04 UT-20:00 UT – Ganymede’s shadow transits Jupiter.  At 19:22 UT Europa’s shadow will also start its transit.

30 December – 17:13 UT-19:17 UT – Transit of Ganymede.

30 December – 19:38 UT-22:01 UT – Transit of Europa.

Occultations

7/8 December – 21:00 UT-00:51 UT – Jupiter occults GSC634-593, a mag. +11.6 star.

12 December – 20:03 UT-21:41 UT – Occultation of Ganymede by Jupiter.

19/20 December – 23:34 UT-01:17 UT – Another occultation of Ganymede by Jupiter.

Meteor Showers

14 December – The peak of the Geminid meteor shower (ZHR 60-70 meteors an hour) occurs at 19:00 UT today.  The best time for viewing is 13/14 and 14/15 December in an area with little light pollution, and there won’t be any moonlight to spoil the view.

22/23 December – Peak of the Ursids meteor shower (ZHR 10 meteors an hour), however the light from the Moon will drown out the fainter meteors.

Comets

27/28 December – Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan (mag. +7.2) can be seen passing through the Leo Triplet.

Binocular Objects

The Hyades – the nearest open cluster to us at 153 lightyears.

NGC 1647 – a small cluster 3° northeast of the reddish eye of the bull, Aldebaran (Alpha (α) Tauri). 10x50 binoculars will show about 8 or 9 stars.

NGC 1662 – This appears as a winding string of stars and can be found 6.25° from Aldebaran in the direction of Rigel (Beta (β) Orionis).  15x70 binoculars are required to see this object.

Collinder 70 – an oval-shaped group of bluish-white stars which surround Orion’s Belt.  70 stars form curved chains which can be seen on a clear night.

M42 The Great Nebula in Orion – nearest stellar nursery to Earth.  Best time to observe is after the dust in the atmosphere has been cleared by rain.

Deep Sky Objects

NGC 864 – a spiral galaxy located 5.1° west and 0.3° north of Nu (ν) Ceti.  Dark skies are required to see this object as its surface glow is low, and light-polluted skies will hide it.  A 250mm scope will show the galaxy as a faint glow.

NGC 936 – a barred lenticular galaxy which can be found 7.7° east-southeast of NGC 864.  A 150mm scope will show a 1.5-arcminute object with a bright inner core.  Scopes 250m and larger will show the core as three patches.  It has been nicknamed the Darth Vader’s Galaxy due to the two glowing blobs either side of the galaxy’s centre.

NGC 1055 – an edge-on galaxy.  To find it, head 4.9° east-northeast to a point 0.6° east and fractionally north of Delta (δ) Ceti.  Then find two stars, HIP 12555 and HIP 17598.  NGC 1055 will form the southern apex of a south-pointing equilateral triangle.  A small scope will show a classic needle shape 4 x 1 arcminutes, and orientated east-west.  250mm scopes will show clumpiness in and around the core.

M77 – a barred spiral galaxy located less than half a degree south-southeast of NGC 1055 and 0.9° east-southeast of Delta Ceti.  It has a bright surface area which smaller scopes can easily pick up.  The core is surrounded by a faint halo 1.5 x 1.0 arcminutes across.

NGC 1087 – this galaxy can be found 1° southeast of M77.  It is an intermediate spiral galaxy with sufficient surface brightness to be seen with a small telescope.

NGC 2264 The Christmas Tree Cluster – this star cluster can be found in Monoceros and looks like an upside-down Christmas Tree.  To find it, draw a line between the stars Procyon and Betelgeuse, and the cluster will be slightly north of the midway point between the two stars.  A small telescope will show about 12 stars, including 15 Monocerotis, a hot, blue main sequence dwarf which marks the pot of the Christmas tree.  A dark site may reveal some haze.

Miscellaneous

21 December – Vesta is at opposition and can be found in northern Orion.  10x50 binoculars may show the mag. +6.4 planet.

22 December – 03:28 UT – Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice.

Moon Image Credit: ??????
M46/NGC2437 Image Credit: ???????

What's on between next month and 6 months...

Friday,
12th January
2024
Dark Energy
A talk by Professor Nicholas Evans
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Saturday,
20th January
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Moon, Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Sunday,
21st January
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Moon, Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Wednesday,
31st January
2024
Stargazing Live in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
University of Portsmouth
HMS Warrior and Action Stations - start time 6:00pm
Friday,
9th February
2024
TBA
A talk by TBA
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Saturday,
17th February
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Moon, Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Sunday,
18th February
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Moon, Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Saturday,
2nd March
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Sunday,
3rd March
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Friday,
8th March
2024
Revealing the Unseen Cosmos
A talk by Peter Goodhew FRAS
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Saturday,
16th March
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Moon, Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:00pm

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Sunday,
17th March
2024
Public Open Evening Sold Out!
Moon, Jupiter & Orion
- start time 7:15pm

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Friday,
12th April
2024
TBA (Mercury revisited?)
A talk by Dr David Rothery of the Open University
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Friday,
10th May
2024
Mars
A talk by Dr Richard McKim
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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What's on after the next 6 months...

Friday,
14th June
2024
Eclipse and Revelation
A talk by Mike Frost FRAS
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Friday,
12th July
2024
Astronomy in the Ancient World
A talk by Dr Mike Leggett
Clanfield Memorial Hall - start time 8:00pm

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Future Learn Free Astronomy Courses

FutureLearn is a leading social learning platform, enabling digital education through conversation.  FutureLearn offers free and paid for online courses and degrees from world-leading UK and international universities as well as courses from companies, centres of research excellence and specialist education providers.  FutureLearn partners with over a quarter of the world’s top universities and organisations such as Accenture, Microsoft, the British Council, European Space Agency, Houses of Parliament, Raspberry Pi and Cancer Research UK.   

FutureLearn provides a range of free online courses from some of the world's leading educators. Courses are created by UK and international universities, as well as cultural institutions and global centres of excellence in a range of subject areas, like the British Council and the European Space Agency.

A number of Astronomy courses are listed in the website's Science, Engineering and Maths category. Recent titles have included 'Moons' and 'In the Night Sky: Orion', both from The Open University. The lead educator on the Orion course, Professor Monica Grady, CBE, worked as part of the project team that successfully landed the Philae probe on a comet last November.

An added advantage of FutureLearn is its focus on 'social learning', whereby learners from all over the world can have conversations about the topics covered during a course with one another, and with the academics leading the course.

FutureLearn adds courses throughout the year and repeats popular titles, so the easiest way to keep up to date is to register on the website. Details on upcoming Astronomy courses will also be listed here.

Next Free Online Astronomy Courses:

Moons: -  For details to book yourself onto this course click here

Monitoring the Oceans from Space: - For details to book yourself onto this course click here

How to Survive on Mars: the Science Behind the Human Exploration of Mars:- For details to book yourself onto this course click here

In the Night Sky: Orion -- For details to book yourself onto this course click here

Mysteries of the Universe --  For details to book yourself onto this course click here