Sailing the southern celestial seas

Good clear binocular sighting of kappa Canis Majoris this evening. At 32 30 S I'm not breaking any personal bests, but it's good to know the waters south of 32 S are clear even in winter.

When I got home tonight about 5pm, I noticed the New Moon with Jupiter about 2 degrees away. I'd been expecting the Moon to be near Jupiter and Venus when it reappeared this month, and was impressed by how close it was to Jupiter.

But I was puzzled by the fact that I couldn't see Venus anywhere. I assumed it was behind a cloud or the houses, and went up to the end of the garden anyway to see how the Moon and Jupiter looked in binoculars.

Leaning against the shed I had a good look at the Moon with Earthshine, and tried to make an accurate guess at the distance to Jupiter - about 4 Moon widths or 2 degrees.

Then I inspected the craters on the lower limb of the Moon, which were in sharp relief because of the angle of the sunlight. Suddenly my attention was caught by a bright spot at about 4 o'clock on the edge of the Moon. 'Hmm, ' I thought, that'll be the side wall of a big crater catching the sunlight. Impressive.'

The spot got brighter and brighter until I was reminded of pictures of the 'diamond ring' effect during solar eclipses. And then (about 5.20pm) I realised that the Moon was actually moving clear of the spot, which of course was the missing Venus appearing from behind the Moon.

All unawares I'd been watching a lunar occultation of Venus, which I'd had no idea would be happening. One of the most beautiful and impressive astronomical sights I've seen.

I've had help many times from the library angel, but it's not so often that I'm blessed by assistance from Urania, the muse of astronomy.

After my recent trip to Great Haywood to visit locations from the Book of Lost Tales, I was interested to read this brief account of accompanying an Arthur Ransome fan on a trip to photograph the Beach End Buoy - except that apparently Ransome mixed the buoy up with another one. You'd expect him to be able to tell a port hand buoy from a starboard hand one.

I found myself glad today that I'd taken care to create a Lynx-friendly no-frames version of my old 1998 'home page'. It turns out that the Wayback Machine's crawler didn't archive my framed pages, but it faithfully followed the text-only links.

Targets that I haven't already got are becoming ever harder to find - on today's trip I had to be content with Slipback and a battered copy of Time Lord, the 90s Doctor Who RPG by Ian Marsh. I'd downloaded the text of the rules in my early internet days in 1996, but it's nice to have the book (and for only £2).

As you'd expect from Ian Marsh - a contributor to White Dwarf back in the 80s when it was good - the game has some interesting features, not least the attribute scale which is roughly exponential. Intelligence for example goes from 1 to 8, 1 being sentience and 8 being the level displayed by the Great Intelligence.

I also got Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks. I didn't think much of Last Of The Gaderene, the only other NA/MA that I've read, so I'm trying again with a trusted author.

A fairly poor new Viz (180) yesterday - I noticed that the Framley Examiner boys (who write the filler material these days) are putting their old grammar school teachers' names into the copy again. Generally that's a reliable index of shitness in the modern Viz.

It's deeply regrettable that they were brought in to do Viz - as if, after Eric Morecambe died, the Morecambe and Wise show had been taken over by Cannon and Ball.

One exception to the mediocrity this issue was Major Misunderstanding. Since he first appeared about 60 issues ago, he's mistaken a wide range of everyday activities for criminality or political protest: a woman who asks him for directions is rebuked for plying her trade as a prostitute, a mop leaning against the wall in a public toilet is rebuked for cottaging, a man with a sandwich board is accused of being an unrealistic pacifist and a group of monks are treated to a defiant tirade against hooded teenagers.

But this time, the Major encounters a Gay Pride march. Fired with enthusiasm, he commends the marchers for taking a stand against Brussels bureaucrats, gives them a rousing speech and sets off with them, marching at the head of the parade.

I'm happy to have waited 6 years for a punchline like that: as well as finally providing us with a twist, it also gives the Major a bit of dignity. For once his indignation is harnessed to a noble cause, even if it isn't the one he thinks it is.

Limit of navigation

Further adventures in my pursuit of the 'limit of navigation' in the southern night sky.

Theoretically, from my back garden at 52 deg N, I should be able to see a star with declination 38 S when it is due South in the sky.

In practice of course, horizon haze, horizon obstructions (houses etc) and tossers with security lights mean that you may not be able to see that far down - in my experience you're doing well to see to within 5-8 degrees of the horizon, which puts the limit of navigation at 30 S - 33 S.

So last night I was pleased not only to see Fomalhaut easily visible at 29 1/2 S, but scanning with binoculars I found delta PsA below it at 32 1/2 S. I've seen that far before, at another site, in Sagittarius, but in fact at 32 deg 32 min South, this star just crosses the previous limit.

I also had a good look for gamma PsA (20 arcmin further south) but sadly it was hidden behind chimney pots.

In my world of binocular back-garden astronomy, spotting a 4th magnitude star less than 6 deg from the horizon is a real triumph.

Update Oct 23rd: Going out a little later last night, could easily see delta and gamma. Gamma takes me to 32 deg 52 S.