A little ramble through Norma - the surveyor's level

 A superfluous constellation invented in the 1750s by Nicolas Lacaille who populated the southern skies with several constellations representing scientific instruments, in this case the Surveyor’s Level.

Originally the stars of which it is made were attached to Ara the Altar and Lupus the Wolf. On Bayer’s Uranometria Star Atlas, it became the Southern Triangle. There is today a separate constellation of the Southern Triangle.

 Since Lacaille’s time the outline of Norma has altered, so that the stars that were formerly alpha and beta have now been transferred to the neighbouring constellation of Scorpius. 

Norma does lie in a rich region of the Milky Way.

The only star worthy of mention is gamma2 which is a K class giant star with a magnitude of 4.0 it has a surface temperature of 4,300’C and lies at a distance of 129 light years.

There are many clusters in the constellation, but most are faint

The brightest is NGC 6087 sometimes known as the S Normae Cluster due to the brightest star in the cluster which is a Cepheid type variable star, S Normae. NGC 6087 is an open cluster containing around 40 stars The cluster appears at magnitude 5.4 with a diameter of 14 light years and is around 3,300 light years away.

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Cooke Telescope tales - comet Coggia observed with Newall telescope in 1874

On July 12^th 1874 Robert Newall and Norman Lockyer observed comet Coggia using the Thomas Cooke & Sons 25 inch telescope.  The observations were made at Newall’s observatory at Gateshead. The 25 inch was at the time the largest telescope in the world.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - large meteor seen over Blackpool in 1872

On November 6^th 1872,  D. Winstanley whilst looking over the sea a few minutes before 10.00 o’clock saw a meteor of large size. It was accompanied by a short scintillating train and moved slowly quite parallel with the horizon directly north. Its elevation was about 15 degrees and its rate of motion was about 1.5 degrees per second. The night was dark and somewhat cloudy, and the line described by the meteor was seemingly quite straight.

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The Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the award-winning Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country.

 I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

 

A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - comet klinkerfues in 1854

Comet Klinkerfues 1854 was seen from the Whitehaven Observatory on the night of October 7^th 1854. The comet had been discovered by the German astronomer Ernest Klinkerfues on the night of September 12^th 1854 at the Berlin observatory. From Whitehaven it was described as looking like a round nebulous body without any appearance of a tail. The comet was seen in Ursa Major the Great Bear. 

There were very few observations of the comet and it is therefore classed as a near parabolic comet with no certainty when it will come close to the Sun next.

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Cooke Telescope Tales - Transit of Venus observed from Mauritius

 Abridged from the Times January 9^th 1875 

The further news which we have received from  Mauritius is much more hopeful than that telegraphed by Lord Lindsay, for it includes an account of the doings of Mr Meldrum, the director of the Government Observatory in that island. 

Mr Meldrum having only a few weeks before the transit of Venus been provided with a perfect telescope of six inches aperture by Thomas Cooke & Sons, York has been fortunate enough to obtain an observation of the ingress although both Lord Lindsay and the German party were prevented from doing this but the cloudy state of the sky. But although Mr Meldrum obtained the two-interior contact 5s, clouds and haze were at intervals passing over the Sun, which, in fact, was obscuring during the greater part of the transit, passing showers of rain not being wanting to harass the observers. 

At times beautiful definitions of the planet were observed, especially soon after the first interior contact. Then there was a long period of obscuration, after which, most fortunately, the Sun shone out for the second interior contact. A few minutes before the last interior contact the Sun was again obscured, and when the clouds passed away the transit was over.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy -astronomy lectures in 1841

During April and May 1841 a course of 6 popular lectures on astronomy were give at the mechanics Institute at Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire by Dr Henderson of the Liverpool Observatory. Dr Henderson was the author of various works on astronomy, geography and navigation.

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