Adventures in Astronomy

…. inspired from direct observation and my passion for nature and astronomy ….

Magnetic Reconnection – view from Porth Mellion Cairn Tresco February 2023 £2500. The painting is available to purchase direct from me sned me a message for more  if interested to

doms598@aol.com

Magnetic Reconnection – view from Porth Mellion Cairn Tresco February 2023. £2500

I was introduced to satrgazing and astronomy at an early age through my late brother Mike. Mike also introduced me to sci fi novels in particular Isaac Asimov – The Foundation series, the I Robot series, Charles Logan – Shipwreck, which is still a favorite sci fi novels, Joe Haldeman – The Forever War, Mind Bridge, Tool of the Trade and many, many others. Though I introduced myself to many other sci fi books series and films. It was all part of the same thing though – curiosity. I was already showing an interest in the sciences and regularly watched Horizon or any TV program involving astronomy, space, Nasa, geology, evolution and sci fi, and of course one of my earliest memories is watching Apolo 11 and Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon.

And of course it all feeds into my artworks

I do not have an image of my brothers telescope – it was a poorly constructed 4 inch Newtonian on a tripod with very rough alt az adjustments, How we found objects I have no idea – just perseverance, and it was through this telescope that I first saw Saturn, the Moon, Mars, the double cluster in perseus, M42 the Orion nebula and the andromeda galaxy.

At the moment, and this is due to being nomadic for a number of years whilst on extended artist in residence travelling cycle tours (I was resident on my bike and in my tent), which will continue, but now we have a permanent base to come back to which is fab and so my passion for astronomy can indulge intself fully, so we have a telescope, it is a beginers skywatcher 4.5 inch Newtonian and I have to say that though basic and with a mount that is really only just adequate even for such a small telescope, it is an EQ1 moiunt on an aluminium tripod, but the views we are getting are quite superb. I still have a couple of eyepieces of my own a 31 mm tele vue plossl and a 10 mm tele vue eyepiece. This is my partners telescope.

…. Using this set up with the 10 mm tele vue eyepiece and my mobile phone …. hand held to the eyepiece I took the following images of the sun ….

…. 26th August 2023 15:46 ….

…. A close up of the large suspot group I observed on 26th August 2023 15:46 ….

…. How my interest in astronomy began ….

Time for some fun memories this morning. I remember just how excited I felt at seeing Saturn for the first time and I guess I wanted to be able to share that experience with others, so back in 2004 while my son Aaron was attending Trythal school …. he was 6 at the time and I was already on good terms with the head of the school a great man who organised the school chess club, I had also begun introducing my son to chess and he later went on to be under nine’s county chess champion. Anyway I had a chat with the head about the upcoming transit of Venus. Venus goes through a cycle of transits that are generally 243 years with 2 transits occuring  8 years apart ….. so the transits of 2004 and 2012 would be the last opportunity to see them in our life time….. kind of a special event. So we planned it out I was already on good terms with the manager of an astronomy shop in Truro and once I got the go ahead with Trythal school I approached the manager of the shop in Truro to see if he would be interested in helping out with some equipment. I had made a solar filter out of Astro baader solar safety film for my telescope – a meade 10 inch LXD55 shmidt newtonian The manager agreed to allow me to set up a small hydrogen alpha telescope …. so it became a big day very quickly. The only possible spoiler was if the weather would hold. Well we did have some clouds but on the whole it was a supurb day all the children and the teachers had a look through the telescopes as Venus transited the sun it was such a fab day. I still have ideas for some paintings to come out of this experience ….. eventually. Anyway here are some photo’s from that day.

…. Trythal School 2004 Sol – Venus Transit Party ….

…. Sol projection using the smaller telescope

Image taken using my catadioptic  meade 10 inch LXD 55 Schmidt Newtonian. A hi res version was printed and given to all the children teachers and parents that attended.

…. And of course we were super lucky with the weather, in 2012 it was cloudy …. and the next cycle …. well we will no longer exist …

It was a life long dream for my partner to move to Cornwall and we had done so in 2003, I was happy for this the night skies here are some of the clearest in the UK. and it spurred me on to build my own observatory and that brings me on to my next adventure in astronomy ….. One of my partners friends from her MA in fine art at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff had also moved down to Cornwall with her partner and lived not far from us, anyway she introduced me to a gay couple who had renervated and moved into what was an abandoned cottage on the North Coast again not far from us, only 3 miles from where we lived. Now the couple liked my artwork and had been to a few of my local exhibitions. In their garden the previous owner had built an observatory back in the 1970’s making a 9ft in diameter fibreglass dome with shutters, originally powered but the electrics and mechanics had long since circummed to the Cornish weather and sea salt but long story short I swapped a seascape painting for the dome and arranged a time when my son and I could come along, dismantle the dome and take it back to our home. The coiuple were not interested in astronomy at all so it was a good deal. They were away for one particularly stromy weekend and that was our only opportunity to collect the dome and it was solid, the main dome made of 4 sections plus two shutters and a protective skirt in three sections all resin glued and bolted together. It was hard work and it took all that weekend to separate the sections I broke three large chisels separating the sections. Getting them back to the house was fun. I had a ford focus estate ….. it was not big enough by a long long way. so I still had my rock climbing rope and used that to tie the 4 dome sections to the roof of the car by winding down all four windows and passing the rope through and round several times both front and back. It was secure but it mean’t that the car doors could not be openned. The shutters and skirt I put into the back as best I could secured them with rope with them back hatch pretty much fully open. We climbed in through the front windows and slowly drove back on a Sunday afternoon, a quater mile down an off road track to the minor road 2 miles to our turn off and 3/4 mile along a dirt track to our home.

Sadly I do not have images of this my computer as well as the phones and everyone else’s computer in the hamlet was completely destroyed in a thunder storm from one particular boly of lightning that hit somewhere’s close, possible in the hamlet that was a couple of yeras later and another story for another time. But I lost all the images about this apart from one or two preparing some of the sections, but I do have one or two of the beginings of the observatory and of the telescope’s set up ……

…. The observatory base with my catadioptic 10 inch meade LXD 55 Smidt Newtonian ….

This was my main instrument with this Aaron and I were going to hunt for super nova’s

…. This was our almost complete observing set up ….

…. Then our life circumstances radically changed, and I am not going into details here surfice it to say I no longer have either of these telescopes, and for the moment the dome is stored in a barn. I am hopeful after so many years away from this that the time is right and Aaron and I this can once again make this passion a major part of our life ….

…. So something intriguing ….

Ever since I heard of this phenomenon I have always been fascinated by T.L.P’S – Transient Lunar Phenomenon. They are odd random flashes caught on film on the the surface of the Moon. Well I have no idea if this is one. But this is an image I took of the crescent Moon on 24 January 2023 at 18 47. Now the crescent image is horribly over exposed which is possiblbly why the camera picked up a tiny flash of light. The flash of light is within the surface area of the Moon in the night side of the Moon. Here is the image …. but it could also be just an odd artifact …..

…. Inspired from a three month self organised, self funded cycle touring artist in residence in Iceland ….

…. my first painting of the Aurora Borealis ….

…. This is a large diptych tilted ‘Magnetic Reconnection’ Oil on canvas, 153×153 cm ….

Magnetic Reconnection. Oil on canvas 2023 £5280