Leigh Astro Society

On Tuesday 1st October 2019, three friends from the Leigh Ornithological Society (L.O.S.) went out into the depths of the Forest of Bowland in search of Dark Skies and Andromeda. It was on that memorable evening that Leigh Astro Society (L.A.S.) was born. A week later, the Society membership had doubled to six, with several notable experts in the field of astronomy, auroras and astrophotography. This is a record of that very first night.

I knew from the Manchester Birding Forum thread entitled 'Jupiter and its Moons' that Paul Richardson had an interest in astronomy and when George Pike told me that he had always wanted to see Andromeda I saw an opportunity for encouraging Paul to get his telescopes out of the back of the wardrobe and blow off the dust for a trip out with me tagging along as well.  After all, I had been developing my night sky photography skills recently too.

We discussed various locations but the Forest of Bowland always seemed to be the best chance of finding some Dark Skies within a reasonable driving distance.   For viewing of night sky objects,  clear skies and a moonless night, or as close as possible is needed. We had to wait for quite a while before the conditions were right.

Tuesday 1st October proved to be the night and we set off in the dark at 7:30pm with pretty cloudy skies, trusting that the Met Office app forecasting clear skies would prove to be correct. Fortunately, for once, it did. We headed up the M61 motorway and then across on the A59 to Clitheroe and up to Waddington where we parked in small lay-by along the B6478 Slaidburn Road. It was here that I took the 'Road to Waddington' photo (shown above and below) that we're currently using as a cover photo on out Leigh Astro Society Facebook group here:

www.facebook.com/groups/leighastro

I quite like this photo but I do hope to revisit the lay-by and take a better shot with the full arc of the road showing in it.  It was quite amazing how much traffic there was late at night on this B road.

Our first target was actually Saturn using Paul's big Celestron 8" reflector telescope. Unfortunately it was very low in the sky and in the same direction as the light pollution from Preston, but we could make out the tell-tale oval shape of the rings quite easily. No photographs though as it was too small and distant for my camera lenses.

Next was Andromeda and Paul used a smaller telescope to look at this distant galaxy as he was little unhappy with the performance of his large telescope, saying that it might need servicing. It was great to have my first ever view of our nearest galaxy, at only 2537 million light years away and which Paul said he could even see with his naked eye! Well, having spent a lifetime staring into cathode ray tubes and more recently LED flat screen monitors, I couldn't see it without using first binoculars and then Paul's telescope.  However, it was actually George's Swarovski bird spotting scope that gave us the best views on this particular occasion for some reason.  I managed to grab some poor but just about recognisable shots shown above and below.

After that we spent some time looking at the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters with Aldebaran at their feet as well as a few other constellations such as the easily recognisable Ursa Major (the Big Dipper or Plough), the 'W' shape of Cassiopeia and the square shape which forms the main part Pegasus. Oh, and the Northern Cross too.

Thanks must go to Paul for his knowledge of astronomy and the night sky without whom George and I would never have known where to look for and see Andromeda, Saturn and many other features. In fact we would have been almost totally in the dark (hehe!).

Son this evening Paul was duly elected Chairman of the newly formed Leigh Astrophenomical Society, which was later renamed to Astronomolgical and finally just Astro - being from the Leigh Ornithological Society we all know how important it is to keep your Society's name short and sweet!

We finished off this excellent evening with some arty-farty light painting by George ....

.... whilst Paul did his best 'Beast of Bowland' impression - you wouldn't want to meet him on a dark night!

Everyone should have a Hobby

With the prospect of blue skies today and rain tomorrow, I went into Leigh at around 7:15am this morning to try for some Peregrine flight shots from our local birds. I must have arrived too late as the the two adults were sitting near the nest and didn't move for over an hour - the chicks had obviously been fed already. It's amazing how long birds of prey can sit for without moving much, so after an hour and half I gave up and went into town for some fuel. 

On my way back I decided to have another quick look on the off chance that one of the birds might have gone hunting whilst I was away, hopefully to return with some prey. Nope, both adults were still in exactly the same place! However, about 15 minutes later I saw what I first thought was one of them in the air, so out came the camera. As I was taking shots I scanned the area and saw that the two adult Peregrines were still in the same place and so this was a third bird.

At first I thought it was another Peregrine, perhaps one of last year's young, but when I looked at my photos I saw the streaked breast and tell-tale red 'trousers' of a Hobby! I fully expected one of the Peregrines to see the Hobby off as it circled the nest area a couple of times before flying off. No calls, no movement, nothing - they didn't seem at all bothered.

Kingfisher Upstaged by a Duck

Back to Penny for another attempt at the Kingfishers, this time with a longer lens.  However the bird of the day proved to be this female Garganey which was present at Tom Edmnoson's Hide.

Eventually I did manage to get some Kingfisher shots, but it never really came that close for me today.

 

There's a new weather vane at Penny too!

Faster than a speeding bullet - it's SuperKingy!

Well I didn't think this shot was particularly special, but people seem to like it on Facebook, with over 200 'likes' over four hours in just one group alone.

I didn't even process it for posting with the other photos I took as I thought the image was too small and not very sharp.

Just goes to show that there's no accounting for taste!

All this attention has spurred me on to trying to get a better shot similar to this one but with a longer lens so that I don't need to crop it as much - this one was taken at 420mm but I can use up to 700mm next time.

UPDATE:

This photograph got a 'notable' award on this week's BirdGuides 'Photo of the Week' and I've just been asked if it can be used in a 'Birds and Poems of the Water Meadows' presentation at www.uffordartsfestival.org.

Pennington Flash - Day 2

So for my second trip out to Pennington Flash I decided to take my 300mm prime lens, 1.4x teleconverter and crop sensor body camera to give me a bit more reach.  What - you don't understand all this technobabble?  Well it just means that I can get a bit nearer to my subjects than with my previous camera and lens setup, and that's what you generally need for birds.  This near:

Well maybe that's a bit over the top, because Grey Herons are big birds and they often come quite close. But that is unusually close so here's a more usual set of shots:

 

 

I met up with another local photographer, Paul Samuels, in Ramsdale's Hide.  We had a good chinwag about many things including photography, birds, scuba diving, the Forest of Dean, Murcia and the Kingfishers for which we were patiently waiting.  Fortunately for him, Paul had got some cracking shots from Horrocks' Hide two days previously, because today they weren't coming close.

This Kestrel was calling in the treetops above the water before eventually flying off:

The Kingfisher only appeared briefly and in the distance here today, so we moved on to Tom Edmonson's hide where, although you are farther away from the birds, the light is much better.  When it first flew over me I wasn't sure if this was a Gadwall or a Mallard - it's a Gadwall.

This Buzzard flew across the far side of the water but was difficult to photograph because the windows in this hide are only narrow slits with not much room to manoeuvre.

A pair of Mute Swans  with four beautiful cygnets appeared from the pool in front of Pengy's Hide. Here's one of the adults:

Now this one is a Mallard:

And then the Kingfisher started to appear, staying quite distant at first.

We had visits every 30 to 40 minutes or so, often dropping of the posts to catch very small fish.

This was the closest he came, but as it was in the shade there's no real detail.  I really could have done with my 500mm lens at this point, but there will always be another day.

During the afternoon we had a brief visit by this little chap who bounced his way across the from of the hide. I've seen less red in a Red Squirrel than in this Grey Squirrel - cheeky little bounder!

 

And to finish off two Teenage Mutant Ninja Heroes - they'll be eating all the pond life, the  little terras!