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 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

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Thursday
Apr242014

Thursday April 24th 2014 - Back in the UK - Black Hole in Cygnus

DateThursday, April 24, 2014 at 7:55AM

On 15th May 2012 I used the Harvard MicroObservatory Telescope in Arizona to image Cygnus X1  a strong X-Ray source in the Constellation of Cygnus near Eta Cygni. The Black Hole and its binary companion HD 226868 (a 9th mag supergiant ) are believed to have a rotation period of 5.6 days. Of course you cannot see the black hole only the companion. The radius of the Black Hole's event horizon is in the region of 28 km and the object lies at a distance of 8100 Light Years. There is considerable interstellar dust in this region which you can see as dark patchy regions in this image - in fact the companion star to Cygnus X1 has been reduced by 3.5 magnitudes by this dust.

Details of the image are given here:

 

 

The position of Eta Cygni is shown below

 

 

 

 

 

 

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