Observations

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Light Pollution

Most  of my observations are made from 'Thingwall Observatory' at my home in Liverpool. The equipment page gives more details of the telescopes and equipment I use. I live 3 miles from the city centre so I am hampered by heavy light pollution. The UK is one of the worst light polluted countries in the world, it will only improve if all those with an interest in astronomy and the environment take action. See my light pollution page to find out what you can do.

Ephemeris Software

Everyone needs some positional data to help plan their observations but when home computers first became available there was very little astronomical software for them so I decided to write my own. Jean Meeus published a little yellow paperback book titled 'Astronomical Formulae for Calculators' in the late 1970's. This became my bible as my interest developed in writing Basic language programs for the ZX81, ZX Spectrum and eventually the PC. The programs were used to compute ephemerides for solar system objects based on Jean Meeus' highly accurate algorithms. This page gives details of how to download my ephemeris program for Windows.