Shelduck - Wed 20 Nov: Rigging, Meteors and a Comet

We had our in depth rigging check from ‘Jerry the Rigger’ and were surprised to find there was one split pin missing at the base of the forestay. The rigging had all been renewed as the boat was 10 years old and it seems the boatyard made a mistake. We had a short list of a few things to do but reassuringly little!

 

The ARC has a ‘Resident Astronomer’ Dan who gave an informative and entertaining lecture on the stars and the night sky at 20*North. Interestingly we won’t be able to use The Plough to identify Polaris the North Star as at this low attitude in line with the bulge of West Africa, The Plough will be below the horizon! We will use ‘M’ of Cassiopeia instead as the pointer.

 

The Geminid Meteor Shower will be at its peak on the 13/14 Dec between moonset and dawn.  At their best the Geminids can produce 50-100 meteors per hour. Comet ISON will have its closest approach to the Sun on 28th Nov. We hope to see it in the pre-dawn sky in early December – as long as it doesn’t break up into a load of rubble due to the sun’s gravitational pull!