I83 Cherryvalley Observatory

I am delighted to announce that Mike Foylan from Ratymolyon, Enfield, Co. Meath has been awarded the status of an Observatory Code from the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center. Mike has registered with I83 Cherryvalley Observatory.

Many congrats Mike from all here in IFAS!
Great to see your efforts finally getting recognised.

There are now 12 official observatories on the Island of Ireland.

977 Markree, Sligo
981 Armagh, Armagh
982 Dunsink, Dublin
I83 Cherryvalley, Meath
I87 Astroshot, Kildare
I90 Blackrock Castle, Cork
J09 Balbriggan, Dublin
J16 An Carraig, Down
J41 Raheny, Dublin
J61 Brownstown, Meath
J62 Kingsland, Roscommon
J65 Celbridge, Kildare

Congrats Mike, that's a nice club to belong to.

Mike - superb news! Very well done. You must be delighted.

Can you tell us the story when you get a chance?

Cheers
Dave

Many congrats Mike.

Used to be we were the J squad and now its the IJs or if you use European vowel sounds ...... the eejits!

Mike,

Congratualations! well done on the effort. This is a incentive to feel your part of the serious side of science within the astronomy community. Indeed it will be a crossing point for you in the astrometry and photometry pursuits. Similarly, impressive is your size of telescope being an 8 inch telescope that was used to obtain the code. I think Dave Mc also used an 8 inch telescope back 3 years ago for obtaining his observatory code.

Its amazing to think that there are more recognised IAU observatory codes by amateur astronomers in Ireland than the UK per size of population. This additional observatory code to the others may it's possible (I haven't researched this out) that Ireland may have more IAU codes than the rest of the world per size of population.

Eamonn A









Eamonn

Thanks guys.
First of all I would like to thank Mr. Michael O’Connell from Astroshot observatory in Kildare for double and triple checking my work and offering suggestions before submission to the MPC. I would also like to thank Mr. Eamonn Ansbro from the Kingsland Observatory for the encouragement to go for it in the first place and to Mr. Dave McDonald for showing amateur astronomers what is possible and leading the way. I couldn’t have done it without the help of other dedicated amateur astronomers and indeed from the invaluable information and what I have learned from others here on this forum.

I set myself a challenge about three months ago in not only obtaining useful scientific data for submission to the MPC in order to obtain an observatory code but also to continue / increase and diversify with this work well into the future. The award of an observatory code was really just a vindication of that work, like a pat on the back, an endorsement to go further and do more. Now that I know I can do this work in confidence, my hobby has taken on a whole new perspective which gives me great satisfaction.

It wasn’t easy for me to undertake this endeavour; I really put a lot of effort and time into learning and using different software packages and ensuring that all the required equipment would work in unison (and some spare time spent praying for clear weather)! Things did finally gel together and I was able to complete observations. Having said all that, completing this work is very doable and within the reach of many amateur astronomers here on this forum, you don’t need high end equipment, if you have then that is fine, but it is not a prerequisite. I only have a Celestron C8 mounted on a Celestron CG5-GT GEM, I am fortunate to own an SBIG STL camera but really any reasonably decent CCD camera would do the trick for you.

I would encourage other amateur astronomers to think about bringing their astronomical work to the next level, it is not as difficult as you might imagine. I didn’t realise that there are now 12 official observatories on the island of Ireland, hopefully we may see that figure grow by years end.

As a footnote, the minor planets that I observed based upon a number of selection factors were the following…
2035 Stearns
6384 Kervin
1471 Tornio


Many clear skies
Mike