The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
In digs with the family
“I am grateful to Eddie Wilmott for the mention of Bill Coffin and to David Smith for putting a face to him,” says Moira Bell. “My brother (now 95 and originally from Leven) has fond memories of having digs with the Coffin family when he and his golfing partner competed in the Craw’s Nest Tassie of 1947. He still has a photograph of ‘Billy’ aged about two in his collection.”
Spins at remarkable speed
Ken Kennedy of the Dundee Astronomical Society tells us what we can expect to see in the April sky. “With the move to summer time, we are now into brighter evenings, and for those who study the night sky an extra hour’s wait for darkness,” he says. “Spring is truly here and that is reflected by the constellations which appear in the southern sky as darkness falls.
“Ursa Major can be seen almost overhead in the familiar shape of the Plough and, if you follow the tail of the Bear in a curving line eastwards, you will come to the fourth brightest star in the night sky, Arcturus. Arcturus is the brightest star of the constellation Boötes, the herdsman, and is far more prominent than the other stars of that constellation.
“Below the bowl of the Plough is the constellation of Leo. Leo looks like a crouching lion with a sickle of stars forming its mane and shoulders. The brightest star of Leo, Regulus, is positioned at the lower end of the sickle and is 79 light years distant. The primary star, called Regulus A, spins at the remarkable speed of 15.9 hours for one revolution compared with our sun which spins on its axis in about 27 days.
“Within the bounds of Leo there are many galaxies, some of which are relatively bright. These galaxies are at distances of between 20 and 40 million light years and the brightest ones can just be seen using large binoculars on a dark moonless night.
“A favourite for those photographing Leo’s galaxies is the Leo Triplet which consists of close galaxies Messier 65, 66 and NGC 3628 and lie two-thirds the way eastwards from Regulus to Leo’s second-brightest star Denebola. Just to the east of Denebola is the faint constellation of Coma Berenices but it is the home to many more galaxies, some as distant as 300 million light years.
“Skies will still be dark enough to see a few of the spring meteor shower the April Lyrids. The peak is on April 22, but the shower will only produce around 15 meteors per hour. There may also be occasional Lyrid fireballs, very bright meteors.
“Mercury and Venus will only be seen on the last few evenings of April, very low
towards the west north-west just after sunset. Mercury will be difficult to see in the quite bright sky, but it will be close to Venus on the 25th. When the sun has set, it may be worth having a look with binoculars. There won’t be much time to do this as the planets set less than half an hour after the sun.
“Mars moves from Taurus into Gemini on April 23 and can be seen at about 10pm in the west. As it becomes more distant it has become less bright, but its orange colour should be easy to identify. Jupiter and Saturn may be seen briefly, very low in the south-east from about April 10 at 5am, but will become lost in the glare of the rising sun. The moon will be at last quarter on the 4th, new on the 12th, at first quarter on the 20th and full on April 27.”
High-rise pegs
“Recent reference to garden poles reminds me that when my wife was a schoolgirl she had two aunts who lived in a fourth-floor flat in Lochee Road, Dundee,” says Allan Bullions of Leven. “In ground behind the houses there was a pole, probably the height of three telegraph poles, with a pulley rope fixed at the pole and the other fixed to a pulley at the living room window.
“My wife was terrified when she saw one of her aunts sitting at the open window pegging out washing to dry.”