Category Archives: Astronomy Guide

Stargazing 2019, outing #20 – A star party in Carp and Good Samaritan duty?

PolyWogg.ca
August 28 2019

Saturday, August 24th was the proposed date of our monthly star party, and I confess, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I might even confess to hoping we would get rained out. The dates were set way back in March, and revolve around the dates of New Moon. But while I am the star party coordinator, I had to make some changes this year so that I wasn’t automatically the default event marshal too…too much commitment, too many days. So we changed things so that we only book 2 days a month instead of 4, 1 for the Saturday before New Moon and 1 for the Friday after New Moon. A much softer load on the need for marshals, and for me. And up until this weekend, I have had marshals available to cover the events, even if I couldn’t make it.

But this weekend is the height of the summer, lots of people are on holiday, and more importantly, the date conflicted with the annual big StarFest up near Collingwood. So my normal marshals weren’t available, and this left me more or less on the hook for the event. Originally, I thought this would be no problem, but then I was up at the cottage and had no real desire to rush back.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #19 – A sky tour at the cottage

PolyWogg.ca
August 28 2019

A week or two ago, my wife’s grandfather (D) asked me about an object he had seen in the sky that had been unusually bright. Given the time, clarity, and brightness, I quickly confirmed it was Jupiter and its four moons, but it got me to thinking. Given his recent interest, had he ever had the experience of looking through a telescope? We’ve had the scopes up at the cottage repeatedly, and my mother-in-law’s family has looked numerous times, but I’ve never had it set up when my father-in-law’s side of the family has been around. So I suggested if we had a good night, maybe D could come for dinner and see Jupiter and Saturn.

Monday to Wednesday were out, and Thursday was uncertain, so we aimed for Friday. D brought his friend Z and the weather held. I would have loved to hear more about a friend of his who had passed away that week…97 years old, had served in a gun turret in a tank in WWII and had driven it all over Europe. Lots of action, lots of experience. By all accounts, the type of man my father would have loved to have met and played cards with (cribbage or euchre, probably).… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #18 – Naked-eye and binocular viewing at the cottage

PolyWogg.ca
August 27 2019

I’m usually a “telescope-only” sky observer. But last Thursday, August 22nd, I was up at the in-laws’ cottage, and after a couple of previous nights of “no go” seeing, the night was still looking iffy. Clouds were rolling in from the West, and it wasn’t obvious if it was even worth setting up the scope. I’ve done the same before at the same location, and almost always, the clouds sock me in.

So I decided not to set up. Instead, I went and borrowed their simple terrestrial binoculars and gave it a go while sitting on the dock. I could see Jupiter and Saturn easily with the naked eye, but I couldn’t resolve the discs with the binoculars. While they are better quality design, they aren’t very strong (7 x 25 perhaps?), and they seem to be out of collimation. Everything I tried to resolve ended up having a skewed shape to it.

No problem, I did some playing around with a planisphere and picked out a few objects. The Big Dipper, Arcturus, Vega, the trapezoid / “Keystone” of Hercules, Antares, and I *think* I saw Altair but I wasn’t 100% sure.

Oddly enough, I was still seeing meteors. And the clouds shifted direction, so I could have set up, even though it was still kind of windy and a bit chilly.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #15 – Amazing skies for stargazing at the cottage

PolyWogg.ca
August 8 2019

Having finished the Carp star party on August 2nd, we headed up to the inlaws cottage for the weekend. It’s kind of a small family compound, and there are usually three or four sets of “aunts and uncles” (i.e., Generation 2), a handful of cousins and spouses (i.e., Generation 3), and sundry grandkids (i.e., Generation 4). It can get busy and 30+ is not an uncommon total number of people. This weekend was a smaller bunch, we only had 28.

After we arrived on Saturday, I was frequently asked, “Did you bring your scope?” I hadn’t this time — we just brought Jacob’s smaller scope. The Celestron NexStar 4SE is WAY more portable than my big 8SE, and it has the advantage of having crisp clear images given that it’s a Maksutov-Cassegrain design. We considered setting up on Saturday night, but there was a huge cloud moving in from the north, as there has been on several previous visits. Often the South West area of the sky looks “okay”, but North West is frequently terrible. We didn’t bother setting up.

Sunday was clear all day. The sky had a few wisps of cloud here and there, which is little indication of the night, but in this case, it held.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #14 – Re-doing the Carp Star Party

PolyWogg.ca
August 8 2019

We did the Carp star party on Saturday, July 27th and I already blogged about it (AstroBlog 2019, outing #11 – Star party in Carp…). It was touch and go for the clouds earlier in the day, but we declared GO and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, the best was somewhat less than our hopes. Clouds covered good-sized swaths in the sky, and while we got to show Jupiter and Saturn quite extensively, not much else was on the agenda for the evening. While it was a fun night, and we had a good crowd, it was hard to say it was a “success”. However, a couple of members suggested giving it a go for the backup night too, and with the permission of our location hosts, we did the Star Party again on Friday, August 2nd.

The night was good and the weather was solid. Since I had someone else ready to act as the closing “marshal” for the event, it meant I could leave early. And thus I could take Jacob to his first star party where he would have his OWN SCOPE set up. The plan was relatively simple…arrive early, set up both scopes, observe for about 90 minutes, and then book it home to put the cub to bed.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019, outing #11 – Star party in Carp…

PolyWogg.ca
August 8 2019

The night of Saturday, July 27th was our attempt at our monthly star party in Carp, suitable for public stargazing. The forecast at mid-day was pretty iffy, but I crowd-sourced some other views, and we said “GO!” hoping for the best. What we got was considerably below “best”.

At 9:00 p.m., we were about 70% clouded out to the North and West. To the South, we had some windows between a few clouds, enough for Saturn to put in an appearance. Oddly, it showed up before Jupiter just because Jupiter was playing hide-and-seek still. A new member needed help setting up a Dobsonian, and I got him going just in time for Saturn to appear and for him to try it. He nailed it first try and by all accounts, seemed pretty happy overall for the night.

I was surprised — sure, we called a “GO” for the night, but generally, most people who are coming look up and change their minds if the weather is lousy. Not last night — we had almost 150 people for the night! I was really surprised. A lot of newcomers, some who had never looked through a scope before, and even if they had, many had never seen Saturn before.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.009.1 – Viewing through a lousy scope

PolyWogg.ca
July 21 2019

Almost everyone who is into astronomy as an adult has either experienced themselves or heard the stories about kids getting gifts of department store-quality telescopes and being so frustrated with the scope, and their inability to find anything, they end up giving up on the hobby. Some find their way back as adults, some don’t.

The destruction of interest haunts all amateur astronomers, we want others to share our excitement, and it is the principal driver between so many amateurs setting up their scopes to share the experience with anyone and everyone. Star parties, Scouts and Girl Guides, classrooms, corners, parking lots…we’ll set up almost anywhere.

There are fewer department stores around these days, but that doesn’t mean the crappy scopes are gone. Some even have semi-trustworthy names. National Geographic has licensed their name to a number of low-end toys, not really functional scopes, and you can frequently find them being sold off on FB or Kijiji for $20 or less, evidence of abandoned dreams.

When I was a kid, I was interested in the stars, and my parents got me something even worse — a hand-held telescope for land viewing. Like most of the parents buying them, they didn’t know any better.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.007.1 – Trying for Mercury and Mars with a Celestron NexStar 4SE

PolyWogg.ca
July 21 2019

My son’s grandparents have a cottage up in the Kawarthas, and it is relatively dark skies. From the dock area, you have a pretty good view of the sky to the South and West, whereas North and East are blocked by trees. We took our son up for a week, and just took his scope rather than his and mine (mostly due to space limitations in the car). He didn’t want to keep the scope to try on his own through the week, so we were leaving him but bringing the scope back with us. Which meant only one night to try viewing, July 6th.

The Clear Sky Chart was showing great clear skies, but the clouds didn’t get the memo. We set up around 8:00 p.m., and by the time we were set up, the moon was completely covered as was most of the Western sky with dark clouds. It opened up about 10 degrees above the horizon, and we got a great sunset, but that wasn’t my goal. I had updates from the sky trackers that Mercury and Mars were trailing the sun, and it was possible to see them as the sun dipped below the horizon. Maybe they were there, I have no idea.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.006.1 – Testing a Celestron NexStar 4SE

PolyWogg.ca
July 21 2019

My son enjoys looking through my telescope and has been wanting his own scope for awhile. So we went through a number of designs to see what he would like, with me trying VERY hard not to lead him to any specific conclusions about his own preferences in design. He has a few extra mobility challenges over me, and he ended up going for the smaller version of my Celestron NexStar 8SE — he chose the 4SE.

It comes with a couple of advantages and one disadvantage over mine. For the disadvantage first, it’s simply smaller. A smaller light bucket gathers less light, so things won’t be as bright for distant objects. On the advantage side, the 4SE is a slightly different design (Maksutov-Cassegrain design) which will make for crisper images; it comes with a built-in wedge (if he wants to try equatorial tracking for astrophotography); it is smaller and much more portable; it has a sturdier tripod vis-a-vis the overall weight (his scope is light for his tripod, as it is also designed to hold the 5SE model which is heavier whereas my 8SE is on the high-end of the load options for the tripod it comes with); and his alignment worked perfectly right out of the box.… Read the rest

Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 02 – Astronomy Basics

PolyWogg.ca
June 26 2019

I mentioned previously that it helps me to blog about NF books as I read them — kind of like transcribing my notes into something more coherent that my brain can recognize. Chapter 2 on Astronomy Basics in the NexStar User’s Guide II is a similar outcome. Here are some thoughts:

  • P.12 — Constellations…There are 88 constellations that divide the sky…I always assumed there were WAY more than that. I’m curious if each of them will fit in an EP at 50x magnification which is my smallest / lowest power option;
  • P.13 — Meridian…I knew horizon and zenith of course; I had not heard the term “meridian” to indicate a line going from northern celestial pole to southern celestial pole through the zenith to divide items west and east;
  • P.15 — Magnitude…I wasn’t aware that a 1 magnitude increase in power equaled a 2.5x increase in brightness…I guess I just assumed a flatter linear scale. My son’s 4″ has a magnitude limit of 12.5, while my 8″ has 14, an increase not of simply 1.5 but of closer to 1.25 x 2.5 = 3.125 i.e. I can see way fainter stars. However, I have never figured out what a reasonable limiting magnitude in my backyard is, or anywhere else.
… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.003.3 Observing Saturn with filters

PolyWogg.ca
June 8 2019

It was getting late in the evening, almost 1:00 a.m., in my backyard on June 6th and I was ready to call it a night. But Saturn was peeking out from behind some houses, and I thought, “I already have all my filters set out, why not try them?”.

As I mentioned in the previous log about Jupiter, the seeing conditions sucked, with lots of haze in the sky. Jupiter looked like it was underwater at times. Anyway, it was what it was.

The Hyperion 36mm 2″ lens showed Saturn nice and bright, but no real division other than the main rings around the planet. The 25mm super Plossl showed things clear and bright, but as with the observing of Jupiter, a 15mm Plossl was too strong and anything with my Powermate giving me virtual 12.5 or 7.5 was way too strong. Again, my 17.3mm Delos was the Goldilocks of the night, with power just right. FYI, I was still aligned from earlier on Regulus, Antares and Denebola.

I knew my Ultrablock and OIII would do nothing so didn’t bother. The Moon and Sky Glow filter was too dim, and I couldn’t find a good setting for the variable polarizing for this one (but I was tired, so maybe not a fair test).… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.003.2 Observing Jupiter with filters

PolyWogg.ca
June 8 2019

I was set up in my backyard on June 6th, trying out various things, and started observing Jupiter around 11:00 p.m. I think. I’m still getting going with my new eyepieces and layouts, so observed with my 36mm Hyperion 2″ lens, a 25mm super plossl, a 17.3 mm Delos, and a 15mm plossl. Just for fun, I tried playing with the Powermate 2x magnifier with it too, but seeing was way too hazy to pull up anything good. FYI, for alignment, I did a simple three-star Sky Align for the night to get going, and ended up with Regulus, Antares and Denebola.

At super low power, the Hyperion 36mm showed Jupiter relatively clear, moons were easily identifiable. The 25mm super plossl showed me good definition in the bands. But I tried the 15mm plossl (by itself) and played with the Powermate 2x to give me a virtual 12.5mm and 7.5mm power options, all three were too much power for the seeing conditions.

Which left me “best seeing” at 17.3mm with the Delos, with the major bands clear, but the image still pretty watery for the conditions. Nevertheless, it’s a good power to play with my various filters at the 1.25″ size.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.002.1 Best. Viewing. Night. Ever.

PolyWogg.ca
May 7 2019

I don’t want to beat a dead horse about past problems, but the context is really important for this post. Let’s just say that I have had some challenges with getting proper alignment with my scope. And my posts have reflected that…Finally learning with the Celestron NexStar 8SE led to some success, but then eventual frustration such as Attempt #0 of 5 to save my hobby, and then some more success with Solving alignment problems with the Celestron NexStar 8SE. When I was done, I wrote up all my lessons learned as Best alignment process for the Celestron NexStar 8SE, and it is one of my most popular pages on my website. I don’t however always listen to myself, and if I’m in a rush, I can forget or skip a step and my subsequent alignment is hit or miss. Last year wasn’t a good year, and I am determined that this year, I WILL PERSIST!

My second outing of the year

For my first outing of the year, I did a basic alignment, didn’t really worry about levelling for example, I just wanted to blow the cobwebs out of my head. On Saturday, May 4th, the local RASC Centre was having members-only observing at the Fred Lossing Observatory (FLO) near Almonte and I was hoping to go.… Read the rest

Reading Michael Swanson’s “The NexStar User’s Guide II” – Chapter 01 – Introduction

PolyWogg.ca
May 4 2019

I have a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope, and I have had some, umm, challenges dealing with alignment issues (Solving alignment problems with the Celestron NexStar 8SE). When I started surfing the ‘net to find some solutions, it didn’t take long to find out about Michael Swanson, the resident online expert for all things NexStar. He wrote the previous guide, he has an active website, he participates in online discussion forums. He’s everywhere you need him to be, except maybe in your own backyard when you’re viewing.

I finally caved and said, “Yes! I need that book!”. And then found out the new edition was about to come out. So I waited a bit, pre-ordered it, waited a bit more, finally got it, and immediately put it on my TBR pile and didn’t do anything with it. Sigh. I have about eight other astronomy books I want to devour cover to cover too, but this one is more practical. One of the few things that works for me with NF books when I’m dragging my feet to read them is blogging as I go, so I am going to try that here. I did it with Jeffrey Kottler’s “Change” – Chapter 1 and the 13 chapters that followed it before doing my final book review ( Change: What Really Leads to Lasting Personal Transformation by Jeffrey A.… Read the rest

Stargazing 2019.001.1 Taking stock of last year

PolyWogg.ca
May 2 2019

Usually, I am out of the astronomy business from sometime in October to sometime in May. Last year, I did both April at the start of the year (Kicking off my 2018 astronomy season with two outings) and November for local RASC events, partly as I’m the Star Party Coordinator and I try to show up for all the events. But I didn’t accomplish much last year overall, and April and November were pretty cold.

But I have astro issues, so to speak. It’s practically a saga unto itself:

If you read all those, you would see me struggling with alignment problems, and finally — FINALLY!!! — getting a decent alignment with a very careful alignment process. And yet, to be frank, even with that “solved”, there have been lots of star party nights where I just can’t seem to follow my own instructions perfectly and I’m back in the world of a bit of hit or miss.… Read the rest

Second Annual Survey of RASC Centres About Public Observing Events Held In 2018

PolyWogg.ca
March 28 2019

This is the second annual survey of RASC Centres about their public observing events and pertains to events held in 2018. The survey has been streamlined from last year to more clearly focus on public observing events rather than outreach in general or members-only observing, but still retaining links to both. Now, the survey only contains 14 short questions broken down as:

  • Q1 RASC Centre profile;
  • Q2-Q6 Public observing offerings in that Centre;
  • Q7-Q11 Infrastructure at public observing events
  • Q12-14 What worked in 2018 or what’s planned for 2019

For last year’s survey, I attempted to track down the public observing representative for each of the RASC Centres, and emailed them to invite them to participate. For this year’s survey, I used the old email list, our National Representative shared the survey invite with the National Committee members, and we made links with the Youth Coordinator whose duties also link to to public observing, youth outreach, and learning events.

Q1. Which RASC Centre do you represent?

All possible Centres were listed as simple click boxes, and 14 Centres responded including:

Ottawa, Prince George, Mississauga (x2), Montreal, Regina, Niagara, New Brunswick, Edmonton, Hamilton, Windsor, Belleville, Toronto, Okanagan and Calgary.

This was one more than last year, but what was surprising to me was that there was little consistency from last year to this year – eight of the Centres responded in both years, but five of last year’s Centres didn’t respond this year, and an additional six did.… Read the rest

Survey of RASC Ottawa Members and the Public for Events held in 2018

PolyWogg.ca
March 27 2019

In my role as the RASC Ottawa Public Star Party Coordinator for 2017 and 2018, I sent out client feedback surveys to members and this year to the public too. For this year’s survey, looking at events held in 2018, I received 46 responses, a slight uptick from the 40 received last year. This year’s survey was sent to email distribution lists for RASC Ottawa members, OAFs, and OAOG, as well as posted on Facebook, Twitter, and the Ottawa Meetup pages where the events are advertised. These are the results.

Q1. Attendees to our public events often come from many groups. Which categories apply to you?

  • Member of RASC Ottawa in 2018 [32 = 69.6%]
  • Past member of RASC Ottawa, not current [2 = 4.3%]
  • Member of Ottawa Astronomy Friends (OAFs) [8 = 17.4%]
  • Member of Ottawa Valley Astronomy and Observers Group [1 = 2.2%]
  • Member of Regroupement des Astronomes Amateurs de l’Outaouais Quebecois (RAAOQ) [0 = 0%]
  • Astronomer with scope or binoculars, but not formally a member of anything [6 = 13%] ** 1 person also added Astro Photography as a sub-option **
  • General public (i.e., no scope) [6 = 13%]
  • None given [1 = 2.2%]

With 56 overall responses in there, obviously there was some overlap (most likely between the OAFs who have RASC affiliations).… Read the rest

A quick way to understand the basic steps in smartphone astrophotography

PolyWogg.ca
August 10 2018

I’ve posted a few times about my experience with smartphone astrophotography. A person who is active online in this area, Kevin Francis, shared with me a copy of an infographic he did based on his experiences.

You can find the infographic over at:

http://kevinrfrancis.com/2018/07/smartphone-astrophotography-6-steps/

Note that the infographic isn`t meant to give you all the details, but I like his framing:

  1. Choosing your equipment (i.e., pick a smartphone);
  2. Choose a camera app (there are only really two great ones, depends on which OS you`re running);
  3. Use a tripod or mount to make it steady;
  4. Decide if you`re using the phone by itself, marrying it to a lens, or shooting through a telescope;
  5. Capture the image (single shots, long or short exposures, multiple images for stacking, etc.);
  6. Process the images you took.

Is that level of detail going to get you going today? No, but it will tell you the basics you need to know so you can start thinking about what you want to do. Thanks to Kevin for sharing…

Articles I Like: 600 Rule?

PolyWogg.ca
May 16 2018

There is a rule that photographers use to figure out how long of an exposure you can do on a camera before you’ll start to see star trails. This assumes, of course, that you’re not TRYING to get star trails. Instead, you want those lovely little pinpoint stars. The classic rule says you take a set number of 600 and divide it by the effective focal length of the camera lens. If you have a nifty 50 lens, that means you would be able to do about 12 seconds of exposure before streaking occurs.

Most astronomers feel that the 600 number is a little high. More like 500. So then you would say 10 seconds. There’s a small extra factor in there if it is a crop sensor instead of a full-frame, and so for most DSLRs, you have to divide further by 1.6. So the article attached calculates that down to 7.5 seconds.

Perfectly logical, simple math. But as the article points out, that’s not entirely true. The premise is solid though, if you think about it. Let’s say you used one of those big honking 500mm lenses and the rule 500, ignoring the crop sensor. It would say that if you’re going to point it at a small section of the sky, you are so “zoomed in”, that you’re going to see streaks for anything over a 1s exposure.… Read the rest

Bad astro alignment if I don’t listen to myself

PolyWogg.ca
May 11 2018

So I posted earlier that my astronomy season has kicked off, and I’m good to go. With the news that Jupiter was in opposition this week (the closest it will come to Earth all year, hence LOOK NOW for your best view), I thought, “Well, yeah, I want to set up”. And because it’s a PLANET, not some dark sky object, I can do it from my backyard.

So on Tuesday, I was in a hurry to set up before Venus disappeared behind a house, and I wanted to show my wife and son, so I set up the scope on our deck. Anyone who knows scopes knows a deck is a bad idea unless it’s cement. Otherwise, they jiggle if anyone walks. Hard to get vibrations out, but whatever. Anyway, got it set up, quick solar system alignment on Venus, good to go, showed the family, all good.

Then I did a quick sky tour, realigned on Procyon and Capella, not bad, and then I started doing a quick sky tour while I waited for Jupiter to come up over a house. Not awesome, but then again, I hadn’t done ANY OF THE PROPER ALIGNMENT THINGS I know I need to do.… Read the rest