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The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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AstroBlog 2019, outing #24 – Star Party at CASM

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 6 2019

The nights are longer and colder, but yesterday (October 5th) was International Astronomy Day so we set up for a night at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum. It’s not quite as good as Carp as we can’t turn the parking lot lights up, but we set up a little farther away on the grass (I had thought we would set up on the pavement as we did one other time, but we were all on the grass and a clear patch of gravel). I was initially worried about dew but had no issues for the night.

One of the best parts of events at CASM is I don’t have to be the event marshal. 🙂 I just go and observe. I helped out on the social media side for announcements and promotions, but that was all. Chris in our group is the lead for liaison with the Museum and did solar observing during the day. But at noon, he had to make the call for GO/NO GO, and I emailed him with my views for what they were worth, but I was glad it was him making the call and not me. At noon, the forecasts showed clear for early in the night, but I was doubtful after 9:30. If we had been going for Carp, earlier in the year with later setup, I would have said NO GO, but there was a promising window. The problem with those windows is they can expand and be great, or collapse and miss everything.

At 6:15 when I was heading out, it looked like the window would close. All the way from my place to the museum, it was getting cloudier and cloudier. Sigh. When I got there, there were about 10-12 scopes set up, and crowds were starting to form. I gave it another 20 minutes and was undecided if it was worth it. But ultimately I was worried about the crowds. Lineups were starting to be 15 deep at the scopes! While there were still pockets to see through the clouds, and we could see the moon, Saturn and Jupiter, there was also an open gap coming towards us that looked promising for viewing to be decent for a while. Okay, I would set up.

10 minutes later I was done, turned around, and I already had 15 people in line waiting! Holy snooker doodles! The night was INTENSE. In the end, there were 18 scopes overall, and somewhere between 500 and 750 people. The parking lot was jammed. Even with the clouds up there — did nobody LOOK UP before they came? Or perhaps part of it was the fact I posted the GO messages and noted earlier would be better than later as the clouds could roll in at 9:30 (which as an aside, was DEAD ON for timing!). Whatever. But at some points, the lines were as many as 30 deep for scopes, with 400-500 people wandering around. People were WAITING for parking spots to open. Craziness.

And we were ONLY able to show the Moon consistently, with Jupiter and Saturn playing peekaboo with the clouds. Near the end of the night, I kept my scope going the longest, hoping for the moon to reappear. It did a bit, but only the hard cores were still there to see it. One guy came right at the end, and was so excited just to see ONE STAR low on the Eastern horizon. He wanted to know which it was, but there was no way to know, it was just one star in an opening in the sky, and not terribly impressive either! Yet he was happy to see SOMETHING. Earlier in the night, one woman was REALLY confused. She was looking at the moon and looking in the EP, looking at the moon, and looking in the EP. And they didn’t match. Because my scope does a horizontal flip of the image PLUS I had the diagonal rotated for lower height viewing out the side. So it was flipped AND rotated. So while the moon was looking like it had a vertical terminator line, the moon in the EP had a horizontal terminator line. It was totally throwing off my perspective too for identifying which craters were which!

On my way home, I saw the moon peek out a few more times, but we didn’t miss anything by packing up. I felt bad as a couple of people arrived around 10:00 when we were done, so when I got a chance, I tweeted an update to say the clouds had rolled in.

A fun night, and with the crowds, another “different” experience than the normal experience at Carp where I have maybe 6-7 people waiting at most. I’m glad I set up, even if in part I was guilted into it that the lines were so long and I wasn’t sharing the observing load.

Chris also does a different role than me when he’s marshalling — he doesn’t set up a scope, he just wanders around and talks to people. He mentioned that one of the guys who had messaged the page on FB was asking about accessibility in terms of seeing through the scopes. He mentioned that he couldn’t look through an eyepiece, but that isn’t always accurate. What they often mean is that they can’t stand up to do it. So I had mentioned that if scopes are set up lower, or a Dobsonian style, wheelchairs often can get closer to the scope than with a standard large tripod like mine. Or sometimes people have cams set up to broadcast to a tablet for people to look at, but that is often hit or miss. I also mentioned that if people mention they’re coming, we can remind people to set up lower. But he said he wouldn’t be coming, so I didn’t fuss about it. And he showed up with more severe impairment than I expected. Oops. I thought it might have been a disaster with the lines and the scopes we had, but Chris said another member was just setting up, so set it lower for him, did the config to make it more accessible, and the guy got to see the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter, so went away super happy. Awesome!

As an aside, I also found the crowds more grateful last night. Or at least more effusive. Numerous times I had people commenting how awesome it was for us amateur volunteers to come out and share this, and it was all free. I suspect the difference was because the crowds at CASM often were first-timers (looking through a scope), unlike the Carp crowds that are often repeat visitors. It’s not a big deal, I just noticed how many times people were not only asking and commenting on it, but then doing longer thank yous than normal before heading to the next scope.

A bit intense for a 2-hour viewing, but it was a blast for the night.

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Logbook next to telescope looking at moon and stars

AstroBlog 2019, outing #23 – Star Party in Carp

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
October 6 2019

I had my doubts about the star party scheduled for September 21 in Carp, including the fact that I’m a bit tired of organizing them. I don’t mind GOING, but I’d much prefer to go with Jacob, set up his scope too, and then just be able to leave when we want to, even if only there for an hour or so. If I go as an event marshal, I have to stay all night. I had no other marshals seemingly available for this one, so I went without the cub. However, when I got there, one of the other marshals had shown up and already had all the cones set out, etc. Awesome!

I set up in a different spot than normal, and parked in the upper bowl just in case I decided to bail early. However, I was surprised that the location of the setup changed the experience for the night. The area I was in was a bit more social, plus I was close to the long line for the big scope at the events. So lots of people wandered over while someone else was holding their spot in line. And I got a lot of “extras” coming by just after leaving the big scope. I found it oddly more social than normal, people were more chatty and less “look and go”.

Jupiter and Saturn were up, and I did the Albireo colour question (i.e. “what colours do YOU see?”), although that wasn’t the conversation starter it had been previously. A couple of people came by that I knew, but the timing was off for most of them as I didn’t have time to chat — they came by when people were lined up at the scope and I was doing adjustments and explaining. Usually, it is less “busy” and I can chat when they’re looking or while others are looking.

At the end of the night, I snagged the Pleiades before we packed up, and I held off wrapping up until a couple of imagers had grabbed their last frames. We were still there about 12:30 a.m., but it was just the hard cores like me who still had the scope running for the one or two public stragglers who were wandering. Except for the imagers, I was one of the last to pack up! Yet I had wondered earlier if I was going to stay!

Good night, ran about 175 people for the night and I counted 24 scopes.

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

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. But if I didn’t marshal, there would have been no event (our insurance requires it). So I was kind of, sort of, totally hoping the weather wouldn’t cooperate. Nope, this time we had a completely clear forecast! We packed up Saturday morning at the cottage and headed back.

I would have liked to take Jacob too but I had to stay until it ended, and it would have been way past his bedtime, so I went out by myself. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to set up the 4″ or the 8″ scope, so I took everything with me. I got there about 10 minutes later than I wanted to, turned off the lights in the parking lot and on the nearby building, unlocked the portapotty, and set out the traffic cones. We had word that some people in wheelchairs were likely to be coming too, so we asked a bunch of people to set up their scopes at a lower level, and 3 or 4 had a good option for those in wheelchairs. Mine isn’t at all conducive, as you can’t get close enough to the eyepiece and the tripod legs, and the scope is short (i.e., doesn’t stick out very far). I decided to set up the big one for the night and managed to get it all ready just as Jupiter was starting to shine through. And while I showed off Jupiter to a few people, I also managed to get the scope aligned fairly early using Saturn, Antares and Arcturus. Booyah!

Up until close to 10:00 p.m. or so, the big hits were Saturn and Jupiter. Standard views and responses, nothing particularly amazing. And then a family returned that I think is the same one I saw two years ago. If so, they were the group that gave me my favourite experience ever at a star party…the father had brought his family with wife, two kids and his mother. They were from Pakistan as I recall, recent immigrants, and he was happy to bring his family out to a free science event. His kids looked first, and they were excited. Then his wife looked, and I was watching him. He was super happy that SHE was happy. Then it was his mother’s turn. She kind of giggled and shuffled over to look, all fun and games, something silly to do, until she looked through the scope and saw Saturn. And her world got rocked. She grabbed her son’s arm and started chattering away excitedly. And then looked again. The experience blew her mind, seeing another planet so clearly. But for me, while it was great to see, it was again watching him that was so amazing. He was almost emotional because here he was with all three generations of his family, and each of them was happy and excited. They started to walk away, after thanking me, and I was like, “Don’t you want to look?”. And he was like, “Oh, I get to look too?”. Kind of an afterthought, because he was just happy to be the facilitator for them. And then he was amazed too. It was awesome to see.

As I said, I’m not sure it was the same family, but it looked like the same guy. They were now a totally assimilated family though if it was the same family. The young boys were now 9 and 11 or so, and much more aggressive and vocal about what they say. The younger one kept saying, “OMG, OMG, OMG”. Sure, he was milking it and putting on a performance, but it was interesting. Mom was dressed in Western-style clothes, and much more fluent and comfortable in English. She looked and was really happy again. Then it was Grandma’s turn. No shuffling, no traditional dress, no giggling, almost like a running back breaking through the line of scrimmage, she deked between her grandkids and strode right up to the eyepiece in jeans and a sweater. And she again had her world rocked. A little less “shocked”, and a little more “Oh, wow, oh, wow”. But rocked. And Dad wasn’t leaving until he got his view too. I like to think it was the same family. I have no real idea, it was two years ago and only a few minutes together, but it seemed like him. Either way, it was nice to see three generations enjoying the view.

I also met a couple who have the same scope, but who have had a bit of trouble getting used to the setup for the 8SE and she has also been disappointed with the quality of seeing so far. I tried to give them an overview of my experience, but it was very disjointed as there were lots of people coming through, and I kept adjusting the scope and thus having to start and stop some of the advice. I gave them my card and suggested we go out one night just one-on-one with the two scopes and I’d walk them through my setup.  Hopefully, they’ll take me up on the option.

Then something unexpected happened in our viewing. A woman happened to ask about “that sparkly star below Jupiter”, which was Antares, and I offered to show it to her if she hadn’t seen it before. Which she hadn’t and I did. Then everyone else saw it. And were really impressed with it. In the past, I’ve stuck to the big-ticket items like the planets, but they were interested in the star. So I gave them Arcturus too, which they all liked. So I went to Albireo, which turned out to be the hit of the night. Normally I tell people the history of Mizar (Roman guards, etc.), but letting people look at Albireo in a group, and each saying what colours THEY see for the two stars was illuminating (sorry, bad pun). It got THEM talking. I confess I don’t have a lot of experience with outreach, and this approach sounds obvious in retrospect, but we often all default to telling people what to look for, and they see it and say thank you. But they were far more engaged telling ME what THEY saw, then me telling them what they SHOULD see or look for in the eyepiece. That was a good lesson learned, and something I’ll try to include for the future.

A second development also showed up. Normally, my favourite eyepiece is the 17.3mm Televue Delos. It gives a nice big Field of View (FoV), isn’t too overpowering for power (118x) and good for planets and most objects. Plus everyone seems to enjoy it equally, or so I had thought. When I was choosing EPs for Jacob last month, I had him try all the different options. And he really liked the plossls; my larger FoVs didn’t work very well for him with his glasses on. That might be partly needing adjustment, but he works well with the plossls. So when a couple of people — old and young — this night had trouble seeing through the Delos, I swapped them out for a Plossl. And each time, they nailed it on the first try. The Plossl is just way more forgiving for them. I had the same experience with Andrea’s grandfather and friend the night before — the Plossl worked well for them, the Delos did not. Another “trick” I need to remember in the future if someone is struggling to see through the particular EP I have in at that moment.

Finally, the inevitable happened…someone bumped the tripod in the dark. Which of course threw off my alignment, and I had to start my setup over. But it got me thinking about the visibility of the legs again. Most of the time, when this happens, it’s newbies whose eyes are not yet dark-adapted. And even the night before, the grandfather and friend had trouble knowing where to step to avoid the tripod, after just having come out of the cottage to see Jupiter (which didn’t require dark adaptation). Interestingly though, as I was getting to wind down for the night, I noticed another guy was using those round glow sticks around the legs of his tripod. It might not go over well with the purists at a dark sky site, but for a public star party in a darkened parking lot, I thought it was a brilliant solution. Very clear where the legs were and easy to avoid them with your feet.

Despite my initial reluctance, the night was great. I had a really good time. And I did some other objects near the end of the night (mostly globulars, although I almost pulled in the Pleiades from behind some trees). Most of the public was gone by 11:30 p.m., but I let everyone else stay until closer to 12:25/30 before I turned the lights back on and locked up.

The night ended a bit odd though. As I was driving out of the lot and back on to the Carp Road, a young woman seemed to be crossing the road about half a block away, but when she saw me, she went back and waited on the curb, kind of waving me through. But then as I got closer, she had her hand up waving me down. When I chatted with her, it was clear she was somewhat drunk and was confused as to where she was. But then as I spoke with her a bit more, I also realized she was developmentally delayed cognitively too. She told me her full name and that she “lived at the post office”, which I recognized as a frequent training method people use to make sure they know how to self-identify, seek help, and get directions to home. I offered her a ride, as I was going right by the post office, and as we drove along, she was getting a bit agitated at herself. She had been out somewhere, and upon leaving, had turned the wrong way.

She had walked all the way to the end of town (Carp is pretty small), and couldn’t figure out what she had done wrong, just knew something wasn’t right because she couldn’t find the post office (it was in the other direction). As we drove, she recognized some landmarks as we went, and realized how far she had gone the wrong way, and I think that realization was also scaring her a bit by the way she talked about it. Anyway, she was hugely relieved when we got to the post office, and then she wanted to tell me her life story. Not really, but it seemed like it. She apparently used to work at the Stittsville Flea Market watering plants, with her dad. Now she lives in the building next to the post office (she pointed out her kitchen window), and that the building is now a heritage building as it used to house the old newspaper. Anyway, I made sure she got inside okay, and then headed off again. My Good Samaritan duty for the night, I guess, but I was disturbed more by what would have happened if I didn’t come along — would she have kept walking into the country? Would someone else have found her? It was almost 1:00 a.m. at that point, and the town was deserted. I didn’t see another car almost until I was nearing the 417, 10 minutes down the road.

Finally, though, as I was heading across the Carp Road to the highway, I ended up with another astro event. The waning crescent moon was rising over the fields to the East, and it was spectacular. Almost a yellowish colour in the low haze around the horizon, and it looked gigantic so close to the ground in altitude. I really should have stopped and taken some pictures, but it was now after 1:00 a.m., and I wanted to just get home and crash. Except I ended up getting home, unpacking the car, doing a few other things, and I never crashed until almost 3:00 a.m. Idiot that I am!

But a pretty great night, even if I didn’t get to stay longer at the cottage or get the picture.

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

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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.

Soooo…

I was a bit later leaving to get there than I intended as I was a bit tired. But I got all the gear in the trunk and we made it about 10-15 minutes later than I originally hoped. That makes it a little tight for setting up, and because other people were already there, we couldn’t set up right at the front. I hadn’t put much thought into “where” we would set up, but Jacob’s scope is short. So we should have been right at the front if we could have been. We weren’t, and while I started off with our two scopes relatively side by side with just a little table between us, I had to move his farther back so that he wouldn’t be blocked by the lines and people observing through other scopes. Live and learn, right?

Setup for my scope was relatively fine, as it was for his, at least initially. Everything together, he did most of his and was ready to go. Except the bugs were bad, and he went up to the car to get something. On the way back, he tripped going over a curb and skinned both shins badly enough to bleed. I was still trying to set everything up before it got dark, so Andrea went and helped him. She brushed him off, blotted the wounds with Kleenex, and did the best to keep him calm and not freaking out. Right up until she sprayed bug spray on his open wounds. The reaction was rapid and intense. She tried cleaning it off with water from his water bottle, but it still stung like hell. I thought he would be completely done at that point. But he wasn’t. She got him calmed back down and he came over to work the scope.

By this point, it was dark enough to get started with observing, and the line-ups of public stargazers were already starting to form. I pointed my scope towards the moon and then handed over the controls to Andrea, much to her surprise and initial consternation. But she could keep it aligned and people could view, so I went and got Jacob going.

At first, his 4SE scope was NOT cooperating for alignment. For some reason, the new battery in his red dot finder wasn’t working, no idea why, and so he was only using the Rigel Finder. The last time we used it, I wasn’t that impressed, and this time I was initially VERY frustrated. We were aligning just fine with just it, but then when I checked in the scope, even with a huge field with a low-power eyepiece, the target wasn’t even IN the field of view. WTF? His scope is only set up for his height, and we forgot the step stool we use for viewing, so I had nothing to sit on. Meanwhile, I’m hunched over his low scope trying to figure out WHY it’s not working! Frak!

I decided to go back to absolute basics. I pick a light on the horizon, not a star, and try to line upon it. But while the Rigel Finder is set on it, the main scope isn’t even CLOSE to the horizon. It’s off by almost 5 degrees. WTF? I reached out to adjust the Rigel Finder and it came off in my hands. It wasn’t clipped in at the front, just one side. So it was angled upwards. Doh! I reattached it, made sure it fully snapped in, swung over to Jupiter, and BAM! There it was in the scope too. Whew!

Jacob had been waning between the slow start, frustrating options, and the pain in his legs. But once he was up and running, he found Jupiter, and then Saturn all on his own. The moon was too low in the sky for him to see past the people viewing through other scopes, but he had it working. I gave him a bunch of extra EPs, but he ended up using his main one for the night. I had hoped to test him on a bunch of different EPs to see which ones he liked, but we got sidetracked with viewers. I stood back more than once and watched him demonstrate his scope for strangers, and he showed them Saturn and Jupiter with great pride. Plus he loved them all congratulating him on how well he did working the scope.

Meanwhile, Andrea was being put through her paces. So I rescued her, not that she needed it, and let her go hang out with Jacob so he could show off for her. I mostly kept the scope on the moon until it was below the horizon, and kept it controlled manually, but people seemed to really enjoy it. I used my standard eyepiece-of-choice, the 17.3mm Delos with the wide FoV, and it is very forgiving for newbies and the public in general.

Shutting down was hard, I felt like I had to turn people away, but Jacob had to get home. Definitely a successful evening, we just know that we have to get there earlier next time so he can be at the front of the rows with no one blocking his lower height. I was also surprised — there were at least two other young scope operators there that night, something that doesn’t normally happen.

But I think I most enjoyed seeing Jacob beaming after showing some random strangers the mysteries of Saturn and Jupiter. Sometimes, it’s a bit of a drug. Good to get him hooked early.

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AstroBlog 2019.002.1 Best. Viewing. Night. Ever.

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. But the sky clouded in near me, the forecast was looking iffy for anything longer than an hour, and I was a bit tired. So I bailed. Apparently, I missed a good night though. Sigh.

But Sunday night had decent darkness, clear for skies, and transparency was average — about the best I can usually do, so I decided I’d go out to FLO for that night instead. I thought there might be one or two other people, but I was by myself initially. I unlocked the gate, set up my scope, and realized that I no longer knew where even West or North was in relation to the mound I was using. My phone wasn’t much help initially, so I eventually had to resort to the old school method — a physical compass that I keep in my gear for just such an emergency!

Another member dropped by, Nathan, and while he didn’t have a scope, we got by just fine using mine. The first star we saw was Capella, and almost the same time, Castor, Pollux and Arcturus. I decided to go for the full setup — setup with all the tightenings in the right spot and tube at the right height from the mount; levelling; aligning the spotting tool (although I skimped a bit on that one, I was pretty much dead centre already); and full GPS location coordinates. While my research tells me I should be choosing Arcturus and Regulus, or Polaris and Mira, when I chose Arcturus as the first star, the second star it suggested was Capella. Almost 180 degrees away. Okay, why not? Did the alignment, almost instant success, and when I then tested it back to Arcturus, it was DEAD CENTRE. A perfect alignment, first try.

So Nathan and I started a sky tour. Which we did for an hour, with some globular clusters, Mars, open clusters, some faint fuzzies, and a couple of decent doubles. It was fun, but Nathan couldn’t stay too late, and off he went. My alignment was still holding and I realized I have never really had a full sky tour from the settings, not really. Never with full proper alignment. So I reset to the beginning and started again.

I did almost three hours more for the sky tour of about 100 objects. Or about 1-2 minutes per item. I swapped out my 2″ x 42mm wide-angle for a 1.25″ x 32 mm decent size and when I could go tight, I used my 17.3″ mm Delos, my favourite eyepiece. Mostly I stayed at the 42mm size unless I was doing doubles or checking out how tight I could go on a globular cluster. 

My best viewing ever

Everything worked. And with the 42mm guiding the majority of the star tour, pretty much everything I was looking for was easily within the Field of View. Of course, at 42mm, it seems like half the sky is in the FOV, so that’s not saying much. But it did mean I could find EVERYTHING that wasn’t below the horizons or caught in some trees. Here’s what I saw…

For open clusters, I found 21 objects:

  • M103 showed me an orange star at 42mm; still nice at 32mm; and good bright centre for an open cluster at 17mm;
  • The Christmas Tree Cluster was more impressive earlier in the night, but when I returned to it, it was a bit low on the horizon. Earlier, I could see lines of stars and a bit of structure in the shape of a triangle at 42mm;
  • M38 was a bright open cluster at 32mm;
  • M36 was slightly dimmer, and best seen at 42mm;
  • M37 is apparently the richest open cluster, but only mildly interesting at 42 and 32mm…however, at 17mm, it looked like a dark maze between stars;
  • M35 was good at 42mm;
  • M67 was good at 42mm but had a bright centre at 32mm;
  • The Beehive Cluster at 42mm didn’t seem to have a particular overall shape, but some structure was visible;
  • I loved the structures more apparent in the Stargate Cluster (still clear at 17mm), Seven cluster (at 42mm), Arrow Cluster (at 42mm), Crown Cluster (at 42mm), Coma Star Cluster (at 42mm, with arcs), Mini Coathanger (although hard to see shape), S Cluster (at 42mm), W Cluster, Coathanger (not much structure, even at 42mm), and the Horseshoe Cluster;
  • Spiral Cluster, M29 and M39 were all open at 42mm, but not super impressive;

For globular clusters, one of my favourite types, I saw 9 of them:

  • The Double Cluster was big at 42mm, good at 32, and still tight at 17mm;
  • M48 was pretty close to the treeline but nice at 42mm;
  • M5 is a tight cluster, at 42, 32 and 17mm;
  • Hercules is too;
  • As is M12;
  • And M10;
  • M92 is equally tight;
  • M3 is like M5, only brighter in some ways; and,
  • M52 is pretty faint.

For double stars, I saw 28 of them:

  • 19 Lyncis was visible at 17mm;
  • Castor was barely split at 17mm;
  • Tegman was supposedly a quad, but all I could see was a double at 17mm;
  • Theta 2 at 42mm showed a double of equal magnitude;
  • Iota cancer showed a blue and yellow/white double at 17mm;
  • Algieba was a very bright double at 42mm;
  • 54 Leo could be split at 32mm;
  • M40 was a double, but it was very faint at any size EP;
  • Algorab could be split at 42mm;
  • 24 Com was a colour double at 42mm;
  • Porrima required the 17mm to split the double;
  • 35 Com is supposedly a triple colour, but at 17mm, it was only clear that it was a double;
  • Cor Carroll split at 32mm;
  • Mizar separated at 42mm;
  • Kappo Bo was average double at 42mm;
  • Epsilon Bo was a bright double at 42mm;
  • Xi Bo was average double at 42mm;
  • Delta Set was bright double at 42mm;
  • Graffias was a triple/double at 17mm;
  • Rasalgethi was a bright double, even at 42mm;
  • Nu Dra was an easy double at 42mm;
  • 95 Her had different magnitude stars, even at 42mm;
  • Epsilon Cap is a quadruple star, but it shows more as a double+double, even at 42mm;
  • Zeta Lyr easily doubles at 42mm;
  • Albireo is one of my favourite bright coloured doubles, even at 42mm;
  • 17 Cyg could be split at 42mm;
  • 61 Cyg was easy at 42mm; and,
  • Delta Cep was another easy coloured double at 42mm.

For other DSOs, there were 47 objects :

  • There were a lot of faint fuzzies, mostly visible at 42mm – M95, M96, M105, M108 (could go to 32mm), M109, M98, M99, M106, M61, M100, M84 and M85, M86, M49, M102, M107, M56, M87, M88, M89, M91, M90, M58, M59, M60, M94, M53, M83, M101, 
  • Other galaxies were soft fuzzies too at 42mm — Sombrero, Black Eye (a little brighter), Sunflower, Whirlpool, Cat’s Eye, Dumbbell;
  • The Perseus Cluster is a collection of galaxies, but mostly I just saw a bit of structure and a curved line of stars at 42mm;
  • The Little Fish asterism had a bright yellow star in the centre, possible double, viewed at 42mm;
  • M81 (spiral galaxy, Bode’s Galaxy/Nebula) showed in the same F.O.V. as M82 at 42mm. You could also see the core at 32mm and a faint core at 17mm;
  • At 32mm, you could see M82 as elongated galaxy;
  • The Eskimo Nebula is a planetary nebula, but all I saw were some basic stars at 42mm;
  • M65 had three galaxies showing at 42mm, along with M66 and NGC3628; 
  • The Blinking Planetary Nebula didn’t seem like anything, even at 42mm; and,
  • the Ring Nebula and Ghost of Jupiter were both hard to see, even at 17mm.

In total, there were 21 open clusters, 9 globular clusters, 28 double stars, and 47 other DSOs = 105 objects for the night!

There were probably a couple of other ones in the first hour too. Like Mars, for instance.

Wrapping up the night

I tried taking a couple of photos but had no luck at all, and I was pretty tired at that point, so I started packing up. I noticed as I was moving from the parking lot to the mound though that Jupiter was above the trees if viewed from the parking lot, while still hiding where the scope was. Soooo, last effort for the night, I picked up the scope and carried the whole kit over to the parking lot and set up quickly again (without alignment). I focused in and saw four moons easily, and bands out the wazoo on the planetary surface. Normally, I’m lucky to see a band or two; this time, I could see smaller shadings too. What the heck, I thought, I might as well go for broke.

So I swapped my 17mm out for the 10mm Delos and looked again. I forgot for a moment that I`m looking at an inverted image, and I thought I was seeing a transit shadow — until I realized it was red/orange and it was in the right place since the image was inverted. The Great Red Spot! I saw it, for the first time!

What an amazing night. I packed up and headed home. My three-hour sky tour was awesome. And my best viewing night EVER. I felt like an astronomy god!

Signature, clear skies
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Posted in Astronomy | Tagged astrolog, astronomy, clusters, Jupiter, moon, RASC, star party, star tour, viewing | Leave a reply

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