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).… Read the rest
Tag Archives: star party
Stargazing 2019, outing #20 – A star party in Carp and Good Samaritan duty?
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.… Read the rest
Stargazing 2019, outing #14 – Re-doing the Carp Star Party
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.… Read the rest
Stargazing 2019.002.1 Best. Viewing. Night. Ever.
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.… Read the rest
Stargazing 2019.001.1 Taking stock of last year
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.… Read the rest
Kicking off my 2018 astronomy season with two outings
Saturday, April 21 was International Astronomy Day, and while I held out a bit of hope I would make it to one of the daytime / solar star parties in Gloucester, I didn’t actually get going until after supper, just in time to head to the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum where RASC Ottawa was hosting a night-time star party.… Read the rest
Finally learning with the Celestron NexStar 8SE
I have a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope…for those not in the know, that’s an 8″ optical tube on a simple tripod. They call them one-armed bandits (like the slot machines) because there is a single arm that goes from the tripod mount that it rests on up to the tube. Simple, easy to work, but it isn’t very stable, at least not in astronomical viewing terms.… Read the rest