Tag Archives: star tour

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!

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AstroBlog 2019.001.2 Warming up for the new year

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
May 3 2019

As I mentioned in the last post, I am a fair-weather astronomer. So even though I want to do “more” this year for astronomy, back in January, I debated whether I could allow myself to skip the lunar eclipse, seriously considering avoiding setting up because it was just TOO DAMN COLD to be working with a metal tube for very long, not to mention freezing my hands, nose and feet. Or having my glasses continually fogging up. Meh. But in the end, I decided I would set up…I mean, I have to, if I want to consider myself an astronomer, right? But then it clouded over and I could pretend to be miffed while secretly being relieved. But if last year was any indication, I need to make a much greater effort to get out there and observe other than waiting just for our monthly Star Parties.

No excuses

This year I have no real excuses not to be rocking my astro hobby, including some basic AP.

I have a big enough aperture on my Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) to gather some decent light.

I have a mount that I have figured out, even if it isn’t designed for serious AP.

I have the Cadillac of smartphone adapters.

I have the latest in iPhones.

And I have Night Cap, the crème de la crème of astrophotography apps for iOS, with instructions from a master user.

Plus, not for nothing, I splurged on a small bonus setup for myself…since you have to focus on objects, get them centred, etc., and then put the phone and stuff on it, I figured why not put a 25mm lens in (for example), get it all lined up, and THEN, dramatic pause, use the adapter and phone already set up on a second 25mm lens to just swap them in and out. The master user online just leaves his setup with the same EP all night, viewing through the camera just as easily, but I am not sure that will work for me out of the gate. Plus, I want to be able to image what I first have already “seen” through the scope — the photos are meant to be souvenirs of my visual observing.

But using the OTA + mount + adapter + iPhone + software + EP all together seems a bit like a mathematical formula that says:

1 working OTA
1 working mount
1 good adapter
1 right smartphone
1 good software app
1 appropriate eyepiece
= 1 good photo.

However, for me, the learning curve is still there, and I would say it is more like the co-efficients come out as:

  • OTA = .6 to .7 simply because I’m not in very dark skies in my backyard;
  • Mount = .4 as I still have gremlins if I don’t set it up perfectly;
  • Adapter = .1 at present, which I will explain below;
  • iPhone = .8 to .9 as I figure out the setup and features (even as basic as turning off the “auto screen off”);
  • Night Cap software = .3 at present, although I updated my settings the other night based on expert help online, so it should make a huge difference; and,
  • EP = .5 at present, just as I’m not sure which EPs are the best to use with the camera on the phone.

If you put those coefficients into the formula, you would get say .6 x .4 x .1 x .8 x .3 x .5 = .00288. Or about 2/5 of a percent quality of that 1 good photo.

Yeah, I know, the math doesn’t really work that way, I’m exaggerating. But based on my outcomes for my first outing, that estimate isn’t far off my first result. Sort of my own personal version of Drake’s Equation.

My first outing of the year — Sunday, April 28th

I wanted to get a bit warmed up with the hope there will be a lot of viewing this year with some capacity building to take some photos. I SHOULD be able to do this. I just have to get it all to work together.

For my first setup of the year, it was a bit rough. Not everything was in the right boxes, one of my brackets that goes under the mount wasn’t in the right place, and while I can sometimes do it all in about five minutes behind the car, this took me closer to 20 to just get set up, let alone aligned. And that was doing it in the full light of day! Sheesh. Definitely rusty. And as I was doing it, I realized part of the problem was that back in October, my last viewing was not meant to be my last viewing, I was going to go out again and sort everything back into place before hanging it up for the year, but the last outing was cancelled. And I never adjusted the storage. Oops.

But I did manage to get set up.

Since it was still daylight, my first attempt was to see if there was anything worth seeing on the sun. I have a Kendrick Baader solar filter that works fine for my scope, a bit basic, but lets me see the sun without frying my eyeballs. I don’t have a great case for it, so I keep it in the original box and foam packaging inside a larger small tub, and I had thought it would keep it completely safe. Particularly as I never put anything on top of it. Apparently not. I did the “hold it up to the wall to see if there are any pinholes” showing on the shadow and sure enough, there was one. Not sure how, but it has a minor puncture mark. These things take a fair amount of pressure to do that to, so not sure what happened. Anyway, I cheated with a piece of thick tape to cover it, rest of the filter is fine. And I rarely use it so although the viewing is a bit blocked, the danger is mitigated, and I’ll think about replacing it at some point with something sturdier if I can. Sigh.

So I set up on the sun, and the little filter that covers the front end of the tube has a little sun finder — a little pinhole that reflects on a small shade — so when the sun shines through the pinhole and onto the disc on the shade, you should be dead on for the sun. I don’t know what the deal is for other people, but it usually is near the disc, but not dead on. I have to move the tube around a bit to find it. So I moved the OTA around. And moved it around. And moved it around some more. And yet no sun was showing up in the EP. WTF? How am I not getting a bright bright bright sun? How the F*** can I miss the SUN???? The tape isn’t blocking enough to do that, is it? I was sure I understood the physics better than that, but maybe not. Not critical, I don’t do much solar, but not sure what I was doing wrong. I slewed the scope around to take the filter off and I noticed it was on partly crooked. The top was right against the flush of the opening, the other 2/3 were out about half a centimetre. Ohhhhhh. Readjusted, tried again, hey, look, the sun!

Nice simple disk. Hmm…it doesn’t look like anything worth seeing. Hmm…hey, I have lots of new apps and my phone handy, why don’t I just check to see if there is anything to see today?

Let’s see…”There are no sunspot regions on the Earth-facing solar disc today.” Well, pooh. Not even a simple sunspot? Oh well.

I aligned my TelRad, got it set up, seemed okay. Mind you, I’m in my backyard, and I can only look down about five houses to line up, so not exactly the best of distances to be sure, but hey, close enough.

Attempt #2 – Alignment

Okay, I have another confession to make. I was feeling REALLY lazy tonight. I just wanted to shake the cobwebs out of my viewing. So I did a basic setup, didn’t check my levelling, put it on the wooden deck in the backyard rather than the ground, blah blah blah. And I did a simple 3-star alignment process rather than choosing the best two like I’m supposed to do. I figured it would be good enough. And it was. I don’t know which two of Procyon, Spica and Arcturus it was using, but it worked.

I started doing a simple Star Tour later. A bunch of my first objects to the north are hidden behind a few houses. Eventually I started seeing a few stars. An array of things like M35, 36, 37, 38. Ghost of Jupiter at one point. A few faint fuzzies as I went. A couple of double stars. I wasn’t spending much time on them, mostly working my way through looking for a reasonably bright globular cluster.

In the back of my mind, I was thinking I would go for another faint fuzzy like I had last year with my wife’s iPhone 6, one of the things I couldn’t get with my old Samsung. Her phone showed me this:

[iPhone 6 Plus, Night Cap, 10s, f/2.2 4.15mm, ISO7303, a 25mm Celestron Plossl, Celestron NexStar 8SE, Meade smartphone adapter] I didn’t realize what that was but my online guru tells me it is Messier 3. Yay, I’ve imaged a Messier object. Tick that box.

At New Year’s, I ditched my old Samsung and got a top of the line iPhone XS Max. And I’ve been DYING to try it out. I set it up with NightCap in kind of default settings. Used my 25mm Plossl again on the 8SE. And switched to the NexYZ adapter. I snapped a picture and waited. I got a 1s shot, f/1.8, ISO9216. And it looked like this:

That was not an intentional dark for processing. Umm…I reset and tried again. And somewhere in the middle of resetting, I got this:

Cute, but not what I’m trying to do. Unless those are a series of stars coming towards me. I tried again, and for a moment I actually thought I got a globular cluster. Before realizing I wasn’t looking at a cluster. And that’s just some sort of haze on the glass somewhere, with a smudged Arcturus over to the left.

Then, with 1s duration, ISO2300, Auto white balance, I ended up with a bit more pointy star:

Then I made an incredible discovery — space has some sort of green butterfly up there:

Sigh. Try again…ooh, a bit pointy again.

I played with the settings, it stayed at a 1s duration, but bumped my ISO up to 9K, still auto WB, and umm, well, again, not what I was expecting:

I then somehow changed my settings to ISO 4K, still 1s, but manual exposure and manual white balancing. And got this:

I don’t know if that blue-ish artifact is something on the lens or what. I just know this is not what I was going for overall. Sigh. Fortunately, the online guru has given me better settings for my next attempt.

I packed up for the night and will try again. Part of the challenge in setting up for me at the moment is that when I get looking at an object, and then put on the camera + adapter, two things happen. First, I am not really seeing a very good “live view” through the phone, which makes it hard to see what I’m actually going to snap. Second, the weight seems to tilt the scope a bit, which means what WAS centred, is now low in the scope (high in the EP), and I have to readjust to get it into the camera’s FoV. More trial and error to figure that out. It would be great to do this with the moon, much easier to work out some kinks, but for now, this is what I have to work with. Stay tuned…

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AstroBlog 2019.001.1 Taking stock of last year

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. Some alignments are good, and I can find some stuff; other nights, I still feel like I’m off on something. Usually, because I’m rushing to set up, people are milling around wanting to look, and I start to feel self-conscious that after six years, I am still not really sure what I’m doing. Could I improve that for this year? Perhaps if I take stock of last year, I might have a better base, I said hopefully.

Other than the formal star parties last year, and some work with a smartphone (i.e. Smartphone astrophotography part 1 – Meade smartphone adapter through to Smartphone astrophotography part 9 – DSOs through a long exposure in Camera FV-5), I think I only set my scope up 2 or 3 times. I was hoping to use the smartphone to boost my viewing. That sounds a bit counter-intuitive, I know, but it was a bit about momentum. Here was my thinking…

An AstroLog with pictures

One thing people say to do is to keep a log. Then you can document your progress, keep track of the things you saw and what you liked about them, and slowly build your capacity. I even went down a rabbit hole to create my own logbook (Draft Astronomy Observing Log). And I thought that if I could take a picture of what I was seeing, I could use it as blogging fodder to maintain my interest and momentum. For example, I could take a picture of the moon and show the Sea of Tranquility and where it is on the moon’s surface, noting some things about it that I could remember the next time I was moongazing. Not Astrophotograph of the Day (APOD) quality, more like a souvenir shot. I don’t have the right mount for serious AP, but I know a couple of people who have used my same setup to get some great shots with just an iPhone and an adapter. So I wanted to try it. I used a Meade adapter that I already had, and my wife’s iPhone 6. It had some promise, although a bit basic, and it was my wife’s phone with limited memory and the basic camera app, so not a long term solution, just a test.

I got a pic of the moon — it’s not horrible, but I’ve taken way better before.

I tried for Jupiter and got a few shots, although again, not my best:

Nevertheless, there was SOMETHING there, which was encouraging. Not great, but not the worst I have done either. So I upped my ante and went for the REAL challenge — a bright Messier object, like a globular cluster. I got a faint fuzzy to start:

A little bit brighter:

Then in June I doubled down and bought a new adapter, the Celestron NexYZ. It’s the Cadillac of smartphone adapters. I wanted to do a full review, and expected that I would be able to get some really good stuff. Snort. Instead I just got discouraged. It’s a good mount, don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t get much out of my smartphone.

Celestron NexYZ smartphone adapter

The piece facing you (flat-ish, with a clip on each side) is where your smartphone goes, also facing you. The two clips are spring-loaded so you pull them apart and put in your phone, bob’s your uncle. Except the clips could be a bit taller to account for the fact most people have cases on their phones, so it would have been good to go up a bit more before angling inward. It works better for me if I take the case off.

The two knobs shown in the picture below adjust the plate (i.e. where your smartphone is) right and left, and up and down (horizontal and vertical axis when you’re looking at the phone). This allows you to centre your camera eye at the back over your eyepiece. Most adapters have very rudimentary adjustments, more like a slide and then when it’s close, you tighten it in place. These two are more granular and let you go a little left, a little right, back a bit, okay now up, etc. Way easier than trying to get it into place on the old Meade adapter and then tightening everything in place only to discover I was actually off a bit and having to loosen it, readjust, retighten, etc. This you just turn the knobs slightly and you’re there. Hence one of the three reasons why I call it the Cadillac of adapters.

The next image isn’t a great angle. In the photo, you can see two adjustment knobs (not the orange dial with the Celestron logo on it but the orange knob next to it and the black knob sticking straight up). The black knob is reason #2 — it adjusts the height of the phone above the eyepiece. Many of the adapters don’t have this as an adjustment option, you just eyeball it or rest it against the phone, and that’s where you’re set. This allows you to go closer or a bit farther away to improve your focusing. I’ll get to the orange knob in a second, just remember it is there.

In this photo below, you can see the black knob and orange knobs much more clearly, while the horizontal and vertical axis knobs are hidden behind the plate in the image. In this photo though, there are three things to notice to get us to the third reason why it is the Cadillac of adapters.

First, we have the two pincers that look like a mechanical hand wrapping around the eyepiece. Lots of adapters have very little flexibility in how big of EPs they will take, most almost guaranteed to be limited to small diameter plossls. Not this baby. It opens up quite wide, and I can put my 17 mm Delos in it. These are fat EPs. The one in the image below is actually a 2″ EP. Most adapters won’t even come close to taking those. The trade-off to do that and the second benefit is that the orange dial acts as a hinge, with the little lever out to the right. Push on the lever, the fingers open, and you can swap EPs quickly. While that is a plus, it is also a danger — what if it comes loose when you don’t want it to? Well, that is what the third benefit — the orange knob — is for. You can use it to lock the lever in place i.e., lock the fingers in place so they won’t open. Making sure the EP is a firm fit. Plus, if you go back to that height option (the black knob), you can have the EP stick up as high in the fingers as you need to go to get a firm grip.

Combining it with my old Samsung phone

Alas, my smartphone wasn’t quite up to the same tasks, sensor- and software-wise. Jupiter wasn’t very hard to get close to, but focusing was a challenge with what I was using for software.

I couldn’t even get a good lock on the moon with my phone and the adapter. Some of that was just trial and error, some of it was just the limits of the setup. I tried for some stars, nothing took. And when I upped the ante again to try for something like a bright globular cluster, my old Samsung phone couldn’t even tell there was ANYTHING there to even take a picture of. It would try, and then come back and tell me, “Nothing there”, i.e., it couldn’t find a light source bright enough for the sensor to register anything but blackness. Sigh.

The only real thing I had going for me was something I found online. I hate the focusing knob on the NexStar 8SE. I have frequently felt like the knob was just too large of adjustments. One nudge left and you’re past focus, one nudge right and you’re past focus again. It almost felt like every time I was trying to focus, I needed a “half” focus option. There are digital focusers you can buy for hundreds of dollars, but that seems like overkill. Instead, I saw that someone online had 3D printed a simple larger knob that fits over top of the existing knob. The guy sent me the file, I found a local place to 3D print it, cost me $20. It looks like this:

The focus knob on my OTA sits in the little hole and now I can do much finer adjustments. Sweet.

Fast-forward to New Year’s, my wife and I got new smartphones, and I went for — wait for it — an iPhone with all the bells and whistles that work well for prime AP. Also sweet.

Hopefully, all of this will give me a better start this year.

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Kicking off my 2018 astronomy season with two outings

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
April 28 2018

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. Not quite the big setup of our monthly summer parties in Carp, but still a decent number of people. In addition, my friend Rennie was going with his family to get used to setting up his scope. He has the same scope as mine, and we’re hoping he can jumpstart his learning and success curve a bit by piggy-backing off my now working alignment process.

As the first time of the season, I have to admit, I was pretty slow setting up. It was like I’d forgotten how ANYTHING attached to ANYTHING else. Surprisingly, I hadn’t forgotten any parts. I keep forgetting to make myself a bullet-proof checklist that I can double-check before leaving to make sure I have the main things (eyepieces, tube, mount, chair, and battery) as well as the extras (filters, bug spray — thankfully not yet!, etc.). Most importantly, I remembered a key astronomy tool — warm footwear.

It is incredible how fast cement can suck the heat right out of your shoes or light boots. I wore my full winter boots, and after 3 hours, my feet were done. But the three hours went well. I helped Rennie align his TelRad (the raw star finder to get you in the vicinity of stuff, like a spotting scope) and then we used Stellarium to help us find a good star to start with for our alignment. We saw Venus (white blob) and Venus slightly filtered (dull white blob), and of course the Moon. There were some public members and when they found out I was the Star Party Coordinator, I got a lot of questions. Rennie’s family and friends included a bunch of little ones, and they were tuckered out and cold before too long.

I stuck around until about 11:00, mostly just long enough for two things. First, I wanted to see Jupiter and it wasn’t yet above the trees. Second, I wanted to try out my new-to-me filter wheel. Essentially you put four or five filters in it (actually usually four, leaving the fifth one empty to have an “unfiltered” view), and then you can simply rotate the dial to switch filters easily. I took four that were great for Venus — but by the time I got around to breaking them out, seeing how it all worked, Venus was long gone. I tried them on Jupiter just to see, and one was just okay, but that was more about the angle than anything else. I also tried them on the moon, and one I quite liked just because it took the glare off. But there are separate ones for that type of reduced brightness, and I hadn’t planned on trying those, so hadn’t set up for it.

Most people were gone or packing up by the time I left, but it was one cold night.

Which of course meant Rennie and I had to try again on Sunday night at the Fred Lossing Observatory! Rennie got there before me, and he and his friend Philip had set up the big scope (there’s an 18″ scope there you can use, if you get trained and pay a fee). I just wanted to observe through my scope. It’s a bit of a hike out there, and I need to wrap my head around going more regularly. Nice dark skies, way better than anything I have access to closer. And there’s a warming room and portable toilet if needed. Still, it’s a 45-minute drive. Here’s a look at the warming room on the left and observatory with a roll-off roof, followed by a shot of the setup of the big scope (photos compliments of Rennie).

When I arrived, Venus was about to disappear behind some trees, but I really wanted to try my filter wheel. There was a nip in the air, and I thought about just observing with Rennie and Philip for a bit and not setting up, but I mean, really, I’d driven all that way, right?

But with Venus about 2 minutes from disappearing, I wouldn’t get set up in time. No problem, Rennie’s scope is IDENTICAL to mine, more or less. So I took my eyepiece and my filter wheel, and with Rennie’s permission, I tried out the colour filters on Venus in his scope. According to the more informed people online, the best filters to try on Venus are 25 Red, 38A Dark Blue, 47 Violet, and, to a lesser extent, 12 Yellow. I tried all four. Yellow and red were interesting, but I wouldn’t say I saw much more than slightly less bright white. The Dark Blue and Violet just changed the colour to weird (particularly the blue), and I felt I was losing detail, not gaining it. But, again, it was about to disappear behind the trees so I didn’t have a lot of time — in fact, after Rennie and Philip looked, Venus was gone.

I managed to get set up after that and I was reasonably happy with my new cases for accessories. I did a new case and layout for my eyepieces and filters, and the two turned out okay. Not perfect, but way better than I initially hoped.

I even have a bit of room to expand, which is handy. Of course, now that I’ve seen Rennie’s setup for his actual scope stuff, I’m thinking more ambitiously for that too! 🙂 I’m going to check out Home Depot this weekend for some suitable cases to use. But I digress.

I used Stellarium again, aligning on Betelgeuse and Arcturus. I totally forgot that I have a “recommended list” for my scope and that April’s are Procyon and Regulus. But the other two worked fine. I hadn’t really planned out my observing, mainly just wanted more practice getting set up, aligned, and observing.

Now, one of the nice parts of having a “go-to” computerized scope is that you can also do a Sky Tour as part of the setup. It basically has a database of 40K+ objects in the sky, and based on what you enter as your coordinates and alignment stars, time of day, date, etc., it knows what are the best things to see in the sky at that time. I’ve done sky tours in the past when I didn’t have good alignment and most of the time I didn’t “see” anything in the eyepiece. It just wasn’t aligned well enough, so when I went to look and bearing in mind I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to see since I hadn’t seen it before, I didn’t have a lot of success.

Tonight, by contrast, was relatively awesome. Most good amateur astronomers would NOT do what I did … I looked at probably 75 objects in about two hours. When you include slew time, that equates to about a minute an object. Sometimes less. Plus I was occasionally taking notes on a white screen phone, totally destroying my night vision repeatedly. But perfection wasn’t the goal, I just wanted to see if my alignment let me see stuff worth seeing. And I confess, in part, to note some of those things so that when I’m at a star party or out with my family, I can say, “Hey, let’s look at M82, the Cigar Galaxy, it’s kind of cool.” Right now, I feel I’m almost looking at things randomly based on other people’s recommendations, I rarely have a set plan. I know what I need to do, but just haven’t gotten to that point yet. Tonight I wanted to see Venus and Jupiter, and I toyed with the idea of some photos of the moon on my smartphone, but instead, I decided to concentrate on the pre-programmed Star Tour.

Some highlights (with the full inventory at the bottom):

  1. Double Cluster — Looks best in 32mm for brightness and fitting everything in view;
  2. M82 — Cigar galaxy, I saw it! but more zoom = less light;
  3. Ghost of Jupiter –awesome sight, almost bluish, 25mm;
  4. M104 — Sombrero Galaxy, I saw it, with more zoom = less light;
  5. M53 — Bright globular cluster, 17mm;
  6. M57 — Ring Nebula, visible, little colour, 17mm;
  7. M3 — Bright globular cluster, 17mm;
  8. M5 — Rose Cluster, globular, bright at 17mm;
  9. M13 — Hercules globular cluster, bright at 17mm;
  10. M92 — Globular, bright at 17mm;
  11. M52 — Another Salt and Pepper?, open star but bright;

Overall, I saw 23 Messier objects, however briefly, and made up the list of 11 top highlights to see again. Preferably in not so rushed a fashion.

By this time, Jupiter was just edging over and peeking through the trees, but we were all pretty cold, so I decided to hang out in the warming room for ten minutes. I was relatively okay for warmth outside with layers, but even my boots were hitting their limits at the three-hour mark. But back out we went and saw Jupiter and the moon. By then, it was time for me to pack it in. As happy as I was with everything, I was cold, tired, and it was a school night, as they say. Plus I still had to drive 45 minutes back home. Fortunately, I park in a garage, so when I got home, I could just crash and leave everything in the car overnight. Definitely looking forward to some warmer weather.

Philip and Rennie stuck around a bit more, still experimenting with a laptop connected to his scope and some astrophotography with the big scope. They managed to capture the following shots of the moon and Jupiter, which was pretty reflective of what I saw before I bailed.

We’ll take it as a first night (or second night) out with the scope for the season. Rennie wants to play with some AP in future outings (using my smartphone attachment or my webcam, or both), and I want to nail down a list of good objects to view and at which magnitude. Plus keep playing a bit with my filters.

The full list of my observations for the night is below, but until next time,

Signature, clear skies

Catalog of Observations

  1. Eta ant — double, okay at 17mm;
  2. Almach — double, okay at 17mm;
  3. Double Cluster — Looks best in 32mm for brightness and fitting everything in view;
  4. M34 — Spiral cluster, 17.3 or 25mm;
  5. M38 — Starfish cluster, 17 or 25mm;
  6. M36 — Pinwheel cluster, 17mm;
  7. M37 — Salt and pepper cluster, 17mm;
  8. M35 — Open cluster, 25 or 32mm;
  9. Castor (Apollo) — Bright double, 17 or 25mm;
  10. M47 — Open star cluster, 32 or 42mm;
  11. M48 — Open star cluster, 25 or 32mm;
  12. Iota Cancer — double, okay at 17mm;
  13. M81 — Bodes nebula, galaxy — faint fuzzy;
  14. M82 — Cigar galaxy, I saw it! but more zoom = less light;
  15. Albieba — double, okay at 17mm;
  16. Ghost of Jupiter –awesome sight, almost bluish, 25mm;
  17. M66 — Faint fuzzy with M65 (part of Leo Triplet), trading off zoom for brightness;
  18. M85 — Faint fuzzy with any EP;
  19. M86 — Faint fuzzy with friends at 42mm;
  20. Algorab — Double, okay;
  21. 24 Com A — Double, okay at 17mm;
  22. M104 — Sombrero Galaxy, I saw it, with more zoom = less light;
  23. Porrima — Double, okay at 17mm;
  24. M94 — Croc’s Eye, faint fuzzy, any EP;
  25. Cor Correll — Double, okay at 17mm;
  26. M64 — Black eye galaxy, faint fuzzy, any EP;
  27. M53 — Bright globular cluster, 17mm;
  28. Mizar — Double, okay, 17mm;
  29. M51 — Whirlpool, faint fuzzy always;
  30. M57 — Ring Nebula, visible, little colour, 17mm;
  31. M3 — Bright globular cluster, 17mm;
  32. Kappa bo — Double, okay, 17mm;
  33. Epsilon bo — Izar, double, okay, 17mm;
  34. M5 — Rose Cluster, globular, bright at 17mm;
  35. Delta Del — Pulsating, bright at 17mm;
  36. M13 — Hercules globular cluster, bright at 17mm;
  37. Rasalgethi — Likely error in name, pulsating double;
  38. M92 — Globular, bright at 17mm;
  39. W Cluster — Open cluster in Cassiopeia;
  40. Albireo — Another possible error, double;
  41. M52 — Another Salt and Pepper?, open star but bright;
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