Vesta again

Another clear night so I decided to try for Vesta again.  Last night it was too hazy and I had trouble spotting anything other than Jupiter and Aldeberan.  Tonight I could easily see Zet Tau so I grabbed my 7x50's and went to the observatory.  Oh, earlier today I swabbed out my observing space with a power washer.  It's all washed and swept clean now.  Anyway, I quickly spotted the pentagon of stars south of Zet Tau and began looking for Vesta.  It wasn't immediately apparent but with averted vision and occasional clearing of the haze I was able to spot it right where it should be, just south of a line joining 115 and 111 Tau.

Asteroid Vesta

Finally, at last a clear night!  We got home from Darryl's C2 dance tonight and there was a nice first quarter moon with a few clouds.  I stepped out back to 'the observatory' and there was Jupiter, high in the east with more clouds but it looked ok so I started setting up.  I've got my new crutch tripod and the new iPad with Sky Safari Pro so things were a bit more involved this year.  I don't want to leave the tripod out in the elements like I did my old observing stand (which is now history having been thrown in the dumpster last week) so that had to be set up along with everything else: 12v battery, table, chair, scope, iPad, etc.  I finally got it all out, and set up, and turned on.  I did an Easy Align and slewed to Jupiter.  Close but no cigar.  I finally found it and then slewed to Aldeberan nearby.  Way off.  I went back to Jupiter and watched it awhile but noticed it was drifting rather badly.  Aha!  It finally hit me.  I didn't have the location set properly.  Fixed that problem and re-aligned.  Now things were pretty much smack on but then I noticed another problem.  Jupiter and Aldeberan were not oriented right on the iPad.  They didn't match what I was seeing and were way to close to the horizon.  Now what?  Turned out I didn't have the time right!  I had been playing with the time feature and it had remembered where I left it.  I hit 'now' and things looked a whole lot better.  I decided to try for Vesta since I like finding things that move around in the sky and I knew Vesta was in Taurus near Jupiter.  Grabbed the handset and slewed to asteroid Vesta.  It didn't look quite right and I didn't recognize the star field so I decided to hop from Zeta Taurus which is nearby.  Slew to Zet Tau and verified the starfield.  Pretty much right on.  Way to go ETX!  It was an easy hop from there to Vesta and this time I was able to recognize the star pattern.  It actually matched what Sky Safari said it should look like.  After I verified which one of those dim 'stars' was actually Vesta, I again slewed to Vesta and the ETX barely moved.  It was correct the first time, I just wasn't sure what I was looking at.
The mosquitoes were a bit pesky tonight but not too bad.  The few clouds of earlier were totally gone by 11:30 and it could not have been a better night.  I found that my ETX FOV with the 27mm ep is about 3.6 degrees and was able to see down to about mag 8.  Unaided I was able to make out Zet Tau and probably a bit better than that if I tried hard.

Mars and Mercury back in the Valley

We got back to El Valle last week after a leisurely trip south via Paris and Houston TX.  We did some geocaching around Paris and snagged several new counties.  We even learned some new local history (Peacock/Lee Feud in 'the corners') and met a local couple from Farmersville (he was from Jefferson City!).  After TexPACC we drove down to Houston to visit with old friends and more square dancing.  Oysters at the Topwater Bar is always a treat.  Got 'home' late Wednesday evening and have been catching up since.  Everything around the house was in pretty good shape and today we finished the A/C project that was started last season.  Friday was a day to kick off the season with a party in Mexico.  We had about 7 couples at Santoni's bar (Santiago and Tony have their own bar now!) at the old El Mar and topped it all off with lunch at Old Town.  Last night we had dinner at Las Margaritas, a new place that opened down the road last year.  They've expanded and the menu is real Mexican home cooking:  a variety of cabrito dishes including goat liver tacos, and grilled goat's head, menudo, barbacoa, and all sorts of different stuff.
Tonight I decided to get back into observing and see if I could snag Mars and Mercury.  We've been following Mars all summer but now it's very low along with the always elusive Mercury.  I found them tonight about 7:30 low in the west on either side of Antares.  Mercury was a bit lower, Mars higher, and all seemed about the same brightness.  Mars was a definite reddish hue.  The sunset was a typical south Texas red spectacular with clear skies all around.  The weekend was cool with daytime temp in the low 70's, night time temp in low 60's.

NGCs near and far

The Oct 2012 issue of S&T's Binocular Highlights on p45 sounded interesting, and we finally had a clear, moonless night, albeit a bit chilly, so I decided to check out the NGCs that were featured: NGC6946 aka the Fireworks Galaxy and NGC 6939, an open cluster.  I started with my trusty 7x50s and my favorite lounge chair with lots of warm blankets.  I quickly found the right area of Cepheus and in fact the 'hockey stick' was visible unaided after my eyes adapted. I found all the landmarks: a long S shape like an integral sign near Eta and The Cap and a dim right triangle opening up toward brighter HR7818.  I was able to see 8th magnitude stars in the integral sign but try as I might, I could not see the two NGCs.  Occasionally I convinced myself that I was able to see two dim patches where the elusive targets should have been, but no cigar.  Definitely not a WOW factor!  Next I hauled out my 8" dob.  The targets were transiting at the time and were close to the zenith, a bad location for any dob, and particularly bad on my poor sore back.  Standing on my head trying to find my red dot and the targets was no picnic tonight.  I finally got the dob pointed correctly and again found the integral sign, triangle, etc and, with a bit of patience, found the elusive buggers with my 25mm ep.  6946 was pretty much a bust in either the 25mm or 10mm ep.  At best it was a dim round patch.  6939 was better, a dim open cluster centered in a little kite asterism with brighter SAO 18914 as a tail.  It too was a dim patch of light in the 25mm but resolved into dozens of tiny jewels framed by the kite in my 10mm ep.
All the while I was using my iPad and Sky Safari Pro for reference.  The verdict isn't in yet on SSP but it does take some getting used to.  For example, one of the 'kite stars' is SAO 18910 which is dimmer than a neighbor, TYC 4233-1918-1 but SSP makes the former appear brighter on the display. Another annoyance is that I could not find a way to reverse the image to match what I saw in the telescope.  I DID find out how to turn off the 'tilt to engage' compass feature.  It's handy except when you just want to display a chart.
I did see a couple of satellites while observing.  One swept through my binocular FOV just as I started.  It was going S to N passing by Eta Ceph to just west of Polaris at about 8:15pm CDT.  It was about as bright as Eta Ceph.  A somewhat dimmer object swept through about a half hour later going the same direction in about the same position.
All in all, it was a good night to be out.  I even managed to disturb a young possum trying to join me on the deck.  The targets weren't the best I've seen but it was fun finding them anyway.

Uranus and 44 Psc pairing

I was reading through my email yesterday and noticed a blurb in S&T newsletter that said Uranus was going to be near a star for the next few weeks.  Tonight was clear (but COLD) so I decided to take a quick look with my 7x50's to see if I could even find Uranus.  Armed with SkySafari and my iPad I found Fomalhaut and Deneb Kaitos in the SE sky.  Both are prominent and bright.  Uranus is above Deneb Kaitos about 15 degrees.  Iota Ceti is about half way and a bit to the right and visible unaided in my semi dark sky. Just above Iota Ceti is a dim trapezoid of 5 stars, two on top, three on bottom that is just barely visible unaided but unmistakable in my 7x50's.  There is a small linear array of 3 dim stars just to the east of the trapezoid that is also unmistakable.  The top of the trapezoid points to Uranus in the direction of the linear array.  A medium size triangle of 3 pairs of stars is prominent just before arriving at Uranus.  I could not make out 44 Psc, the companion star, in my 7x50's but was able to see HD 2004, a mag 8 star nearby.  It was fairly easy to find Uranus and I was hooked.  I hauled out the 8" dob and quickly found my target.  Bingo, the 25mm ep split the pair nicely.  Switching to a 10mm ep clearly showed the pretty blue green color of Uranus.  44 Psc appeared white to me.
It was 11:30 before I made it outside so Uranus was a nice 55 degree altitude in the SE sky, clear of any obstacles and the moon had about set.  Nearly perfect viewing.  Earlier I watched the BBC episode of Horizon that dealt with infinity.  Very interesting show.  I had a hard time watching it though as it is in HD on youtube which doesn't work well on either my iPad or desktop.  I switched to a lower res on the desktop and it came through just fine with no stalling.  The show went through a lot of the history behind the concept of infinity and a number of the paradoxes surrounding it.  The end segued into cosmology and the notion of an infinite universe which was REALLY weird.  I learned about the largest named number, Graham's Number which was new to me.  Still don't quite understand where it came from. (note: I do now.  neato!)
The past month I've had to content myself with watching the planets dance.  The main one now is Venus in the morning which is still a wonderful sight.  

A Trio becomes a Quartet

It was another beautiful cool clear night so I went out to check on the trio at 8:30 and, sure enough, the moon had joined it to make a quartet.  The moon washed out Spica for awhile but Mars and Saturn were visible unaided and eventually Spica popped into view as well.  I decided to stay out and tried my hand at some Sgr Messiers with my trusty 7x50's until about 11:00.  Most notable was the big globular in Sgr, M22.  M28 wasn't as noticable but it was visible.  M8 and M20 added to the view as well.  M54 was also visible but just barely as was M69.  I tried to see what the limiting magnitude unaided was and was able to see Eta Cyg, a 4th magnitude star in the neck of Cygnus.  Some 5th magnitude stars in between Eta and Sadr were also occasionally visible, just winking in and out of visibility.  The sky is pretty dark, but my eyes aren't what they used to be!

Mars, Saturn, Spica Trio

After almost two months of smokey western skies washed out by full moons, I'm back at it in Missouri.  Our travels to MT, WA, OR, ID, WY, and NE this summer was almost a bust astro-wise.  July's new moon was spoiled by pretty much overcast skies in the northern cascades.  Campgrounds are also typically forested so observing is difficult at best.  Our one night in Craters of the Moon was great though, even though it was pretty much washed out by the moon.  After an interesting talk comparing the geology of Idaho to the geology of Mars, Judy noticed a distinct triangular pattern in the west just after sundown.  It turned out to be the Trio of Mars, Saturn, and Spica.  This added to the dawn spectacle of the Jupiter/Venus lineup that I had been watching off and on all month.  Tonight, even though there were some clouds in the west, I drove up to the little hill just north on our driveway to see if I could spot the new waxing moon along with the now familiar trio.  The moon popped in and out of the clouds but the trio required my 7x50's at first.  By 8:50 though it made a nice naked eye sight.
I did make a welcome addition to the observatory's bag of tricks though:  a new iPad 2.  I quickly downloaded a $3 copy of Sky Safari (S&T Apr 12) and have been putting it through its paces ever since.  It's a great program and I haven't yet exhausted the capability of the el-cheapo get-acquainted version.  I may just spring for the pro version this fall.  I've mainly been using it for daytime exploration and nighttime naked eye and binocular observing.  If the skies stay fairly clear tonight, I may try for some more interesting targets with my 8" dob.
Well, they did and I did, and I 'discovered' a new way to point the scope.  I just shine my laser pointer through the focuser (without an eyepiece).  It works great, particularly near the zenith where pointing usually involves some gymsastics on my part.  I've been wanting to see the Ring Nebula again and I found it fairly easily using the new technique although I had forgotten how small it is!  Next I used Sky Safari's Tonight's Best feature and checked out Albireo, the Beak of the Bird.  It's blue and gold colors got a 'wow' out of me.  I finished off with the Great Hercules Cluster.  Had a bit of a problem finding Hercules and wandered around in a random trapezoidal pattern for awhile before I found the right one.  Start at Deneb, proceed to Vega, and extend just a bit to the right to find the familiar trapezoid, and the cluster is along the western-most side.  It was about to disappear over the house but I got to it in time and it got another 'wow'.  It's a beautiful huge splat of tiny stars.
Now I need to make some sort of adapter to hold the laser pointer in line when it is in the focuser.

Pushing the limits

Squaredancing was a no-show tonight (there was a county fair going on where the dance should have been) so we ate German food at the Hub along with a nice Dunkel and came home early.  I decided to try pushing the limits of my little ETX (and my eyes) and try for some of the NGC globulars in June's issue of S&T p64.  After I did a two star alignment (it worked first time tonight) on Spica and Antares, I zipped over to NGC5897 in Libra.  There wasn't anything obvious but NGC5897 is pretty dim at 8.5.  The field was pretty empty too but it looked like the area around 5897 according to my Pocket Sky Chart.  There was a little dish antenna grouping of four 8th mag stars with a 5th 'target' that didn't show up in the PSC but it looked like there was a dim fuzzy in between the dish and the target.  Bingo!  Right on ETX.  CdC verified the hit.  Definitely not a 'wow factor' but a tough globular for the ETX anyway. 
Next I headed to 5694.  This is also Caldwell 66 and the ETX was again dead on.  There was a little Z-shaped grouping of four brighter stars that was in the PSC this time and I convinced myself I was able to glimpse a much dimmer fuzzy right where 5694 should be.  Even less of a 'wow' than 5897 but at mag 10.2 an even tougher target for the ETX.  A darker sky might help but my sky is pretty dark.  NGC5634 was not in the ETX's database which was surprising since it was listed as brighter than 5694.
I snagged M53 for sure but nearby NGC5053 was another maybe.  I could occasionally glimpse a fuzzy where it should be with averted vision but then again, I knew where to look and expected to see something there.
I finished up with M4 near Antares and M6 and 7 open clusters.  M6 is delightful like diamond dust on black velvet.  All in all, a good night.  Not too cool and no moon or clouds.  The combination of ETX and PSC worked great once again and I felt more secure about the tripod with the ETX securely bolted to the base this time.  With the battery hanging on its hook though, the assembly is stable as a rock.  I even lightly kicked a leg once or twice with no movement at all.

My new tripod

After seeing an article on building a tripod from recycled aluminum crutches and knowing I had two of the things in my garage junk bin, I began hunting for a (cheap) additional one.  I found one for $2 at a flea market a few years ago.  This month I finally got around to finishing the project.  Wow is all I can say!  It's nice.  I put it to work tonight as a nice, stable, level, portable platform for my traveling ETX70.  I still need to finish (paint) the wood parts and drill a couple of holes to bolt the ETX to the tripod so it doesn't accidentally get knocked off, but other than that it did the job flawlessly.  I even got to try adjusting the legs when my target for training the motors was below some nearby bushes.  After fiddling with it a bit just at sundown, I set it up in my 'observatory' at the end of the deck and waited for dark.  I had a bit of trouble aligning the scope at first.  Not sure why it didn't want to align on two stars.  I finally gave up and used a one star alignment and all was well after that.  I wanted to see how well the ETX would do on globulars so went after M5 and added M4 for good measure.  I found Antares quickly enough and told the ETX to find M4.  Bingo, right on. M4 was a very conspicuous glowing ball forming a nice triangle with Antares and Sig Sco.  I was not able to make out the much dimmer and smaller NGC 6144 globular though.  Next I told the ETX to find M5.  It zipped right to the neighborhood, but no cigar.  I slewed the scope a bit with the handbox and there it was!  Right above a little comma shaped asterism of 5 stars including 4 and 6 Ser.  5Ser is just above and anchors M5 which is another glowing ball somewhat smaller than M4.  I was able to see M4 and the asterism in my 7x50's but not several 8 and 9th magnitude stars grouped with the asterism that I was able to clearly see in my ETX.  The 7x50's compensate for their lack of light gathering capability with a FOV that is about 2x that of the ETX with a 26mm EP.
All throughout this process, the new tripod worked just great.  I tried tapping it in several spots and there was no noticeable vibration.  I might add that I have my 12v power supply hanging from a hook on the tray and that seems to stabilize it very well.  I also get a nice little green spot on the ground from the 9v adapter!  The tray is a simple triangular board made from the same 3/4" plywood at the top and serves well to hold the handbox and other small items.  I used my Denver Chair with the new tripod and it worked great too.  I'm not sure I'll haul it around since it's heavier than the tripod but they do make a nice pair.
Bottom line:  the ETX still requires much more fiddling around to find things than the 8"dob but performs just fine in a dark sky environment and tracks well enough to share the view with others.  I could do with a bit more focal length (for magnification) but can't have everything I guess.  The tripod is definitely part of my astronomy travel bag now.

M5, M13, M7, and the Quincunx of Serpens

Yeah, look that one up in your Funk and Wagnalls!  We got back from a visit with the kids in Columbia about 10:30 tonight and it was clear, cool, and dark.  I've been trying to find the Quincunx of Serpens the last couple of nights and tonight it was clear and dark enough to see it.  It's just a nice pattern forming the head of the Serpent that looks nice in binoculars.  I could easily make out 4 of the 5 stars and, knowing where the 5th one is located, convinced myself I could see it too.  The whole pattern fits in the field of my 7x50's and looks nice.  It is also a good starting point to find one of the globulars in Serpens: M5.  The trapezium of Hercules is nearby and obvious and has a really nice globular that is super easy to find: M13.  The open cluster M7 is another favorite of mine as it is near the stinger of my 'sign' which was up pretty high tonight.  M7 is still pretty low and down in the murk so it wasn't as spectacular as it can be but still visible unaided and nice in binoculars.  We're getting up early tomorrow to head to St. Louis for a Romney T dance this weekend so I decided to call it quits early.

Transit of Venus - 2012

Well the second event of a lifetime is now history: the 2012 Transit of Venus.  We were a bit better prepared for this one than the one in 2004 and our equipment was much better but it was no less 'cool' than last time!  We were fortunate to have a pretty clear day and MST's model Stonehenge made a great spot for viewing the big event.  This is a scale model of the real one in England that was designed at UMR and was a pet project of a previous Chancellor.  The real one is believed to be an ancient observatory.  MST's ancient observatory is behind Stonehenge and was operating for the big event.  I thought the line was going to stretch down to us at one point.  It did not but we did get a few drop-by's, including Tom and Lana VanD and their group.  Josh, an MST student came by with his 3" Dynascope newtonian and chatted awhile and a traveling family from Texas also dropped by.  I got a few 'wows' from visitors at the view through my little ETX.

First contact at about 5:06 pm CDT was thrilling, although probably not as much as first contact of the moon during last month's annular eclipse.  The second contact made a better photo though so I am including it here.  It's the little black dot at about 11:00.  If you examine the photo carefully you should be able to see several sun spots.  I think these are probably the same ones I saw yesterday.  Josh was able to see eleven spots with his young eyes.  The best I could make out at the scope was about six. 
The best part though was when Tom came back and brought us a pizza from Alex's.  Now how great is that?  Alex pizza, Stonehenge, and a once-in-a-lifetime Transit of Venus (well, maybe twice in a lifetime).We packed up our bags and headed home about 7:00.  Mission Accomplished.

More Solar Action

The last Transit of Venus in anybody's lifetime is coming up tomorrow so I thought I'd check out my ETX-70 and make sure all was ready.  I quickly zeroed in on Sol and saw what I thought looked like a small sunspot.  I grabbed my Cybershot and snapped an image through the 25mm ep.  Imagine my surprise when I saw not one but three groups of sunspots when I enhanced the contrast a bit. 1493 and its companions to the left (hard to see in this photo) have been in the news lately for casting off M-class solar flares.  These are the things that cause all sorts of phenomena on earth such as auroras and damage to electric power grids.  At any rate, things are still working so it looks like all systems are 'go' for tomorrow's big show.  I've decided to try watching from MST's stone henge replica on campus.  There is a good view to the west in between buildings and nice flat stone blocks to set up on.  Who knows, I might even get some company to help watch!  The last such event in 2004 I watched alone from home as the transit occured in the morning.  At that time I used my little 60mm Tasco and projected the image onto a piece of paper and took a picture with my digital camera.  It's nothing special but it did record what I saw and when I saw it.  This must have been right after second contact as the dot of Venus is just inside the edge of the sun in the center of the picture.  You can see the dark shadow of the OTA and scope mount with a brighter image of the sun to the right.  There is a small, out-of-focus black dot (with a small black arrow) in the center.  That's Venus.  Big deal, huh?  It was for me! 
I won't be able to take another shot like this one after tomorrow as the next transit will be over a 100 years from now.  I will (hopefully) get a chance to see similar events though, like the transits of Mercury which are more common, or a transit of the ISS, which are common enough but VERY fleeting! 

Annular Eclipse

Our setup at ground zero

I decided that I'd like to see the full blown annular eclipse on 20 May 2012 so we decided to take off on the 14th and head to Sumner Lake State Park in New Mexico which was very near the centerline of the eclipse in an area noted for sunny days.  We camped at Keystone Lake SP in OK the first night, then Copper Breaks SP in Texas the next, and Palo Duro SP for the next two nights.  We arrived at Ft. Sumner on Friday the 18th, set up camp, and got acquainted with our surroundings.  A trip to town, a visit to the old Army Air Field where Pop did his Advanced Training during WWII in the AT-17 (Skyking's plane) twin engine approximation to the B-25 Mitchell Bomber, and a talk with the local grocery store owner who knew all about the old post.  It is now a NASA balloon launch facility as we found out later.  We explored the area and decided that a private veteran's memorial at the corner of NM203 and US84 would make a good location to set up.  We watched the sun set on Saturday the 19th just to be sure.  Sunday was spent testing the ETX-70 and portable power combo which worked fine tracking the sun.  I even spotted three small sunspots.  We took off to ground zero about 5:00 after eating a light supper to got set up.  It was cloudy so we had a few anxious moments wondering if we should move to a different location.  We decided to stay put and hope that the clouds would clear by eclipse time.

Annular Eclipse Sumner NM 20 May 2012.

  I soon had the ETX with it's solar filter set up on the back gate of the truck and tracking the sun.  About 6:45 Judy noticed the first small notch missing from a view of the sun through an improvised filter made by stacking several eyepiece filters together.  I checked with the ETX and sure enough there it was!  We were ecstatic!  We continued to monitor the progress of the moon as it slowly slid over the face of the sun until there was only a tiny sliver of a sickle-shaped sun, and then, there it was, a ring of fire!  We enjoyed the spectacle for a few seconds and then as quickly as that it began a slow march out the other side and slowly sank below the horizon at sunset.  I was barely able to see a weird shaped sun unaided and unfiltered just before it sank out of sight.
We broke camp early the next day and headed north toward Oklahoma under overcast skies.  We stopped to see Capulin (cap-oo-lean' which is Caddoan, I think, for choke cherry) Volcano and then camped at Clayton Lake SP.  The park is home to some nice dinosaur tracks which we were able to see before sunset.  The next day we left early in order to get to our final stop at Osage Hills SP outside Bartlesville OK, passing through the mighty metropolis of Slapout OK at the edge of the panhandle.  We finally made it home safe and sound Wednesday the 23rd of May after a 2700+ mile marathon trip and successful eclipse hunt. Now on to the Transit of Venus in June!

Saturn blowin' in the wind

We got home late last night after Tom and Lana's dance party and I noticed that we had a break in the clouds with Saturn and Spica peeking through. The wind was blowing pretty good but it was warm and I thought I'd take a look at Saturn after its long year off. It has been enticing me the past week, gleaming through my wicked oak tree in back. Tonight it was high in the sky. I hauled out the 8" and there it was! Rings nicely tilted and I spotted Titan right off on Saturn's right. Little Rhea winked in and out of visibility through the turbulence, about half way in between Titan and Saturn. I couldn't see the dimmer moons but they were in close anyway. The wind was trying to blow me over so I quit early. Welcome back Saturn. Goodby Jupiter.

Venus and Galaxy NGC2841

Another clear night in midmo with rain predicted later in the week so I decided to go for one more night before bad weather sets in even though my back was acting up a bit after our trip to Columbia today. For some reason or other the ISS didn't appear as predicted at 20:55 and to make matters worse, I knocked a foot off my 8" dob! A bit of repair work and it is as good as new. While waiting for it to get darker I took advantage of Venus' altitude and turned my scope toward the west. I was rewarded with a nice view through a green filter of a half-moon Venus. To help me decide what to look at tonight, I turned to Sue French's column in the April 2008 issue of S&T and went after NGC 2841 in the Big Bear. This is a spiral galaxy that is tilted so that it looks rather oval in my 8" at about 100x. A Hubble survey of its Cepheid variables determined that it is about 46 million light years distant. 2841 is near Theta UMa or the front knee of the bear. It's fairly easy to pick out, particularly with my Pocket Sky Chart, but was a bit high for comfort tonight. This might be one to try for in the valley next spring with the 5" Celestron.

Coma Cluster revisited

We got back from Paducah about 7:30 tonight after a visit with the folks in their new digs with sister Dorothy. It looks like the carpenter is about ready to start on the new addition to her house to get them some elbow room. It was another clear, cool night so I set up the 8" outside and went back to Coma Berenices and the Coma Cluster. It was behind the bird feeder again but I managed to tease it out this time. In between 31 and 41 ComBer there is a small triangle of three 7th and 8th mag stars with an apex pointed at an asterism that looked to me like a radio telescope or sat dish on a pedestal. Abel 1656 appeared as a textured cloud near the vertex of the triangle closest to 31 ComBer. I could tell it was 'something' as it moved with the star field when I nudged the scope. I was not able to see any real detail but the 'cloud' is fairly large, at least as large as the three star triangle. It probably won't be my favorite target, at least with an 8" scope, but I'm satisfied that I was able to see anything at all! It would be nice to be able to see some of the many many galaxies in this cluster with a larger scope. I quit after about an hour after glancing at Mars and scanning around Corvus a bit.

The rising of the Crow

The last few nights have been clear after we returned to MidMO and I decided to squeeze some observing in between visits from Grandkids and visits to Mom and Dad. The ISS was due over at 8:32 this evening so I got everything set up before that: 8" dob, 7x50 binocs, warm clothes, charts, SW receiver (for WWV), comfy chair, etc. The temperature was comfortable when I started but dropped to 49 by quitting time after 'the crow' rose in the east. Saturn was also visible just north of Spica a few degrees but it was behind a *$#@ tree. Maybe later. Venus was also still up at 10:30 shining brightly in the West. I had read Alan Whitman's column in the April S&T on the Coma Cluster so I thought I'd visit that area tonight. UMa was high and cleared that 'other' nasty old tree so I thought I'd have a clear shot. I did and snagged M51 and its companion NGC5195 easily. The two galaxies made a consipicuous triangle with two 7th mag stars and made a nice sight in my 25mm ep with the 8". Next I moved over to M63, another galaxy that I had seen before but worth visiting again although it wasn't as bright as M51. Two nearby 9.8 and 9.5 mag stars were consipicuous in my 10 mm ep. M63 appeared somewhat elongated along a NE to SW line. Next I searched for Coma Berenices. The constellation's stars are dim but I was able to make out the fuzzy patch of stars making up Bere's hair and found what I thought was Beta CB as well as the pair of pairs bracketing the Coma Cluster. M3 and M53 are two nice globular clusters and it has been awhile since I've seen a good globular. I really like watching the little pinpricks of stars popping in and out of these interesting objects so I went after M53. I was able to find the right area with my 7x50's but when I switched to the dob's finder, it was behind the bird feeder. Rats, foiled again. I quickly switched to M3 and found it lurking alone in a sparsely populated area. It took awhile to find but my patience paid off. Its amazing how fast time flies when I'm listening to WWV while observing! The minutes just flew by. And, speaking of flying, the ISS appeared on schedule and I was even able to track it with my 8". I didn't see any detail but was able to keep up with it (barely). Mars was also calling my name so just before quitting, I turned the 8" on the red planet. It was big but too bright to make out any surface detail. A filter may have helped but it was getting late. I noticed Corvus starting to climb in the SE and decided it was time to quit. We head off to Paducah KY tomorrow after taking the car into King Auto Glass for a new windshield (south texas struck again) so the day will be starting early.
I should mention that last night we also did some observing with the grandkids (Issac and Joseph, Stacie and Linda's two boys) but no scope, just eyeballs and a green laser. I think the boys were more interested in the 'light saber' but we enjoyed looking at Orion and his two dogs. The star of the show though was Venus paired with the Pleades in my 7x50 binoc field. Quite a pretty sight. The shadow cast by Venus was also rather spectacular.

Stars in the park

Tonight was one of those exceptionally clear nights in south Texas with no moon, and it was Thursday on top of it. The night hike started an hour later due to DST so I met Javier at 7:00. There was a Master Naturalist class in session so we waited until 7:30 to set up. I showed Javier a little about the Celestron hand controller and we aligned on Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. It's disturbing how much I had forgotten about the scope since I last used it! It wasn't really dark by the time the first group showed up at 8:15 but dark enough to make out Jupiter's moons and M42. Later we switched to M45 and even glanced at Mars for a bit. A few from the class dropped by about 9:00 and we shut down at 9:30 after a good evening of viewing. The mosquitoes were thick but our Off managed to hold them at bay. Javier and I saw the HST about 8:15 and several saw meteors throughout the evening but I managed to be looking the other way every time. 'Jesse' and I had a long conversation about telescopes in general and he expressed an interest in getting something for home.
I tried to spot Garrad in the little 3" without luck. Later I tried with my 7x50's from my backyard observatory but still no luck. I could make out 38 UMa easy enough but no comet. The Celestron behaved pretty well though, even though we managed to kick and move it around quite a bit. The legs extended about 1/3 seemed to work out best. Javier was impressed with its 'tour' feature.
In the heat of quickly changing eye pieces and keeping things moving I managed to 'lose' one of the 25mm ep's. I found it in the bottom of my bag after returning home and gave it a good scolding for hiding from me.

No Garradd tonight

The last couple of nights have been pretty good seeing. Last night at our fish fry I was able to treat our friends to the pretty sight of Venus and Jupiter low in the west accompanied by Mercury even lower but shining brightly in the palm trees and Mars rising above the house in the east. It was clear enough that I decided to try for comet Garradd. No such luck last night. Tonight I came better prepared with my chart. I was able to make out the big dipper high in the north and Polaris above my neighbor's house but the neighborhood lights and a half moon made it difficult to see much else. In binoculars I was able to find Kocab (BetUMi) and Gamma UMi with it's dim companion. From there I slid just a bit east to find HR5589 and HR5691 and their dimmer companions which make a distinct trapezoid and point at the position of Garradd but no comet. It's just too bright for my 7x50's to pick out. I thought I was able to occasionally make out a pin point of light where the comet should have been but it was more stellar than a comet should have been. I'll have to try later when the moon is gone and Garradd rises higher toward UMa. I'll also have to try setting my scope up and using that or one at the park.

Clear skies (again) at Bentsen State Park

The weatherman was foiled again and we had clear skies in the valley finally instead of the promised rain for today. I headed out about 5:30 to meet Roy R. and Jack H and set up the Celestron and Orion scopes as usual. I was early enough to read the manual and play with the hand control a bit before the sun went down so was able to do a bit more with it tonight. I'm still not able to read the dim red light and had to use a white flashlight to see the display but that's ok. Venus and Jupiter put on their usual good show and Jupiter was in a better position earlier on. The four moons cooperated nicely as well. Jack led the group of about a dozen adults on a tour of the visible constellations and led into my view of Jupiter and the Orion nebula. We weren't able to see M31 as it was behind a tree from the celestron's position but we were able to find it in binoculars. Favorite overheard conversation: her:"we are all made of stars honey", him: "no we're not", "yes we are"... Several also commented it was the highlight of their night. One fellow from Chicago stayed later and chatted with us awhile and I was able to show him that Venus has phases. Venus is about half lit right now. By the time we looked, Venus had dipped into the murk and was boiling like crazy but we were able to convince ourselves that it was half lit.

The Celestron behaved nicely. Alignment was flawless and it behaved fine until I kicked the tripod hard enough to knock it off position. I realigned quickly and was back in business. It was dead on the few times that I slewed to another object. I'll need to get a better list of objects lined up next time. The tour is ok but many of the objects were too low or behind trees to actually see.

More sidewalk astronomy at the park

Everything finally converged and we had a great night for star gazing in the park. Roy R. led the night walk tonight and I set up the Orion and Celestron scopes up in the courtyard. It was crystal clear tonight so I was able to give both scopes a pretty good workout. I'm not yet familiar with the Celestron's hc so I was limited in what we could look at with it but found the moon, venus, and jupiter just fine with it. Alignment is a breeze and seems to be pretty accurate. I used the 'skyalign' mode that requires one to center three bright objects in the ep. The hc then figures out what they are and that's it. I used the moon, venus, and sirius which was visible about dusk. The hc did not list jupiter at first since it was near the zenith and out of reach by the scope. It moved enough by 7:45 that we were able to see it and three moons just fine. Europa and Io were actually aligned so all four were visible, it just looked like three. Calisto was particularly bright. Mare Crisium was an obvious feature on the moon. Wrinkle ridges in the mare were very apparent. I tightened up the 3" mount and it behaved much better. I was able to slew it around to both the Orion nebula and andromeda galaxy fairly quickly. I wasn't familiar enough with the Celestron hc to find anything except planets with it. I need to get out early saturday and play with it some more.
I had both scopes set up low in case young children showed up but everyone was older tonight. Older and better informed! We had some nice discussions on how far it was to venus etc, why the moon was in a different orientation here than in Minnesota, whether we were going to crash into the Andromeda galaxy, and how far were Jupiters moons from Jupiter (I didn't know that one).
Shirtsleeves were fine early but it was cool enough later for a long sleeve shirt. Two chairs worked out fine. Some viewers sat while looking but most just stooped over. Several had binoculars and used them.

First light at the park

After last night's debacle with Venus, tonight was a total success. Last night it finally cleared and I went out about 7:30 to catch a glimpse of Venus. I got the ETX all lined up, got Venus in the crosshairs and settled in for a good look. Just in time to see it disappear behind my neighbor's carport! Sigh.
Tonight was the regular night walk at the park. It wasn't clear, far from it, but I thought it might clear at dark like it did last night. So... I packed up my old kit bag and headed south. Melissa drew the short straw and led the party on their night walk while I got the scopes set up. I was optimistic and had both set up. Right on cue, Venus popped out about 6:30 followed shortly after by Jupiter. Oh boy! We're going to have fun. Five minutes later Venus and Jupiter both disappeared behind dark clouds. The clouds appeared just as the sun set and decided to stick around. Both Venus and Jupiter popped out periodically but never long enough to get the scope lined up. I gave up completely on the Celestron since there weren't any stars to line up on. The Orion 3" was at least agile enough to move into position when the opportunity presented. Jupiter was behaving badly and not only popped in and out of visibility, it was too high to reach with the alt-az mount, and the moons were all hiding. Eventually it got low enough to reach with the 3" and came out long enough to snag with the red dot finder. Once I got it centered and focused, all was well. I could see it almost 100% of the time, occasionally even spotting the 2 storm bands. Venus never did cooperate. About 7:30 the night walkers came in and I had a good time showing off Jupiter to about 12 park visitors, a nice mix of adults and kids. Note to self: drop the tripod a few inches and get a step stool for the little guys. Only the taller visitors were able to watch. Even with the clouds and no Galilean moons, everyone seemed pleased and wanted to come back later when it was clear. The night walk was successful too: screech owl, great horned, 3 coyotes, an armadillo, bats, and even a scorpion.
I need to spend some time with the Celestron to familiarize myself with its operation, even if its during daylight. I also need to tighten up the mount on the 3" orion. It's just too wobbly. The Celestron still needs a bolt for one of the tripod legs.
A good plan would be to set up the Celestron on some nice target like Jupiter and leave it, while using the 3" to quickly move to other targets of interest. The mount isn't a dob but it's not hard to move around.
All in all, not a bad night for 'first light'.

A Quadrantid - I think

The annual Quadrantid meteor shower was heralded for last night. It was nice and clear, the moon had set, not too cold (high 40's), no wind, so even though I had a sore throat coming on, I gathered up my stuff and went out back at 3:00 am to take a look for myself. I watched from 3:00 and gave up at 3:30: too cold and not enough meteors to hold my interest. That and I was afraid I'd aggravate that sore throat. It's better today though. I did see one fairly bright one. I'd guess it was at least magnitude 1, maybe even 0 or -1. The limiting magnitude was a bit less than 4. I could usually make out Upsilon Ursa Major which CdC pegs at 3.8 magnitude. Occasionally I even had difficulty with Delta UMa, where the handle meets the bowl. The quad I saw left a trail about as long as the dipper's handle and ran from about the general area of Canes Venatici to the edge of Leo, roughly NE to SW. I was watching in an area roughly 45 degrees in diameter, with loads of light pollution. The worst time was when my neighbor's motion light picked me up and lit up the white fence post just to my right like a beacon. That only lasted a few minutes and then I was back in my nice 'dark' viewing spot. I would have liked to have been out longer and might have if I had a good backyard lounge chair and a blanket. Perhaps if we are back in MO in April and the viewing conditions are good I'll try to catch another shower and try to document it even better.