Six Constellations

Last Christmas I purchased a new camera to replace my old Sony that died suddenly.  This one was a low cost Canon SX150 point and shoot but had manual settings which I wanted.  I've been trying to take night sky photos without a great deal of luck.  Last Wednesday 30 Oct 2013 I teamed up with El Caballero (an Austrian guy living in Guatamala) to watch the ISS pass over.  We were both on the same ground track and managed to log an ISS waypoint from our adventure.  We also got pretty good pictures of the pass.
Tonight I decided to try to get some decent star pictures with my newfound knowlege of the SX150.  It worked out pretty well and the picture is included here.  If you look carefully at the photo you should be able to see at least parts of six constellations.  Delphinius (lower right) the Dolphin and Equuleus are both entirely visible along with most of Pegasus, parts of Andromeda, Cygnus, and Lacerta.  The latter is a very dim constellation and I could only make out Alpha Lacerta a magnitude 4.6 star.  Stars brighter than that are easier to see.  The foliage at the bottom (facing south) is the top of my grapefruit tree which catches street light (ugh).  By the way, the grapefruit is looking very good this year after lots of rain this summer.  The settings on my camera are included in the photo properties but are: 15s exposure, f/3.4, ISO400 taken 11/2/2013 at 20:54 CDT.  I put the camera on a 2sec self timer, clicked the shutter, and laid it down lens up on a small stool.  I'm pleased with the results! The field is about 40°x40°.

Neptune and a tale of two asteroids

We got home from our squaredance workshop in St. Louis last night about midnight so early this morning about 1:00 I hauled out the 8" to show Judy what Neptune looked like.  It was easy to find out east of Capricorn and made a pretty blue sight.  Before quitting for the night I swung around to the Andromeda Galaxy.  It was visible unaided, a ghostly smudge above Andromeda's two familiar arcs of stars north of Pegasus' square.  It took a bit of gymnastics and rolling around on the deck to get the scope pointed but what a sight it was.  I was able to easily see all three Messier objects: huge M31, medium size M32, and tiny little M110.  M31 didn't all fit into my 25mm's FOV.  It was quite chilly, down into the 50's, so I quit early and went to bed.
Tonight I decided to check out two of the brighter asteroids that are near opposition this month: 7Iris and 324Bamberga.  I had never heard of 324 since it has such a high number and they are usually out of range of my 8" let alone my 7x50s.  It was featured in the September S&T along with Iris so I thought I'd check them both out since they are in the same neighborhood.  Iris was high at 11:00pm and easy to find in Aquarius' arm which lies above Capricorn. It lies just above a line drawn from Beta to Epsilon Aqr.  It was a very dim 8 mag in my 7x50's but easy enough to see with averted vision.  The hard part was determining which mag 8 point was the asteroid and which were stars!  There were several stars nearby but Iris was just below HD202221 in a line of about 5 8th magnitude stars near (7)Iris.
By the time I was finished playing with Iris, the circlet of Pisces was peeking out above the oak tree in back.  That blasted old pin oak is smack in the middle of my eastern sky but the birds like it.  324 was about a third of the way along a line between Gamma and Theta Psc.  It's the only thing nearby so it was easier to pick out than Iris.
Seeing wasn't as good tonight as this morning.  The sky seemed hazy and dim stars were coming and going in the unstable atmosphere.  All in all though, two dim asteroids in binocs in a single night wasn't a bad haul.

Gamma Ophiuchi neighborhood

Another cool, clear night in the Ozarks with no moon.  It was a bit humid and dew was falling but I thought I should take advantage of the night as there won't be too many of them left before we hit the road again and/or the moon comes back out.  I saw Ophiuchus high in the south so I thought I'd revisit Gamma Ophiuchi's neighborhood with the 8" dob.  IC4665 was nice in binocs the other night so I snagged it first after setting up.  Hauling out the dob and assorted paraphernalia is sure harder than grabbing 7x50's and a star chart!  At least it doesn't need alignment.  The open cluster is a bright one that I can just make out unaided resting above Beta Oph.  At first glance it looks like a ring of fairly bright 9 blue stars with a kind of fish hook appendage of 4 more blue stars, and a central star in the ring that goes out when I look right at it.After staring at it for awhile I began to notice that the fish hook closed on itself with two more very dim stars into a kind of tear drop shape with HD161603 at the pointy end of the drop.  Inside the drop were several other very dim stars including a mag 12 GSC-424-0179!  That has to be one of the dimmest stars I've seen.
Emboldened, I next went after Collinder 350, another open cluster in the Gamma Oph neighborhood.  It looked nice in my 25mm ep and I explored some of the dimmer groups of stars.I thought I might have found an asteroid near SAO122777 but after checking another star chart it appears to have been just another star. Finally I went after globular cluster NGC6426.  I wasn't able to verify it for certain but I believe I caught a glimpse of a faint fuzzy where it should have been.  Not bad for a mag 13 surface brightness!  I'll have to go after a brighter globular next time just to satisfy my delight in finding these curious objects.
It eventually got too dewey for good viewing so I decided to quit for the night and feed the coons.

Neptune, Nova, Scutum, etc

Tonight was another great night for observing.  It was muggy but not dewey and quite clear.  After my eyes dark adapted I was able to make out dim Scutum just off the 'beak' of Aquila.  It holds a pretty (and bright) open cluster I hadn't noticed before as well as a Messier object I've seen but didn't really pay a lot of attention to.  After scanning the sky around Scutum, I checked out Nova Del 2013.  It actually looked a bit brighter tonight.  I read earlier at AAVSO that these Novae tend to hang around for awhile and can be surprising.  The little tricycle asterism really helps to spot the Nova.  Next I rolled over and located Capricornus.  It was low and dim off the east wing of Aquila and below Aquarius but I was eventually able to make out its bat-wing shape.  Heading north from Cap I star hopped with my 7x50's over to Neptune.  There it was, very dim but unmistakable.  I'll have to try catching it in my 8" dob tomorrow night when company is here.

Taurus Poniatovii (and some other stuff)

It's been hot the last few days.  Hot and sticky.  So it was tempting to go out tonight and see what could be seen.  There's no moon and it was pleasantly cool under clear skies.  Delphinius was easy to see and I could even make out dim Sagitta, Sagitarius' little arrow.  I went out after reading one of my favorite columns in this month's S&T: Binocular Highlight.  This month was 'Finds in Ophiuchus' (p45 Aug 2013 S&T).  Old Ophi is a familiar sight in my southern exposure, made even better since I removed some trees in that direction last winter.  I quickly zeroed my 7x50's in on Beta Oph.  Beta and Gamma make a nice pair easily visible unaided.  Just a field east of Gamma was a large V-shaped pattern of 5 bright stars: Taurus Poniatovii.  It looks like a miniature Taurus charging through my binocs.  Properly emboldened I next went after IC4665.  Bingo, there it was, making about a 130 degree angle with Beta and Gamma, a fairly bright glowing blob of stars.  A bit dim but actually one of the nicer open clusters I've seen, not counting the Pleiades of course.  I next tried for the whole enchilada, Cr 350, another open cluster south of Gamma.  At first there was nothing but a small isosceles triangle of 3 stars and a dim star off to the right about the same distance as the height of the triangle.  Cr 350 should be in the middle of that pattern but where was it.  I decided it was too dim and my eyes weren't dark adapted enough so I paused to check out Nova Del 2013.  Sagitta was clearly visible unaided so I figured the nova would be a snap if it was still visible.  There it was, right below the little sat dish asterism I had seen the other day.  It is down to about mag 6.4 now, dropping like a stone.  I used a little tricycle-like asterism nearby to estimate its brightness. Several minutes had passed so I went back to Cr 350.  Using averted vision I was able to make out a small rectangular patch right where it should be. 
I've not had much luck with the Collinder series since I started it half-heartedly a while back after finishing the Messier list.  They are generally pretty dim, especially for binocs or my ETX-70.  It looks like I've finally broken the jinx and snagged a Collinder!

My first Nova

I saw my first Nova tonight!  Nova Del 2013 was mentioned in S&T's newsletter that I read this afternoon.  It was said to be easily visible in binoculars and unaided in fairly dark skies.  Well, with a moon well past first quarter I knew I wasn't going to have anything close to dark skies but I hauled out my trusty 7x50's anyway to see if I could even find Delphinus, the constellation that hosts the new nova.  I was able to see the summer triangle just fine so my hopes were raised.  I started with Altair in Aquila and hopped west to Sagitta the arrow which points to the nova.  After a bit of fiddling with a star chart to see just where the nova was located, I decided it was about a binocular width away from the tip of the arrow.  Sure enough, there were two fairly bright stars where there should only be one. The star was HR 7811, a mag 5.7 star in Vulpecula, and not quite as bright as the 'new star'.  I estimated the nova was about mag 5.0, not quite as bright as the 4.4 mentioned in the S&T article, but still plenty bright.  If it wasn't for the moon I would have been able to see it unaided. For comparison I used 28 and 29 Vul.  The nova was not quite as bright as 29 Vul but brighter than 28 Vul, hence 5.0.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  If that is the case, the nova may have already 'peaked' and be gradually dimming after growing in brightness the last few days.  It'll be interesting to see what others report.  At any rate, it was neat to finally see an 'exploding star' for myself.  This particular 'classical nova' was only discovered on Aug 14.  It was essentially a hydrogen bomb in the form of a thin shell about the size of Earth which surrounded a white dwarf.  The dwarf survives the blast and begins accumulating more hydrogen from its larger companion and the process repeats ever so often.
I'll need to come back and visit this location in a few days to see if the new 'star' has disappeared from view.

A Mira to Admire: R Oph

You would think that while camping out for 2.5 months I would have been able to get in at least a little bit of observing.  Ha.  It was mainly cold, rainy, and cloudy the whole time and the few times we had decent weather, I was plagued with either light pollution, mosquitoes, or both.  We finally came home after a marathon trip to Montana for a month and the northeast states, and two Canadian Provinces for a month and a half.  That was last night.  Tonight was one of those Missouri nights worth living for:  absolutely gorgeous.  Clear, cool, no moon, no bugs, just a vast array of stars and the spectacular Milky Way.  I was catching up on my S&T reading today and decided to try for R Ophiuchi, a Mira type variable star.  It was near its peak magnitude in June but tonight it was still visible in 7x50s.  I estimated it about 8.3.  It was nearly as bright as nearby HD 155107 at 8.2 but was still visible unlike HD 155047 at 8.6 mag.  It was nowhere as bright as the pair of mag 7.5 stars to the SE.  While I was observing, I noticed some smudges around a right triangle of stars south of Eta Oph and checked.  It was M9 and a couple of NGC globular clusters.  M9 was clearly visible as a non-stellar object and the two NGC clusters were there, just not as bright, and none were really very 'bright'. My old favorite Ptolemy's Cluster (M7) was visible unaided and gorgeous in 7x50s.  I was feeling lucky so I decided to try for Barnard's Star in Ophiuchus.  Just as I was getting familiar with the neighborhood, I felt a vibration on the deck and decided to investigate.  There was Mr (or Mrs) coon at the bird feeder eating some old cornbread that Judy had left out.  I watched it for awhile then decided to call it a night.  It's good to be back home again.

Omega Centauri up north

The last two nights have been warm and clear in midmo so I've been out observing just before midnight. I was challenged by Sky&Telescope (Seronik, May 2013 p45) to try for the globular cluster Omega Centauri. I checked sky safari to see where it was and decided to give it a shot. At 6.1° altitude it is slightly higher than Zeta Centauri which is clearly visible from my deck observatory at 11:30pm. I can see all sorts of nearby stars in my 7x50s. The trio formed by Phi, Mu, and Nu Centauri are prominent and a good jumping off spot for star hopping. but try as I might, I wasn't able to pick it out either night. It's either too dim for binocs or just not visible through the trees. The sky at that altitude is at least partly blocked by trees from my vantage point. I may try again tonight as the next few nights promise rain. I did get treated with a large raccoon who visited a bird feeder while I was out. It wasn't particularly concerned with my presence.
Update: I went out tonight (4/30/13) about 11:45pm CDT, moved my observing point a bit to the deck stair landing, and there it was!  Omega Centauri! I had forgotten that since the offending trees are fairly close, just a few feet one way or another can make a lot of difference.  I locked on to Zeta Centauri with my 7x50's, slid to the right a bit more than a field width, and a big but dim glow showed up in the field.  For a globular, it's HUGE.  It's not surprising that I missed it when it was in the trees.  Seeing it against the darker sky made all the difference in the world.  Oh, and by the way, Mr Coon was back again except I think it is probably Mrs or Ms Coon.  She must be fairly young too since she wasn't particularly concerned when I went out on the deck.  She just kind of slowly ambled off.  I also set up my Canon SX150 to see how it would perform in a dark sky.  I set it on MF, iso 1600, 15" exposure, focus at infinity and 2 sec self timer with a tripod.  Next I pointed it at Corvus and took a couple of shots, followed by Scorpius.  The results weren't too bad when I used MSO Picture Manager to crank up the brightness almost all the way and contrast all the way. I'll need to try taking a series of 10" exposures and stack them

Lyrid meteor in 2013

Meteors aren't usually my thing since they normally peak in the wee hours but we are keeping our 2year old great grandson Tristan this week and he has no sleep schedule whatever. I woke up about three and decided to give it a shot. The moon was fairly low in the west and it was clear if a bit hazy. I bundled up against the cold 36 degrees and settled in for the show. It was absolutely still and quiet outside, unlike the occasional bellowing of a 2 year old boy inside! An owl briefly asked 'who cooks for you?' at one point but otherwise very quiet. But no meteors. Lyra and the sumner triangle were coming up in the east making promises of warm nights to come but I didn't believe a word of it. It was COLD. No wind saved my hide though. Then, about 3:30 it happened. ZIP. Right out of Vega about 20 degrees to the west and about 20 degrees long, a beautiful Lyrid meteor trail headed right for Draco's head. That was it for the night though. I packed in for the night and crawled back into bed while our little angel got a bit of rest himself.

last Night in the Park

Last night was my last night in the park for this season. We head north in the morning. After gradually clearing skies during the day, the clouds started moving back in during late afternoon. I decided I might as well risk it anyway and got 3 scopes set up by 7:30 and began waiting for dark (and a clearing in the clouds). About 8:00 I was about to pack it in and began putting my ETX away. As I was walking back after depositing it in the car, I noticed the clouds had parted enough for Jupiter to peek through. Maybe there's a chance I thought! A group of about 18 youngsters and a few adults showed up with Roy and Mary about 8:45 bringing lots of questions and more than a few WOWs. Jupiter's moons and storm bands put on a good show. One couple of birders from PA were particularly enthralled and kept us entertained until about 9:30. It could have been clearer but all in all it wasn't a bad night for the last event of the seaason. So long Bentsen until Fall rolls around again

Celestron Studies

It was only partly cloudy tonight so I thought I'd head down to the park about 6:15 to see if I could figure out what the alignment problem was with the Celestron. It got steadier cloudy but the moon eventually popped out and I tried a one object alignment. It worked. I did a slew to Serius and although it wasn't visible, the scope went to the right general area and then I returned to the moon and Bingo. There never were any stars tonight so I packed up about 8:30 and headed home. I was able to explain the scope to some guys that rode by on bikes and visited for a few minutes. I chalked the alignment failures up to using stars that were too close to each other.

Back in the Park

Between our trips back to Ky and a very cloudy winter so far, it hasn't been a good time for astronomy in the park.  We got back from mom's funeral on Thursday, had lunch in Mexico with the extended gang for March birthdays (David and Harold Lee) on Friday, it was cloudy Friday night and this morning so I thought it was going to be another bust.  But after lunch it started clearing off and this evening it was spectacularly clear with no moon, a perfect night except for the high wind.  I headed down to the park about 6:00 after a quick house warming at Ken and Lee's new place down the alley from us in Lot #333 GGG.  I got set up with the Celestron and Orion scopes and started waiting for sundown which occured around 7:00.  I made a quick dash out to the open field to look for Comet PanStars but didn't have any luck.  I didn't even spot Mars.  I suspect that there were some low clouds in the West even though it seemed fairly clear.  A little after 7:00 'the gang' showed up so I started aligning the Celestron.  Jupiter, Sirius, Rigel, and Procyon were all visible so I should have had an easy time of it.  First problem was Jupiter was too high.  I managed to bang the OTA against the tripod (again).  I quickly switched over to Sirius and used those three stars for alignment.  Unfortunately it failed, twice.  I gave up on the Celestron and suspect there may be a problem, either with the scope or with the operator.  It was getting close to 7:30 so I grabbed my ETX out of the car, did a quick and dirty alignment, and centered on Jupiter.  Between the ETX and the little Orion I managed to get at least one 'wow' out of Jean over Jupiter's moons.  She was able to see all four even though Io was almost lost in the planet's glare.  The first group of Judy, Jean, Steve, Jan, Ken, and Lee eventually left about 8:00 (except for Judy who stayed to help) and we waited for the 'official' tour group.  They eventually showed up around 8:15 just as clouds were starting to drift in.  We had about a dozen children ranging in ages from about 3 to teen and 2 or 3 adults.  The kids were mostly underwhelmed but one young girl about middle school age wanted to know what a comet was.  She seemed quite interested.  The adults seemed pleased to be able to see Jupiter's moon, the Pleades, and the Orion Nebula (baby star nursery).  I gave them a quick tour of the Orion myth of the hunter and his two dogs chasing the seven sisters and being charged by Taurus the bull.  We wrapped up about 9:15 for a total of about three hours.
Next time I need to try to remember to pick up a couple of new batteries for the red dot finders, some sort of a step stool or at least set up a scope lower to the ground for little kids.  I also need to repair my crutch tripod which got kind of beat up this trip, and take a look at the Celestron in the daylight to try to figure out why its not wanting to align properly.

ETX70 Debut Party at the Park

At last a fairly clear Saturday night at Bentsen SP.  It was a mere two hours before full moon and there was some haze on the horizon but we got a pretty good look at Jupiter and its moons and even a 'no way' for a viewer of the Great Orion Nebula.  This was also the ETX's debut party.  I've been wanting to include it in the scope array and my new crutch tripod worked just great.  In fact the little ETX saved my bacon tonight.  The Celestron was having trouble getting aligned and after I succeeded with a one star alignment, I couldn't find Jupiter on the list of planets.  Later I decided it was because Jupiter was too high.  The mount keeps the scope from pointing straight up.  I was able to manually point it at Jupiter but by 7:30 it was so high that I managed to bang the OTA into one of the mount legs.  Not a good thing.  The little Orion 3" had a bad battery in the finder so it was a pain to point but we managed to get it looking at the moon.  All in all, we managed to get a good look at Jupiter's moons and the Orion Nebula but the full moon pretty well washed everything out by 8:00.  The new iPad was also a big hit.  Judy came along to help and was a very good assistant.  She was able to entertain the visitors with the iPad while I reset the ETX to Jupiter.  The ETX has no problem pointing straight up but is almost impossible to focus in that position.  Judy was also able to keep the little 3" pointed at the moon.  No mean feat since it is on a cheap, hard to use mount and does not track at all.
The was our first star party of this season since it has been so cloudy but I would have to call it a success.

Vesta and some astrophotography

Hard to believe that this was almost the first clear night since November!  That's not quite true but nearly so.  The post thanksgiving and Christmas/New year season has been cloudy in south Texas.  It finally cleared today and warmed up a bit to high 60's.  I didn't feel like setting up the ETX but I did take out my 7x50's and look for Vesta.  It was at the limit of visibility in binocs but I saw it up near Jupiter and the Hyades forming a shallow 'Y' pattern with 3 dim stars.  HR1442 formed the base of the Y.  I found it by drawing a line between Aldeberan and Epsilon Tauri.
The Pleiades was also pretty tonight as was the Hyades.  I explored a bit around Auriga and managed to snag M36, a dim patch not far from Beta Tauri.  That's no mean feat for binocs and light polluted skies!
The highlight though was remembering to shoot some stars with my new Canon SX150 camera.  I had some success earlier when the moon was in its first quarter but was waiting for a moonless, clear sky to try for some stars.  I also shot Jupiter when it was near the almost full moon a few nights ago.  I sat the camera up on its back on a small stool, set it for manual focus at infinity, a 15" max exposure time, and f3.2 aperture.  Success!  I was able to capture Jupiter (over exposed), the Hyades, Pleiades, and many stars down to about 6th magnitude.  I even caught a bit of foliage on my grapefruit tree.  The image shows small star trails of course and the star images aren't in the best of focus but it worked just fine for a first attempt.  I'm pleased with the new addition to my astro-tools.  It also takes very nice snapshots!  The battery life is the only disappointing feature.  It eats AA's for lunch.