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!