Non-Fiction – Page 23 – Into the West

More March Mars Madness

I can’t wait until this weekend to see John Carter at the theater. I would have bought my tickets over lunch except my favorite theater has not yet listed showtimes for this weekend. I convinced my uncle to venture forth as well this weekend. But the real icing on the cake came with the short note he sent me this morning proclaiming his success in finding A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs at Project Gutenberg and getting it downloaded to his Nook Color.

My local favorite library posted a cool YouTube video via their Facebook and Twitter feeds that I’d like to share here, prefaced by their blurb:

Do you know who created Tarzan and John Carter of Mars 100 years ago this spring? Check out this video preview of an upcoming event featuring author, critic & broadcaster John Tibbetts celebrating the legacy of an American cult icon…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmfD5vDYaY]

If you live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, you can click this link to register for the event on March 18, 2012 at 2:00 pm (Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library). I have already RSVP’d and received my confirmation.

And thanks to an update from Sky & Telescope‘s Facebook feed, I learned that “Mars is at its closest to Earth for this apparition: 100.8 million km (62.6 million miles). Mars appears 13.9 arcseconds wide, compared to the 24″ or 25″ it reaches during its closet swing-bys. The last time that happened was in 2003; the next will be in 2018.” I saw Mars shining brightly this morning in the west before the sun arose, when I let the dogs out after they ate their breakfast.

Winter Circled Moon and Leonine Mars

I valiantly kept myself awake past my pumpkin transformation time (usually half past nine o’clock on weeknights), reading an ebook on my Nook Color while Terry dozed through the UFC fights. When I finally got within twenty pages of the end of my book, I put the ereader aside and checked the position of Mars from my front porch. The waxing moon hung at about the one o’clock position in the sky almost hidden behind my house and Mars shown redly at about the ten o’clock position. I decided to setup the telescope in my driveway, even though all the street lights and house lights concentrated their glows more intensely on the east side of my property.

I opened the garage door and began transferring the telescope and accessories from the band room (behind the garage on the west side of the house) through the garage to the driveway. I had put on a sweater but only had flip-flops on my feet (something I would come to regret an hour or so later).

In setting up my telescope, I made an error in the home position and failed two attempts at an easy alignment. When I finally realized my mistake, after having run the motors up to and beyond the stops twice, I tried a third time, but the Autostar control device disconnected itself from the telescope and reset itself twice. I gave up and finally just pointed the scope at Mars, shining brightly and sanguinely from the constellation Leo.

Two of the stars selected by the Autostar alignment program included Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, and Capella, in the constellation Auriga, and both of these stars could be found in the Winter Circle. The waxing moon enjoyed center-stage in the Winter Circle on a cold clear late winter night.

Once I got Mars in my sights, I tried various barlows and eyepieces, but could never quite get a good focus on it. I could dimly and vaguely see the polar ice cap and Mars definitely had an orange-ish and pink-ish cast to it.

By this time, I could barely feel my toes, but I didn’t want to stop observing, so I turned the telescope farther eastward, looking for Saturn. I found Spica in the constellation Virgo. Saturn is just a short hop to the left of Spica. I clearly saw the rings, but did not take the time to look for Titan or any of Saturn’s other moons. I wanted to get my feet warmed up, so I shutdown the telescope, packed everything up and transported it back to the band room.

I may repeat this entire process tonight, but from a different location. I will take a nap this afternoon to allow me to stay up past my pumpkin transformation point.

Oh, and I did get my feet warmed back up while finishing the last twenty pages of my ebook.

March Mars Madness and Messier Marathon

Much of my March will revolve around Mars. For example, this Saturday, March 3rd, according to Sky & Telescope‘s ‘This Week’s Sky at a Glance‘ (both for this past week and the one ahead), Mars shines highest in the south, in the sharpest telescopic view, around midnight.

Mars is at opposition, appearing opposite the Sun in Earth’s sky. This is the most distant opposition of Mars in its 15-year cycle of oppositions near and far, so the planet appears only 13.9 arcseconds wide. At its next time around in April 2014, Mars will reach a diameter of 15.2″.

My goal is to stay up late enough on Saturday night to allow the moon to set (or almost set) and Mars to be either directly overhead or just over the top and falling towards the western horizon. That will optimize my viewing, reducing the amount of atmosphere I must look through and minimizing the effect of the light pollution in my area.

For this first weekend of March, I think I will limit myself to my own backyard. I did receive the new power cord I ordered for the ETX-90 yesterday, so I will test that out tonight with the portable battery pack my father reconditioned and gifted to me. The following weekend will present more difficulties observing Mars since the Full Moon will be two days old on Saturday the 10th.

Just a day or two after the vernal equinox I hope to join other members of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City (ASKC) in the annual Messier Marathon – an attempt to find as many Messier Objects as possible during one night. Since the new moon occurs just two days after the equinox, my only concern would be clouds to obscure an otherwise perfect dark night sky. I don’t plan on needing a tent, since I wouldn’t be sleeping until the sun broke over the eastern horizon anyway. I will really regret giving up drinking tea and coffee (or any kind of beverage except water) for Lent during that long night. I just hope the excitement of discovery will keep me awake.

Post-Mercury Telescope Tuning

While I scanned the early evening skies for Mercury, Terry stayed at home, installing a secondary finder scope on my telescope. I bought the red LED finder scope months ago because the original finder scope attached to my ETX-90 becomes unusable at near vertical viewing orientations. Only the larger ETX-105 and ETX-125 came with a right-angle view finder.

ETX-90 with new red LED finder scope installed

Now all I needed to do was dial it in. And I had at least two (if not three) easily seen objects to do it with. I took the telescope out on the lower patio and set it up. I opted to do an easy align this time with the Autostar handheld device and thankfully it picked Sirius as the first star to align upon. Sirius was the first non-planet object I saw after sunset earlier in the evening during my hunt for Mercury. After Jupiter, I saw Sirius appear about thirty minutes after sunset. The Dog Star was clearly visible through the bare branches of my mulberry tree and the Autostar got within five degrees of it on the first try. So, I at least had oriented the telescope to it’s home position on it’s mount correctly this time.

The second star for the easy alignment was Pollux, the twin to Castor in the constellation Gemini. Since my house is over two stories tall and I had setup the telescope ten feet west of the tallest part of it, seeing the constellation Gemini was quite a challenge. The two brightest stars (Castor and Pollux) had just peaked over the roof. Then I had a moment of panic. Which one of the two is Pollux? I knew Castor was brighter (because it’s actually a binary or double-star that I hope to one day see separately) so I zeroed in on the less bright star. The Autostar reported a successful alignment. Incidentally, Castor is the ‘star of the week’ over at Earthsky.

To test how successful the alignment might or might not be, I told the Autostar to go find Venus. Since I could clearly see Venus shining brightly next to the Moon, I knew I would be able to further tune the alignment of the telescope and the new finder scope using it as a guide star. The Autostar again got the telescope within five degrees (or less) of Venus so I proceeded to update the red LED finder scope’s focus. I had been so focused on my finder scopes that when I put my eye to the telescope’s eyepiece I realized I hadn’t even gotten one out of the case yet! I grabbed a 26mm eyepiece and quickly focused on Venus, but it was so bright I couldn’t get a crisp clean focus. I at least centered it in the telescope’s field of view and let the Autostar slew for a few minutes. Venus kept creeping slowly out of the center (nothing new but something I need to look into). Next stop, Jupiter.

What I saw last night through my telescope looked very much like this photo.

Again, the Autostar got close, but not quite. I’m beginning to think I need to recalibrate and retrain the drives in the ETX-90 mount. Jupiter in all it’s glory with four moons visible (two on either side). I grabbed Terry out of the band room to take a quick look, but he retreated back inside because of the cold. I hardly noticed it, having stood outside during sunset for over and hour and now observing from the backyard in just a t-shirt and jeans (the house provided a substantial windbreak).

At this point, I was happy with the installation, configuration and usefulness of the new red LED finder scope. What could I attempt observing before packing up everything and returning it to the band room? Ah! Something in Orion. Thankfully, Orion appeared high in the sky, almost due south (just a bit to the east). Since I suffer from an extreme light pollution epidemic in Lansing, the higher up an object, the better to minimize the amount of light and atmosphere I need to peer through. Having a clear cold night to make the air dense also helps. I searched the Autostar’s object database and found the Great Orion Nebula. Fetch! I said and off the telescope went.

The telescope stopped in the general vicinity of the belt of Orion. I didn’t think that was the exact location of the Orion Nebula, so I grabbed my Sky & Telescope Pocket Star Atlas and confirmed the location as being in the sword, not the belt. Using both finder scopes, I slowly got the telescope oriented on the objects in the sword. Using the eyepiece, I slowly scanned the much smaller field of view and saw a grey cloud like smudge pass by. I stopped. I returned to the smudge. This must be it! I put in a stronger magnification eyepiece and spent several minutes taking in the sights of a nebula. Only long exposures with very sensitive camera equipment equatorially mounted … or the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit (outside of our dirty atmosphere) … can produce stunning color images like this one:

I hope it was the Orion Nebula. I am almost convinced it was, but since my telescope is a reflector (not a refractor), the image I view in the eyepiece is not only upside down, but reversed right to left, and almost always black-and-white (or gray). When I compare what I see to a star atlas, I have to do mental spatial gymnastics on the fly. I did get Terry to come out one more time and view the smudge that was a nebula before packing up the telescope and putting astronomy to bed for the night.

I woke up before sunrise this morning (no surprise … I always do that with or without an alarm). I fed the dogs and when I let them out the back patio door, I noticed to bright objects in the western sky. They both had to be Saturn and Mars. I went to Terry’s computer and logged in to my Astronomy.com account (since I subscribe to the electronic edition of Astronomy on my Nook Color, I get ‘extras’ on their website). Using their StarDomePlus Java application, I confirmed the contents of the sky at that exact moment from my location in Lansing. Yes! Mars was the bright spot in the western sky and Saturn appeared just up and to the southwest of it. If only I had gotten up an hour or so earlier, I could have set up the telescope (again) and looked at Mars and Saturn both. I think I just found my next astronomical hunting expedition.

Tonight’s highlights include, for early evening viewing, more of the Moon, Jupiter and Venus (and Mercury if I wanted to leave my backyard, but I’ll pass on that tonight). For a headsup on what to expect in the coming week, visit Sky & Telescope‘s This Week At a Glance site.

Catching Mercury

I could not have asked for a more beautiful or perfect day yesterday (weather-wise). Crystal clear light blue skies and a light wind out of the southeast I believe. I kept my fingers crossed most of the day. Mid-afternoon I decided to call my father to see if he was interested in joining my Mercury hunting party. I left him a voice-mail and went back to housecleaning for a couple more hours. At five o’clock, I still hadn’t heard from him and tried calling him one more time. He answered on the fourth ring. He’d been splitting wood all day (not surprising) and hadn’t heard his phone ring or felt it vibrate and had not listened to my voice-mail. I told him my game plan and that while I didn’t have a specific spot in mind, I planned to leave my house at a quarter to six and start driving west from Lansing in search of a hill with an unobstructed view to the western horizon. He didn’t know if he could make it, but he would call me once he got back home, retrieved his binoculars and got in his car.

I took a slightly different path westward, eventually turning south on 187th street and finding a nice wide long pasture with a gravel road field entrance (and no gate) on top of a ridge with an unobstructed view of the entire horizon (not just the western one). I had about five minutes to setup my camera and tripod before the sun kissed the horizon. I took maybe three of our photos before my dad called my cell phone. I told him where I was and he knew exactly the spot I described and headed directly to me. He arrived just after the sunset and we began scanning the horizon with his binoculars, noting several water towers, silos and a very tall microwave communication tower silhouetted against the red orange glow of the sunset.

I told him we had at least thirty minutes before we would be able to see Mercury. At that point, we could already see Venus and the Moon, both of them very bright and visible before the sunset. Jupiter became visible to the naked eye about twenty or twenty-five minutes after the sunset.

Triad Closeup — Jupiter, Venus and the Moon visible first.

Using my father’s binoculars, we could see Jupiter’s four moons, although it was very difficult keeping the binoculars steady enough to see much detail. Even though the wind was out of the south or southeast, it still cut through our jackets. We used the van as a windbreak and dad got a blanket out of his car and we used that to help protect the camera from the wind when I started taking longer exposures. Mercury became visible to our naked eyes about twenty or fifteen minutes before seven o’clock. I took three shots, only one of which wasn’t blurry or streaked.

I spent the remaining twenty minutes trying to capture all four of the visible objects in a single shot. Here are two of the best of the set of photos I took:

Clear Evening Sky — Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and the Moon (Sat 25 Feb 2012)

When you click on any of the photos above and are taken to my Flickr site, you can further click into the photo to get a larger better view and then further increase the size (even unto the original) by right clicking on it and using this pop-up menu:

Since we were both freezing by this time, I packed up the camera geer and headed back home. Dad thanked me for the invitation and he headed north back to Leavenworth. We can both check off Mercury from our observing goals.

Mercury Hunting

I got home early Friday. I had to wear my sunglasses for the drive home, always a good sign when you want to do some planet hunting soon after sunset. Since I had more than an hour before the sun would set, I put my latest Netflix BluRay in the player (one of the final two Nebular nominations I hadn’t seen yet) and began watching some strange British science fiction teenage alien mashup (more on that later in a separate review post). I almost watched too long when I realized, at about ten ’til six, that the sun was setting and some clouds had creeped up on the west/northwestern horizon. The camera backpack and tripod were already in the van, so I just grabbed my the keys and took off, telling Terry I’d be back after awhile.

I crossed K-7/US-73, taking 4-H Road west and continue west and southwest until I ended up on a gravel road on a hilltop in a field with an almost unobstructed view to the western horizon. The sunset, which had looked promising (see photo above), fizzled as the clouds continued to encroach from the northwest. I trudged out into the pasture and setup my tripod and attached the camera to it. I took a few sunset photos, none of which really did anything for me, except the one to the right, which included the moon (but not much of the horizon since I had the telephoto lens attached and the field of view was a bit restricted). I had only thrown on a sweater in my rush out of the house, so my fingers kept losing feeling when I needed them most to make adjustments to the camera. While there wasn’t much of a wind, what there was chilled rapidly as the light faded with the setting sun.

Before much longer, though, I could easily spot Venus about five degrees above (and to the left) of the two day old moon. I surprised myself when I extracted the photos from the memory card this morning. When I looked closely at Venus (in the photo above), I actually captured a star-burst thanks to my aperture setting for that shot.

But the most difficult shot to capture last evening was a combination of Jupiter, Venus and the New Moon – all together in one shot. I barely got them squeezed into the field of view with the telephoto and twisted the tripod into an odd angle to capture this wonderful photo:

The clouds never cleared along the western horizon, so I did not have an opportunity to see Mercury. If the sky remains clear today and into this evening (and I have hopes of that happening), I will have yet another opportunity this evening to view Mercury, together with Venus, Jupiter and the New Moon.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, and are blessed with an unobstructed western horizon and clear skies, look for the planet Mercury as dusk gives way to nightfall. Look for Mercury to appear near the sunset point on the horizon some 40 to 60 minutes after sundown. Or if you have binoculars, try catching Mercury 30 minutes (or less) after the sun goes down.

Jupiter and Venus help guide you to Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet. Draw an imaginary line from the right side of Jupiter and past the left side of Venus to spot Mercury near the horizon. But don’t tarry when searching for Mercury. At present, this world sets just a bit over one hour after sunset at mid-northern latitudes.

*** (Last two paragraphs and graphic courtesy of today’s Earthsky article).

At about fifteen minutes to seven, I packed up the camera equipment and headed back to the van. The clouds from the north had snuck up on me, so much so that I could see the orange of the prison lights glowing from their low hanging bellies. I retraced my drive back home. I looked up as I got out of the van and was surprised to note that the clouds had almost completely obscured Juptier and Venus, although the sliver of the New Moon still shone bright. By the time I finished dinner and the movie, though, all I could see out the back patio door were the orange glowing low hanging clouds.

I woke up to a brand new day and a crystal clear dawn. Less than twelve hours, now, until I can hunt for Mercury again.

A Conspiracy of Clouds

I should have known not to get my hopes up while driving westward home from work. I so wanted to see Mercury (something I’ve never observed with the naked eye, a camera, binoculars or a telescope) and a tiny sliver of a new Moon – both within five degrees of each other. I had hyped myself up earlier in the day thanks to a blurb from Sky & Telescope. The sun kept teasing me, peaking out between the clouds just enough to make me squint as I dodge traffic and dropped off my vanpool riders.

The first thing I did when I arrived home was to call my father and ask him if he knew of a hill with an unobstructed view to the western horizon within fifteen or twenty minutes driving distance of my house in Lansing. He delayed his response, since he needed to put up some wood cutting and splitting equipment, but promised to call me back in five or ten minutes.

Terry, my completely awesome husband, already had dinner ready. He prepared the most amazing steak fajitas, with perfectly grilled red onions and red peppers. I so wanted to eat more of them, but restrained myself so I could savor the leftovers another day.

I checked over my camera equipment and secured it in my camera backpack. I collapsed the tripod. I stowed the gear in the back of the van and said farewell to Terry and the dogs. I pulled out of the driveway and stopped at the Fawn Valley stop sign. The decision point. I surveyed the western sky and decided my best bet to capture the most of what was left of the sunset would be from Mt. Muncie Cemetery.

Aw, finally, some other color besides gray. — Ash Wednesday Sunset (click photo to see entire album)

About five minutes later, I had my camera on my tripod just west of the large Stillings monument (a circular plot with the cemetery access road encircling it). I took a few photos, experimenting with different aperture settings, letting the Canon decide how long to exposure through the shutter. I left the AWB setting to cloudy since, obviously, the landscape before me consisted mostly of clouds.

I called my dad back, since he hadn’t returned my call and discovered he was driving down the center of Leavenworth County on County Road 5, personally investigating sites he thought might have worked for observing Mercury and the Moon (had there been no clouds). I sighed, not meaning for him to waste his gas driving all over county back roads. I told him I was at Mt. Muncie and he said he was on the way. I continued to take a few photos, but for the most part, both the sunset and my prospects for observing the conjunction seemed an exercise in futility. Dad arrived and we chatted for a few minutes, eventually spying both Venus and Jupiter through the thinner clouds above us. I packed up the photographic equipment, showing dad the nice camera backpack Terry had bought me last year. I had offered to let him use it during an upcoming trip he was planning.

East from Parking Garage — Sunrise Today

I woke up to another gloomy day this morning. On the bright side, it’s my mother’s birthday (and I finally remembered to mail her birthday card yesterday). On the dark side (and it was dark when I thought about it), today is trash day in Lansing and the first time for us to use our new trash and recycling bins. Terry, being the wonderful husband he always is, had already dealt with both the trash (taking it out of the old trash can and placing it in the new one) and recycling. Since it was spitting rain at 5:30 this morning, I was even more grateful than normal. I left my camera and tripod in the back of the van overnight, so I had ready access to my camera this morning during the commute, just in case the sunrise surprised me. Until Daylight Savings kicks in, the sun just starts to turn clouds pink and orange when I pick up my last rider near the Kansas Speedway. My final opportunity to take a photo until I reach my destination near the Country Club Plaza. The sunrise disappointed me this morning, just like the sunset did last night. More gray, with a glimmer of gold, but completely lacking in pinks and oranges.

Bright Evening Star at Dark Moon

I got home from work yesterday before 5:15 p.m., leaving me plenty of time before the sunset to walk Apollo. Terry got him so excited, whispering the word ‘walk’ in his eagerly raised ears. By the time I had changed my clothes and laced up my walking shoes, Apollo was whining and jumping around the living room. I grabbed my water bottle and the leash and off we went for a quick forty-five minute walk.

Once back home, I dashed down to the basement and unburied the telescope equipment from last week’s water heater install which necessitated a redistribution of the junk languishing down there. The last thing I brought up to the band room was the large tripod. I took it out the patio door and set it up on the strip of concrete patio just south of the hot tub. I took the case of lenses out to the hot tub wooden steps as well as the box containing the hand-held device that controls the telescope, helping to align it and find objects in the night sky.

I took the telescope out of its box and secured it to the tripod’s base. Something didn’t look quite right. I dug out the manuals for the telescope and the tripod, but nothing would focus. Ah, I needed my reading glasses! I ran upstairs and grabbed them off the kitchen table. Much better! I refreshed my aging memory on the finer points of placing the telescope correctly on the tripod. I disconnected the telescope, turned it 180 degrees and re-secured it to the base. Then I aligned the tripod legs more-or-less on a north-south orientation. Finally, I was ready to connect to Autostar hand-held control device and the 12-volt power supply.

I looked over my shoulder to the southwest and could already see Venus and Jupiter in the still lit dusky sky. I plugged in the power supply and the Autostar and flipped the switch at the base of the telescope to the on position. The Autostar woke up and warned me not to look through my telescope, ever, at the sun directly. Well, darn, the sun had already set so I didn’t really need to worry about that.

I entered today’s date and time and told the Autostar that, no, currently I wasn’t using daylight savings time. I skipped the alignment, since I couldn’t see any stars yet, and, from past experience, the stars it would want to use for aligning the telescope would be blocked by either my house (which rose thirty feet high to my east only about six feet away from the base of the tripod) or the trees in my backyard (a very tall pine tree, tall maple tree and my neighbor’s large pear tree – all block my western, northwestern and north horizons from my backyard). Basically, I can only look up, to the south or southwest, with a mostly unobstructed view from my back yard. Oh, and there’s a large hill about a quarter of a mile to my west, so I can’t really see the sunsets either.

Using my finder’s scope, I zeroed in on Venus and then programmed the Autostar to find Venus, without actually finding it. I found it in the Autostar’s database of observing objects and then told it to start slewing (also known as tracking the object so it always stays centered in the eyepiece). I put in my 26mm eyepiece and then paused the slewing. I used the directional arrow keys on the keypad to center Venus in the field of view and then unpaused slewing. Wow! Was Venus bright! But smaller than I anticipated. I tried a variety of lenses (16mm, 9mm and the doubling one with a combination of all of those) and got brave and tried three different types of colored filters.

I quickly read through the one page reference guide for the lenses, each of which gave tips for the various types of objects you could observe and what you could expect from the different colors. I first tried the blue filter, which helped reduce the glare from the still well-lit western sky. Venus was still very bright. I next tried the orange filter, which really brought down the brightness and I believe I even saw some cloud formations. The last color I tried was the green filter, but I don’t believe that one added to my viewing experience.

After observing Venus for several minutes with various filter and eyepiece combinations, I told the Autostar to go find Jupiter. Since I had not aligned the telescope previously, I had my doubts as to whether the computer and the drives could actually find it. I knew where it was, because I could see it. The Autostar got close, but not close enough to see Jupiter in my 26mm eyepiece. I pause slewing and used the finder scope and the directional controls to center Jupiter. I unpaused slewing and was amazed at the size and clarity of Jupiter and four of its moons.

The first thing that struck me was the fact that Jupiter looked at least as large as Venus had, if not larger! Yet Venus is closer to Earth by a long shot. This really made me wonder about the sheer size of Jupiter, all those billions of miles away, out past Mars and the asteroid belt. It’s own miniature solar system. Awesome!

All but one of Jupiter’s moons were lined up perfectly on one side of the gas giant. I could clearly see the striations in the clouds, but I did not see the Red Spot. I spent several very enjoyable minutes observing them all with various eyepieces, but no filters (as I could see detail very clearly without them).

My last longshot of the night was a whimsical hope that I would be able to see one of the nebulae in Orion. I told the Autostar to go find the Horsehead Nebula. Off it went, taking the telescope generally to the belt or sword area of the constellation Orion. I hadn’t yet grabbed my Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas, so I couldn’t remember exactly where the Horsehead Nebula resided in relation to Orion’s belt. I traversed up and down the sword, but did not further investigate the belt, where I should have concentrated. However, since the skies were still quite bright (not dark) and the light pollution continued to obscure my ability to see such dark nebulae, I gave up on that hunt and saved it for another night when I could transport my entire setup to a dark sky site. Thanks to a gift from my father, the prospect of observing at a dark sky site have gotten markedly better. He repaired an old portable emergency battery and light (both white and red) device that can be used as a power source, once I find (or buy) the power cord for the telescope that includes the standard car cigarette lighter-type connector.

On a whim, I told the Autostar to go find the Pleiades, another open star cluster I could easily see between Orion and Jupiter. I couldn’t easily find it listed in the observing objects database, so I looked it up in my Sky Atlas and determined it also had the M45 designation. The Autostar took the telescope to the general vicinity of the Pleiades, but I could not confirm this from the eyepiece. And, since the Pleiades were very high in the night sky, I could not use the finder scope to manually re-align the telescope. Why? Because on the ETX-90, the OEM finder scope becomes unusable at vertical or near vertical angles when using the Alt/Az mount (instead of the Equatorial mount). I have a replacement finder scope, but have not yet installed. Terry volunteered to give it a go this week since I left the telescope on its tripod smack dab in the middle of the band room last night.

I may or may not be able to participate in Sky & Telescope’s Moon Mercury challenge this evening. Tonight, about thirty minutes after sunset, the tiniest sliver of the new moon will be visible right next to Mercury. My drive in to work today produced a stunning sunrise, thanks to a mostly cloudy sky, so unless these clouds blow away before I get home, I doubt I’ll be able to see the sun, let alone the pencil-thin moon and the small bright fleeting dot of Mercury. If, by some miracle, the skies are crystal clear when I get home tonight, I will at least packup my digital camera and its tripod and find a spot on a hilltop with a clear unobstructed view of the setting sun.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3khO8uMg4?feature=player_embedded]

Book Review: The Devil in the White City by Larson (3.5 Stars)

The Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic, And Madness At The Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Read in January 2012

I wanted to give this four stars, and I leaned heavily toward a 3.5 star rating, but ultimately, I settled for three stars. I liked it, but I did not love it. Bright gems gleamed amid the offal, but not enough of them to dazzle my mind’s eye with the gleam of the White City.

I enjoyed the writing style of Erik Larson, which made it easier for me to read a non-fiction book. Granted, I do enjoy a well written history, but Larson included elements common to a mystery or crime fiction novel that kept me turning pages. That being said, however, the two halves of this book (the history of the Worlds Colombian Exhibition of 1893 and the escapades of Dr. H.H. Holmes (and his many aliases)) interspersed with seemingly irrelevant trivia did not a cohesive whole make. And even though I found some of the trivial excerpts jarring, they nonetheless touched me to the quick. Two or three examples come readily to mind:

Chance encounters led to magic. Frank Haven Hall, superintendent of the Illinois Institution of the Blind, unveiled a new device that made plates for printing books in Braille. Previously Hall had invented a machine capable of typing in Braille, the Hall Braille Writer, which he never patented because he felt profit should not sully the cause of serving the blind. As he stood by his newest machine, a blind girl and her escort approached him. Upon learning that Hall was the man who had invented the typewriter she used so often, the girl put her arms around his neck and gave him a huge hug and kiss. Forever afterward, whenever Hall told this story of how he met Helen Keller, tears would fill his eyes. (p. 285)

(Buffalo Bill) Cody upstaged the fair again in July, when exposition officials rejected a request from Mayor Carter Harrison that the fair dedicate one day to the poor children of Chicago and admit them at no charge. The directors that this was too much to ask, given their struggle to boost the rate of paid admission. Every ticket, even half-price children’s tickets, matter. Buffalo Bill promptly declared Waif’s Day at the Wild West and offered any kid in Chicago a free train ticket, free admission to the show and free access to the whole Wild West encampment, plus all the candy and ice cream the children could eat. Fifteen thousand showed up. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West may indeed have been an ‘incongruity,’ as the directors had declared in rejecting his request for a concession within Jackson Park, but the citizens of Chicago had fallen in love. (p. 251)

No one saw Twain. He came to Chicago to see the fair but got sick and spent eleven days in his hotel room, then left without ever seeing the White City. Of all people. (p. 285)

Another passage (pp. 285-286) recounted a passing of the torch from the pioneers of the west (in the person of Buffalo Bill Cody) and those of the future (in the person of Susan B. Anthony). This encounter, on a Sunday morning at his Wild West Show, “brought the audience to its feet in a thunder of applause and cheers. The frontier may indeed have closed at last, … but for that moment it stood there glittering in the sun like the track of a spent tear.”

I did not find the relation of Holmes’ psychopathic serial killings overly horrifying (and what does that say about me and/or our times?). But neither did I feel compelled to ferret out his motivations or worry whether justice would be served. Larson had to take some artistic license in recreating some of the murders, but nothing modern journalists or other ‘true crime’ authors haven’t done as well. Perhaps the suspense became ‘suspended’ for me since many of the quotes from Holmes referred to his Confession, which implies his capture, conviction and sentence execution.

I finished reading this book a bare two hours before attending the Common Grounds Book Group discussion sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library and featured in the Winter 2012 Adult Reading Program “Destination: Anywhere.” Librarian Katie Stover hosted the discussion in a corner of the Nine Muses Cafe’ at the Central branch. About ten of us (nine women and one brave young man named Alberto) joined in the discussion. The following are some of the questions and answers we tossed on the table among the tea and coffee.

Why is this such a popular book? A look at the behind-the-scenes of this Exhibition and how it came about on such a tight schedule (less than two years) and overcame calamities and catastrophes. Larson’s detailed research made you feel as if you were there, present, at the events occurring in Chicago in the 1890s. He accomplished this without the use of any dialog (beyond quotes from diaries and journals).

Why write these two stories together? And do you believe Holmes committed two hundred murders? Holmes creating his personal ‘deathatorium’ by designing and building his mansion and keeping everyone, including the construction workers, from realizing his real plans.

What happened to his first wife and child? In this respect, the author left us in the dark, never circling back to tie up those loose ends. Perhaps, no record existed to relate their fate.

Why did Holmes do it? Did he believe himself evil? Was he compelled by some physiological imbalance? Holmes was ambitious and driven (contrastingly, so was the lead architect for the White City, Burnham). Yet Holmes held no remorse for his action. He knew he was doing wrong, otherwise why would he have gone to such lengths to cover his tracks and conceal or destroy evidence? We all agreed that being a devil reflected a figure of speech, not a true personification of evil, because if you don’t believe in God, how can you truly believe in the Devil?

We moved on to lighter topics, pondering the ‘cool’ things that were introduced at the Exhibition (some of which still exist today), including: A Ferris wheel, hot dogs, shredded wheat, Cracker Jacks, alternating current electricity, inspiration for Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom (his father was one of the carpenters who built the White City).

I mentioned the research I planned to do based on a couple of sentences found on p. 29: “Three years later a hotel they (Burnham and Root) had designed in Kansas City collapsed during construction, injuring several men and killing one. Burnham was heartbroken. The city convened a coroner’s inquest, which focused its attention on the building’s design. For the first time in his career, Burnham found himself facing public attack.” Again, Larson did not return to this tidbit, so I shall see what I can dredge up from microfiche or microfilm on the Third Floor of the Central branch.

Someone else read a passage the summed up the wonder of the White City (from p. 254):

For many visitors these nightly illuminations were their first encounter with electricity. Hilda Satt, a girl newly arrived from Poland, went to the fair with her father. ‘As the light was fading in the sky, millions of lights were suddenly flashed on, all at one time,’ she recalled years later. ‘Having seen nothing but kerosene lamps for illumination, this was like getting a sudden vision of Heaven.’ Her father told her the lights were activated by electrical switches. ‘Without matches?’ she asked.

Another person contrasted this divine vision, with the irony of boys chasing excitedly after the train carrying Krupp’s gun, which in but a few years would be used to kill them as war erupted across Europe.

Our discussion wrapped up by musing about how easily Holmes faded from one alias to another, how he avoided his creditors and mesmerized women by the dozens. We wondered why only an uncle of one of his wives (some of which he was married to concurrently) saw through Holmes’ beguiling veil to the heart of his dastardly deeds.

Book Review: Eisenhower 1956 by Nichols

Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis–Suez and the Brink of War by David A. Nichols

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I read non-fiction, which isn’t often enough, I tend to favor biographies or histories. I picked up Nichols’ detailed microscopic compilation of a critical year in the life of President Eisenhower based on a review my uncle wrote. Being born and raised and still living in Kansas, I have an understandable preoccupation with one of our most famous and respected residents.

The extent of Nichols’ meticulous research impressed me. His delivery of the facts and circumstances and thoughts of key players (gleaned from personal notes and diaries) brought me to the center of the conflicts and the crises. I queried many older friends and family on what they remembered of 1956 (since I wasn’t born until eight years later), most of whom were too young at the time to really remember the Suez Canal crisis.

That didn’t stop me from feeling an echo of the anxiety and the beginning of our national belief in ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD – a very apropos acronym, don’t you think?). Eisenhower’s early understanding of the true horrors of thermonuclear warfare paved the way for his campaign of waging peace, even at the expense of some short-sighted WWII Allies. (For a great glimpse into an early (and now classic) apocalyptic novel, please see Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, originally published in 1959 – click here for my review).

While reading this book, I visited the website for the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. I learned the current exhibit entitled ‘Eisenhower: Agent of Change‘ ran until the end of January and the Library celebrates fifty years in 2012. As soon as I finished the book, I convinced my husband we needed to visit Abilene, since I could barely remember the last/first time I visited the Eisenhower Center (probably forty years ago or more). We spent a pleasant Saturday exploring the Museum, Library, boyhood home (intact and preserved on the grounds), the grounds and the final resting place of Dwight, Mamie and their son Doud (who died at the age of 3 in 1921).

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