Deep Sky – Page 4 – Into the West

Teapot Steam

Star Party Sign In (click image for rest of album)

My dad contacted me Thursday to coordinate conveyances for our weekend astronomical adventure, thinking we would be attending the monthly ASKC club meeting, but he was a week early. Since I had mentioned earlier in the week a desire to see the glorious summer spread of our own Milky Way Galaxy, he had called me several times the past few days to see about driving to northern Atchison county to escape the Kansas City area light pollution. Both Wednesday and Thursday evenings turned out to be hazy and cloudy, so we nixed the road trip north.

Instead, I suggested we attend the monthly star party at Powell Observatory. I received two confirmation e-mails from David Hudgins, the club’s star party coordinator extraordinaire. I decided to leave my scope at home because you don’t really need a scope to take in the Milky Way Galaxy. If the skies grew dark enough, it would stretch from the southern horizon, up over the top, clear to the northern one.

I thought perhaps I was reliving last Friday (that would be the 13th) because when I got home early (by ten minutes) I walked into some surreal drama. I won’t go into the stressful week at work (we’ve all had weeks like that), but I looked forward to forgetting work and ignoring the excessive heat by reading books and watching movies in a quiet, air conditioned home with my hubby and two Rotties. I came home to find our satellite on the fritz and Terry needing me to pickup a prescription before the pharmacy closed at seven. While he cooked dinner, I did some preliminary troubleshooting of the satellite system with little success and decided to call DirecTV customer service, knowing I’d probably be on hold for several minutes. The technician wanted us to disconnect, check and reconnect all of our cables, which seemed a ridiculous request since the cable runs are static and have not been touched, moved or manipulated in years. After almost ruining supper in an effort to jump through DirecTV tech support hoops, we hung up on them and sat down to eat.

By now, I had less than an hour to pickup the prescription, so I grabbed my purse and drove to the store. I got as far as the pharmacy counter, where the assistant recognized me and had the prescription ready for me, but when I opened my purse, my billfold was missing. I had left it in the van because I stopped at Starbucks after work for a mocha frappacino treat for the drive home. Now I had to return home for my billfold and repeat the trip back to the pharmacy, a wasted trip, time and gas. When I returned home the third time, Terry had solved the satellite system glich. With our excessive heat and drought conditions, the ground supporting our satellite dish pole has dried up so far down into the ground, that the pole can now be easily moved back and forth and twisted on it’s concrete base. One of our dogs could have bumped into it and messed up the alignment. Terry used the signal strength meter diagnostics channel on the satellite receiver to dial the dish back in.

Hoping that would be the final challenge of the week solved for the moment, I called Dad just after seven o’clock and told him to head my way. I gathered up my camera equipment, my pocket star atlas, a large hardcover edition of Backyard Astronomy (to review Milky Way info), my purse (with billfold) and a lidded glass of cool water. I asked Dad to drive this weekend, volunteering to drive next weekend for the July club meeting. The hour jaunt to Louisburg passed quickly and we arrived at Powell just moments after sunset. The evening cooled off nicely, but remained calm, clear and surprisingly dry. In fact, we experienced no dew (the bane of telescope optics) until after midnight.

Sterling Scope — Mike Sterling collimating his telescope while my dad attends.

Several club members were already present and setting up their scopes in the East Observing Field (click photo above for photos taken upon our arrival). One member, Mike Sterling, introduced himself to me (asking if I was ‘the’ Jon Moss … apparently my name is known, if not my face or gender, from my blogging). He was in the process of collimating his 20-inch Dobsonian. My dad provided an extra pair of eyes to help finish. Mike also gave us a color brochure published by Astronomy magazine of the illustrated Messier catalog. This will come in handy in the future when I really get serious about an observing award.

The theme for this month’s star party centered around star charts and atlases. David Hudgins setup a table displaying several popular and easy-to-use books, visual aids and posters. I indicated to David I already owned the Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas and a smaller version of the wheel night sky star guide (the circular atlas resting on top of the poster in the upper left hand corner of the table shown in the photo above).

Dad and I wondered among the scopes, waiting for twilight to fade and the stars to emerge. Saturn and Mars, along with Spica and Arcturus appeared very early and most of the scopes honed in on our ringed neighbor. By 10:30 pm, the skies had darkened enough to begin hunting for some of the brighter Messier objects. Mike graciously asked me (several times over the course of the evening) what I wanted to observe next. I drew a blank every time because my goal had been to see the Milky Way, not any specific object viewable in a scope. He obligingly filled in the blank by touring through clusters, nebulae and a galaxy found in the constellation Sagittarius, Scorpius, Hercules and Ursa Major. I tweeted the objects as we found them so I would have a record of what we saw and when.

10:30 pm – M57 (the Ring Nebula), M20 (the Trifid Neblua), M8 (the Lagoon Nebula), M7 (the Ptolemy Cluster)
10:50 pm – M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy)
What happened during the 11 o’clock hour? *see update below
12:00 am – M4 (globular cluster in Scorpius)
12:08 am – M13 (the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules)
12:24 am – M10 (globular cluster in Ophicuhus)

Brocchi’s Cluster, also known as the Coathanger: a conspicuous asterism easily seen with binoculars in the constellation Vulpecula (via Wikipedia)

My dad and I also used his binoculars just to see what we could see with them (as opposed to a scope). The highlight of that side project included finding Brocchi’s Cluster (more commonly known by the asterism ‘the Coathanger’). One of the other club members used the Summer Triangle as an aid to locating the Coathanger. As stated in the Wikipedia article: “It is best found by slowly sweeping across the Milky Way along an imaginary line from the bright star Altair toward the even brighter star Vega. About one third of the way toward Vega, the Coathanger should be spotted easily against a darker region of the Milky Way. The asterism is best seen in July-August and north of 20° north latitude it is displayed upside down (as in the picture above) when it is at its highest point.”

* Update * (added after original publication):

I completely spaced out tweeting during the eleven o’clock hour. During this time, Mike disconnected the Goto electronics on his telescope and set me to star hopping for objects near Sagittarius. The first one he tested me with was finding two small globular clusters a small hop away from the gamma star in Sagittarius (the star the delineates the spout of the teapot). If I could find these two clusters, Mike told me I should be able to see both of them at the same time in the eyepiece’s field of view. After about five minutes, I spied a couple of small fuzzy balls, not as distinct as the surrounding background stars, but I thought they might be the clusters. Mike confirmed I had found them by doing a ‘happy dance’ and sing-songing ‘she found them, she found them’ for all to hear. The designations for these clusters are NGC 6522 and 6528.

Mike next set me to finding either M69 or M70 (also hanging out in Sagittarius, but in the bottom of the Teapot). I glanced at his star chart and used his excellent Telrad finderscope (which had a nice large field of view and an easy-to-use red bullseye) to quickly locate one of the Messier objects (probably M69). Again Mike did a happy dance and song.

Mike went looking for another globular cluster, this time between Sagittarius and Scorpius, designated as NGC 6380. I found this one especially interesting because of it’s apparent close proximity to a star.

The third test proved my undoing. Mike moved his scope to Antares in Scorpius and set me to finding M4. I didn’t review his star chart and spent several minutes attempting to find it. Eventually, I gave up and Mike located it.

Teapot Asterism (for Sagittarius constellation)

Despite all the mesmerizing Messier distractions, I did succeed in observing the vast sweep of our Milky Way Galaxy. I learned a couple of cool memory aids and bits of trivia about finding the ‘heart’ of the galaxy and the path it takes. Cygnus, the swan constellation, also sometimes known as the ‘Northern Cross,’ flies along the Milky Way, pointing directly to the heart of the galaxy. To find the Milky Way’s heart, locate the Teapot (an asterism for the constellation Sagittarius), visible along the southern horizon during July and August, and imagine steam rising from the spout.

I even attempted to photograph the Milky Way using my simple tripod and DSLR camera, but without an equitorial mount of some kind with a tracking system and the digital photo editing software (to stack multiple repetitive exposures), the best I could accomplish was a three or four second exposure (using ISO 800) and fiddling with the brightness/contrast after downloading:

Steaming Teapot (tilted slightly so that the Milky Way
appears centered/parallel to the frame of the photo).

I also took photos of Cygnus swimming in the Milky Way, the Summer Triangle, the Big Dipper over the dome of the observatory and several of the southern horizon. To see the entire album, click on the photo at the top of this blog.

Soon after 12:30 a.m., Dad and I thanked Mike Sterling for the guided tour of the summer sky. We packed up our gear and drove the hour home, where I finally drifted off to sleep after two o’clock with visions of Messier objects dancing in my head.

Dad and I had a blast and my husband is now having second thoughts about staying home last night. Many thanks to David Hudgins, Mike Sterling and the other members of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City for throwing a fun mid-summer star party.

Heat Bubble Bursts Just in Time for Summer Stargazing

Saturday evening I headed south to Louisburg to volunteer for my second scheduled night of the 2012 Powell Observatory public season. My dad decided to tag along, to enjoy the show and help keep me awake for the long drive home. We left Lansing about twenty minutes after five and my car’s external thermometer reported 106 to 107 degrees, which has been our afternoon average for about a week now, give or take two or three degrees either way. We stopped in Bonner Springs to grab a quick, cool sandwich from Subway and returned to the highway just shortly after six o’clock. I needed to be at Powell Observatory by seven o’clock to help prepare the facility for the weekly public program and observing night.

As we approached Louisburg from the north, I noticed a definite increase in the wind, so much so that my car was jostled several times. At the same time, I noticed a significant drop in the external temperature. By the time I exited US-69, the thermometer read 92 degrees, and was still falling. Except for early mornings the past couple of weeks, I had not seen or felt such low temperatures while the sun still shone. I pulled into the west observing field parking area and realized I was again the first person to arrive. Since the temperature had dropped, I turned off the car and opened all the windows. The breeze felt incredibly refreshing.

My team leader arrived within a few minutes and I received my Powell Observatory ‘Staff’ T-shirt, which I changed into as soon as the building was unlocked. I helped setup the class room for the program, ‘Sounds of Space.’ Another ASKC member arrived and setup his ten-inch Dobsonian for solar observing and I caught a glimpse of some great sunspots before our public guests began arriving. The clouds provided some dramatic solar observing situations.

Pre sunset from Powell Observatory — Click image for more sunset photos from Powell Observatory

I repeated my role as gatekeeper and accepted donations from the public and queried them for their ZIP codes to record for future grant petitions. The first group of twenty-five guests began the ‘Sounds of Space’ program at 8:30 p.m., but I soon had at least that many waiting for the second showing. At one point as I sat waiting for more guests to arrive, what I thought was a stray dog wandered into the observing field, soon followed by three horses, two with riders and a third colt between them. They trotted across the field to the west, with the dog trailing after, riding off into the sunset … literally.

As the sky continued to darken, despite a few wispy clouds, we opened the dome so those waiting for the next program could observe Saturn and a globular cluster found in the constellation Scorpius. I didn’t get a chance to look at the cluster through the 30-inch scope, but I believe they looked at M4, which is near the bright star Antares.

We ended up having nearly ninety public guests Saturday evening and ran a third showing of our program. After the last two guests had left the dome a bit after eleven o’clock, I quickly snuck a peak at the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra, one of the Messier Objects I’ve been trying go get a glimpse of for quite some time. Lyra is also home to the very bright star Vega, one of the three stars that form the Summer Triangle.

As the final guests drove away, my team members and I began cleaning the building and storing chairs, tables and other items for the next Saturday. I signed myself out of the Observatory at 11:35 and gathered up my dad for the long drive home. He related information he’d gleaned from another team members about various types of Dobsonian telescopes and helped keep me alert as we sped north towards Leavenworth County.

Next week, we present a program on ‘Our Amazing Moon’ and the following week we’ll pose the question ‘Is There Life Out There?’ We look forward to showing you the astronomical sights (and sounds).

Until then, Keep Looking Up!

Adventures on My First Science Convention: Day Three

IMGP3138 — John Reed leads a workshop on widefield astrophotography with a DSLR at MSRAL (Sun 03 Jun 2012)

After a handulf of hours sleeping, I drug myself out of bed early Sundy morning. Rather than eating breakfast, I composed my blog post recapping Saturday at the MSRAL convention. I published at ten after eight o’clock, leaving me less than an hour to drive to UMKC from Lansing. The last day of the convention consisted of a morning dedicated to three workshops. Not knowing what I might need, I packed up my laptop and my DSLR camera and zipped down I-70, arriving with about ten minutes to spare.

I burdened myself with my laptop bag, camera backpack, purse and water bottle and trudged up the stairs to the Student Union. I opted not to take the additional four flights of stairs on the interior of the building, taking full advantage of the elevator to the top floor. I planted myself on the first row (as I’ve done each day of the convention) so I wouldn’t have any trouble hearing or seeing (or taking photographs like the one above).

First Workshop: Widefield Astrophotography with a DSLR by John Reed

Very interesting workshop on using consumer camera equipment (a Canon DSLR and a 200 mm telephoto with an AstroTrac mount) and some post-production work with Photoshop for stunning astrophotography.

Second Workshop: Variable Star Research with Modern Amateur Equipment by Jim Roe

The middle workshop presented by Jim Roe dealt with variable stars and doing some hands on scientific observation and research. I got to know his old friend Z Umi (a variable star in the Little Dipper).

Third Workshop: Successful Web Cam Astronomy by David Kolb

IMGP3144 — David Kolb answering questions after his Successful Web Cam Astronomy workshop at MSRAL (Sun 03 Jun 2012)

The final workshop of the day got really hands on, for those who wanted to participate in the step-by-step process of massaging web cam videos taken of Saturn to produce a nice crisp stacked image. The entire presentation will be uploaded to David’s website (Sunflower Astronomy) in the near future.

Final Musings on the Convention

I learned so much and met some great people. I have many fascinating ideas and concepts revolving through my brain and many new projects I’m inspired to pursue. I look forward to attending similar conferences when they pass through the area again.

Adventures on My First Science Convention: Day Two

Just can't get away from my work area — Beautiful, clear morning from atop the UMKC Student Union (looking northwest ~ June 2, 2012)

I survived the second day of the MSRAL convention. I think I overdosed on science, as my brain worked overtime while I slept to process the fascinating concepts, breakthroughs and forthcoming projects in astronomy and astrophysics I absorbed Saturday.

I arrived just in time to wait for the business meeting (scheduled for the eight o’clock hour) to run over into the first session. I strolled around the fourth floor of the UMKC Student Union, watching the venders setup their tables in the room adjacent to the main conference one. Several conference attendees also brought their solar telescopes and began setting them up on the rooftop deck of the building to facilitate solar observing throughout the entire day (and we had crystal clear skies for the duration).

Morning sessions:

History of U.S. Astronomy and funding forecast, presented by Dr. Dan McIntosh, who kindly provided a link to his entire presentation during his talk: U.S. Astronomy: Past, Present and Future. Some highlights from my notes:
- I need to watch The Journey to Palomar via PBS’s website.
- NSF founded/funded in 1950
- NASA founded/funded in 1958
- Public investment in science led to a boom in our economy.
- In the 20 year history of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), more than ten thousand (10,000) scientific papers have been published.
- Out of our huge $3.7 trillion federal budget, only 0.85 percent of it relates to science funding (NSF, NASA, DOE, etc.) or about $60 per year per family.
- Is Science a Good Investment? It inspires dreams, drives innovation, new technologies (just a few of NASA’s 6,000 patents and 2,000 spinoff ventures: water filters, cordless tools, shoe insoles, memory foam, scratch resistant lenses, UV sunglasses, cell phone cameras), which lead to economic growth and we, the public, come to rely on the new technology (GPS, weather, communication satellites).

Local amateur astronomer discovers comet (skipped most of this session because I saw it at a club meeting in March).

I returned to the stairs leading from the third floor to the top floor of the Student Union for the group photo just before we broke for lunch. I ended up standing in the second row directly behind Fred Bruenjes (see local comet discoverer mentioned above).

Solar observing

Afternoon sessions:

Location of the Kepler Mission FOV on the Sky

Helioseismology leads to Asteroseismology via the Kepler satellite aka Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: The End of Wondering in the Era of Asteroseismology. presented by Dr. Bruce Twarog. This session really stretched my flabby scientific brain muscles. The professor presented his topic with great enthusiasm. I took copious notes, because I knew I needed to research and review most of what he talked about. The first portion of his talk dealt with some history, including a crash course in Fourier transforms. Once we were all on the same page, he could talk about helioseismology. Finally, we connect the dots of how the data gathered by the Keppler Mission can build upon our discoveries in our own sun and apply them to other stars in a leading edge branch of astronomical research called asteroseismology.

Webcam Imaging by David Kolb: Interesting, but it seems like an awful lot of post-production work involving a myriad variety of software packages. I will learn more this morning during a workshop with this presenter.

Another interesting topic, where paleontology was used to find our Nemesis (or not), presented by Dr. Adrian Melott and I even found the publication from 2010: Nemesis Reconsidered

NASA’s Night Sky Network – There actually is an app for that (stargazing that is). All these tools, kits, videos and services provided free by NASA to astronomy clubs around the country.

Evening Keynote: LSST by Dr. Barbara Anthony-Twarog. Wow, just wow. This telescope, when it becomes operational (currently proposed completion and operational in 2022), will survey the sky like never before. All the data (15 terabytes per night) will be freely available to everyone (not just the US public, but the entire world). By the time it finishes its ten year run, there may be nothing left for traditional observers (both professional and amateur astronomers alike) to discover. The future of astronomical research will no longer rely on observations, but will need computer scientists and data miners to sift through the avalanche of data produced by the LSST.

Observing the Moon via Warko atop Royall Hall

After Dark: Warko on the rooftop of Royall Hall

I moved my vehicle from the parking lot next to the Student Union to the parking garage next to Royall Hall, parking on the fourth level to take the sky bridge across to the building and then a couple of flights of stairs up to the rooftop observatory. The nearly full moon shone exceptionally bright on a clear, calm evening. We trained the 16 inch telescope on it, at least until the sky darkened enough to move on to other targets. I snapped a quick photo with my cell phone of the bright moon through the eyepiece:

We moved on to Saturn and stayed there until I had to leave (around 10:30) because I had a forty minute drive home and had been up since five.

I saw my first iridium flare last night. What is an iridium streak, you ask? Check out the Heavens Above web page to find out and to search for a streaker in your neighborhood (sky that is).

I enjoyed my second day at the convention. I learned more than I can possibly absorb on just five hours of sleep. In just a few minutes, I return for the final half-day of workshops. I’ll post my final thoughts later this afternoon, perhaps after I’ve had a nap.

Party with the Stars

Even though Friday dawned overcast and gloomy, by noon, I could see bits of blue among the dissolving puffs of grey and white. I received an early confirmation e-mail from ASKC announcing the ‘go live’ time for the astronomy club’s star party at Powell Observatory in Louisburg, Kansas. I had already invited Dad to come as my guest and not only because Terry already had plans. The weather forecast predicted clear skies, but cold temperatures, reaching mid-40s by midnight on the observing field.

I left work at the usual time and retrieved all my riders, returning them safely home without delay. Not even the race activities at the Kansas Speedway slowed me down when I dropped off my first rider, who lives within spitting distance of that facility. We all could hear the cars racing around the track, not for a race, but more likely for practice or qualifying.

I got home and realized I had forgotten to print a map with directions from Lansing to Louisburg and wrangled Terry into printing one for me. While I was waiting on the printout, my Dad arrived, bringing me a beautiful rose from his garden. He placed it smack dab in the center of my table, but I didn’t notice it until I knocked over the vase with my camera bag. Then, I mistakenly thought Terry had stolen a rose from one of our neighbors. Dad had a hard time not laughing himself silly, especially since he tried to let Terry take the credit for the impromptu flower appearance. I thanked Dad for the gift while I mopped up the spilled water with a spare towel.

I changed clothes, grabbed a sweater with a hood, my scarf, my gloves, a gallon of water, my water bottle, my camera bag and tripod and my purse. Dad already had the rest of the gear in his trunk. We rolled south out of Lansing by a quarter to six. We stopped briefly in Bonner Springs for a quick supper and continued down K-7 to Shawnee Mission Parkway, then to I-435 and eventually US-69. Louisburg is less than twenty miles south of Overland Park, so once we rounding the curve where I-35 crosses I-435 (where the mile markers for I-435 start at zero (0) and end at eight-three (3), we had less than a half hour of driving to reach the observatory. We pulled into the park just a bit after seven o’clock in the evening.

The star party organizer for the ASKC was already on site. He greeted us and we all began debating where to setup on the observing field around Powell. He was concerned about a baseball game or practice that appeared to be occurring on a ball field just northwest of the site. He drove over and asked the participants if they planned to turn on the field lights. He returned to confirm the lights would be on until 9:30 p.m. Thus, all of us decided to setup on the east side of the Powell Observatory building, letting it block the lights to help protect our night vision.

Dad and I unpacked the gear and hauled it across the observing field to a spot just southeast of the dome. I setup my camera and tripod to take a couple of photos of the sunset.

As predicted, the lights lit up the field, and competed with the glow of Kansas City sufficing the northern horizon. Dad and I waited patiently (him more than me) for enough stars to pop forth to attempt an alignment of the telescope. While we waited, I took a few more photos of the western horizon, mostly to capture the very bright Venus.

Soon after we spotted Venus, Sirius made its appearance in the southwestern sky. Once Arcturus crested over the trees in the northeast, we used both those stars for an alignment of the ETX-90 via the Autostar device. We did a quick tour of the four visible planets, starting with Venus. Even though Venus is a thinning crescent (as it moves towards us and between the Earth and the Sun), it is almost too bright to look at. Without adding a filter to the eyepiece, I couldn’t look directly at it for more than a few seconds. Next we caught Jupiter before it set in the west. I spotted all four moons, but only for the first few minutes. As it sunk closer and closer to the horizon, the haze and humidity obscured all but the planet itself from visibility.

Next we swung the telescope back to the southeast, but nearly directly overhead (about ten or eleven o’clock above us) to view Mars. While I debated internally what higher magnification eyepiece to insert, the star party organizer joined Dad and I at our telescope. He commented that he had owned a similar scope in years past and affirmed it was a good scope for planetary and lunar observing. He took a quick look through the eyepiece at Mars and moved on to the next person on the field. One of my goals for the evening was to decide if the small ETX-90 would allow me to view any deep sky objects (galaxies in particular).

Our final planetary tour stop landed on Saturn, which crested over the trees soon after we finished observing Mars. I easily found Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, but could not discern the gap(s) between the rings, even after adding the two times Barlow to the 25mm eyepiece I prefer to use.

Orion had his left foot on the western horizon as I swung the scope back to the southwest for a quick peak at the Great Orion Nebula. As far as I could tell, it looked similar to what I had seen from my back yard in late March. At that time, Orion’s Sword appeared much higher in the sky and I looked through less atmosphere (but had more light pollution in Lansing). But the combination of less light, yet more atmosphere gave me basically the same observing experience.

At this point, I took a break to spare my aching feet and sat in one of the chairs Dad had brought along. The north wind had died off by this time, but I couldn’t seem to get my toes enough circulation. The rest of me, my head, hands, upper body and legs, were fine. But my toes continued to be a distraction and eventually a source of chilling pain. I used my red flashlight to review several star charts in my pocket sky atlas, searching for a deep sky object that would be (hopefully) visible via my small scope. I settled on the Whirlpool Galaxy found near the first star (Alkaid) in the handle of the Big Dipper. As you can see in the chart above, just below and to the right of Alkaid is where you should find the Whirlpool Galaxy. Even with a red dot viewfinder to help, neither Dad nor I could locate the galaxy. It only has a magnitude of 8.4, and I fear the increasing glow from Kansas City to our north and the rising humidity as the temperature dropped to the dew point conspired against our efforts.

Before I could pick up my pocket sky atlas to find some other deep sky object to try, the star party organizer returned, asking us if we wanted to see the Leo Triplet, three galaxies visible all at the same time. While not as clear as the photo at the left, I did see all three galaxies through his telescope in one field of view. Amazing! Once I returned to my scope, I directed it to find Mars (which still hovers near Leo) to confirm the alignment and then told it to find M65 (one of the two galaxies on the right hand side of the photo above. I believe I saw a grey smudge or two, but not the third fainter elongated galaxy (on the left above). Since Leo still appeared directly overhead, and Louisburg to the southeast does not sport nearly as much light as Kansas City to the north, I had good conditions for seeing such faint objects (magnitude 9 and 10).

At this point, I could barely stand on my aching chilled feet any longer. I sat for a few minutes, letting my eyes wonder around the sky in hopes of seeing a few meteors. I did see two. I asked Dad if there was anything else he wanted to observe. I think he returned to Saturn for a final look at the ringed giant. After that, we dismantled the equipment and packed it back up (all in the dark with a dying red flash light). We made several trips across the observing field to the car.

As Dad started up the car (and I turned the heat for the passenger side all the way up to red hot), the clock on the dash flashed 11:00 p.m. We pulled out of the parking lot with only our parking lights on (to minimize light for those still observing) and stopped at McDonalds so I could buy a mocha. All three convenience stores in Louisburg had closed (not extremely convenient for us obviously). We retraced our route up US-69, through Overland Park, to I-435 and took Parallel Parkway back to K-7 and arrived back in Lansing just after midnight.

After this excursion, I believe I need to start saving my pennies for an upgrade. I still plan to use the ETX-90 to observe the Transit of Venus. The small scope is actually a boon for observing our closest star, Sol and our sister planet, Venus. I just need the solar filter film, currently on back order, to prevent damage to my eyes and the scope.

Thanks to the Astronomical Society of Kansas City for hosting the star party. Dad and I had an enjoyable evening.

My Mini-Messier Marathon

Venus, Jupiter and New Crescent Moon (Fri 23 Mar 2012)

I left work Friday afternoon in a pouring rain. Nothing unusual in the grand scheme of things. It is late March and Spring had sprung this week, which usually brings rain. An entire week of rain, in fact. I had hoped, against all evidence to the contrary, that the rain would let up earlier in the day on Friday. I resigned myself to retrieving my vanpool riders and slogging through rain drenched traffic for the next hour. I wanted to participate in my astronomy club‘s Messier Marathon, but just didn’t think the effort would equal the returns. I would have to pack up all of my astronomical observing equipment (telescope, tripod, eyepieces, control device, cables, portable battery, sky charts, observing aids, red flashlight, chair, some kind of table, etc) and then drive over an hour to the dark sky site way south near Butler, Missouri. Early indications from other club members reported the dark sky site field was very wet and since I don’t own a four-wheel drive truck or SUV, I decided to stay in Lansing.

I had permission from my city council representative to contact the Chief of Police to make arrangements to use one of the city parks after dark. I hesitated to bother the police. That is a huge hassle to overcome, for me anyway. And I still needed to re-train my telescope’s Alt/Az drives before packing them up, since that process requires daylight and a terrestrial object to focus upon. Clouds still scudded across the sky while I set the telescope up outside on the lower back patio. I trained the drives for five or ten minutes and then powered down the telescope until later in the evening.

Venus, Jupiter and the CrescentMoon — Venus, Jupiter and the Crescent Moon

After watching a couple of episodes of Jeopardy and squeezing in my exercise routine (and making my legs wobbly and rubbery by trying a longer version of one of the higher intensity activities), I slipped back outside to see how many stars were visible at just a few minutes past eight o’clock. I spied the small sliver of a new crescent moon hovering just over my neighbor’s roof so I grabbed my camera (already on it’s tripod) and took a few photos (two of which I am including in this post). I even got Terry outside long enough to witness the new moon and point out how much higher Venus has gotten over Jupiter in a week since the last time I photographed the pair of them.

By the time I finished snapping a few photographs, I had enough bright stars to attempt an alignment of the telescope with my newly retrained drives. The Autostar easy alignment selected Sirius in Canis Major as the first star in the alignment process. After I found and centered the Dog Star, the next stop on the alignment workflow became Capella in the constellation Auriga, another easily spotted star in the evening sky. The Autostar reported a successful alignment so now for the first real test of the retrained drives. I instructed the device to find Jupiter. Surprise! The telescope found Jupiter on the first try! I did have to recenter Jupiter and it’s four glorious moons in the eyepiece, but I did not have to use either of my finder scopes. I inserted a 2x barlowe and a 26mm eyepiece and could clearly see the cloud striations on Jupiter. I could even see a hint of color. I again pulled Terry out to the telescope to take a look at the gas giant and its beautiful alignment of moons.

Next stop on my pre-Messier tour became Venus. Again the Autostar found our sister planet successfully. I only had to re-center the very bright planet in my eyepiece. I should have put a filter on the eyepiece, because even at only half-full, Venus almost hurt my eyes to look at. I felt confident enough in the telescopes alignment and the retrained drives to begin my mini-Messier Marathon.

My Messier Marathon Observer’s Form lists the objects in a ‘best viewed in this order’ arrangement. I knew I would not be able to observe the first two items on the list, due to the nature of my site. My house rests in a valley, behind a large hill to my west. In addition, I have several tall trees in my backyard, as do my neighbors to the west and north. Thanks to the highway just a couple of blocks to my west, I have ample ambiance (aka light pollution) and nearly all my neighbors must be afraid of the dark because they insist on illuminating nearly all exterior surfaces of their residences. Still, I told the Autostar to go find M77, a spiral galaxy also known as Cetus A. Unfortunately, the telescope came to rest pointing northwest, through at least three trees. I moved on to the next item, M74, another spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. But again, I saw only trees. A shame, really, as I would love to see that beautiful spiral galaxy (shown in photo above and to the left).

The next three stops on the observation list also happened to be galaxies, including the famous Andromeda galaxy, designated as M31 on the Messier list of objects. Since the telescope did not move appreciable away from the area of M77 and M74, I again couldn’t see the stars for the forest. Yet another galaxy I desperately want to observe, so to ease the pain of defeat, I’ll provide another image of that marvelous gem. The image above and to the right also includes M32, one of the other two galaxies I couldn’t observe.

I began using my Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas to assist me in locating Messier objects that I could actually view in my limited sky scape. The Pocket Sky Atlas‘s last pages contains an index of Messier objects and the star chart they appear on. I skimmed through the list of the next few objects and determined that M45 could be seen with the naked eyes. The Pleiades is an open star cluster. I still told the telescope to go find it and spent a few minutes marveling at the cluster of bright stars peering back at me through the eyepiece. Finally, I got to check off one of the 110 objects on my Messier Marathon Observer’s Form, writing 8:42 p.m. in the blank provided.

The next two objects I found easily included M42 and M43, both found in Orion’s sword and more commonly known as the Great Orion Nebulae and De Marian’s Nebula (really part of the other one or an extension of it). I wrote 9:07 p.m. in the blanks on my form.

I spent the next thirty to forty minutes trying to track down several objects I should have been able to find since they were south or directly overhead. I could not find the Crab Nebula (M1) and began to suspect I had messed up the alignment on the telescope. I had nudged a tripod leg more than once, so I reverted the Autostar to star mode and went searching for Rigel, Betelgeuse, Sirius and Capella again to retune the alignment. After that, I was successful in viewing several star clusters, including M44 (aka the Beehive Cluster), M48 and M50 (between 9:45 and 9:51 p.m.).

Supernova SN 2012aw (pointed at by arrow) is located in the outer arm of the barred spiral galaxy M95 in Leo. Greek amateur Anthony Ayiomamitis obtained this view on March 20th from his home outside of Athens. Image from Sky & Telescope article.

I got even more excited when I spied M95 on the list just two below M44. This spiral galaxy gained fame this past week by spouting a supernova. My earlier research also showed that Mars was just a few degrees away from M95. So I took a few minutes to realign the telescope and enjoy the ruddy beauty of the fourth planet in our solar system. Then I went on the hunt for M95. I spent many frustrating minutes attempting to find the elusive spiral galaxy but to no avail. The skies above Lansing are just not dark enough for my small telescope. It can’t gather enough light and my aging eyes can’t ever seem to get acclimated to the annoying and obscuring local ground illumination to spot such a faint (9.7 in magnitude) object. By a quarter after ten, I decided enough was enough.

And, for some unknown reason, the telescope had twice decided to go off on a tangent, causing the altitude drive to run off for no reason and would not stop when I entered commands into the Autostar. Hmmm. There must be a bug in the latest firmware I downloaded last week. I should probably hook the laptop up to it today and see if a ‘fix’ has been made available from Meade.

I enjoyed my mini-marathon of Messier objects and learned quite a bit about my abilities and the capabilities of my amateur astronomy equipment. Tonight I will attend the monthly meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City and tomorrow I will probably head south to Powell Observatory for a training session on the club’s large telescope. By Monday, I should have purged my system of all astronomical cravings, at least until the next new moon.

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.

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]

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

I learned something today. I try to learn something every day, but I am not always successful (translation: distracted by the practical side of life). Today I remembered to peruse the ‘front page’ of the Wikipedia web site. I like the serendipitousness of the daily featured article as well as the ‘On this day …’ section.

On this day . . .

1924 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that Andromeda (pictured), previously believed to be a nebula, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.

The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. The image also shows Messier Objects 32 and 110, as well as NGC 206 (a bright star cloud in the Andromeda Galaxy) and the star Nu Andromedae. This image was taken using a hydrogen-alpha filter.

The second thing I learned came from the ‘Today’s Featured Picture’ section:

Pure (99.97+%) iron chips, electrolytically refined, as well as a high purity 1 cm³ iron cube for comparison. Iron is the most common element (by mass) on Earth, forming much of the outer and inner core, as well as the fourth most common element in the Earth’s crust.

Who knows what else I’ll stumble into learning today? I have an entire afternoon to explore since my employer will set me free at noon.

You’ve been warned.

Oh, and just in case you missed it last night, here’s a snapshot from my cell phone of the sunset:

Only two more sunsets left this year!