I volunteer as part of Team 2 (one of several teams staffed by members of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City). I’m looking forward to meeting many new people and introducing them to the many wonders of the night sky.
More Powell Observatory Information:
The observatory is staffed by ASKC volunteers and is open to the public every Saturday night from the beginning of May through the end of October. The Star Bright Saturday Night Programs begin at dusk and include program presentations on astronomy, tours of the observatory, and (if the skies are clear) viewing through the various telescopes of the moon, planets, stars, star clusters and more! A donation of $6 per adult and $4 per child is suggested to help support the observatory and allow it to continue operations open to the public.
Hope to see you tomorrow night and always keep looking up!
I’m an early riser. I’m always up before the sun. Some mornings, like this morning, I wake up to obscured skies, clouds reflecting the ruddy golden light of Kansas City in the southeast from my bedroom window.
I put an appointment on my calendar earlier this week with an alert to remind me to go chasing planets after sunset on Tuesday evening. I make sure to check Astronomy and Sky & Telescope magazines’ websites for their ‘The Sky This Week’ observing articles and place the interesting (and observable from my location) items on my calendar. Here’s the paragraph for Tuesday evening from Astronomy’s web site:
Tuesday, August 21 – Our trio of bright evening objects — Saturn, Mars, and Spica — forms a pretty equilateral triangle (5° on a side) in the southwestern sky after sunset. But the highlight of the scene tonight is a gorgeous crescent Moon that hangs just 4° below Mars. Binoculars provide the best view of this celestial gathering. Look closely and you’ll notice the objects’ different colors. The Moon’s color depends largely on conditions in Earth’s atmosphere and could be anywhere from white (under a dry, haze-free sky) to yellow or even slightly orange. Sunlight reflecting off Saturn’s clouds has a golden glow while Mars’ ruddy deserts cast an orange hue. Blue-white Spica generates its own light from a scorching surface nearly four times hotter than the Sun’s.
∞ ∞ ∞
Terry and Sean had retreated to the band room for rehearsal and I sat slogging my way through the 49th Parallel, a British WWII film released in the United States under the title The Invaders. I recorded it a couple of weeks ago off the TCM channel. It drags and I still haven’t finished it. So when my phone buzzed with the text message alert, I jumped, literally, at the chance to stop watching the film and start looking up at the sky.
I took my camera gear and got in the van. I couldn’t take the Bonneville because Sean’s car happened to be parked in front of the garage. I didn’t mind taking the van; it’s what I drive every weekday anyway. I left the house at 8:20, about fifteen minutes after sunset, so the western sky still shown with twilight. I could clearly see the bright waxing crescent moon, but could not yet see Saturn, Mars or Spica. I drove west and southwest from Lansing, trying to find a spot clear of trees on top of a hill to setup the camera.
I ended up driving almost an hour all over the middle of Leavenworth County and even through the small unincorporated town of Jarblo. I never did find a satisfactory location. I finally stopped in the parking lot of the High Prairie Church at the corner of 187th street and the end of Eisenhower Road. The church had blazing bright lights illuminating their building, but I parked far away at the north end of the parking lot and used the van as a shield. I took several photos with various settings for about ten to fifteen minutes. I took a few minutes to just look around at the night sky from this location, liking the clear 360 degree visibility (lack of trees and less light pollution, if you didn’t look towards the church building). I could clearly see the constellations Scorpius, Sagittarius, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major, but still only about half the stars in Ursa Minor. I could not yet see Pegasus as it still needed another hour or two to rise out of the east.
I packed up the camera gear and headed home, using Eisenhower Road to get back to Lansing. I parked the van, noting that Sean’s car still sat in the driveway. I returned to the living room, unpaused the 49th Parallel and again attempted to finish the film. Within five minutes, Terry and Sean came upstairs and Sean said his goodbyes. I asked Terry if he had even noticed that I’d been gone for an hour. He had that ‘deer in the headlights’ look that answered my question well enough.
I stopped my feeble attempt to finish the movie and instead switched to the season premiere of Top Gear, an episode featuring a battle between the three big American auto makers to produce a successor to the reigning but retiring police vehicle of choice: the Ford Crown Victoria. The Stig, driving a minivan, managed to evade all three Crown Vics, shaming the hosts (and the cars they were driving). That initial segment ended in a free-for-all demolition derby of the retiring behemoths. I made sure to Tweet the abuse to a friend who still owns (and loves) his Crown Victoria.
By the time we finished watching Top Gear, I realized I was up way past my bedtime. I retreated upstairs and crashed.
∞ ∞ ∞
I hit the snooze button a couple of times this morning, not happy at all with the shortened sleep. I made a strong pot of Irish Blend tea to take with me during the morning commute so I wouldn’t nod off and disrupt my riders with an accident or off-road excursion. I did remember to grab my camera’s memory card so I could download and review the photos I’d taken the previous evening.
Click photo for rest of album
I re-read the paragraph on the Astronomy.com web page and decided to test the equilateral triangle theory on my photos of Mars-Saturn-Spica. I used a nice clear plastic ruler to measure, on my laptop screen, the distance in centimeters between the three corners of the triangle. The distance between Saturn and Spica and Saturn and Mars appeared to be identical. But the distance between Mars and Spica was greater by 1.5 to 2 centimeters. So, technically, my photo did not confirm the observation of an imaginary equilateral triangle. Perhaps earlier in the day (or even the previous day), Mars might have been in the exact position to be equidistant visually from Saturn and Spica, but not last night at a quarter past nine o’clock.
I still hope to net Neptune this weekend, but my chances are looking slim. The weather forecast for the next few days includes thunderstorms. Ironic, that, since my next night to volunteer at Powell Observatory is this coming Saturday. This would be my third night of the public season, and if overcast, would make it two out of three times cloudy.
Friday evening I had my first opportunity to really dig in and learn about the telescope I borrowed from my astronomy club. A week ago, Terry and I returned to Kansas City to meet one of the club members at the Warko observatory on the roof of Royall Hall on campus at UMKC. I put in a request to borrow an eight inch Dobsonian telescope (shown at left) to compare and contrast its light gathering abilities with my own ETX-90 (a Maksutov-Cassegrain type telescope). I had high hopes since the aperture on the XT8 is more than twice as big. On the other hand, the ETX-90 is lighter. I drove the van, having hidden the middle set of seats in the subfloor, to make the initial transport of the telescope as easy as possible.
Fast forward an entire week to another Friday evening. After a quick rather disappointing dinner at the local Dairy Queen, Terry and I returned home to separate activities: he to a strings-only practice for one of his bands and me to setting up the loaner scope.
Orion SkyQuest XT8 base
I moved the base into the great room (so called because it’s the biggest room in the house and has a high vaulted ceiling with a floor-to-ceiling corner fireplace). I then re-read the instruction manual, paying close attention to the section dealing with placing the optical tube on the base. The tube weighs just a bit over twenty pounds (the base is a couple of pounds heavier). I picked up the tube, holding it vertically, and rested it gingerly on the bumper stops. I inserted the tension and retaining knobs per the directions and then tested the altitude and azimuth mobility. The base seemed to stick a bit, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome with some nudging.
I attached the finderscope to the optical tube, but did not attempt to adjust it until later, when the tube would be outside and I could find an object to orient on a suitable distance away from my site. I removed the dust cover cap for the tube and for the eyepiece in anticipation for the next phase: collimation
When the mirrors are properly aligned, the view down the focuser drawtube should look like the graphic above (for the XT8 telescope).
I peered down the optical tube, past the secondary mirror and its spider support system at the large eight inch mirror nestled in the bottom. A small faint circle was inscribed on the surface of the mirror, assumedly in the exact center. I stepped around to the side of the tube and stared down through the eyepiece opening, where I could clearly see my own eye and the small circle mentioned above. My pupil and the circle did not line up exactly, as they should have (see diagram above left).
Upon further reading, and searching through the boxes and bags that the telescope came in, I could not find the collimation cap referenced in the instruction manual: “This cap is a simple cap that fits on the focuser drawtube like a dust cap, but has a hole in the center and a reflective inner surface. The cap helps center your eye so that collimation is easier to perform.” I forged ahead, hoping I could get the mirror aligned ‘close enough’ for some test observing later that night.
I followed the instructions carefully, reading and re-reading and comparing what I was seeing through the focuser drawtube with the examples provided in the manual. I decided the secondary mirror didn’t need any adjustments, just the primary mirror. The locking thumbscrews on the back of the mirror were already loosened, so I began experimenting with small turns of the larger thumbscrews to adjust the tilt of the primary mirror. I eventually got the small circle in the middle and tightened the locking thumbscrews down. Now to move the unit outside to align the finderscope.
I tilted the tub vertical, grasped the convenient handle on the back of the base with my right hand, keeping the tube vertical with my lefthand. I walked slowly out the back door on the patio and down to the lower level of my back yard, away from (as much as that is possible) the surrounding trees (mine and my neighbors). I needed to find an object about a quarter of a mile away to align the finderscope. Because I live in a valley (Fawn Valley to be precise), everything, including the ground, is up from my backyard, and most of the horizon is blocked by houses and trees. I could barely see the road leading up the hill to where City Hall stands, a couple of blocks to my south. That would have to do. I quickly and easily got the finderscope dialed in.
Now, I had to wait for darkness to fall. I brought out my eyepieces (the three that came with the scope I left in the box with the solar filter) so they and the scope could reach a temperature equilibrium with the outside environment. I went back inside and reviewed the Astro Quest observing award object list and my sky atlas to determine a short list of objects to observe before the moon rose high enough to wash out the night sky.
At half past nine, I went back outside, knowing I’d be able to find Saturn and Mars in the southwestern sky. I did and quickly tried nearly every eyepiece I had, from a 30 mm down to a 9 or a 4 mm. I doubled a couple of those using a 2x barlowe lens. I could clearly see the Cassini division in the rings, but did not try to discern any cloud variances on Saturn’s surface.
I pointed the scope at Mars next, but again, while a bright ruddy object, the red planet still seemed just the size of a pinhead, no matter how much magnification I attempted to throw at it. I guess I need to ask some club members for assistance with seeing well enough to find the polar ice caps. Perhaps I’m just too late in the year, since Mars now sets an hour or two after sunset and I’m looking through so much thick, dirty, hazy, humid air.
I could tell the moon had risen, but still remained low in the east, hidden behind houses and my tall pin oak in my front side yard. My observing goals for the evening included three multiple star systems. The first one I had actually observed when I first got the ETX-90 back in October 2010. The middle star of the handle of the Big Dipper is actually an optical double star, Mizar-Alcor. Terry joined me in observing this popular duo.
My second observing goal could be found in the constellation Lyra, containing the brightest star in the summer sky, Vega, and one of the three stars that form the asterism commonly referred to as the Summer Triangle. Finding Vega turned out to be easy. Correctly adjusting the movement of the telescope when aimed directly overhead, not so easy. I had to run back inside to find my red flashlight and grab my reading classes and sky atlas before attempting to star hop the very short distance from Vega to Epsilon Lyrae, also known as the Double Double. In hindsight, I also had forgotten to confirm how many degrees field of view the finderscope provided me (five degrees from the spec page of the instruction manual read this morning). Because of the light pollution around my house and the rising nearly full moon, I could only see Vega and the beta and gamma stars of Lyra. I could clearly see a triangle in the finderscope with one of the three stars Vega for sure, but which one was the Double Double? I may have observed it last night, but I’m not entirely sure. I plan to retry tonight, provided the predicted thunderstorm activity fades before ten o’clock or soon after.
Albireo (courtesy Wikipedia)
My final observing objective also appeared almost directly overhead, this time in the constellation Cygnus. The head of the swan (Beta Cygni also known as Albiero) is a striking colorful double star that I easily found and observed for a few minutes. Terry also took a quick look, but opted to let the mosquitoes and chiggers feast on me instead of him. Since the moon would soon escape the defense put up by my pin oak, I asked Terry to help me carry the telescope back into the house while I held the red flashlight overhead to light our path.
I put all the eyepieces back in their cases and all the dust caps on all the openings of the telescope. I recorded two of my three observations on my Astro Quest sheets. Terry, Apollo, Lexy and I all retired to bed and left the moon to play by itself through the short summer night.
Some pros and cons about the Dobsonian telescope: I like the improved light gathering capabilities. I love the finderscope (it’s a very good quality one), but would love it more if it had a right-angle viewer. I did not like the height of the eyepiece on the side of the tube. I will need to get a portable stool to lean against. My back is still aching this morning from the constant bent over position I found myself in last night.
Overall, I enjoyed my first foray among the stars with the SkyQuest. I did not use the Intelliscope handheld device that would have assisted in identifying and locating objects. I will save that adventure for another night, possibly at a darker site.
The Astronomical Society of Kansas City will be onsite at Union Station’s Science City with telescopes and volunteers. The planetarium will air the NASA event live just after midnight.
Waxing Crescent Moon During Twilght (23 July 2012)
Despite a withering 103 degree temperature during the seven o’clock hour yesterday evening, I drug out my telescope and camera gear to the backyard in anticipation of an early evening planetary and lunar line-up. Terry grilled some chicken while I setup the scope, attached it to the portable battery and got the Autostar configured with the current date and time (almost straight up 8:00 pm). With forty minutes to go until sunset, I could clearly see the waxing crescent moon (see photo above), but the telephoto on my camera just couldn’t get me close enough to my lunar observing goal for the evening.
As I continue pursuing the Astro Quest observing award, created in 1995 by the ASKC Education Committee, I wanted to focus on the lunar section this month. The first item visible after a new moon happened to be the crater Hercules. Over the weekend, I researched all the lunar objects listed on the Astro Quest observing challenge, seeking images of the items first. I then determined I needed to find a lunar atlas. I have one for stars and deep sky objects (my handy Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas), but not a lunar one. Thanks to Google, I found the open source software called Virtual Moon Atlas, downloaded and installed it. I like it. The software makes it very easy to find features on the face of the moon and shows the current moon phase for my date/time and location.
I knew where to find the Hercules crater. Using my red dot finder scope, I honed the telescope in on the upper quadrant of the lit portion of the waxing crescent moon. Remembering to flip the image of the moon left to right in my head, I found the Hercules, and Atlas, craters easily. I spent several minutes using various eyepieces and barlows to zoom in for a closer look. I forgot to take a small portable table out with me to the backyard, so I didn’t have anything handy to take notes of my observations. I must get in the habit of doing this, if I plan to pursue other more stringent observing awards sanctioned by the Astronomical League.
I opted to mount my DSLR on the back of my telescope. I took a half dozen photos, none of which, upon downloading, were focused very well (grrrr). I selected the best of the bunch, cropped, labelled and uploaded it:
Hercules and Atlas Craters
By this time, Terry had finished grilling supper, so I retired to the cool, air conditioned dining room to consume honey garlic grilled chicken and grilled Italian garlic bread with rice and Asian-style vegetables. He thoughtfully brewed some sun tea earlier in the day so I enjoyed two or three glasses of iced tea as well, knowing that I planned to return outside to the heat for more observing.
After dinner, I returned to the backyard, where I could now see Saturn, Spica and Mars, as predicted by various astronomy alerts I’d received earlier in the day. I captured the southwestern horizon at 9:30 pm in Lansing, Kansas from Astronomy magazine‘s StarDome Plus Java applet to share here. I could see another star, besides Spica, above Mars, but I’m not exactly sure which one in the constellation Virgo it might have been.
Before shutting down the telescope and returning the camera to it’s tripod, and a normal lens with a wider field of view, I turned the ETX90 towards Saturn for a quick look. I did take one photo of the ringed gas giant, which turned out better than I thought it would:
I also tried again to see the polar ice cap on Mars, but the ETX90 just couldn’t provide enough light or magnification (through the eyepieces and barlows I own) to get much bigger than the head of a pin. I could clearly tell I was not looking at a star and that the color reflected back to my eye was a ruddy orangy pink, but I could not discern any other features of the Red Planet.
The moon shone just a tad too bright to easily capture the fainter Saturn and Mars in a single photograph. Of the dozen or so shots I took with various aperture settings, shutter and film speeds, I only found one that appeared adequate:
By ten o’clock, I had all the equipment back in the air conditioned house. I had voluntarily sweated outside during triple digit heat for nearly three hours to make a few astronomical observations. I spent a few blessedly cool moments sitting in front of the fan before downloading, reviewing, editing and uploading the photos I’d taken. Soon after, I fell into bed (near eleven o’clock and two hours past my bedtime), but tossed and turned all night long. When the alarm sounded at five o’clock, I slapped snooze three times until it forced me awake at half past the hour.
Another day, a Tuesday this time, and another triple digit heat index predicted for the Heart of America. Autumn can not arrive too soon.
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.
Ursa Major (aka the Big Dipper)
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.
Leo Triplet (photo via Wikipedia)
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.
I spent a lazy Sunday writing blog entries and emails, reading an ebook and watching the best bits of an old movie (Hatari! from 1962). I kept one eye on the clock and the other one on the sun because I did not want to miss the opportunity to photograph the conjunction between Jupiter and the Crescent Moon (the moon passed within three degrees of Jupiter last night). I had witnessed a similar conjunction last month when I went hunting for Mercury and caught it.
I had read earlier in the day that you can sometimes see Jupiter before the sun sets with your naked eye. I could easily see the moon and Venus before sunset, but try as I might I could not discern Jupiter amidst the twilight glare, even though the skies were exceptionally clear, free of clouds and haze and the wind seemed calm or non-existent. I switched my camera from it’s normal lens to the telephoto and took closeups of the moon in the hopes that I would later be able to find Jupiter once I downloaded the photos. I proved that theory this morning with the following photo:
First Glimpse of Jupiter and the crescent Moon (bisected by a power line)
I spent the next hour taking the occasional snapshot of the triangular conjunction and several planes that flew near or through the area. To view most of the photos (the ones worthy of uploading) in an album (or a slideshow), click on this link.
I packed up the camera and tripod at about half past eight and traipsed back inside. I returned to my library and finished my ebook just a minute shy of ten o’clock. I needed to charge my Nook Color, which required descending downstairs again. Since I was up and halfway to the band room, I decided to drag the camera and tripod back outside in an attempt to photograph the constellation Leo and the visiting Mars. I had to switch back to the normal lens as I could not get the entire constellation in the field of view available through the telephoto. I took three or four snapshots of Leo and Mars, but I could not see the stars very well through the viewfinder or the preview display on the back of the camera. I just had to cross my fingers and hope that my efforts had captured enough of the stars to clearly see the outline of Leo. The best of the photos turned out to be the three second exposure shown here:
Mars in Leo (Sun 25 Mar 2012)
This is the same photograph edited to add lines to outline Leo and a label for Mars:
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 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.
M74 spiral galaxy
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).
Andromeda Galaxy (M31) as well as M32 (another galaxy)
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.
Pleiades (M45)
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.
Beehive Cluster (M44)
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.
A quick shout-out to everyone in the Kansas City metro area to come on down to the Powell Observatory tomorrow night.
