Moon – Page 7 – Into the West

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]

Lower Sixties in Mid-January … Unreal

All that is left of West Kay — What's Left of the Street I Used to Live On (no longer has access to Main Street at the top of the hill)

I work up early Sunday morning. Nothing unusual for me, really, I try to wake up at the same time every morning, regardless of whether I work or not. I flipped on the Wii to do my morning weigh in. I’ve discovered in the last couple of weeks that contrary to my own belief, I eat less on weekends than weekdays. Perhaps because I’m more busy or distracted by housework and errands or fun stuff (like the benefit concert Saturday night). I am steadily losing the pounds, slowly but surely (or safely as both the Wii Fit Plus program and SparkPeople website reassure me). I decided to adjust my Yoga and Training routine to shorten it, with a goal to do roughly fifteen minutes every morning after my weigh-in. I’m finding it very easy to insert my cardio into my daily routine. It’s the strength training that’s tougher (in more ways than one).

Since I thought Terry had had a rough night with no sleep since he crawled into bed after five in the morning, I let him sleep and opted to attend church remotely via WFC‘s online campus. The lead teach pastor started a new sermon series last week urging us all to know Jesus (as opposed to knowing about Jesus). The second sermon of the series focused on Jesus as Creator. My notes haven’t made it online yet at my other blog, but will sometime today. Our plan had been to attend church at WFC’s Speedway campus, which just happens to take place inside the Legends 14 Theater. We prefer the praise band that leads worship there and had hoped to take in ‘We Bought a Zoo‘ at the first showing of the day. As I learned when Terry woke up around ten o’clock, we could have gone had I woken him up. But I did not know that he had actually slept most of the night in front of the television. Oh, well. We can still see the movie on Monday.

I started preparing the marinade for grilling our chicken. Since the temperature outside approached the unheard of lower sixties (in the middle of January in Kansas … beyond unbelievable), we decided to fire up the outside grill. Or rather I did. Terry supervised since he’s still only got the use of one arm for the next few weeks. After the chicken had marinated for over an hour, I placed it on the preheated grill and lamented not purchasing some asparagus while at the grocery store Saturday afternoon. Steamed broccoli and a spinach and baby spring mix salad would have to do. Thirty minutes of grilling later, we had perfectly cooked Honey Garlic Chicken to savor.

Terry and I had started watching a Christian movie I had sitting in our Netflix streaming queue while cooking lunch. The Encounter proved disappointing for me at least. Terry expected company to arrive soon after we finished, so I decided Roxy and I would go for a walk.

I walked at an easy, slow pace to accommodate her arthritis (and the fact that she hadn’t been walked since Rachelle returned to Texas last week). We crossed Main Street and headed west on West Mary Street, but rather than continuing west, I turned right on a newly re-installed access road that cut parallel to Main Street back north to Kansas Street, crossing over West Kay Street, and the house we rented prior to purchasing the home we now own on Bambi Street. We turned around at Kansas Street and decided to climb the hill back up to Main Street via the abandoned West Kay Street’s crumbling pavement (see photo above).

Roxy did very well walking on my left, even with cars and trucks whizzing by her not ten feet away. Of course, by that time, she just wanted to get back home and take a nap on the memory foam topper on the hideaway bed. She perked up and even pulled me most of the way home because she spied another woman with two dogs (one small dog and a medium-sized dog) about a block ahead of us. I even thought about taking both Roxy and Apollo to the dog park, but worried that Roxy always overdoes herself chasing after the little dogs and the younger ones. It usually takes her a day or two to recover from her dog park adventures.

After Terry’s friend departed, we sat down to watch another movie, this one a foreign film called ‘Point Blank.’ I liked it and did not realize that French films could be just as good as an action flick produced in the States. A good story (if predictable) but better than average acting (even having to read English subtitles). I’ll write a separate review later today.

For dinner, Terry wanted to use the last of the chicken pot pie filling and gravy. I had another tube of croissants (of a different type) so I improvised some turnovers by placing the filling (without any extra gravy) in one triangle and placing a second triangle of pastry over it and pinching the edges together. I had enough filling for four turnovers. I popped them in the oven for twenty minutes at 375 degrees and warmed up the gravy when I took them out of the oven. Not bad. For our after dinner movie, we watched the re-broadcast of the Hallmark Channel’s most recently original film: ‘A Taste of Romance‘ – better than average and a bit of a tear jerker a couple of times.

I checked my e-mail and social networking sites before heading off to bed, noting that before dawn on Monday I had an interesting conjunction of moon, planet and star I could witness. I stepped outside this morning, first through my front door (but couldn’t see the moon at all from that vantage point), then out my back patio door and looked directly south. And what did I see? The same exact thing displayed in the graphic to the right. Saturn, the quarter crescent moon and the star Spica. Sadly, I couldn’t locate my binoculars nor did I have my tripod available (it’s in the trunk of the car). Not that attempting to photograph the moon (always too bright a light source) with the dimmer planet and star in the same from would have resulted in any post-worthy photographs. A grand sight to behold first thing in the today on such a clear, still, not-quite cold morning in mid-January.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas

Second workday of the new year. Gearing up for all the projects slated for 2012. Busier (which makes the time go faster) and only one meeting (that went longer than scheduled, of course). Basically, I survived another day at the office.

Hump day (also known as Wednesday) is also double-punch day at Planet Sub. Since one of my New Year’s resolutions is a healthier lifestyle, I reviewed the Nutritional Information on their website before calling in my order. While my second favorite sandwich (the Planet BBQ) had fewer calories than my first favorite sandwich (the Super Hero), it had gobs and gobs of sodium. So it was a toss-up between the Tuna (without mayo) and the Roast Beef (without mayo or cheese). The tuna won because it was the lowest in sodium. Beautiful walk to and from Planet Sub thanks to the unseasonably warm weather we’re enjoying during this first week of January.

Even though Terry’s right hand is in a splint, WolfGuard will meet tonight to practice with the new drummer. We decided to skip a home-cooked meal by Chef Rachelle in the interest of saving time. We ate a quick supper at Mr. Goodcents (yeah, I know, two sandwich places in the same day). I reviewed their Nutritional Information brochure and couldn’t find a single sandwich (besides the veggie one) that had less than 1,500 mg of sodium. Way, way too high for my diet. The lowest calorie and lowest sodium item that appealed to my appetite ended up being penne pasta with marinara.

On the way back home, we took a side-trip to Dillons to pickup a prescription for Terry and grab a few items. We made it back home with plenty of time to spare before the band members started arriving.

As the band started rehearsing, I left to take Rachelle to visit some friends. On the way home, I admired the constellation Orion, the waxing moon and enjoyed the unfrigid temperature.

Now that I’m back home, I can wrap up a couple of work projects while being serenaded (several times because practice makes perfect with a new percussionist) of vintage Rush (Finding My Way Home). I’ve still got to squeeze in some cardio before slipping upstairs to read myself to sleep again.

Tomorrow is the final day of the Twelve Days of Christmas. If it was a Friday or a Saturday night, I might be tempted to host a Twelfth Night party. Instead, I’ll probably be attending the local city council meeting, since one of the agenda items tomorrow night deals with the recent appearance (and disappearance) of ‘no parking’ signs in several cul-de-sacs around Lansing (see my previous blog posts for further enlightenment). I can only hope an Epiphany of policy is forthcoming. (Feel free to chortle if you fathom my irony and/or sarcasm).

From Full Moon to Crescent in Less Than Thirty Minutes

I almost overslept this morning. Saturday mornings are like that. Especially when you stay up late to watch a DVD. But something snapped me awake at 5:45 a.m. Probably my daily weather alert text message. I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs and yanked open the patio door. A full moon shone brightly through the bare branches of my backyard silver maple. Good, I still had time to get dressed, steep some tea and throw the tripod and camera in the car. Too bad I forgot my coat, scarf and gloves since the temperature hovered just below or around twenty degrees.

I drove west from my house, watching the moon dip slowly closer to the western horizon. I could still see the brightest stars and Jupiter, but the eastern horizon showed signs of the impending dawn. I continued north along Desoto Road and again west on Eisenhower until I approached an industrial business park. I drove down to the end of the street, but didn’t like the look of the western horizon because the cul-de-sac turnaround had lowered in elevation from Eisenhower Road and trees grew to the west, blocking my line-of-site to the horizon. I retraced my route back to Eisenhower and continued west to 20th street. I found a west facing driveway that dead ended in a clear field with no trees to the west (just a new housing development huddled on the horizon). I setup the tripod and took a few preliminary shots to dial in the camera and decide what settings to use (AWB, shutter, aperture, delayed shutter to minimize shake, etc.)

I got settled down a couple of minutes before the official start of the eclipse. According to the Earthsky post on the lunar eclipse, the official beginning of the event started at 12:46 UTC (that’s 6:46 am Central time for me). The total eclipse would occur at 14:57 UTC (or 8:57 a.m. Central) which unfortunately for me was ninety minutes after the moon set. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac site (which I checked before leaving the house), moonset would occur at 7:29 a.m. Interestingly, the sunrise would occur one minute before moonset, an indication that we are very close to the Winter Solstice (within ten to eleven days to be precise).

I spent the next forty-five minutes snapping photos every five or ten minutes. My dad called me just before seven o’clock, asking me if I’d found a spot. I told him where I was and sheepishly admitted I had forgotten appropriate attire for the cold conditions. Of course, I sat snugly in my car with the motor running and the heater cranked to eighty degrees while sipping my piping-hot tea.

Just a couple of minutes before the mostly eclipsed moon kissed the western horizon, my dad drove up and brought me a jacket and a pair of gloves. To be honest, I hadn’t noticed the cold in my excitement to capture the last few minutes of the eclipse. We chatted for a few minutes, then loaded up the photographic equipment into my car. I returned the jacket and gloves to my dad and we parted ways. He headed north on 20th street, and I returned south to Lansing. I promised Dad I’d upload the photos once I got home. (Follow this link to the raw/uncut/unedited photos I took this morning of the lunar eclipse).

I’ll leave you with what I judge to be the best of the bunch. I only cropped them. I decided against adjusting for brightness or contrast as I don’t have any photo editing software (beyond what comes with Windows 7 and Office 2010). I hope you enjoy them. I’m off to run some errands. Enjoy!

BeginningOfLunarEclipse — Start of Lunar Eclipse (6:45 a.m. Central)

TenMinsIntoEclipse — Ten Minutes Later (6:55 a.m. Central)

TwentyMinsIntoEclipse — Twenty Minutes In (7:05 a.m. Central)

ThirtyMinsIntoEclipse — Thirty Minutes In (7:15 a.m. Central)

HazeAndCloudsStartingToObscureEclipse — Haze and Clouds Obscuring Lunar Eclipse

FiveMinutesToMoonSetAndSunRise — Five Minutes to Moon Set

TwoMinsToMoonSet — Two Minutes to Moon Set

Dog Day Doldrums

Mid-August usually simmers, steeping the Midwest in heat and humidity; yet we’ve been graced with temperatures in the 80s and relatively low humidity. Daily (or nightly) thunderstorms greened up the lawn, found a leak in my new roof (or old chimney) and delayed the second major home improvement project to replace our disintegrating driveway.

My daughter and her boyfriend fled the persistent Texas drought and constant triple-digit temperatures to bask on the beaches of the Bahamas this week. They returned to the Heartland yesterday, making a brief layover at KCI in the early evening. She called us as we were driving to a friend’s 50th birthday party. No word yet if they made it back to Texas (but I’m assuming they did and were just too tired to call).

Roxy, one of our Rottweilers, made a trip to the vet this week, ostensibly to have a stubborn tick removed from her inner left thigh (and also for some advice for her mobility as she ages … she’s over seven or eight years old now). Terry and I found the ‘tick’ Sunday evening. We tried several times to remove it, but could not find the head or legs (only the ‘body’). The vet got a chuckle when he explained that what we thought was a tick was actually a skin tab … it just looked a lot like a tick. I really should have put my reading glasses on Sunday evening and saved poor Roxy the abuse.

Looking east/northeast from Parallel and 110th near the Legends.

I only got to ride in the van one day this week. I took Monday off, rode Tuesday and then drove the van the rest of the week. I saw some fantastic sunrises and tried to snap a few photos with my cell phone (while driving). As we near the autumnal equinox, the sunrise coincides (inconveniently for eastbound drivers) with our commute from Leavenworth to Kansas City. By the time we reach Parallel or State Avenue, the sun sits just above the horizon, so a bit of cloud camouflage eases the eye strain and makes driving safer. Finally, after nearly ten days of driving a loaner van, the vanpool returned our van to us from the repair shop. I opted to swap the vans Friday morning after dropping off the other two riders at Hallmark. I got almost all the way to the Plaza before I realized I’d left my cell phone in the loaner van. The guard at the KCATA garage probably thinks I’m blonde or something.

I missed the Perseid meteor shower, like most of the rest of the United Stats, thanks to a full moon (and hazy clouds or even thunderstorms). My husband sat outside one night this week, but he reported the moon lit up the atmosphere so much, he could hardly see the brightest stars. In fact, he had trouble finding the constellation Cassiopeia, normally very easy to spot as it looks like a W or an M (depending on it’s current rotational position around Polaris). I did spy the waning moon one morning approaching Jupiter and snapped a photo with my cell phone since I was headed to the van and running late (so couldn’t setup the good camera on a tripod for a more professional-looking amateur photo). Saturday morning (early early early), if the clouds had been absent, would have shown Jupiter within five degrees of an even thinner moon.

Wednesday night, WolfGuard auditioned a drummer to replace the drummer/lead singer who recently moved to New Mexico to pursue better employment opportunities. Thursday night, Terry and I ventured into North Kansas city to the other Sears store (as opposed to the one down south on Metcalf). Sears seems to be the sole remaining tenant of the dying Antioch Center shopping mall. We’re still wrangling with Sears over a refrigerator we purchased in May, so we went looking at different, hopefully better models. We also stopped at two office supply shops to look at shredders, during which a beautiful sunset occurred and once again I only had my cell phone camera with me (sigh).

We wrapped up the week spending some time celebrating the life of a good friend at his 50th birthday party. We had a great time visiting with old friends and heckling the over-the-hill dude. I’ve still got a couple of years to catch up with him.

All Dogs Go To Heaven or Is That Heavenly Dogs?

I rode the astronomical roller coaster yesterday. I started Wednesday with an e-mail from Celestron warning me of a week delay in shipping my new finderscope. Since the forecast for the rest of the week looked thunderous, I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. Later, in the afternoon, I received the first of many calls from my father, reporting he had received the ‘new’ ETX-90 base motor drive he won on eBay last week. He hooked up the optics from the other ETX-90, trained the motors per the manual, and happily reported smooth, quiet operation. He trained the telescope on the Moon later in the afternoon to study the tracking capabilities of the drives.

Astronomical Society of Kansas City — ASKC

I found one of my expected shipments when I arrived home from work. I ordered the Meade specific cable and serial adapter for the Autostar from a telescope/optics supplier. I also found a large manila envelope from the Astronomical Society of Kansas City. It included details about my new membership, upcoming meetings, local observation sites and other benefits and learning opportunities. The next general meeting, open to the public, is a week from Saturday (April 23rd at 7:00 pm), held in room 111 of Royal Hall on the campus of UMKC, about a block west of 52nd Street and Rockhill Road. A talk on Solar Astronomy entitled “Solar Observing Basics,” will be presented by Neta Apple.

My husband and I ate a quick easy supper of frozen pizza (yeah, so healthy, and we forgot to start off with a salad!). The band started arriving, so I settled down in the great room to catchup on three days worth of missed Jeopardy! episodes. Monday’s game, first round, included a tricky River City category that stung one contestant several times, since the first four of the five answers were ‘What is the Rhine?” Other fun categories were Homer (Simpson)’s Odyssey, Ends in “SS” and Measure This! which included the clue “Contrary to its name, this signature cowboy accessory would actually hold about 96 ounces.” Monday’s Double Jeopardy! round had some great categories, some of which I cleaned up on, including “EU” first, Blue Literature, Amendment Highlights and Ancient Egypt. Final Jeopardy! round: Goegraphic Adjectives stumped me but all three contestants answered correctly. Tuesday’s game had some tough first round clues in A Capital Idea? and the Autobahn Society. Double Jeopardy! Round fun categories included Fictional Movie Bands and Men in Pink. Final Jeopardy! Round: Baseball & The Presidency again stumped me and one contestant.

Midway through Wednesday’s game, I received my second call from my father, crooning about the moon. I knew I had some work to finish remotely last night and some more DVR cleaning to accomplish, and I thought the forecast for last night included increasing cloud cover, so I declined his invitation to come join him in lunar observation. Even though I had paused the replay of Jeopardy!, I didn’t really pay much attention to the first round, besides the categories Thinking Green and Virgin Berths. I paid more attention to Double Jeopardy! round including the fun category Lost Texts from Ben Franklin, Picture “D”is and You’re So Colorful. Yet another difficult Final Jeopardy! Round category: Nobel Peace Prize Winners, where all three contestants and myself could not guess the correct two Prime Ministers.

The band took a break from rehearsing and I decide to forgo working remotely. I changed clothes, hopped in the car and phoned my dad. I arrived at his house around half past eight o’clock, with a sky still showing after sunset glow and the moon diffused by some scattered thin clouds. I had brought the box with my cable, the USB/Serial converter cable, and a couple of Astronomy books with me: a small throw-it-in-your-purse Field Guide and a large lift-with-your-legs-not-your-back full-color Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, which I hadn’t even cracked open yet since I checked it out from the library a few days ago.

Rather than traipsing through his house, which appeared to have many bright lights on in the living room, dining room and perhaps the kitchen, I slipped through the east side gate and made my way cautiously past the thorny rose bushes to his backyard. Even though last week was the ‘official’ Global Lunar Week, we gazed at the moon, watching the clouds pass quickly in front of it’s bright surface, still giving us ample detail to review. I noted the quietness and ease of movement in the motors and looked forward to attempting an actual alignment, if the clouds cooperated. Eventually, the northern celestial hemisphere cleared enough for us to dimly spy Polaris (the clouds, the streetlights and the US Penitentiary conspire to enhance the glow north of my father’s house). Once we could see Polaris, we adjusted our polar mounting and attempted an alignment (as best we could since Arcturus was obscured by thin clouds and trees to the northeast and Capella was the only star visible in it’s constellation, making it difficult to determine if in fact, it was Capella).

To test the alignment, we told the Autostar to “goto” or find Sirius, colloquially known as the ‘Dog Star’, the brightest star in the night sky in the constellation Canis Major, and a near neighbor to our solar system at a distance of only 2.6 parsecs (or 8.6 light years). Considering we were unable to confirm the actual alignment through Arcturus or Capella, the Autostar still managed to get Sirius in the viewfinder scope field of view, allowing us to fine-tune and center Sirius in the eyepiece of the telescope. We had difficulty finding Orion, not usually a problem since Sirius and Orion’s belt ‘line up’ in the night sky. Dad finally spotted Orion’s belt, among the trees to the west and partly obscured by the clouds. So, continuing our alignment test tour, we selected Betelgeuse as our next stop from the Autostar. Again, the viewfinder held the image of the star, but not quite in the eyepiece. We centered and synced again.

The only other star visible to us, thanks to the moon’s continued brilliance, was the last point of the Winter Triangle, Procyon in the Canis Minor constellation. Yes, in honor of my two Rottweilers, Roxy and Apollo, we spent some time in both the ‘greater dog’ constellation Canis Major and the ‘smaller dog’ of Canis Minor. While we were in this section of the sky, I pulled out the Field Guide to see if there was anything worth hunting to test the telescope and Autostar alignment further. Using the red flashlight, I found the appropriate star atlas and read the accompanying paragraph of local attractions. The Beehive Cluster, also known as Praesepe (and so listed in the Autostar, but we used it’s Messier objects number (M44) in the menu system). This cluster, in the constellation Cancer, can be viewed under dark skies with a low power telescope or even binoculars. However, the Moon’s brightness and the hazy thin clouds were conspiring to grey-out everything in the area, except lone Procyon.

By this time, Saturn had risen high enough in the east-southeast, and the clouds had receded, for us to observe it. Again, the Autostar successfully re-oriented on the ringed gas giant and we spent quite a while and several eyepieces basking in the glory of it’s rings. Using the 9mm eyepiece, I was able to see the shadow of the rings upon the surface of Saturn and the gap between Saturn and it’s rings (but not the gaps between the rings). A large tree limb interfered for ten or fifteen minutes with our further observation, during which I never really did find Titan. In checking Sky & Telescope‘s web applet for Saturn’s Moons this morning, and subtracting about twelve hours, Titan may have been behind Saturn or it’s rings for me to find it in my telescope.

We returned triumphantly to the lunar landscape, glowing gloriously almost directly overhead by this time (sometime after ten o’clock or even half-past ten). I again used the Field Guide to locate a map of the moon so we could identify some of the craters near or on the terminator. We gravitated towards the craters around Mare Imbrium, spotting Plato (the dark ‘spot’ in the upper right-hand portion of the picture), Archimedes, Artistillius, Autolycus, Copernicus and Kepler (perhaps … not completely sure and it’s not strictly near Mare Imbrium). As the clouds were closing in on the moon, Dad and I started tearing down the telescope and relocating all the equipment, lenses and books inside and I finally headed home for a mere six hours of sleep, dreaming about rings, impact craters and distant binary stars.

Second Saturday Saturn

Despite a pre-weekend forecast for thunderstorms, Saturday stubbornly stayed humid (to the point of Midwestern Mugginess), windy (gotta love that Gulf air from the south) and sunny (well, more hazy than clear, but not really overcast). After walking Apollo shortly after sunrise, I resolved to remain indoors and further test my new central air conditioner. I wiled away the day with housework, reading and movies (three of them, or was it four?).

I finished watching Centurion via Netflix streaming (aka Watch Instantly) around nine o’clock. I relinquished the remote to my husband so he could watch either UFC or F1 and headed north to my Dad’s house for some moon and Saturn observing.

I left the Meade ETX-90 with him last week to see if it needed a tune-up for it’s drive mechanism. I found some helpful websites and he did crack open the case to confirm everything looked in good shape (nothing obviously broken or breaking). So, tonight’s experiment involved attempting an accurate polar (or equatorial) mounting of the ETX on the field tripod. Before the sun set, he had leveled and oriented the telescope per the instructions for the telescope, tripod and Autostar computer controller.

I arrived to a darker sky with less haze than I observed last week. The moon had about a third of a crescent. Dad had the telescope tracking the moon (for several minutes) so I enjoyed reviewing the craters visible along the terminator. Absolutely stunning! I really should have grabbed the digital camera out of my car and snapped a few photos.

Somehow, we disrupted the Autostar and lost the date/time and tracking as we fumbled in the dark. We spent some time realigning the telescope using the Easy align feature of the Autostar, first confirming and centering the telescope in the ‘home’ position with Polaris visible through the eyepiece. Unfortunately, the stock viewfinder that came with the ETX-90 is unusable in the polar mount ‘home’ position because the telescope is 90 degrees to the base. You can’t get your head between the end of the telescope and the top of the drive mechanism! I have a remedy for this coming soon. On Friday I ordered a red dot finderscope from Celestron that I hope will eliminate this problem.

The first star on the alignment procedure was Arcturus (in the constellation Bootes), easily found in the northeastern-eastern sky by following the arc of the Big Dipper, and the brightest star in the northern hemisphere and fourth brightest star in the night sky (only Sirius appeared brighter last night in the southeastern night sky). The second stop on the alignment tour asked for Capella. I used the Field Guide to the Stars and Planets that I checked out from the Kansas City Public Library last week for a star chart containing that star. I learned that Capella is one of the brighter stars in the constellation Auriga (and later at home I learned Capella is also the sixth brightest star in the night sky and third brightest in the northern celestial hemisphere.

Even though Capella is bright, with the moon in the same region of the sky, with increasing haziness and wind, I could only see with my naked eye one other star in Auriga — the beta star in that constellation. I hesitantly told dad, who was steering the telescope with the Autostar and the viewfinder, that the right-most bright star above the moon was probably Capella. He centered it and we were ‘aligned’ again. Then we told the Autostar to ‘go to’ Saturn. The ETX got close, or close enough for us to find it through the light pollution (courtesy of the southeast sky and Leavenworth, Lansing and Kansas City), the increasing haziness and the tree limbs of the tall trees along the eastern edge of dad’s property.

We observed Saturn for fifteen or twenty minutes, trying various eyepieces and barlows. I had forgotten to check before leaving my laptop the location of Titan in relation to Saturn so I can’t confirm or deny whether I actually saw the moon Titan. What amazed me about this observation period was the ability to continue to observe Saturn through the telescope, even through tree limbs and clouds! I often couldn’t find Saturn with my naked eye, yet the telescope tracked it nearly flawlessly (so long as I didn’t use too high a magnification eyepiece).

We packed up the telescope once we could no longer see any stars with our eyes. Even the moon was shrouded in haze and thin clouds.

Once I returned home, I re-researched polar mounting the ETX on the field tripod. My dad had read and thought the latitude adjust on the tripod meant you had to subtract your current latitude from 90 degrees. So, instead of setting the adjustment equal to our latitude (of 39 degrees), we tried setting it to 51 degrees. I did notice that when the telescope attempted to find Arcturus, it was pointed northeast but down below Arcturus by quite a bit. So, I re-read the field tripod’s user manual (via PDF from Meade’s web site) when I got home and confirmed that you set the tripod to your actual latitude, no math necessary. We’ll just have to try it again later. We also plan to re-train the drives in the ETX-90 per instructions in the Autostar manual.

Hazy Lazy Saturday

I motivated myself with the help of Apollo, my wonder-Rott, to take a longer walk this morning. I found my sunglasses (left them in the car two days ago), found the dog leash near my walking shoes, and asked Terry to hang on to Roxy. The minute I latched onto Apollo’s collar with the leash, Roxy set to whining, howling and other piteous moaning sounds made by pathetic spoiled canines.

The sun had barely risen when Apollo and I started swimming, er, I mean walking. Even though the temperature was mild (in the 60s), the humidity was a hefty 87 percent! My sunglasses kept fogging up while walking. Usually, Apollo and I walk north for a couple of blocks to Mary Street and then head west crossing US-73/K-7 and walking within sight of Desoto Road. Instead, we turned back south after crossing the highway and walked through the ‘Town Centre’ area. Along the way I spied some flowering trees:

Of course, being the uninformed arborist, I have no idea what types of trees or shrubs these are, so please educate me!

Once Apollo and I returned home, I checked the forecast for today (well, actually for tonight), hoping for a chance to view Saturn again. If nothing else, the Moon will be spectacular as it reaches it’s quarter crescent stage of waxing-ness.

In the meantime, while the sun is still shining, time to do some housework, clean off the DVR (Formula One weekend eats up so much space so quickly!) and catch up on some reading.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Moon Over My Meade

Just before dusk last night, I walked Roxy (my ‘ditsy’ Rottweiler). I hoped to catch a glimpse of the crescent moon, since the new moon occurred just two days before on Sunday afternoon. I had missed the first crescent on Monday night, mostly because of a large hill and trees to the west of my home. When Roxy and I left the house, the sky had few clouds (just a few in the west) and a slight haze due to the rising humidity this time of year. The clouds made a pretty sunset, but nothing spectacular. Since I’d called my dad the previous evening during dusk, he returned the favor last night while I walked. Neither one of us had spotted the crescent moon.

Just as I approached within a block of my house, I happened to look up quite a bit higher in the western sky than I had been searching, mostly to track a high-flying commercial jet airliner leaving a sunset-enhanced vapor trail. I watched it spear through the faint crescent moon. I called my dad to let him know I had found the moon, but he had just climbed over a fence chasing an errant piece of firewood, so our conversation ended abruptly. Once he retrieved his delinquent wood, he called me back and we both exclaimed at how high the moon was in the western sky (much higher than we anticipated in relation to the sun and only two days since the new moon).

Once I got home, I moved my Meade ETX-90 on it’s field tripod from the master bedroom (where I’d last used it Monday evening in a vain attempt to find the crescent moon from my west-facing second story window) to the backyard. I located a spot with no tall trees to the west and oriented the telescope to peer through the various electrical lines also crossing my westward sky view. I brought only one eyepiece (the 26mm) since the moon is quite a large object and I only need to use that eyepiece as a viewfinder for the digital camera. I attached the adapter ring for the camera and then carefully attached the Pentax K100D to the back of the telescope. This causes stress and a constant downward pull declination gears. I did not plan to use any of the motorized sidereal tracking or other features of the Autostar computer controller. The small finder scope is difficult to use once the camera is attached since your head needs to be where the camera body is. Eventually, I found the crescent moon and took a few snapshots.

I waited about an hour before moving the telescope to the east side of the house in an attempt to view Saturn. Sadly, the haze that plague me earlier while photographing the moon had accumulated into a substantial cloud cover, preventing an unimpeded view of the ringed gas giant.

This morning, I went searching (again) for tips on repairing or tuning up the ETX 90 telescope. I found this helpful article by Jordan Blessing complete with full color photos for tuning up the telescope. Another helpful link, also found at Weasner’s ETX Tech Tips page, advertised a supercharge tune-up (and repair) service offered by the Arkansas Sky Observatory. Lastly, I found a nice classified ads site called Cloudy Nights that had several ETX items posted. I also need to buy at a minimum a half dozen astronomy research and reference books, the first one of which will probably be Sky & Telescope‘s Pocket Sky Atlas.

SGU: Carpio Fatum

After frustrating myself by trying to locate the first sliver of the waxing moon soon after the sunset, I opted to watch the movie ‘Unstoppable‘ at least until SGU was half-finished recording. The movie proved such an adrenaline rush that Terry and I barely had time to blink before it finished after ten o’clock. I hurried off to bed, only to jump back up, remembering that Monday night (April 4th) was the best viewing night for Saturn. I dragged the telescope from my west-facing master bedroom window where I had earlier attempted to spy the sliver of moon to my east-facing ‘green’ room previous occupied by my daughter. I spied Saturn, but the double-pane insulated and probably tinted window glass caused distortion and a double-image. I should have gotten re-dressed and taken the telescope out on the front lawn, but five in the morning comes terribly early on a Tuesday.

I tossed and turned for an hour or two before drifting off. I hit the snooze at least twice before scrambling through my morning routine. I started watching ‘Seizure‘ just shy of 5:30 a.m., giving me at least five minutes slack time after finishing the episode to make it to my vanpool rendezvous. Wednesday morning ratings report: Holding steady with SGA crossover. Follow Monday update: Transcript for ‘Seizure’ episode.

I loved seeing both Robert Picardo (portraying Richard Woolsey) and David Hewlett (as Dr. Rodney McKay). Telford is fast becoming my new ‘Rush’ … the character I love to hate.

Seizure, as with most SGU episode titles, has many meanings and layers. Earth seizing the opportunity to thwart the Lucian Alliance and reconnect with Destiny through the Icharus-type planet Langara, who are reluctant to allow Earth to dial the 9th chevron and risk destroying their world. McKay, typically arrogant and socially inept, affirms his new dialing algorithm eliminates any such risk. Woolsey cautions the military to stand down with respect to the Langarans, but Telford (and Young) refuse to listen to saner diplomatic heads.

Back on Destiny, Amanda and Rush dally digitally and again I really didn’t need to know that much about the binary byplay between the two lovebirds. Rush is pathetic rather than annoying this time around. Amanda takes up lying in her attempt to ‘seize’ Rush for herself (ill-considered and poorly executed, even if her intentions were well-meaning) and Ginn and Eli display courage and integrity in contrast.

A nice well-rounded episode that I’d rate as better than a three but less than a four on a five star scale. I’ll be re-watching this episode later in the week to more fully appreciate some of the nuances I missed on my first rushed viewing. Transcript of last week’s ‘Hope’ episode for those interested found here.