My dad and I ventured out Saturday night to attend the April 2011 general meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City, held on the fourth Saturday of nearly every month at Royal Hall on the campus of UMKC. Dad volunteered to drive from Lansing/Leavenworth to just east of the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. We had a pleasant uneventful drive.
Once we arrived on campus and eventually navigated the one-way streets around Royal Hall to find the entrance to the parking garage, we entered the building and immediately recognized a couple waiting in the hallway outside the lecture room. We stumbled upon old friends from our amateur radio past. We spent several minutes getting reacquainted and catching up. We gravitated towards the lecture hall and sat together.
The first hour of the meeting involved various awards for observing activities, reports on scholarship funding and distributing, status of the DSS (dark sky site), encouragement to try an observing club or activity and brief demonstration of beta testing a recent kit from the NASA‘s Nightsky Network. There was also a brief commercial for a performance called ‘Orbit‘ by Dark Matter scheduled for the first weekend in May at Union Station‘s Gottlieb Planetarium.
CME blast and subsequent impact at Earth
The meat of the meeting came with a presentation on Solar Observing Basics by Neta Apple. Her talk covered safety, first and foremost, various filters (white light, calcium K and hydrogen alpha – her personal preference). an introduction to the interior of our closest star, umbrae, penumbrae, light bridges, granulations, prominences, faculae and solar flares. Neta mentioned a 19th century solar flare, commonly know as the Carrington Event, named for the British amateur astronomer who observed it in 1859. She asked the audience what we thought the result of a large or super flare of similar magnitude to the Carrington Event would do to our technology heavy civilization? While we might survive that Russian roulette with the Sun’s gun, we lack the stockpiles of electrical transformers to replace all those that would be destroyed (estimates predict it would take two years for the Mexican manufacturers to create enough to replace just those lost in the United States alone).
On a happier note, Neta wrapped up with some examples from NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO for short) web site and opened the floor for a brief question and answer period.
By this time, we were approaching the latter half of the nine o’clock hour, and the meeting coordinator (the President was absent, so there was a substitute) decided to de-formalize the scheduled town hall meeting to a social gathering, with refreshments, encouraging attendees to meet their board members and other club regulars. I took the opportunity to quickly skim through the available observatory activities, grabbing the Astronomical League‘s Urban Observatory Club handout, but forgetting to grab ASKC’s Astro Quest one.
I asked a question of the Membership Secretary and then said goodbye to our old amateur radio friends. Dad and I returned to the car and drove home, under cloudy skies. I’m looking forward to ‘opening night‘ at Powell Observatory on Saturday, May 7th, featuring the ‘Galaxies of Spring’ and I hope to see you there!
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.
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.
Backyard Astronomer's Guide
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).
Canis Major
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.
Canis Minor
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.
Saturn eclipsing Sun
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.
Mare Imbrium close-up
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.
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.
The libration of the Moon over a single lunar month.
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.
Bootes
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.
Auriga
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.
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.
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).
Meade ETX-90 and Field Tripod
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.
Crescent Moon (early April 2011)
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.
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.
Seizure (aired 4/4/2011)
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.
I unpacked my telescope this evening and re-read the instructions for polar mounting it to my tripod. Tonight I anticipated the first clear skies in weeks and Saturn made it’s yearly debut in opposition to the Sun. Basically, the Earth is between the Sun and Saturn and for the first time in a couple of years, Saturn’s rings are not ‘on edge’ to us.
Once I re-familiarized myself with my telescope, I took it out front of my house (east side) and used the tips in the article ‘Give me five minutes, and I’ll give you Saturn in April 2011’ to quickly locate Saturn in the eastern sky. Using the arc of the Big Dipper’s handle, I found the bright star Arcturus. Then, I drew an imaginary line (from left to right) from Arcturus to Spica. Almost directly above Spica, was a bright object which I guessed was Saturn.
Even though that section of the sky has the most light pollution (because Lansing, Kansas is 25 miles northwest of the Kansas City, Missouri metropolitan area and I’m also about ten miles west of KCI airport) and a few wispy clouds remained, I easily found Saturn. Terry came out and took a look for a few minutes.
Since I polar mounted my telescope, I decided to try again to use the Autostar tracking device to align, find and track Saturn. The gears still slip and have slack in them, but I don’t have any alternatives, since a call to Meade a couple of weeks ago proved disappointing. Contrary to what I was told last fall, Meade will no longer repair the model I own. They will, of course, sell me a refurbished one for $400.
Anyway, I was too close to the house to do a proper alignment on two stars, but when I told the Autostar to find Saturn, it did get within five or ten degrees of it. Once I got in the neighborhood, I fine-tuned and center Saturn in the eyepiece and set the telescope to autotrack while I had fun observing the rings of Saturn and one of it’s moons (Titan I think). I used a variety of eyepieces, down to a 7mm.
I hope it stays clear the rest of the weekend so I can see the slimmest crescent moon yet (tomorrow morning), Venus and maybe even Mercury (something I’ve yet to see). And of course, Saturn.
According to today’s post at Earthsky, the second full moon of the year, which usually falls in February, can be referred to as the Snow Moon, the Wind Moon, the Blackbear Moon or the Hunger Moon.
I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather today (74 degrees), I setup the telescope and attached the Pentax K100D to it for a couple of full moon snapshots:
Snow Moon Feb 2011
I also took a quick look at the brightest star in the sky … Sirius (no photos yet, still need to have the tracking gears repaired on the Meade).
Next week, as early as the night of the 13th, the Geminid meteor shower returns. A week later, and just in time for the longest night of the year, a total lunar eclipse is visible from four continents and the only total lunar eclipse for 2010.
Saturn and Venus are visible in the early morning hours (before dawn), and Saturn’s rings have returned from a two year hiatus hiding on edge.
I ran to the grocery store after work this evening to pickup supplies for pumpkin pie baking. Finding a parking spot proved challenging as everyone else must have had the same idea I did. I managed to get in and out in less than thirty minutes.
Once home, I scrounged around for the church cookbook where my mom’s pumpkin pie recipe languishes most of the year. I only make it twice a year, for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Moss Family Pumpkin Pies Nov 2010
2 cans (15 oz.) pumpkin
1.5 cups dark brown sugar
3/4 cup egg whites
1 cup half & half
2 T melted butter
2 T molasses
3-4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 pie crusts (9 inch deep dish)
I combined all the ingredients in my mixer and stirred on the lowest setting. I preheated my oven to 425 degrees. I used a large cookie sheet to hold my two pie crusts (I used frozen ready-made crusts as I didn’t have time or energy to mess with making them from scratch). I poured half of the pumpkin pie filling into each shell. I put the sheet with the two pies in the oven for fifteen minutes, then reduced the temperature to 350 degrees and baked for another 45 minutes.
While the pies were baking, I decided to drive across the river (almost due east from my home in Lansing) to Bed, Bath & Beyond to purchase a couple of pie carriers so I could transport the pies to Texas on Wednesday. I took K5 for the first leg of the trip and the nearly full moon shone through the leafless trees and reflected off the railroad tracks.
Once I returned home, with such a clear sky and low humidity, I got the telescope out and attached the digital camera to take a few photos of the ‘blue moon’ (one day late). After taking a half dozen shots of the very bright moon, I removed the digital camera and repositioned the telescope to view Jupiter. I used various eye pieces and saw the stripes of Jupiter and four of its moons (all to the left of the gas giant at this time – around 8:00 pm Central Mon 22 Nov 2010). Even though the evening was a bit chilly, I’m glad I had another chance to dodge the recent cloud cover and spy on the moon and Jupiter again before winter weather arrives.
We observed 
I unpacked my telescope this evening and re-read the instructions for polar mounting it to my tripod. Tonight I anticipated the first clear skies in weeks and Saturn made it’s yearly debut in opposition to the Sun. Basically, the Earth is between the Sun and Saturn and for the first time in a couple of years, Saturn’s rings are not ‘on edge’ to us.
