“Yo ho ho! or does nobody actually say that?” — the Doctor (soon to be one of my favorite quotes).
Plot summary at Wikipedia (yes, I’m being lazy again but I have an excuse … it’s Mother’s Day).
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and would give it four stars, possibly more, especially for the dramatic scene between Amy and Rory towards the end and for the pirates! Who doesn’t love a romping swashbuckling tale of the high seas, pirates and sea monsters?
And was I the only one who noticed that the newly inaugurated space pirates first visited the Dog Star aka Sirius?
I think I still prefer Robert Picardo over a supermodel with his signature ‘Please state the nature of the medical emergency.’ But that’s just me.
Next week we might meet the Doctor’s wife or possibly another time lord. Either way, I’m excited and ecstatic to have exceptional science fiction to look forward to each and every Saturday night. Hip Hip Hurray for BBC America!
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 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).
Probably rates a 3.5, but like Connie Willis, I love Christmas and singing in very large choirs. Combining the two, especially with Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, is priceless.
And as Aunt Judith and the Altairi reminds us: ‘A prompt handwritten note expressing gratitude is the only proper form of thanks.’ I’ll be posting those notes to friends and family today.
Highly recommended, especially during this joyous season, bearing tidings of comfort and joy to all.
With the return to normal time (sans daylight savings time), the commute home last night included a typical Midwestern autumn sunset. Clear blue orange sky streaked with white vapor trails of the jets filled with people from the coasts who hop over the Heart of America and rarely pause to visit. I kept my eye out for the waxing moon’s sliver, since the new moon occurred around midnight Saturday. After the sun set I finally spied it, much higher in the sky than I anticipated.
Terry had dinner nearly ready when I returned from my errand to WalMart where I invested more money in Hallmark than I do the rest of the year combined. Terry had prepared pan friend pork chops with some glazed carrots that were yummy. I ate my sourdough as an appetizer, although three slices may have been a bit much. We retired to the great room to watch the new episode of House, after which Terry entered his food coma and I read myself to a similar somnolent state.
When I woke up this morning, I realized I had forgotten to contact my father, who was on the road to Virginia. My uncle had remembered to call his brother last night and confirmed he’d finally stopped forging east in Coventry, Virginia, only about three hours shy of their home. I call him this morning during my commute to work and we chatted for a few minutes as he once again headed east into the sunrise over the mountains in Virginia. I used the same sunrise to continue reading until the van arrived at work.
Another aspect of the change in time, I don’t see as many stars when I leave the house in the morning. By 6:15, the eastern sky is already a pale yellow, and I can barely see Sirius or the stars in Orion’s Belt. Some stratus clouds were also interfering with stargazing this morning.
I couldn’t sleep. Not surprisingly, insomnia occurs more frequently as I age. Sometimes, an external force interferes with my snoozing, but I refuse to point fingers.
Laying in bed, staring at the vaulted ceiling in my bedroom, I wished I could wave a hand and temporarily retract the roof. Then I’d be mostly above the treeline and able to setup the telescope for more comfortable viewing.
Sighing, I slipped on my clothes at 3:30 a.m. and retreated downstairs to the vaulted great room, grabbed the telescope I left mounted to the tripod there and took it outside. I quickly realigned it roughly on Polaris and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I surveyed the northern sky, quickly found Cassiopeia and Perseus, but the light pollution from the Lansing Correctional Facility and the tall trees in my northern neighbor’s yard didn’t help find Comet Hartley 2. I think a field trip to Perry Lake may be in order for this weekend.
Turning to the southeast, I quickly spied Orion directly over my chimney. I aimed the telescope at Orion’s belt and may have seen a monochromatic glimpse of the Orion Nebula in his sword. Both Orion’s belt and sword contain many nebulae, but I need a darker sky to view them properly. I survey Rigel (beta Orion – brightest star in Orion (left foot) and sixth brightest in the night sky); Betelgeuse (alpha Orion – 2nd brightest star in Orion (right shoulder) and 12th brightest in the night sky); and, Bellatrix (aka ‘the Amazon star’ (left shoulder).
If you draw a line through Orion’s belt, it points to two of the brightest stars in the sky: Sirius (aka ‘the Dog star’ – the brightest star bar none and only 8.6 light years away) and Aldebaran (alpha Taurus and the 13th brightest star).
I turned the telescope to the west, where I found Jupiter peaking through the branches of one of my pine trees. Yep, it was still there and still had moons, although one of the four I observed earlier was hidden behind Jupiter.
I forgot my sweater so after about thirty minutes I brought the telescope back in and should probably retreat back to my quiet dark bedroom. Nah … my alarm goes off in two minutes (it’s now 4:58 a.m.)
This will be a conglomeration of star gazing journal and family events and I only have fifteen minutes to spit it out! So here goes:
First, the star gazing report: My dad and I traveled to Winfield to visit my aunt and uncle for the weekend. Since the weather was forecast to remain calm, clear and the moon was just barely a sliver, I took the telescope and accessories with us. We spent the day visiting, enjoying experimental cooking from my aunt and uncle (which was delicious, don’t get me wrong) and doing fall tree trimming and another household repair a la my dad. I have photos of a couple of the close calls my dad avoided, but that will have to wait for another post.
Later in the evening, after another wonderful new recipe for dinner, as the sun set and the moon quickly followed, we setup the telescope just in time to catch a glimpse of the craters of the moon along the terminus. Everyone got a chance to view before the moon slipped towards the horizon and behind the tree line.
Now, we waited for Jupiter (which was visible already) and the first few stars (Altair, Deneb and Vega). We relocated the telescope to the backyard (for a better angle on Jupiter) and my aunt invited a couple of neighbors to view Jupiter’s spectacular display. We discovered, over the course of the evening, the Jupiter’s moon move quite fast, so much that when the evening began, we only saw three moons, and as it progressed we saw the fourth appear and a couple others move out and up in their orbits.
My personal goal for the evening was a second attempt to find Comet Hartley 2. So I was just killing time until the skies darkened enough to make the attempt. In the meantime, I showed my aunt and uncle the double star in the Big Dipper (Mizar/Alcor) and of course we began to see the great sweep of stars for the Milky Way.
We took a break (about an hour or so) to sit inside and rest our backs (tree trimming was only a regular activity for my father) and returned to hunt for the comet. My dad and I tried for another hour, but haze, trees and light pollution were not helping us. We finally gave up around 11:00 p.m. and headed off to bed.
I woke at my normal 5:00 a.m. timeframe and migrated up to the dark living room. My uncle soon arrived and we both exited outside to determine the location of Cassiopeia. That region of space was still not dark ‘enough’ I believe and clouds were rolling in fast from the west. I did point out Orion and Sirius almost directly due south at that time of morning.
After another wonderful meal (this time breakfast of course), we visited and discussed books, movies, politics, religion … all the usual topics I’ve come to know and love with my close family. Lunch was a local Chinese buffet followed by a mini-tour of Southwestern’s campus, where it’s celebrating it’s 125th year and Ron’s art (as an alum from 1968) is featured in Baden Hall. Recently remodelled, it had formerly housed some of Arthur Covey’s artwork and still sports a block dedicating the fireplace from Arthur to his art professor Dunlevy.
Rain rolled into Winfield and followed Dad and I north along the turnpike, peaking in Emporia where we stopped for supper and Braum’s ice cream, but tapered off as we continued northeast along I-35 to K-7 in Olathe and finally reaching Lansing/Leavenworth by 8:00 p.m. — only one hour late mostly due to too much talking (missing exits) and stopping for gas and food.
A wonderful weekend getaway in Winfield I hope to repeat in the future.
Transferred from my MySpace blog (originally posted October 5, 2010):
Second star gazing journal. After calling Meade Support on Monday, I recalibrated the drives and retrained them as well as finally dialing in (for the most part) my viewfinder … all before the sun went down.
Then I packed everything up (carefully) and headed west to my local community park a couple of miles west of my park. I was a bit disappointed to see what appeared to be a soccer practice occurring even though the sun had set at five minutes before seven. Since I didn’t want a stray hyperactive youngster to knock over and destroy the expensive and sensitive telescope equipment, I resolved to wait until everyone left.
In the meantime, at five after seven, while sitting in my car, I could already see Jupiter with my naked eye … clearly the brightest object in our autumn evening skies.
I waited another thirty-five minutes before everyone finally left. So by 7:45 p.m. I was finally set up and ready to try again. I first manually found Jupiter and confirmed my viewfinder was centered and in sync with the telescope. It was for the most part. I then spent fifteen or twenty minutes looking at Jupiter and it’s moons. I started out with the 26x eye lens and then added the 2x barlow which really brought Jupiter in close and didn’t dim it too much.
By then it was dark enough to attempt an alignment. I aligned on Altair but didn’t recognize (nor now do I remember) the second star the AutoStar wanted to use for alignment. I centered on the brightest star I found in the viewfinder. Then I told it to find the constellation Cassiopeia and it tried, but ended up off by half a sky (basically looking southwest instead of northeast). I interrupted the sidereel so I could synch it by moving the telescope around to the correct portion of the sky. My goal was to attempt to find the Double Cluster near Cassiopea and eventually the comet Hartley 2 which is between the two (Cassiopeia and the Double Cluster). I didn’t have much luck, but I enjoyed viewing so many stars … layers upon layers of them.
Next, I then went in search of the binary star in the handle of the Big Dipper … Mizar and Alcor. That was easy to find and quite interesting to view.
Lastly, I focused on a bright flashing object in the northwestern sky. When I attempted to focus on it it appeared to flash green and red rapidly. (I later determined this flashing star was Arcturus and the red/green was caused by the Earth’s atmosphere).
Unfortunately, about that time, the local constabulary arrived with bright headlights (thankfully not pulling out the spotlight) to inform me he needed to close the park. I replied the posted sign stated the park was open until 10:00 pm. He rebutted my statement by saying it was supposed to close at sundown. I replied the posted sign did not state that caveat. So, I took one final look at Jupiter and it’s moon, then packed up the equipment and was home by 8:45. I barely got an hour’s worth of star gazing in.
I’ve learned, though, that my telescope probably needs to be serviced. Meade, in it’s proprietary wisdom, does not provide parts or service partners, so the telescope will have to be packaged and shipped to their world headquarters in California for service and repair. I’ll call them tomorrow to get the gory details.
I enjoyed a wonderful but short hour of moonless nearly perfect dark sky viewing. Not too cool, no wind, and not a cloud in the sky.
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.
