Science – Page 21 – Into the West

Dark of the Moon, Light of the City

After weeks of overcast, I couldn’t believe my eyes on the commute home yesterday. A clear blue sky with little to no haze and not a single cloud to be found. Waiting for the sun to set never seemed to take so long as it did last evening. I wasted some time with a quick grocery shopping run on my way home from the Hallmark parking lot. Terry made an awesome salad, which I ate as soon as I got home. He also planned to grill a couple of t-bones we’d purchased last month at the local farmers market in Leavenworth. Even though the charcoal fired up perfectly, the steaks disappointed. It’s been decades since either of us had such a grisly tough steak. We will NOT be purchasing any more meat from that particular local farmer.

I got caught up on Jeopardy and still had an hour to go before sunset. I fed the dogs, did some laundry and watched a rocket reality show hosted by Kari Byron on the Science channel. I ignored most of it (as I do most reality television) and Terry drifted off into his after-supper food coma. I started transferring telescope equipment from the basement to the backyard as soon as the sun set. I left the patio door open so Roxy and Apollo could come visit me if they wanted to. For the most part, they ran along the privacy fence, occasionally barking at evening strollers and/or their dogs.

Just as I attempted to do an easy alignment in the alt/az mounted mode for the ETX-90 and the Autostar, I realized I needed my cell phone for the time (because the Autostar asks for the date and time first when you turn it on). I ran back in the house and got my phone and saw my father had called while I was outside. I admit I was a bit distracted while talking (mostly listening) to him as I attempted to align the telescope. He asked me where Saturn was and I thought it was almost directly overhead. After I hung up, I realized that what I thought was Saturn was actually Arcturus (once I used the Big Dipper’s handle arc to find it among the constellations that I could barely see through the ambient Lansing light pollution). Once I confirmed via the telescope that bright fleck was indeed a star and not Saturn, I drove a ‘spike’ towards Spica and found Saturn in close proximity to another bright star in the constellation Virgo. Here’s what I saw last night facing south from my backyard (well, I saw some of this – except for the view blocked by my tall house, several very tall trees and an electric utility pole in the southwest corner of my yard).

South Horizon to Zenith on 31 May 2011 at 2215

: South Horizon to Zenith on 31 May 2011 at 2215

I attempted several times to align the telescope but failed repeatedly (even the Autostar kept telling me I failed). I could not use Arcturus as one of the two alignment stars because it was so high in the sky I could not use the finder scope. I know, I know, I should have installed my new red-dot finder scope before the first clear night in weeks arrived. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. 😛

I found Saturn and rejoiced in the clear view of it’s rings, using the 26mm and 16mm eyepieces. However, because I couldn’t get the telescope aligned properly, the slewing couldn’t keep up and Saturn drifted out of the field of view rapidly. Then, Saturn drifted behind the electric utility pole and I needed to wait five or ten minutes for the Earth to rotate enough for it to pop out on the other side. My night vision had begun to settle in (since I’d been outside for thirty minutes or so) when my neighbor to the north decided to turn on very bright lights in her second story south facing bedroom, leaving the blinds open. So much light emanated from that room that I could read my star atlas without using my night vision preserving red flashlight. I could have screamed in frustration. What I should have done was grab my camera and take photographs of her through her window and post them in this blog. For crying out loud! Don’t people realize that when you leave your blinds open and turn on every light in the room, it’s like a stage to those outside?!?!? She’s lucky I exercised restraint and left the camera inside.

With my night vision ruined, Saturn still behind the utility pole and the dew rapidly drenching all the sensitive optics, I elected to teach myself a couple of constellations and their primary bright stars, hoping my neighbor would turn off her bedroom lights. Using my new Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas, I found the charts for May and June evenings and studied the constellations Virgo and Leo. I also refreshed my memory of Bootes and Gemini (which I could barely see sinking into the western horizon, basically just the two dominant stars representing the twins’ heads – Pollux and Castor). Saturn was close enough to Porrima (also known as gamma Virginis) to see it through my telescope eyepiece’s field of view at the same time I watched the ringed planet.

The constellation I spent the most time studying lies just to the west of Virgo and contains several bright stars easily visible in from my light polluted back yard.

Denebola and Regulus are both visible soon after the sun sets. I studied Leo for several minutes, fixing the alignment of its stars into the pattern shown above. I returned to Virgo, since Saturn is traversing through that constellation at the moment. The configuration represented in my star atlas differs from those I have found represented on the internet this morning:

After waiting more than fifteen minutes for my neighbor to turn off her bedroom lights, I gave up, packed up the telescope and transferred it and all it’s accessories back down into my basement. Rain and clouds are predicted for the next few days (of course) during the darkest phase of the moon. I could just cry.

I Spy the Night Sky

I stepped outside just before 9:00 pm to let the dogs out and shocked myself with the sight of actual stars, something I haven’t seen in weeks (it seems) with the unrelenting cloud cover, rain and thunderstorms plaguing the Heart of America this month. I grabbed my camera and tripod and setup just east of my mailbox, hoping to capture photographic evidence of the overwhelming light pollution saturating my neighborhood.

Bambi Court Due North (from in front of my mailbox)

Not only does everyone on my court leave every outside light on, they feel compelled to illuminate their driveways, fences, sidewalks, trees, boats, etc., etc. The clouds in the above picture are actually illuminated by the glow from the Lansing Correctional Facility (just a half mile north of my neighborhood).

Turning around 180 degrees on the tripod, and flipping the camera 90 degrees to the horizontal, I snapped a shot of my new ‘bright night light’ recently installed at the corner of Bambi Court and Fawn Valley:

New 'Bright Night Light' (Installed at the corner of Fawn Valley & Bambi Court)

Again, the neighbors to my south, on the south side of Fawn Valley, seem to be in competition with the Bambi Court Extreme Illumination Foundation.

I could barely see the handle of the big dipper, so I thought I’d try experimenting with long exposures using the Pentax K100D. There was no wind where I was standing, even though I could see the thin wispy clouds moving casually from west to east across the backdrop of the Big and Little Dippers. I set the camera to Shutter Priority Mode and selected a six second exposure for a half dozen shots of the northwestern, north and northeastern skies. The most dramatic shot, after autocorrecting with basic photo editing software (and I apologize for the greenness of the resulting photo), follows:

Bits of Ursa Minor and Draco (behind the clouds)

I packed up the camera and tripod and thought about heading to bed. I tried to read more from the Backyard Astronomer’s Guide but gave up around ten o’clock. I got up to let the dogs out one final time and, as I always do, I looked up when I stepped outside. I always look up. The clouds had cleared away more and I could clearly see the Big and Little Dippers from my back patio. I grabbed the tripod and camera again for some more experimental shots using an exposure of fifteen seconds. The following two photos show Ursa Minor and Major in one shot:

Ursa Minor and Major (Polaris is at 1 o'clock compared to the tree sillouette bottom center)

And there I will leave you to dream of the stars.

Good night and sleep tight!

What are the Odds? Astronomical Apparently

As an anniversary gift, my husband bought me a Nook Color last week. I’ve used the free downloadable Nook for PC software for years (well, at least as long as Barnes & Noble has offered it) and even used it on my BlackBerry last year before budget belt tightening meant my employer retracted said BlackBerry. So, I’ve accumulated about three dozen ebooks from various sources, including Barnes & Noble, but relied heavily upon Project Gutenberg for access to public domain works from the 19th century, which allowed me to read such English Literature classics as The Age of Innocence and Jane Ayre as well as purchase contemporary science fiction and fantasy works that I consider some of my all-time favorites like The Time of the Dark and The Magic of Recluce.

The first week or so of ownership didn’t involve much reading, in the traditional sense. I test read a couple of books (including reading the Nook Color User’s Guide twice) to adjust the font size to suit my aging eyes. I explored various wifi hot-spots I might frequent near my employer’s building (including the free one offered by the KC Public Library via their Plaza branch) and at home (my own guest wifi network which I setup a couple of months ago but had not tested yet).

The first app I downloaded and tested I heard about at GoodReads. Announced on their blog back in late April, the developers at my favorite book-lovers website created an app specifically for the Nook Color. Currently, the app is limited in functionality very similar to their mobile site but I hope for some improvements in future versions, most notably the ability to vote (or like) reviews from my updates feed and support for discussions and groups. I may have found a bug in the status update feature, at least as respects audio books or ebooks (which use percentage read instead of page read). Since the Nook Color also includes a web browser, I can surf to GoodReads’ mobile site or even regular website if I encounter a problem with the app.

The Pulse news feed application came next. I am not as wowed by what it serves up for news articles and find myself preferring my laptop and FireFox web browser for current events perusing.

Since I had given up on listening to audiobooks on my dumbphone, I took the 4GB microSD card I purchased several months ago (and could not use in said dumbphone due to firmware restrictions to 2GB) and inserted it into the Nook Color. I then connected the device to my laptop via the miniUSB cord and copied the entire audio book for Elvenbane (all 15 CDs worth in MP3 audio format). Using my old BlackBerry stereo headphones (the best sounding most comfortable ear buds I’ve every worn), I have enjoyed listening to the book while relaxing on the back seat of the van I ride to commute daily.

But the most exciting opportunity occurred today at lunch, while I surfed my feeds at Twitter and Facebook using Planet Sub‘s free wifi service. Astronomy Magazine announce today, at 11:25 a.m. the ability to subscribe to a digital version for the Nook! I subscribed right then and there and downloaded the June 2011 issue before returning to my office building. Now, if I can just get B&N to also offer Sky & Telescope for the Nook Color, I’ll be in astronomical heaven! I will console myself by reading the digital edition of Astronomy magazine on the ride home this afternoon.

The first ten days of ownership of the Nook Color promise many more enjoyable hours of reading, listening and surfing. I have had very few problems with the device. I highly recommend it for the geeky gadget-loving reader.

Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot

“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!

What a Wild and Wacky Week

Winding back to Tuesday evening, Terry and I jumped in the car as soon as I got home to return the bluetooth stereo headphones to Best Buy at the Legends. In an effort to one-up my surprise anniversary gift of a 24 inch widescreen HD monitor for Terry, he purchased a Nook Color for me. I spent the next couple of hours playing with that new gadget and finally getting the recent software update to download and install.

Not having enough to do, I setup the telescope near the mailbox on the driveway since the night was exceptionally clear for an early May spring evening. I was able to view Saturn and at least one of it’s moons and I saw the shadow of the rings on the surface of the planet as well as some contrast between the clouds of that gas giant. I tried a filter, but couldn’t remember the exact number I should have used from my reading of The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide (Part 1). I swung around to the north-northeast to view Mizar in Ursa Major and attempted to find the Owl Nebula (M97) and as well as M81/M82 (a couple of galaxies). However, the light pollution from the Lansing Correctional Facility and my neighbors porchlights and yard lights (and possibly some haze in the atmosphere) prevented me from find any of the deep sky objects. I packed everything back up and went off to bed.

Wednesday morning, I left early to visit my local Wal-Mart to find a protective cover or sleeve for the Nook Color. Even though two employees were in the Electronics department, stocking shelves, they managed to ignore me the entire time I searched for said product. I found a leather-looking folio-type cover which had the word ‘nook’ on the packaging and purchased it for about $30. Once out in the car, I quickly discovered that ‘nook’ does not mean ‘nook color’ as the product was too small. I had run out of time though to return it immediately and rushed to meet my vanpool and commute to work. During lunch, I took a fifteen minute walk to the Country Club Plaza Barnes & Noble to pickup the cover I had placed on hold via the B&N website. Since most of my lunch hour still remained, I walked back east and decided to try Firehouse Subs. I had just received my order when a couple of my coworkers arrived and asked to join me. We had an enjoyable visit before I headed back to the office building.

I easily transferred the 15 CDs worth of MP3s for the audiobook Elvenbane using the microUSB cord provided and a spare 4GB microSD card I originally purchased for my unsmartphone. The Nook has a regular headphone jack (instead the proprietary one for my Samsung cell phone) which allows me to use a comfortable pair of wired stereo headphones. I enjoyed an hour’s worth of listening during the commute back to Leavenworth. That means in about a week I should be able to finish this book and write up a review for Fantasy Literature. I’m about one-quarter finished and a bit exasperated with the current characters, who are children acting like children, even if they be dragons or half-elf/half-human in origin. I usually avoid young adult fiction and/or fiction that focuses on children, pre-teens or teens because the melodrama usually makes me nauseous.

While on the phone with an IT colleague in our St. Louis office, I received a call from my daughter. I asked her if I could call her back as I’d been trying to connect with the St. Louis person for several days. I surprised myself by remembering to call my daughter back when I finished. Rachelle reported she passed her opera divisional jury easily. The jury panel once again wondered why she was a music history undergrad student and not a vocal performance one. She consoled them by affirming she planned to study vocal performance as a graduate. We also discussed the best way to send her the rest of her summer tuition, debating the merits of PayPal versus a traditional check. She opted for the latter and I mailed said check promptly Thursday morning along with several other items I had forgotten to mail throughout the week.

Wednesdays mean Wolfguard rehearsal, focused for their benefit concert this Saturday afternoon. I didn’t hang around for the first set. Instead, I ran back to Wal-Mart to return the nook cover. Ironically, after finding all of the items on Terry’s shopping list (except for the nine volt batteries!), I spent the same amount that I had just had refunded to me. I made it home in time to catch most of the second set rehearsal.

I had trouble dozing off, tossing and turning until well past one o’clock in the morning. So when the alarm went off at five o’clock I felt like I’d had a nice nap. Joy of joys, Thursday mornings are trash days in Lansing, so I dealt with the garbage and the recyclables before dragging myself to the van for the morning commute. I again listened to Elvenbane while trying to stay awake without the assistance of a caffeinated beverage.

My morning flew by as have the other two days of this work week. So much to do, so many projects to juggle and so many distractions and fires interfering with my well laid plans. Just after the bi-weekly Change Management meeting broke-up and as I was settling down to compile some information, I received a call on my cell phone from an unrecognized number. The woman on the other end was the Director of the Leavenworth Library, calling to tell me my mother had been ambulanced to Cushing Hospital a few minutes before eleven o’clock. I asked the Director what her symptoms and/or condition was and she replied that she had been dizzy and incoherent, on the verge of passing out and once the EMTs were on site, her blood pressure and blood sugar were both very high. I, of course, assumed the worst — that she was having a stroke or heart attack.

I spent the next several minutes making phone calls to determine how best to get home. Since I don’t drive to work, I can’t just jump in my car to return home when an emergency occurs. However, one of the benefits of participating in the Guaranteed Ride Home program for the last several years (first as a carpooler and for the last year as a vanpooler). Never before have I had an emergency occur where I couldn’t find an alternative way home without invoking this benefit. Today was the day. I explained my situation and they provided a limo service for me since I live over thirty miles away from work (although it’s a similar fare if you are going from the Plaza to KCI, since I live very close to KCI, just across the Missouri River on the Kansas side). One of the last call’s I made was to Cushing Hospital ER to get an updated status on my mother. I was able to talk to her (she hadn’t seen a doctor yet) and I told her I probably wouldn’t make it to Cushing until close to one o’clock in the afternoon.

The ride home was uneventful but dreary, as rain had arrived in Kansas City. However, by the time we reached Lansing, the rain let up and the clouds began to break-up and patches of blue sky became visible. In fact, when I parked the Firebird at Cushing, the sun was warming up the recent rain and promising some humidity and haze.

The ER reception desk at Cushing was unmanned, although I sign indicated I should sign in on a clipboard. I hesitated to do so since I was not a patient needing care, but rather a relative seeking to visit an ER patient. After standing around for fifteen minutes, a woman returned to the desk and asked me if I had signed in. I explained I did not need treatment but wanted to see my mother. She shocked me by stating that my mom would be released in a few minutes so I could have a seat while I waited. True to her word, my mom arrived in the waiting area about five minutes later.

The ER doctors had run an EKG and a CAT scan and found nothing of note. He encouraged her to rest for the next couple of days and eat more frequent small meals. Apparently, her appetite has been suppressed recently (in fact, she’s lost enough wait to wear clothes two sizes smaller than usual). I’m not sure if that’s a result from her previous trip to the hospital a couple of weeks ago and the prescriptions she’s been taking for that incident. I got her into the Firebird (which rides low) and took her home so I could switch cars and gather up Terry. I fed her a light lunch to make sure she got something to eat before we drove out to Easton. We stopped by the Library to drop off her doctor’s note excusing her from work for the rest of the day and tomorrow. I drove her car back to Easton while Terry and Mom rode in the Bonneville.

I am grateful nothing more serious occurred to my mother, especially since Mother’s Day is this Sunday! That was my other reason for taking her to my house – her card was sitting on the kitchen table for Terry to deliver that afternoon.

Terry and I stopped at Denney’s Produce on the return trip but couldn’t find many appealing or appetizing veggies. Once home, we talked for a few minutes and then watched three days’ worth of Jeopardy episodes. Then I took Roxy for a walk and saw a vivid rainbow just before the sun set.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to get a break until Sunday. Tomorrow night might be all right, but Saturday is chock full of activities – first Spring book sale for the Kansas City Public Library at the City Market (undecided if I’ll attend), the Wolfguard benefit concert and opening night at Powell Observatory. I feel tired just thinking about the next forty-eight hours.

Kicking Off Astonomy Week 2011

Even though I had the day off on Monday May 2nd, I awoke at my usual alarm time of five o’clock Central, hoping for a chance to see the planetary lineup visible immediately prior to dawn. I retrieved my telescope from my father’s house Sunday evening, gambling on clear skies and low humidity. I left the equipment in the trunk of my car so I would not be delayed this morning.

I drove just a couple of blocks up out of the Fawn Valley subdivision to the dead end in front of Lansing City Hall, where a clear empty lot provides a spectacular view of the eastern horizon unbroken across the Missouri River to KCI. I had just exited the driver’s side door and had my head and upper torso bent over the back seat retrieving my tripod and camera when Lansing’s finest arrived to ask if I was lost. I patiently explained I planned to watch the planets and sun rise and proceeded to setup my equipment while he back his squad car warily into the City Hall parking lot. I ignored him and began scanning the horizon for planets.

Venus had already risen, but was hidden among some tree branches, so I moved my tripod across the street and into the empty lot slightly northeast of my car’s parking spot. For the next hour I watched Venus continue to rise, and the haze continue to brighten with the advent of the sun’s dawn. At no time did I see Jupiter, Mercury, Mars or the tiny sliver of the moon left visible. I had no hope of seeing Uranis, which rose before Venus, without the aid of a more powerful telescope than I currently own.

Once I started having trouble finding Venus in the brightness of the imminent sunrise, I packed up my camera and tripod and consoled myself with a mocha from Baristas before returning home, dreaming of retiring to the desert southwest and clear, crisp mountain air free of humidity, haze, smog and other discouraging particulates.

Regardless of my Monday morning set back, I am excited about several events scheduled for this weekend in the Kansas City area. Please check out the Astronomical Society of Kansas City’s web page for details on events at Union Station and Powell Observatory Friday and Saturday night. Check out Sky & Telescope’s ‘This Week’s Sky at a Glance’ for other interesting items to keep you looking up.

Below, please find the ASKC May calendar of events:

Click here for the ASKC monthly calendar.

Amateur Astronomers Attend

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!

Book Review: David Levy’s Guide to the Night Sky

David Levy’s Guide to the Night Sky by David H. Levy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A good, but somewhat sporadic, book on astronomy by one of the astronomers who discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy (yeah, the one that crashed spectacularly into Jupiter). The information seems a bit dated, even though this is a second edition (or a reprint ten years later). I went in search of astronomy books on the shelves of my local library and gave this a whirl.

View all my reviews

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.