Sunday night was my first time observing from the parking lot at Veasey Park in Groveland. It was pretty dark but high clouds started coming in and brightening the sky about 10pm. By 11 it was clearer but I put the scope away.
I was trying to starhop through Cepheus, the hut-shaped constellation next to Casseopeia. No luck - not a single star appeared to be as described in the book with the exception of M103 which I found on my own and then confirmed with Ken Graun's book.
Ron Sampson was there with his 8" TEC refractor on the AP mount. Looking through this scope at the double cluster using two 24mm Panoptic EPs in a binoviewer is an awe-inspiring experience. Thanks, Ron!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Mercury rising
Mercury was supposed to be visible in the morning, but I never seemed to be able to catch it due to low clouds over the Atlantic.
This morning was clear and beautiful, so Samantha the astropup and I went out about 6am. Well, there it was big as life, and Saturn above it to increase the pleasure. Saturn's rings are so close to edge on (less then 3 degrees tilt now) that they look more like just a bright line, but still beautiful.
I was able to see Mercury until 6:45am with binoculars, then it was lost in the glare of the rising sun.
This morning was clear and beautiful, so Samantha the astropup and I went out about 6am. Well, there it was big as life, and Saturn above it to increase the pleasure. Saturn's rings are so close to edge on (less then 3 degrees tilt now) that they look more like just a bright line, but still beautiful.
I was able to see Mercury until 6:45am with binoculars, then it was lost in the glare of the rising sun.
Friday, October 24, 2008
The Moon in the Morning
This morning I got up early and tried to be in time to see Saturn. So I set up the 80mm Zenithstar on the alt-az mount as the eastern sky got brighter and brighter. I found it easily (I think) but there was so much turbulence I could not see the rings.
So I switched to looking at the moon, and after breaking out "The Modern Moon" I was able to identify Gassendi and the Marius Hills, and crater Kepler. The illuminated Western limb of the crescent moon was actually at the bottom so it took some thought to figure out what part of the book to look in, but eventually everything came clear. Sinus Iridium was also visible. A week ago when the moon was half full I saw it on the night when the peaks of Sinus Iridium were illuminated in the shape of a "C" on an otherwise dark half of the moon, as the rising sun's rays caught the upper peaks of the crater rim. Beautiful!
I don't look at the moon enough!
So I switched to looking at the moon, and after breaking out "The Modern Moon" I was able to identify Gassendi and the Marius Hills, and crater Kepler. The illuminated Western limb of the crescent moon was actually at the bottom so it took some thought to figure out what part of the book to look in, but eventually everything came clear. Sinus Iridium was also visible. A week ago when the moon was half full I saw it on the night when the peaks of Sinus Iridium were illuminated in the shape of a "C" on an otherwise dark half of the moon, as the rising sun's rays caught the upper peaks of the crater rim. Beautiful!
I don't look at the moon enough!
Trahan School 4th grade star party
Last night the North Shore Amateur Astronomy Club provided a class and star party for the 4th grade classes at Trahan School in Tewksbury, Mass. I was asked to present the indoor class. There were about 30 students and 15 parents ready to go at 7pm. Jim Foy brought the group's LCD projector and the custodian provided a nice screen. The PAC contact, Kathy C., also brought hot chocolate and donuts. The kids got theirs at 7:30 just before going outside, and Kathy was nice enough to bring hot chocolate out to the cold astronomers. Mmmmm!
I enjoy these opportunities a lot, and I try to cover as many things in my presentation as possible. However, I am aware that it is already dark outside, so every minute I talk is a minute the kids are not looking through an eyepiece. Quite a challenge to try to prepare them adequately without wasting any time.
One thing I try to cover is the cosmic distance scale. Sometimes I make up new units to keep things simple. For instance, the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across give or take. Our closest neighbor galaxy is Andromeda which is 2.5 million L.Y. distant. To make this a little easier to compare, I show the kids that Andromeda is 25 "Milky Way diameters" away, with pretty much nothing but empty space in between. 25 is a number they can comprehend.
I also use a 12" beach ball and a 3" nerf ball (for earth and moon) and invite kids up to hold the "moon" at the distance they think it orbits from "earth". Most stand 3-5 feet away. The moon actually orbits 30 earth diameters away, so after getting a good crowd of 'guessers' I give a pre-measured piece of string rolled on a stick to another child and ask them to unroll it until they get to the end. They end up 30 feet out, which seems really far. (I remind them that at this scale the ISS orbits about an inch above the beach ball.) And I always comment on how brave the Apollo astronauts were for going so far from home. Things quiet right down as people contemplate that.
I showed them slides of open clusters, globular clusters, double stars, distant galaxies, and encouraged them to ask the astronomer at the scope whether what they were looking at was inside or outside the Milky Way.
Then the kids went outside, and there were about five or six scopes set up, courtesy of the members of NSAAC. I came out later and set up the 80mm refractor, and most kids who came over had already seen M13, the double cluster, the Plieades, Jupiter, and Andromeda so they got a good cross section.
The Milky Way was *just* barely visible at zenith, but the back yard we used was better (darker) than the baseball diamond that was used last year. Seeing was actually quite good, very little star twinkling and Jupiter was rock solid even at 8:30pm when it was quite low.
I enjoy these opportunities a lot, and I try to cover as many things in my presentation as possible. However, I am aware that it is already dark outside, so every minute I talk is a minute the kids are not looking through an eyepiece. Quite a challenge to try to prepare them adequately without wasting any time.
One thing I try to cover is the cosmic distance scale. Sometimes I make up new units to keep things simple. For instance, the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across give or take. Our closest neighbor galaxy is Andromeda which is 2.5 million L.Y. distant. To make this a little easier to compare, I show the kids that Andromeda is 25 "Milky Way diameters" away, with pretty much nothing but empty space in between. 25 is a number they can comprehend.
I also use a 12" beach ball and a 3" nerf ball (for earth and moon) and invite kids up to hold the "moon" at the distance they think it orbits from "earth". Most stand 3-5 feet away. The moon actually orbits 30 earth diameters away, so after getting a good crowd of 'guessers' I give a pre-measured piece of string rolled on a stick to another child and ask them to unroll it until they get to the end. They end up 30 feet out, which seems really far. (I remind them that at this scale the ISS orbits about an inch above the beach ball.) And I always comment on how brave the Apollo astronauts were for going so far from home. Things quiet right down as people contemplate that.
I showed them slides of open clusters, globular clusters, double stars, distant galaxies, and encouraged them to ask the astronomer at the scope whether what they were looking at was inside or outside the Milky Way.
Then the kids went outside, and there were about five or six scopes set up, courtesy of the members of NSAAC. I came out later and set up the 80mm refractor, and most kids who came over had already seen M13, the double cluster, the Plieades, Jupiter, and Andromeda so they got a good cross section.
The Milky Way was *just* barely visible at zenith, but the back yard we used was better (darker) than the baseball diamond that was used last year. Seeing was actually quite good, very little star twinkling and Jupiter was rock solid even at 8:30pm when it was quite low.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Portsmouth again, then dark sky site
Last night I went up to Portsmouth for a little sidewalk astronomy before heading over to the Stratham dark sky site. Tim Mauro who lives in Portsmouth met me there, by the Parking Garage on High St. Luckily Jupiter was visible due south to the left of the parking building so we had good views as it passed over the church steeple in downtown Portsmouth. We had over fifty people stop by, and at one point the lines were long enough that I pulled out the 8" dob and set it up while Tim ran the 3" refractor.
At about 9:15 we headed over to Stratham where we met Tom Cocchiaro and Jim Moe. Tim set up his CPC 925 and it seemed to work like a charm. We saw Neptune as a small blue disc, and with a total of six scopes and numerous EPs to share we had a wonderful few hours of cameraderie until the clouds came rolling in at about 12:30am. M31, the double cluster in Perseus, M13, M92, and many other beautiful sights. I gave the WO 80ED it's head on a tour of the Milky Way and it did not disappoint, either with the 24Pan or 35Pan. Tom put his 13mm Ethos into Tim's C925 and the views were staggering. I also set up the 8" XTi, but did not have the energy to set up the GPD2 and C925. With all the exterior wires, batteries, dew sheild, manual mount, it is a good 30 minutes until things are stable. I know that once it is set up, the views are awesome and the mount is solid as a rock, but I have not been willing to go through that recently. The go-to mounts I see where all the wires are enclosed are starting to look mighty attractive - Tim's CPC 925 for example!
Still it was a great night. We finished with an hour or so of chatting, hoping the skies would clear, but eventually gave up and headed home after sharing the rest of the chocolate donuts. Mmmmm.
At about 9:15 we headed over to Stratham where we met Tom Cocchiaro and Jim Moe. Tim set up his CPC 925 and it seemed to work like a charm. We saw Neptune as a small blue disc, and with a total of six scopes and numerous EPs to share we had a wonderful few hours of cameraderie until the clouds came rolling in at about 12:30am. M31, the double cluster in Perseus, M13, M92, and many other beautiful sights. I gave the WO 80ED it's head on a tour of the Milky Way and it did not disappoint, either with the 24Pan or 35Pan. Tom put his 13mm Ethos into Tim's C925 and the views were staggering. I also set up the 8" XTi, but did not have the energy to set up the GPD2 and C925. With all the exterior wires, batteries, dew sheild, manual mount, it is a good 30 minutes until things are stable. I know that once it is set up, the views are awesome and the mount is solid as a rock, but I have not been willing to go through that recently. The go-to mounts I see where all the wires are enclosed are starting to look mighty attractive - Tim's CPC 925 for example!
Still it was a great night. We finished with an hour or so of chatting, hoping the skies would clear, but eventually gave up and headed home after sharing the rest of the chocolate donuts. Mmmmm.
End of season at Hampton Boardwalk
Sunday evening was the beginning of another beautiful night, so I went back to the boardwalk at about 8:30. Lots of people and families enjoyed seeing Jupiter and four moons. I gave out a lot of ISAN stickers to the kids and copies of the one-page "what we are looking at tonight" writeups.
No parking at the beach tonight, way too crowded, so I decided to head down on my bike. I put the scope in a backpack (inside its padded case), AT Voyager tripod across the handlebars and Rubbermaid two-step stool over my shoulder. Easy as pie, in 10 minutes I was on station and ready to go. As I passed one family, a lady shouted "Mike, there's that Astronomy guy we were bringing you to see! I was hoping he'd be here again!" How much fun is that?
Scope was the WO Zenithstar ED II with a Burgess binoviewer with 2 20mm Binolight EPs, plus corrector giving 10mm EP focal length. This gave about 56X, which was plenty to see moons and the two main equatorial cloud belts on Jupiter.
Monday, August 25, 2008
More "Boardwalk" Astronomy
On Sunday evening I had just returned from a wonderful weekend of Barbershop Harmony, singing songs with members of the Atlantic Harmony Brigade, a group of men who love singing 4-part harmony in the Barbershop style. My lovely wife Tina always supports me in all my crazy hobbies. We had dinner in Hampton beach and then headed back home. Since she had some work to do for the evening, on very little sleep I went out to the boardwalk again at about 8:30 pm.
Tonight was no less thrilling than last week. Many people, some couples, some with kids, stopped by to look at Jupiter and its moons. (Most people said they had seen it in the sky earlier in the evening and most said they had guessed it was Venus.)
Since I only set up the 80mm Zenithstar ED refractor, we saw two equatorial cloud bands and four moons. Unfortunately Io had already emerged from eclipse, but I think next chance I get I will put the electronic EP in and see if I can get a recording on my laptop of some movement of the moons over an hour or so. That would be fun to play back before people look in the binoviewer.
Tonight was no less thrilling than last week. Many people, some couples, some with kids, stopped by to look at Jupiter and its moons. (Most people said they had seen it in the sky earlier in the evening and most said they had guessed it was Venus.)
Since I only set up the 80mm Zenithstar ED refractor, we saw two equatorial cloud bands and four moons. Unfortunately Io had already emerged from eclipse, but I think next chance I get I will put the electronic EP in and see if I can get a recording on my laptop of some movement of the moons over an hour or so. That would be fun to play back before people look in the binoviewer.
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