In the months since the "Great American Eclipse" total solar eclipse of 2017, life has been busy. Aside from conducting a few public observing nights, I've done little with personal astronomy. There was a beautiful conjunction of Moon, Venus, and Mercury that I observed and photographed one cloudy evening (March 18, 2018). Mostly, I've been observing and photographing weather. If you can't beat the clouds, enjoy them!

March 18, 2018 conjunction of (left to right) Moon, Venus, and Mercury over Letha House Park (west), in the Spencer, Ohio area. Clouds threatened to hide the event but cleared enough to lend mystery to the scene.

At any rate, last night (July 8) presented a decent opportunity to set up my big refractor in the backyard and take a look at the cosmos. The sky was clear, temperature and humidity pleasant, and I had no distractions.

The shed that must serve as my "observatory" and the big Meade (6-inch) refracting telescope. I set the scope up in the early evening and left it outdoors in preparation for nightfall. 

Unfortunately, with no permanent setup for the mount, north alignment for my telescope is usually off by a bit and last night was typical. The telescope's computerized "go-to" system was able to aim the telescope close but not directly on my targets; I needed to manually fish for each object I wanted to observe. I also wanted to do some photography experiments and a slightly out-of-alignment equatorial drive is not a good thing for imaging! I found that I could get reasonably round star images if I set the DSLR for an exposure of 20 to 30 seconds and covered the objective lens for the first five seconds after the shutter triggered in order to dampen out vibrations. I've got to see if I can use "live shooting" in place of the regular mirror/shutter combo to prevent camera vibrations!

Still, I did observe several objects and here are a few impressions:

Jupiter: By the time the scope was ready to use, the "King of Planets" was descending into neighboring trees. I had but a few minutes of almost decent viewing. I had hoped to see the shadow of moon Io on the planetary disk but could not resolve it. The best I could make out was Jupiter's most prominent cloud bands with Io floating not far from the planet's limb.

Messier 4: The globular star cluster in constellation Scorpius was, sadly, faint and somewhat indistinct in our light-polluted sky.

Saturn: Not as sharp-edged as I'd hoped, I could barely make out the Cassini Division but could discern the planetary disk in relief over the planet's ring system. I could also see some cloud bands, though not distinctly.

Mars: Mars is nearing opposition and is brilliant and red. I was easily able to observe the planet as a disk but, due to a global dust storm, couldn't make out any surface features -- well, maybe a shadowy area at the center of the disk but certainly not anything beyond that.

Messier 25: Photographic only. The open star cluster made a decent test to refine exposure and vibration-dampening techniques.

Messier 22: A bright globular that showed up, even in the viewfinder of the DSLR, it also provided a good photographic test target. The photo results were far from "stellar" (pun intended) but showed some promise.

Time passed quickly, the activity was thoroughly engrossing, and I packed it in at about 1:00 AM EDT. It was a good night.

Messier 22, a globular star cluster. A beginner's deep-sky effort, I'm happy to have reasonably round stars and to be able to see some of the many thousands of stars present in the cluster. 

Faint-Fuzzies for Open Night

This seems to have been a very cloudy summer and most of the daylight hours of this day were no different: overcast to mostly-cloudy skies dominated. Amazingly, and as predicted, we got the clear skies we needed for our "faint fuzzies" night of public observing at Stephens Memorial Observatory. Best seeing was from about 9:30 to 10:00 -- after that a high haze seemed to set in, illuminated by natural and artificial light pollution. Still, these were some of the best conditions we have enjoyed in quite some time. While the skies were at their best our few --only 7-- attendees (conflict with Ohio State football??) saw the Milky Way stretching from Sagittarius in the south-southwest, high overhead, and into the northeast and constellation Cassiopeia -- even the dark dust lane of the Milky Way was visible. We viewed the cottonwood seed-like wisp that is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and considered why it is that faint-fuzzy objects don't look like magazine photos when viewed with our own eyes, even through telescopes. We also viewed a beautiful globular star cluster (M22), its approximate 70,000 stars some 10,600 light-years distant in Sagittarius. Then we looked high overhead and found the Ring Nebula (M57); putting the big old refractor so near the zenith was made possible through use of the star diagonal for our 1.25-inch eyepieces. Not only was observation easy but no ladder-climbing was required -- an office chair worked just fine. During the night's event I spied two speedy, faint meteors through the dome's slit -- one coming in north to south, the other (a bit brighter) headed east to west. As the last visitors of the night departed Jupiter and the Moon were rising over Hiram -- a fitting end to a fine night of stargazing.

A fine night out

After a long period of hazy, hot, humid, and cloudy weather we caught a break... last night's skies were predicted to be about as good as they ever get here. So I went out on an independent session to the astronomy club observing site near Spencer, Ohio -- something I have not done in far too long a time. Skies there are not as dark as they were a few years ago, but a paved parking lot, no street lights, and official permission for the activity made it acceptable.

I got a late start and had to forgo opportunities to enjoy and photograph a marvelous sunset over a broad valley. I did, however, arrive on site in time to use the fading twilight in setting up my equipment. As the last light faded the Milky Way emerged, visible from near the southern horizon to overhead and a bit beyond. Along the horizon were the summer constellations: Sagittarius and Scorpius. Saturn was sinking into the murk of the western horizon but I got a hazy glimpse of the ring world through another's telescope, already set up.

Due to not using my own telescope in some time, I suffered some difficulties in setup and alignment. I couldn't even find Polaris in the telescope mount's alignment optic and so "eyeballed" it. Surprisingly, the alignment was very good and for the rest of the night the scope was able to center or come close to all objects I asked its GoTo computer to find.

Though the sky was cloudless, it did suffer overall from light pollution or, perhaps, some lingering natural twilight. Viewing of a number of Messier objects was only fair. My old friends M81 and M82, which can be a lovely sight within the same eyepiece field of view, were barely discernible against the gray background sky. I did view, for the first time, M20 --the Trifid Nebula-- but observed no nebulosity, only the associated star cluster. The "Whirlpool Galaxy" (M51) could barely be seen at all though M31 --the Andromeda Galaxy-- put in an appearance looking, typically, like a cottonwood seed fluff.

I love refractor telescopes but frequent issue is that, when aimed straight up, the eyepiece can be uncomfortably low to the ground. So I happily got a nice view of the Ring Nebula (M57), which at that hour was high overhead, through the SCT of a companion.

In all, I viewed M11, M20, M22, M31, M51 (barely), M57, M81, M82, all in the space of a couple of hours. Then came the Moon.

As the waning gibbous Moon rose, its glow obscured the lovely path of the Milky Way and made it increasingly difficult to see any but the brightest deep sky objects. So I pointed my telescope towards Jupiter.

Jupiter emerged from behind the Sun earlier this year minus its dark southern equatorial cloud band or belt. I was eager to see. Though still low in the sky and rising at nearly the same altitude as the Moon, I was able to get a decent view of the planetary disk. Observed at several magnifications, with and without ND filter and sure enough, only one dark band was visible. I thought I could see hints of the Great Red Spot but, with the planet still low in the atmosphere, couldn't confirm that. I hope to get a better view of Jove next month but, at least, I got to see it!

I aimed the telescope at planet Uranus but that distant world was barely a dot in the eyepiece.

My project for the night was to attach my Canon EOS 50D digital SLR camera directly to my big Meade refractor -- using the 1,200mm optic as a telephoto lens. I'd never tried it before and it worked beautifully. There was some difficulty achieving sharp focus which was a surpise to me. Add to that the fact that I did not yet have a cable release for the camera and I was happy to get usable images at all. I did, however, get one very good shot out of the experiment (shown here) and will be ordering a cable release soon. That little device will help me minimize vibration -- I had to trigger the shutter by pressing the shutter release button by hand; an action that shook the entire telescope and did not help picture taking.

Packed up and left at about 11:15 a happy fellow.

Image: The Moon... both cursed and loved by amateur astronomers worldwide. It brought an early end to deep sky observing tonight but, itself, made a great subject for viewing and photographing. Canon EOS 50D: ISO 400, 1/400 sec., Meade achromatic f/8 refracting telescope: 1,219 mm. August 28, 2010, 10:54 PM. Photo by James Guilford.

September open night

September 22 -- The Stephens Observatory open night went very well. We had 29 visitors, all ages represented, with a good number of them College students. The last little group, two college couples, arrived just before 11 PM closing. Most visitors got to see the Sagittarius Cluster (M22) -- the beautiful globular star cluster of about 70,000 stars -- which resolved into individual stars very handsomely, the Moon, and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) which was a struggle to find with so many people in the room! The Moon is always a big hit with the public: something we see very often but not with the kind of detail we see through a good, big refracting telescope. Our best views came through the big wide-field antique eyepiece (about 40X) but views at 110X through a modern eyepiece were crisp and thrilling. At one point in the evening I think we had around 22 people in the dome -- a 16-foot diameter room -- which may be some sort of record for us! The air was cool, the sky was perfectly clear (for Northeastern Ohio) and the atmosphere fairly steady (some shimmering of crater details visible at higher power).

Clear night, photo experiments

Having missed one night of excellent seeing Saturday night, I decided I must get out this night... the second very good night in a row! Went to Stephens and enjoyed about 2 1/2 hours of excellent skies. I practiced locating and observing the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) with the big scope. Viewed the spectacular M22 globular star cluster in Sagittarius, and enjoyed seeing the Milky Way in the dark sky overhead. Attempted to image M31 and M22 through the telescope but it still isn't tracking nearly well enough for photography... not yet, anyway. Did take the camera outdoors and photograph the dome against the night sky and the photos were excellent as first tries! Sensitivity setting of ISO 1600, however, generated a lot of electronic noise amongst the stars. I'll use that rarely in future! One of the clearest skies in a while and I got to enjoy it in comfortable 68-degree conditions. Closed up at midnight. A good night.

19th and 2st Centuries meet

I went to Stephens Observatory and was able to use the 2-inch adapter to mount my Canon Digital Rebel XT camera to the century-old Warner and Swasey telescope with its 9-inch Brashear objective. All of the photos are a bit softer than I'd like but not surprising but two were fairly good. Quality suffered in part because of trees surrounding the site, the photos were all made in bright twilight. And the atmosphere was unsteady. I was at the limit of inward motion on the eyepiece holder so I couldn't experiment with focus. Still, this first success pleases me and I can hardly wait to try again under better conditions! Moon images were all made between about 8:40 and 8:45 PM when Luna moved behind high trees to the south-southwest of the dome. Didn't try Jupiter because it just didn't look good enough -- details barely distinguishable by eye. I did learn, however, that placing a neutral density filter at the eyepiece improved the quality of Jupiter's appearance to the point where, instead of a brilliant blank disk, I could visually make out the two major cloud bands. I took a long break and then went into my continuing efforts to learn aiming the telescope by celestial coordinates. I believe I succeeded in finding M22 by this method but had trouble with other objects. So there is a lot of work remaining. Spotted M9 with binoculars though dim objects were hard to spot this night. Saw one fast-moving satellite in the telescope's field of view. Surprising and delightful was seeing the Milky Way span the sky nearly overhead -- a wonderful way to end the evening (really the night) at about midnight. Came home and had to view my photographic efforts and that kept me up til about 2:00 AM. My favorite image is seen here. There's chromic aberration at the edge of the lunar disk but it isn't bad considering the optics of this 9-inch achromatic doublet are 107 or so years old -- uncoated and no filters! I sent a copy of this photo to a local newspaper to see if they'll use it and give us a bit of added publicity.