Canceled August Public Night

Last night's scheduled Public Night at Stephens Memorial Observatory was canceled. Weather this year has really been an enemy to those occasions. Thunderstorms and cloud cover rolled through the area in the afternoon and evening hours. Unfortunately, at about the time I canceled the event (about 8:30 PM) some reporting stations were saying the sky was "clear." I still find that hard to believe but enough doubt crept into my mind that I felt guilt for the rest of the night. I've got to set up a team of trusted spotters I can call to check the actual sky conditions, or just go to the Observatory every scheduled night to see for myself (a bit of a drive). I hope the weather is good for September's Public Night... we'll see Jupiter (probably without its southern equatorial cloud band), Uranus, and the Moon. It'll be a great show, IF the sky is clear!

Great views of the sun with a Lunt

Today I had the opportunity to work with (okay, play with) a new Lunt solar telescope (35mm) recently purchased by the Physics Department. I was charged with the responsibility of determining what accessories might be necessary to make the scope easy to set up and use in astronomy education. The scope is nicely made and finished --a small refractor equipped with a diagonal-- complete with built-in hydrogen-alpha (Ha) filters. Easiest for the instructor is a system that allows mounting the telescope to a camera tripod; that reduces setup time to five minutes or less. The scope came with a set of mounting rings and set screws and is attached to a base frame. The base is threaded in two places to mate with a dovetail rail but those threads are standard camera threads as well. So, while not elegant, attachment to a tripod is easy and secure.

The sky was reasonably clear so I set up the telescope outdoors, added an eyepiece, and set about finding the sun. By the way, one nice thing about the Lunt is that you can use regular 1.25-inch eyepieces because all of the solar filtration is internal to the scope! The actual hard part can be getting aimed at the sun... that's one object you want to be careful when aiming toward.

Trying several eyepieces and various focal lengths I found my ideal combination with the Lunt was an ancient Kellner 12mm. The field of view includes the entire solar disk and presents an excellent combination of magnification (33X), brightness, and clarity. After focusing and tuning the filter I was rewarded with very good views of three areas of prominences in the same quarter of the sun's limb. I briefly made out a filament on the sun's surface and saw two sunspot groups, though they were not very clear -- attributable to seeing conditions. I took the scope down and stowed my gear. The next thing I did was order the simple Tele Vue Sol-Searcher --not included in the basic telescope kit-- which will be a big help in quickly and safely aiming.

I set up the telescope one more time, at about 5:45 PM, to take one more look at old Sol. Seeing had improved and, to my delight, I could now make out structure in the prominences and, with a slight tuning adjustment, filaments and some granulation. Much better than the smaller Personal Solar Telescope by Coronado. It's a fine instrument, that Lunt, and makes me want my own!

After I receive and install the Sol-Searcher I'll be returning the telescope to Physics. Before that, I hope to try a bit of digital imaging of the sun's now-active face -- but I'll need a little camera.

A changeable sky

Even before heading to Stephens Memorial Observatory conditions were changeable. The mixed forecasts called for partly cloudy skies with the chance of isolated thunderstorms. Seeing conditions, well, the forecast was from no good to okay. As it turned out, all of those things were true! I opened the Observatory and my first visitors for the night began arriving shortly thereafter. Due to neighboring trees, we hauled the portable 10-inch reflector out to the lawn to catch a look at the Moon which was floating in clear sky. Nice views enjoyed by all present. Even as we watched a shelf of clouds moved steadily from the northwest first obscuring, then covering the Moon. As a few more folks arrived we talked about telescopes and adjourned to the Observatory interior to see and discuss the big refractor. In all 23 people took a chance that the sky would be clear enough and visited. By about 10 PM we were all talked out, there were flashes of lightning in the sky along with rumbles of thunder. I closed up, picked up my gear and loaded the car. As I left I could see patches of clear sky and one of my intended showpieces --Antares, the red supergiant star in Scorpius-- shining through a "sucker hole" in the southern sky. In the west, flashes of lightning. It was a changeable sky indeed!

Photo: A massive thunderstorm brews on the horizon east of Hiram. Photo by James Guilford.

Not a good weekend for astronomy

On Friday I learned that the International Space Station, because of orbital characteristics, would be visible many times over the next nights. One of those overflights would take place that night. So at about 10:21 PM I stepped out on to our stoop, looked to the twilight of the western sky, and immediately spotted the ISS. The moving "star" was nearly as bright as planet Venus and quickly climbed high into the sky, nearly overhead, and over the roof of the house. It was at least as interesting to see Venus, Regulus, Mars, and Saturn lined up along the ecliptic. "Probably the best night of the weekend," I wrote, and that turned out to be true.

I called off the Saturday night Public Night at Stephens Memorial Observatory due to mostly cloudy skies. Open areas between the masses of clouds were essentially translucent and totally unsuited to seeing any trace of two Messier List objects we were to see. Reinforcing the decision, a local storm developed north of Hiram possibly even dropping light rain there at the announced opening time for the event.

Tonight, after an exceptionally hot and humid day, waves of rain and strong thunderstorms passed over the region.

Not a good weekend, overall, for astronomy!

Night of Scorpius

The day had been clear and predictions were for an unusually good sky for nighttime astronomy. I headed to Stephens Memorial Observatory for a private observing session. I arrived around 9:00 PM and quickly determined that both the Moon and Saturn were down in the trees so I took my time checking the place. There was much sweeping up do do --birds and, perhaps, wind had delivered a pile of leaf and grass material to the observing floor-- and I discovered that the timer for our front door lights had failed in the "off" condition. The huge dehumidifier vat was nearly full and had to be dumped. After some cleanup I opened the dome and uncovered the telescope. More sweeping... nesting materials had fallen on to the canvas telescope cover (which is why it is used) and then to the floor.

Once set up I quickly found that the formerly promising sky was really not so good with only fair to good transparency. The early evening saw the cloudless sky take on a pale blue cast, not the deep color I'd expected. Twilight and ground-based light pollution made the sky glow softly, even as the hours passed. The neighbor's obnoxiously placed, bright light at the side of their garage flood lit the observatory building and grounds so no wide-field sky photography this night! Not a dark night but better than we've seen here in some time. At least temperatures in the upper 60s made the night air comfortable for activity.

The "T" of constellation Scorpius dominated the southern sky. I focused the telescope on the scorpion's heart, star Antares, and nudged the scope to the right. Normally I can quickly find star cluster M4 that way but tonight, not so easy. I fished and fished, starting over again and again, estimating the degree separating Antares and M4 and trying again, all without success. I moved on.

The next target was the Ring Nebula --M57-- in constellation Lyra. I surprised myself and found the "gray donut" right away and viewed it at several magnifications up to about 124X. Its appearance was less distinct than I am used to and I am not certain if that was because of seeing conditions or a bit of trouble I was having with my right eye. It may just be it looked less sharp because I was seeing it as a larger image than I'd ever seen before -- a smaller view of a ring nebula would appear sharper and neighboring stars in the field of view were pinpoint sharp. Just finding and observing the ring was reward enough, however, so I was pleased.

Not admitting defeat, I turned back to Scorpius to again seek M4. This time, triangulating off Antares and neighboring star in the constellation I found the star cluster immediately. At low magnification, and as my eye adjusted to the view, a field of diamond-dust appeared in the eyepiece. The appearance was very subtle. It could just be I'd scanned over the object several times but didn't see it because twilight had obscured the view. A darker, more transparent sky would increase the contrast but this was a beautiful sight -- much more impressive than I remember from earlier viewings.

I closed up around 11:30 and headed for home. As I left the area I glanced to the south and could Scorpius floating in the sky due south of me, nearly all of the great constellation visible. The sight was a fine way to end the night's stargazing.

Astronomy Class - PM

The students from the three-week intensive astronomy course returned to the Observatory last night. Their instructor and I worried over the skies in the afternoon wondering if we should postpone or cancel due to big patches of cirrus clouds. We decided Wednesday night might be the last possibility of getting the class together for a little nighttime astronomy. As it turned out, the sky only offered fair seeing but better than it would have been tonight (Thursday). They got decent views of Saturn --its ring plane nearly edge-on, moons in a nice line-- along with very good viewing of the Moon through both our 10-inch Dobsonian reflector and the big nine-inch refractor. We saw brilliant Vega through the telescope as well as a beautiful (unknown) red star. I fished through the glowing murk of the northeastern sky for any sign of M57 (the Ring Nebula) but to no avail. We had a decent session, conditions considered, but it was a little disappointing knowing what was "out there" last night, obscured by glowing clouds. Shutting down the place for the night took longer than normal -- the lawn had been mowed and, carried by dew-damp shoes, clumps of dry grass covered the floors and had to be swept up. Session lasted from 9:30 to about 11:00 with approximately 10 students in attendance.

Astronomy Class - AM

Students from this spring's second session of three-week intensive astronomy course visited Stephens Memorial Observatory this morning to take a look at our Sun. This class was luckier than the previous course's students for we were blessed with mostly-clear skies, reasonably steady seeing, and a sunspot (#1072). Using the big Cooley Telescope and a modern white light solar filter over the objective, we looked at the solar disk as a whole with the low-magnification eyepiece and could see traces of, I suspect, "supergranules" and the lonely sunspot floating in the lower left-hand portion of our field of view. At about 122X granulation wasn't apparent but good detail could be observed in the sunspot! When seeing was best we could easily make out the shape of the umbra (dark central portion of the spot) and the filaments of the penumbra. Interestingly it seemed almost as if the entire assembly was encircled by a solid line cleanly separating the spot from the rest of the solar atmosphere. There have been very few sunspots to observe and (seemingly) fewer clear days during which to observe them so the morning session was a real treat. The visit lasted from about 9:00 to 10:00 when the students returned to their classroom... for mid-term exams! If they survive their tests and the sky is clear, we plan to have a nighttime visit from the astronomy class with the Moon and Saturn as featured attractions.

Image credit: SOHO/MDI - image "flipped" side-to-side to illustrate telescope view.