Observe the Moon Night

Last night, September 18, was the first annual International Observe the Moon Night. The forecast for the night called for mostly-cloudy skies and that's what we were seeing in the early evening and when I headed to Stephens Memorial Observatory. I'd made an online posting stating that I would open the doors at 8:30 PM no matter the weather but if cloudy, would close at 9:00. Strange how things happen. As the appointed hour approached an opening in the clouds appeared overhead. At first the Moon was very hazy, then clear enough to offer fair views. I worked inside the dome preparing the big telescope for public use. By the time I opened the dome slit, the sky was completely clear of clouds! Over the course of the evening 33 visitors came and went and saw the waxing gibbous Moon and, later, Jupiter. The Moon put in a glorious appearance through the telescope's vintage low-power eyepiece. Jupiter, still minus its Southern Equatorial Band or cloud belt, was also seen in good detail: the Northern Equatorial band was visible and, better still, we got occasional glimpses of cloud bands in Jove's southern hemisphere. The four Galilean moons were also brightly present: three on one side, Io by itself on the other. Late in the evening clouds again intruded first covering the Moon, then Jupiter. Finally Jupiter would wink in and out of visibility as smaller and smaller openings in the clouds passed offering seconds-long glimpses of the beautiful distant scene. Jupiter was near its opposition this night at a distance of about 368 million miles. When told about the distance one woman exclaimed, "you can see 368 million miles with that?! {telescope} I closed the dome at about 10:45 when sprinkles were felt falling from the sky. The people were engaged and enthusiastic and the sights were quite wonderful. It was a good night.

Photo: Waxing gibbous Moon, two days after First Quarter. Photo by James Guilford

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.

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.