Astronomy class visits observatory

I hosted the Hiram College Fall Semester Astronomy class at Stephens Memorial Observatory this morning at 9:00. They were given a brief history of the Observatory and telescope and we observed the Sun. The sky was mostly clear and temperature was around 70 degrees. Using the Cooley Telescope's relatively new Baader film filter, we observed, when seeing was good, granulation and a small sunspot group surrounded by faculae. The 12 students seemed to enjoy the visit and were encouraged to attend public nights. We'll also be hosting some student-only observing sessions.

Total lunar eclipse

Total Lunar Eclipse! This was the first lunar eclipse that I've observed that ended at totality with the sun rising which means I only saw the first half of "the show." Never mind, it was an excellent experience! It was well worth my getting up 90 minutes early! I watched the Moon move from the shade of Earth's outer shadow or penumbra and into the deep inner cone of darkness, the umbra. Within the space of a bit more than an hour Luna changed from a full, golden disk to a dull coppery remnant in the western sky. Sunrise erased the last traces of the spectacle from sight a little after 6:00 AM Tuesday, August 28.

At about 4:45 AM, I stepped out on to our western-facing porch and carried my camera (Canon Digital Rebel XT, set at ISO 400), already mounted to its tripod, down to the walk. From there I shot my first photos of the mostly-bright Moon; it was fully inside the Earth's penumbra at that hour and beginning to enter the umbra. I worked out the best exposure settings and tested the focus. Next I moved to the court at the end of our driveway apron, set up the tripod there, shot a few more images. From there I swung the camera around and got a few images of Orion rising above the trees... long time, old friend! Those shots, along with one of the Pleiades and neighboring Hyades star cluster, came out surprisingly well.



Progressively, stopping here and there, I began working my way up the hill stopping on the pavement several times to look up and maybe make another image or three -- no cars at all, thank goodness, just some guy on a bicycle who seemed surprised to see me. Then I took a non-stop hike to a place just across from the town square.



On a knoll beside a nursing home, overlooking the police station and the Columbia River valley beyond, I set up to stay til the end. Staff on break from the nursing home called across in the morning darkness, "is there a lunar eclipse?" "Yep," I yelled back, "and it's nearly in totality now!" "Wow, I thought it was," they answered after taking a peek, "but I didn't hear about it on the news." I tried different exposures, zoomed in and out, refined focus. In all, about 70 digital shots. None of the lunar images is truly sharp but several are "keepers."

Nonetheless, these are my best lunar eclipse images yet and certainly reflective of the visual experience. Next lunar eclipse is in February of 2008. I hope it's clear because that one should be a very good show for us Mid-Western North Americans! Next time, the camera rides a telescope!

Perseid meteors fizzle

The weekend's Perseid meteor shower was a bit of a bust for me. I didn't have much ambition and the sky conditions were rather hazy with a few passing clouds. Not great inspiration for staying up til all hours to watch for "falling stars." I stepped outside a few times Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights and bagged about six meteor sightings but wasn't inspired to head to darker skies. Tonight, however, was a beautiful night! The humidity and haze were down, it was nicely cool, and the sky was cloudless. I stepped outdoors at about 10:30, binoculars in hand, and decided to take a look around. The light-polluted sky was clear enough to display a good number of stars, Jupiter, with Antares nearby, shown brightly to the south, and, OH! a single bright meteor streaked north to south as I gazed skyward! Later I believe I spotted a very faint meteor headed in the same direction. Checking out the northeast sky with the binoculars and yes!, I was able to find the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) with no trouble at all so we've got a shot at showing it off at the next observatory open house. In the binocular field of view the galaxy was a faint fuzz-ball, rather indistinct in the bright skyglow, but it was there! I was too tired to go to the club meeting tonight and too tired to haul myself out to actually observe. The sky, however, is a wonder to behold no matter how you behold it!

July open night -- Jupiter rules!

Tonight was a scheduled open house at the SMO. The weather (cloud cover) was extremely doubtful but there was enough clear sky that I felt I had to make the drive out and open the dome. Good thing I did! All told about 12 visitors stopped by over the evening with the last leaving after 11 PM -- they were the same two ladies who showed up as my first visitors at about 9:30! We had surprisingly good views of Jupiter considering sky conditions but a long wait for the Moon to climb out from behind the neighbor's trees. Cloud bands were fairly easy to pick out on the planetary disk. The four Galilean moons were also easy to see and point out to guests. No neutral-density filter necessary. When Luna finally rose high enough we had to wait for breaks in the clouds -- most people seemed to think the wait was worth it. Views at around 100X weren't very special --soft details, probably the atmosphere-- so I switched to a low-power, fist-sized antique eyepiece and the entire view was changed. We could see the entire nearly-full Moon in the field of view with good detail overall and excellent seeing at the terminator. Even thin clouds scudding across the lunar disk seemed to add, rather than detract. So not too bad a night. My Moon photo (below) apparently was published in Ravenna's Record-Courier newspaper... I've gotta try and get a copy!

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.

Solar photo experiment

At Chaunticlair this afternoon I experimented with my AstroZap Baader solar filter and coupling of my Canon Digital Rebel XT to the Meade 390 telescope. I had cobbled together pieces of at least two different camera adapters to come up with a short one that would fit the Canon to the 1.25-inch eyepiece holder of the telescope. The combination focussed easily but the images were a bit disappointing. I had hoped and expected (based on the Cooley Telescope experience) that I would see sunspot and granulation but didn't see any granulation at all! Visually the sunspot showed good detail --today Sunspot 961 was nearly dead-center on the Sun-- but didn't image well (1/1,000th second @ ISO 400). I'll keep trying! Tonight I used the 390 and took a look at the pairing of planets Venus and Saturn in the twilight sky. With the 32mm (about 31X) eyepiece I was just able to fit both planets in the same field of view and got a very nice look at Venus in crescent phase -- the best I've seen it-- with Saturn tiny but distinct. The twilight actually helped by controlling the contrast of brilliant Venus. Swung the telescope around and got a nice look at Jupiter, as well, viewed through openings between the trees here at home. At the end of the brief evening clouds began moving in as I attempted photographs of the Meade 390 pointing towards Venus and Saturn in the fading twilight. The image didn't turn out as well as one I had seen and was imitating but it isn't bad, either.

Camp Asbury visits observatory

This morning Stephens Observatory hosted a group of 18 from a local church camp, vising as part of a "Space Week" program. Despite the hazy, hot, and humid conditions, seeing was surprisingly good. I pointed the grand old 9-inch scope, with its nice new Baader solar filter in place, at the sun and shared the view. We had a nice spidery little sunspot (designated Sunspot 961) to look at and could also make out granulation in the solar atmosphere. (View similar to the SOHO photo at right but in white light, not orange.) I'd never seen granulation with my own eyes and enjoyed the experience as much as or more than did the kids ... though they certainly were an enthusiastic and bright group. Just before I left I learned a respected previous Observatory director, J.R. Andress, had sneaked in for a personal visit to see what I've been up to. He left a note in the Observatory log to that effect and that he liked what he saw; also leaving his contact info.