behind

All the work over the weekend on the RASC TC web site transfer has put me a bit behind. I have to do a bunch of prep for The Sky This Month presentation on Wednesday and my Advanced Access teach on Friday. No time to play tonight either.

didn't observe with 'scope

I didn't go out last night, other than to count stars in Orion, despite some favourable conditions. Didn't have a client gig on Monday, telescope was ready to go in the garage, could use the entire garage (with the car moved out) as the warm room, could do rapid shut down (back into the garage) when done, fairly good sky conditions (although I did not receive e-mail alerts). But it occurred to me late last night or early this morning that there is another factor, another time constraint issue.

It's not just having rapid access to a 'scope, quick start-up and tear-down times. There is a time investment required, time commitment required, to my observing.

As I have already considered, I need a good plan to feel fulfilled. Targets, objectives, a checklist. But to build that plan some times takes hours.

I hadn't realised that part before.

And that might explain why even having a grab-and-go 'scope at my disposal, I'm not observing.

I keep thinking about Phil and how he doesn't log or blog his observations per se.

Maybe there's a different tactic I should contemplate: if I don't have a lot of time, don't make a plan, just do some quick observing, and don't worry about detailed notes, recording keeping, having everything right. Just observe. Aim the 'scope high. Just observe for the joy of it...

tips from Tom

I heard back from Tom Teague. I asked if he had any suggestions as to how to report double star observations.

I haven't had a chance to evaluate the figures, but the format is OK, subject to the following. It's conventional to include the magnitudes of the components, even though you haven't actually assessed their brightness yourself. [I suppose the discipline of checking makes it more likely that you'll notice if the magnitudes don't quite fit with the figures in a catalogue, suggesting that perhaps one of the components may be variable.]

Also, and this is important, you should state the number of measures, even if it's only one. If (as ideally you should) you spread the measures over three or four nights, give the number of nights. Seeing, funnily enough, is not usually included (although obviously you should always record it, as you have done).

Tom

I will integrate his ideas into my routine.

old letterhead

Started drafting my "your fired" letter. Downloaded the RASC TC letterhead from the Council Yahoo!Group. Still has the STARline on it. Huh. They shut that down in November...

I updated the document, deep-sixed the old one, uploaded the new version, and strongly urged everyone to get with it.

main calendar GUI good

The main calendar GUI is working again! Somehow it got zapped in the move. Ever since I did direct editing, I wasn't able to apply changes through the csCalendar interface. But now the CGI interface is able to access the calendar. I just successfully deleted an RASC TC event. Can add again.

CAO calendar works

I just tested the CAO bookings calendar for the RASC TC site. It works beautifully!

it's all coming together.

I think the 406 error is the only outstanding issue.

calendar corrupted

Gilles found that the calendar CGI was corrupted. He reinstalled it from the backup. It started working. I activated the config file I had already adjusted for our new server. It worked! Holy cow! The RASC TC mini and large calendars are up!

We're not sure why or how the file got corrupted. Doesn't really matter.

mag 4 sky

Submitted my GLOBE at Night sky light pollution rating.

Waited for the end of astronomical twilight. I spent about 30 minutes dark adapting. Used my laser enhancement glasses to go in and out of the house. Took the clip board with large format observing log sheet. Sketched Orion and as many faint stars as I could see.

The faintest star was μ (mu) Orionis (4.30), up and to the left of Betelgeuse. No problem for σ (sigma) Ori (4.00) below the belt.

Everyone had their lights on. Housemates on the top floor. Cherneys to the east. No respect.

not a sundial

It's not exactly a sundial, but I have a crystal dodecahedron suspended in my west window over my office desk. On sunny days, sunny afternoons, for a brief period of time, with the perfect alignment, the sunlight catches the crystal ball, and fills my living room with little spectrums and small white triangles. Two days in a row now I have enjoyed the sparkling light show.

I'm looking forward to spring and summer.

The porro prism I have (which I bought surplus years ago) up in the sill is also catching the Sun.

The Crookes radiometer is slowly turning.

fixed forms

More progress made. Repaired the HTML forms on the RASC TC web site after the move. They are working now. People can book their loaner 'scopes and book the CAO again! Woot!

fixed private sections

Got the private member-only sections of the RASC TC site going.

fixed index bug

Stu found a little issue with the RASC TC site. Depending on how one accessed the home page, slightly different content was loading. I remembered that my directly modified index file was still sitting there. I replaced it with a SSI redirect. One more bug fixed!

web data updated

I uploaded the CMS database snapshot from yesterday to the new RASC web server. Refreshed the site from the administrative GUI. Saw Stu's article from yesterday afternoon! Woot! Saw all my recent updates. Incredible.

Downloaded some 40 or 50 new images and attachments; uploaded them to the new system.

It all works!

There are some issues with the little calendar I can't figure out. Asked Gilles to take a peek.

finally on new WPP

Earlier today I asked Dave VIII in Nova Scotia to switch the nameservers for the RASC Toronto Centre web site to those of HostPapa. Of course, the change started to ripple through the DNS system a couple of hours later.

I was thrilled to see our web site appear. Actually, the version from about 1 month ago, when Gilles transferred a tarball to the new Web Presence Provider, showed in my browser. That was the tell-tale I was looking for—the site to revert to an old state.

Some of the logo images weren't loading so I directly hacked the index file. I was so happy to see that the menu links worked! It was clear that the site was going to function in its new home!

I still have some work to do. But it's essentially working.

I took a backup of a database from the old server.

We can finally rid ourselves of Georgian.net, an utterly incompetent, backwards, cash-strapped, unreliable, antiquated, unstable host. If I could sue the unprofessional Collingwood organisation I would. It is amazing to me that this unethical provider could still operate in this day and age with such horrible down-time statistics. They clearly cannot affort a UPS. It is asinine, screwed-up, opaque, dishonest companies like this that make one demand service-level agreements.

beautiful night

Clear, beautiful, cloud-free. And I received 2 alarms from CSC.

But I have a rendezvous with Jenna. We have some catching up to do. Looking forward to it.

Then I have to rush home to hack the RASC Toronto Centre site. After the "big switch."

asked to do May TSTM

Paul asked me if I wanted to deliver the The Sky This Month for May to the RASC Toronto Centre. Unfortunately, that's the last night of the NOVA course. And I think I wanna make an appearance there...

count stars again

It's that time again. Time to count stars in Orion. Part of the GLOBE at Night project to gauge light pollution. Around the world! So, starting Mar 3 and running to Mar 16, assess your conditions.

Quick and easy to do. That said, you should dark-adapt! Fun for the whole family.

no time for doubles

Received a CSAC e-mail around 5 PM for Toronto...

Favorable observing conditions at Toronto
Opportunities to observe at: (Clouds/Trans/Seeing)
03-01 @ Hour 21 for 4 hours (0%/Average/Average)

I wasn't surprised. I saw it clearing in the afternoon.

But the Moon was full. I had a mountain of stuff to do. I have to teach tomorrow (well, do a demo; but it's in the morning). Early start required. So... no time to chase double stars...

consolidated doubles

Did another tidy of my double star lists...

Made sure my on-line life list was up to date. Reconciled this with Sissy Haas's book. Updated my check lists for the field (in Excel files).

Found a couple of interesting discrepancies. For example, I had viewed τ (tau) Ophiuchi, a suggestion from Sky and Tel, noted it in my life list, but had not found it in double stars. On closer examination, verifying the coordinates in Stellarium and the Pocket Sky Atlas, I learned that it was, in fact, in Haas's tome. As star 69 Oph. So, the book got a check mark and an AKA note; the web page got the AKA.

Up to 105 viewed now.

posted my 14 AC Ari notes

Tom and Richard, of the s33 Yahoo!Group, asked to see my results. I finally got 'round to submitting them.

quick update

Huh. There must have been some serious issues to make for a quick release of a newer version of Stellarium. 0.10.4 is available for download.

meeting night

When Jim heard me talking to Charles, he released me from setting up servers for the next day's TANDBERG class. I could come out and play! Yeh! Charles had invited me to join him at Jack Astor's for dinner. I hopped on the tube from downtown and made it to Pape fairly quickly. The platform was surprisingly empty. The bus pulled in after a couple of minutes. Good timing. Charles wasn't answering his mobile phone. I thought it was going to take an hour; it was probably about 35 to 40 minutes door-to-door surprisingly. We talked shop, ASUS netbooks, flat screens, TigerDirect, NOVA, DDO, Olympics. Received the unneeded laptop bag from Paul and my Earth grocery bag. I hitched a ride with Charles to the OSC.

When we walked in, the men's hockey was playing on the big screen! Later, when I saw Doug from A/V, I gave him a big thumb's up. The men were leading!

The lecture by Dr. Youdin was good. He was nervous. Did a brief review of our home system, showed a snap of directly viewed young solar systems, briefly discussed some of the exoplanets. Snuck a couple of hockey references into his short talk. His simulations of perturbations in clouds of primordial gas were very interesting. Planets formed in the spinning vortices, interacting with each other, like eddies in a stream. Like our atmosphere. I asked if he followed chaos, or rather, complexity theory, how large systems and small systems exhibited similar behaviors. Didn't seem like he gave it much weight.

I was very pleased to see my repaired presentation file used, followed by Ralph, along with the supplied handout, printed by Charles. Stuart H's background conjunction photo looked really good. The Uncle Sam image got a good laugh. Diane protested at her image being used. I didn't know that Scott had shot the photo.

At the Gastronomical Meeting afterwards, I sat opposite Uve. He took the last NOVA course. He was very complimentary. I was just happy to hear that he had become a member of the RASC! He had already joined the Yahoo!Group and signed out one of the loaner 'scopes, the Dob 8". We helped him with a number of issues, the biggest of which was sticktion. I reminded him about telescope cool-down time and dark adaptation time. I gave him my e-mail. Chatted briefly with Matt. He offered a Linksys 24 port switch for the CAO. Nice! Then we can get rid of the dLink stuff...

Got a ride home with Tony. He also offered to take Denis home. Along the way, Denis and I chatted about the changes he had made to the prototyped membership pages I had built (and he changed without asking). It was clear that we were going to disagree on some items. But I believe he's going to follow the style that I've established for the Toronto Centre web site. For the balance of the ride to Denis's home, Tony and Denis discussed the possible membership fee increase and the role and skills required of the new staff person National wants to hire. Very interesting.

generous offer

Denis offered me use of his occultation gear while he's away. I believe this includes video equipment. Cool!

14 Ari and Albategnius captured (Toronto)

Bound and determined, after all this gloomy talk, I felt that I had no excuse for not observing tonight. Well, aside from the mountain of paper work to catch up on, preparations for upcoming training work, interesting movies on TVO. No, really! In fact, one was Apollo 13 by Ronnie Howard. Man, that flick always makes me feel cold. So I set about making a plan for the evening. Not too ambitious but still with some serious astronomical objectives:

• accurately measure a double star, 14 Arietis, with the CMG
• view and sketch Mars
• photograph Mars with a "special new technique"
• first practice the new technique on the Moon

With some challenge items:

• split α (alpha) Piscium, a very tight double star
• view Vesta, shortly after opposition, naked eye

In addition to my usual sources of information, I took a look at CalSky and Tonight’s Sky. Weather tools suggested pretty good conditions although the CSC transparency ratings did not look great. And the Moon was nearing first quarter, so, unless there were some stunning globular or open clusters, I wasn’t going to aim for DSOs. I was in red light mode before dinner and ready to go around 7.

I remembered to check the latitude setting on the mount. Looked OK. I made a small adjustment, in hopes of eliminating the slight drift I saw before...

At around 7:30, I caught sight of a satellite. I picked it up in the west about 45° up. To the right of the Moon and heading to the zenith. It went through Perseus. It was not as bright as Mirphak (1.75) but about the same as δ (delta) Persei (3.00), definitely not the level of Capella (0.05). It remained steady, this slow mover, as it moved into Ursa Major (near the brightness of Dubhe and Merak, 2.00 and 2.30, respectively). Lost it in the neighbour’s tree at 7:34. So maybe magnitude 3? Funny, I wasn’t really expecting that. In fact, I had dismissed all the satellite flyovers suggested by CalSky.

Re-reading the CalSky list, it looks like I saw the USA 182/Lacrosse 5. They say it was to appear at 19h23m with a 7.3 mag at azimuth 231° SW on the horizon. It was to culminate at 19h30m with a 2.6 mag at an elevation of 75.2°. And finally, it was to disappear at 19h34m, 3.9 mag, az 42.6° NE, h 20.5°. Sounds right. As I watched it and considered its speed, and how long it stayed in the sunlight, the time some 2 hours after sunset, I wondered if it was higher than the ISS. CalSky says it is, over 700 km up.

Huh. Struck by a crazy idea. With Vesta on my plan and seeing Juno was near Pisces, I thought, hey, I should view several asteroids tonight! So I started starhopping to Juno. Had to make a couple of trips into “the warm room” to verify the location. By then, I had all the necessary gear outside.

7:52. I noticed the low battery indicator again on the Oregon Scientific portable weather station. Once more, it does not like the cold. Or rather, these lithium batteries do not like the cold. I glanced at the temperature and noted 0.3°. But I forgot to check if that was minus. That said, I knew it was still acclimating to being outside.

Before departing from a Psc, I cranked up the magnification. And enjoyed the remarkably tight double again. So tight that the general appearance was a figure 8. Only briefly did they completely separate. I detected colour this time! The main star I thought white-blue; the companion burnt orange. The second star was only slightly dimmer. That sucker must be luminous though, still close to the main star in magnitude, to let me detect hue. Very interesting. I visually estimated the Position Angle to be 275°. Haas says separation is 1.9”, the magnitudes are 4.1 and 5.2, and the PA was 270 (noted in 2004).

My back was cold! Perhaps the light wind? Switched to a warmer coat.

Continued my starhopping to Juno. At 8:13, I did a sketch of the field of view in the Plossl. The humidity was 60% and the temp was -0.5°.

{sketch coming soon}

The drawing is inconclusive. I noted the star between HP 9557 and where Juno should be. That’s a mag 11.00 star! And yet I did not see the mag 10.95 star near 9579? Nor the 10.55 star near Juno? Was it the low elevation? 23° up? I was going through lots of air... Too bad I could not have followed it for another hour. See which of those “stars” moved. Anyway, I was certainly in the area!

For the next hour, I calibrated the Linear Scale of the Celestron MicroGuide eyepiece. I chose ι (iota) Cassiopeiae. Apropos, the lovely triple! Quickly estimated the PAs to be 100 and 225; not bad: 115 and 230 according to Haas. First couple of calibration times I had to toss out–no 2x Barlow in place. Oops. Captured 7 good times using my palmtop Stopwatch program’s lap timer. Not just for race tracks.

Polar alignment is still off...

Check the conditions at 9:14: 66% and -1.3°. Ugh. My target star was getting low. Only 30° up. That will affect seeing…

It was an easy starhop from Hamal to 14 Aries. I found a wide pair, pale yellow and pale blue. I measured the sep and PA. I captured the initial exit angle on the large circular scale. I noted the number of ticks apart on the linear scale. And then I performed Teague’s “advanced” method and captured the two “tilt” angles. All for later reduction.

While viewing the bright star in 14 Aries, with the 12.5mm eyepiece, I clearly saw diffraction rings. But, sadly, they were not uniform. There's no doubt now. Time to collimate.

I headed to Mars. And was shocked. The transparency was very good with the Meade 18mm. And then improved with the Barlow. I could see a ton of detail at 222x! The polar cap seemed very large, quite white. Immediately below it was a pronounced dark region with a triangular point (I learned latter was Utopia). The south pole was mostly dark slate blue. There was Syrtis Major again, to the right of the meridian (mirror reversed). But I could vaguely see detail in the pale orange regions between the north and south poles, hints of lines and streaks. Astounding. The view seemed to degrade slowly. Either that or I was getting tired.

I had my clipboard, various pencils, Pink Pearl eraser, red flashlight, and large log sheet ready to go. But as I tried to sketch, I found it… just awkward. I realised that my custom log sheet with the 16 cm circle was too big! This is OK for clusters or nebula or moons orbiting a planet. I remembered a web site where the author suggested sketching planets in pre-drawn circles. I ran inside for my older log sheets. This earlier edition featured small log reports, each with small circle, 1/4 the size of this large one. Much better. Then I grabbed my baseball cap clip light, the hacked version with red LEDs, I needed to free up a hand. But as I put the light on the bill, one of the two clips snapped. Crap!

Well, maybe that’s just a sign… An MEC head lamp (like the one I gave Mom) may be in my future.

Back outside, fumbling with lights and pencils, I completed a sketch of Mars. It was 10:07. I didn’t spend a lot of time at it but was pleased with the result overall. And I used the eraser to fix something! That was a first. When I compare it to the Mars Profiler from Sky & Telescope, I’m amazed. If I keep up at this, keep practicing, keep slowing down, I might get pretty good at this…

{sketch coming soon}

I was intrigued by the sharp angle, the 90° bend between Syrtis Major and Mare Tyrrhenum, the light orange area of Libya. I also noted the gradually angling up of the dark region from the bottom left, Mare Cimmerium, toward Libya.

OK. Time for photos! First stop: Luna. I put the telescope on the Moon and inserted the 26mm Plössl.

The plan was to try the trick I had read about, in a couple of places, on the web. It was suggested that for a point-and-shoot camera used afocally with a telescope, you needed to get the light rays from the eyepiece emerging in a parallel pattern, not a converging one for the eye. So I grabbed my cheapo binos and viewed the Moon focusing the Bushnells crisply on the Moon. Then I looked down the eyepiece with the binos. Wow, huge! Very close up! But it made it easy to focus. I adjusted the telescope until it was good through the binoculars. That was pretty easy.

I bolted up the eyepiece-camera adapter (on loan from the RASC). Aligned the J20 camera, powered it up, and saw a good image! I max’ed the optical zoom and found the view very impressive. Shot photos from 10:18 to 10:22 adjusting the ISO from 100 to 400 and 800. I’m astonished with the results.



FujiFilm finepix J20, SP-C8, Celestron 26mm Plossl EP, eyepiece-camera clamp
1/17 sec, camera focal ratio f5.6, focal length 19mm, ISO 800
edited in Fireworks: scaled to 1/3rd, sharpened, flipped vertically, rotated, auto levels

In Virtual Moon Atlas, I identified the area. The photo is nearly centred on Albategnius with most of the crater in shadow save the centre peak just visible. Just peeking into the sunlight.

I wanted to try the same “parallel rays” technique for Mars. The photos did not come out well though. Oh well. The Moon ones make up for it! It is incredible that I can see craters down to 10 km in diameter.

I was feeling tired, a little anxious about tomorrow, and thinking I should not stay up late. Got lots done though. I packed up quickly in the garage again, not breaking down the ‘scope, just moving it inside the garage. It was great tonight being up to go outside and use it in minutes.

Done. 10:46. It was -2° at 70% humidity.

§

Indoors, I uncloaked and readied for bed. But I really wanted to see what I had accomplished with my double star measurement! No time for the whole blog but I could quickly crunch the numbers.

I exported the calibration times from the Psion Stopwatch program. I then pulled these into a Psion Word document, cleaned the data, and then copied the good times to a Psion Sheet. I parsed the text then averaged the numeric times: 42.97 seconds to travel along the centre linear scale of the CGM. I visually estimated the stars separated by 25.5 ticks. I punched these numbers, along with the declination of ι Cas, into my palmtop spreadsheet. It returned a separation of 105.4”.

It was at this point that something occurred to me. That when one measures the exit angle during the drift process, the reticle can be oriented two ways! While the centre linear scale numbers aren’t a factor, the zero value can either be near to or far from the main star in the double system. Which way? That means the exit angle could be off by 180°! Oh oh.

I punched the exit, tilt 1, and tilt 2 numbers into the spreadsheet and got crazy PA and sep numbers. I examined the reticle, turned it 180°, inferred a new set of numbers. Put these in the spreadsheet. Ah ha! That’s more like it. Based on Teague’s “advanced” method, I get sep 103.9” and PA 281°.

I re-read Teague's article and I found it, an almost side comment, at the end of a paragraph, that said one must put the zero mark near to the main star. Ah. Missed that comment. I'll need to add that to my notes...

In all of this, while comparing against the numbers in Sissy Haas’s book, I learned that 14 Aries is a triple star! Oh. And the AB and AC stars have about the same sep and mag! Well, then. I only measured stuff between what I thought were the two bright stars in the area. So, it seems that I measured the “AC” pair. Haas reports the 2003 sep of 106.7” and PA 278°.

So, I'm in the ball park, which is good. But it is interesting how different they still are from each other and Haas.

§

Had a funny thought during the session. Involving multi-night observing, storing the assembled telescope quickly in the garage, having access to a warm room. In particular, I was thinking about summer evenings where the enemy is dew. A couple of times last year, I used the picnic table with the umbrella opened. Works but it’s still a bit limited. The neat idea that popped into my head was to use the garage itself! I’m already kicking out the car to make it easy to move the ‘scope. So, I’ll have to remember this for the future. A couple of tables, I’ll be good to go! Just need to watch the trip hazards. And maybe mute the red light. It’ll be fun to try.

message from Tom

I had asked Mr Teague for a confirmation of my interpretation of his use of the Celestron Micro Guide (CMG) calibrated eyepiece. Specifically, that his methods for measuring double star separations and position angles meant using the CMG in a way different than what Celestron instructed. He replied...

Blake,

You are quite right.  There is actually no contradiction between my CMG instruction and the Celestron instruction sheet, for precisely the reason you mention.  As you rightly point out, my drift method involves using the scales in a different way from that envisaged by the makers.  I can therefore confirm that you are not going crazy!

All the best,
Tom

Always good to know that some people don't think you're going crazy.