Monday, April 02, 2012
stage 2 complete
Geoff blogged our brief visit and the subsequent steps at getting his CPC 1100 back up and running.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Bill ran a slide show
I wandered back to the room and flopped down on the bed. Thinking about the very early start tomorrow... Turned on the tube and switched channels. Arrived at TVO and a show about Mount Everest. Killer mountain. The phone rang. It was my roomie Phil. He, and the crew, were over in Bill's room. Invited me over. I padded over in my barefeet and gave the password. Bill was in the process of hooking up his HDMI laptop to the TV. He showed us slides of the behind-the-scenes shoot of a television show XIII episode. Something fishy about it... Then he showed us slides of the realuminising of the 74" primary. Amazing stuff. They did a great job.
debriefed on SNO
Or is that briefed? Gord invited us to the hospitality suite to tell us about the morning process and answer questions about SNO LAB tour. The hotel put on a nice spread: snacks, beverages, a "care package" with Sudbury info. I thanked Gord, on behalf of the Toronto RASC, for organising the event.
DDO shirts in Sudbury
After Phil asked the Sudbury cops for directions, we somehow made it to the summit. We braved the cool temps and wind and did the touristy Big Nickle shots. But we were all sporting our David Dunlap Observatory t-shirts. Very brave... Grey and bloody cold.
See Sharmin's photos on Facebook.
See Katrina's photos on flickr.
See Sharmin's photos on Facebook.
See Katrina's photos on flickr.
joined Bill
Spotted Bill (another familiar face) in the Holiday Inn bar as we headed to our rooms. Drinkin' alone. Well, we can't have that.
asked to do May TSTM
Markov asked me to delivered the The Sky This Month talk in May. I accepted...
[Update: Subsequently, due to work commitments, I had to decline.]
[Update: Subsequently, due to work commitments, I had to decline.]
bumped into Gord
As we were checking into the Holiday Inn, Gord wandered into the lobby. I said hello. Nice to see a familiar face in Sudbury. He was watching for SNO LAB tour people as they arrived. I introduced him to Sharmin, Katrina, and Phil.
visited Louise and Geoff
At last, I finally made it to Geoff's place outside of Coldwater. I can see how it offers dark skies. Interesting house. I really enjoyed the main room with the huge windows.
We had a lovely visit on the way to the SNO. It was for fun and a bit of "business." They provided a tasty lunch. We had brought dessert (made by Lora). For me, it was the longest time spent with Louise. Pleasure getting to know her better. Charming. And a talented artisan. Geoff gave us a sneak peek of his upcoming astronomy-related e-book.
I returned Geoff's repaired CPC 1100. He was very happy.
Geoff gave us some RASC archival materials.
I got to hold some of Mars! Now that was cool. And some solar system asteroids. Wicked.
Sharmin took lots of photos, of course. Added them to the "hi ho hi ho" gallery on Facebook.
Then we carried on to Sudbury, for the SNO LAB trip...
We had a lovely visit on the way to the SNO. It was for fun and a bit of "business." They provided a tasty lunch. We had brought dessert (made by Lora). For me, it was the longest time spent with Louise. Pleasure getting to know her better. Charming. And a talented artisan. Geoff gave us a sneak peek of his upcoming astronomy-related e-book.
I returned Geoff's repaired CPC 1100. He was very happy.
Geoff gave us some RASC archival materials.
I got to hold some of Mars! Now that was cool. And some solar system asteroids. Wicked.
Sharmin took lots of photos, of course. Added them to the "hi ho hi ho" gallery on Facebook.
Then we carried on to Sudbury, for the SNO LAB trip...
the SNO adventure begins
Probably Katrina didn't want this much "adventure."
The plan was to rendezvous at Lora and Phil's, pile everything into the truck, and start north. First stop Louise and Geoff's for brunch. Next stop: Sudbury. We'd check into the hotel, stand in front of The Big Nickel (with our DDO t-shirts), find some dinner, and then meet up with Gord at the hotel for a SNO LAB briefing.
While Sharmin, Phil, and I were enjoying breakfast cake (made by Lora), and pots of coffee, Katrina took to the highway from mid-town. Then Phil received a bad-news BBM: Katrina's van had a flat tire! Oh no. She had already rung up CAA to crawl under the van to release the spare and swap it on a rainy, drizzly day. Half-an-hour before they'd get to her location on the DVP. We read the paper, criticised Torontonians for wasting electricity, and watched NASA TV. Sharmin, of course, started photo documenting everything.
Another message arrived Phil's Blackberry around 9:30AM: the spare tire was "fracked." Oh oh. Now the tow truck guy had to switch to plan B. He hooked up the wheel-lift under the rear axle and hauled the van to Lora and Phil's. Meanwhile, she put Fred on call. He showed up in short order with rain coat and tools.
We said our goodbyes to Lora and Fred, scratched Skeena, and jumped in the truck. On the road, at last.
The plan was to rendezvous at Lora and Phil's, pile everything into the truck, and start north. First stop Louise and Geoff's for brunch. Next stop: Sudbury. We'd check into the hotel, stand in front of The Big Nickel (with our DDO t-shirts), find some dinner, and then meet up with Gord at the hotel for a SNO LAB briefing.
While Sharmin, Phil, and I were enjoying breakfast cake (made by Lora), and pots of coffee, Katrina took to the highway from mid-town. Then Phil received a bad-news BBM: Katrina's van had a flat tire! Oh no. She had already rung up CAA to crawl under the van to release the spare and swap it on a rainy, drizzly day. Half-an-hour before they'd get to her location on the DVP. We read the paper, criticised Torontonians for wasting electricity, and watched NASA TV. Sharmin, of course, started photo documenting everything.
Another message arrived Phil's Blackberry around 9:30AM: the spare tire was "fracked." Oh oh. Now the tow truck guy had to switch to plan B. He hooked up the wheel-lift under the rear axle and hauled the van to Lora and Phil's. Meanwhile, she put Fred on call. He showed up in short order with rain coat and tools.
We said our goodbyes to Lora and Fred, scratched Skeena, and jumped in the truck. On the road, at last.
saved 6.8
The Toronto Star reported that we reduced energy consumption by 6.8% last night during Earth Hour.
Better than last year.
But not good enough.
Better than last year.
But not good enough.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
astronomy pajama party
Sharmin and I returned to the Chows for a sleep over! Mostly so to be in the same spot in preparation for the SNO LAB road trip! We chitchatted for a while. Lora's eyes glazed over a couple of times...
helped at EH star party
Phil and I went to the Earth Hour 2012 star party at the Ontario Science Centre. As usual, the RASC Toronto Centre was providing the technical expertise and offering telescopic views. We had a good turnout of volunteers. Even Doug helped! Sharmin shot photos and covered for operators when they needed a break. We showed Venus, Jupiter and its moons, Mars, Messier 42 and the Trapezium, Castor. Mostly I flew Phil's Meade 8" SCT while he worked the crowd. Phil used his iPad to show people stuff while they waited in line. I used my little whiteboard from time to time to sketch things. Handy.
We "tricked" one guy. He was standing by us as I offered views through the eyepiece and Phil said an image on the tablet. The guy said, "That's amazing! How you get the live images from the telescope to the iPad." We had to let him down gently. We're not there. Yet. Confused him, briefly.
We "tricked" one guy. He was standing by us as I offered views through the eyepiece and Phil said an image on the tablet. The guy said, "That's amazing! How you get the live images from the telescope to the iPad." We had to let him down gently. We're not there. Yet. Confused him, briefly.
lights off please
Please turn your lights off tonight in deference to Earth Hour.
While you're at it, do an energy audit. See what else you can turn off, unplug, disconnect. If you look closely, you'll see you're throwing a lot of money away, you're wasting electricity, and you're hurting the environment immediately, and for future generations.
Visit the Earth Hour site for more info.
Photo by Paul Bica.
While you're at it, do an energy audit. See what else you can turn off, unplug, disconnect. If you look closely, you'll see you're throwing a lot of money away, you're wasting electricity, and you're hurting the environment immediately, and for future generations.
Visit the Earth Hour site for more info.
Photo by Paul Bica.
Friday, March 30, 2012
join us Saturday
The Ontario Science Centre is throwing a star party, once again, celebrating Earth Hour. And they asked the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to help out. We'll have lots of telescopes. Come on out. See the RASC Toronto and OSC sites for more info.
pure clouds blocked some
A few saw Lunar X. The clouds were over portions of the GTA.
Phil, Paul, Caroline, Nicole, Allard, Jason, and Steve met with success.
Andy reported "pure clouds."
Phil, Paul, Caroline, Nicole, Allard, Jason, and Steve met with success.
Andy reported "pure clouds."
Thursday, March 29, 2012
spotted the X (Toronto)
I was getting pretty excited about seeing Lunar X. Phil was doin' his darnedest to get us fired up. And as I still had the StellarVue refractor and SKYnyx camera on loan, I considered imaging it. When chatting with Phil, we discussed it further. And hatched the idea of doing a time lapse. Phil suggested I capture an image every 5 minutes. We also discussed imaging it in a wide field with the refractor or at a long focal length with the SCT...
Then I had a horrible thought. Phil had said the night before that the "predicted optimal time [was] 11:50 PM EDT." That was pretty late. I considered that I had been watching Venus and Jupiter from my office window around that time. Low. In the trees. To the north-west. In other words, I wasn't sure I'd be able to see the "event." I checked in SkyTools. The path of Moon in the Nightly Planner went dark around 11:30. I watched the Moon go into the trees across the street and then into the roof of the house around that time. Confirmed. By 11:45 or 12:00, I'd be snookered. The prospect of finding a good spot, moving, going out, setting up, tearing down... not attractive at all. Still, I thought it worth it to try imaging from the porch. From an educational perspective, if nothing else...
As I started to prepare, I realised that the Orion SVD mount wasn't going to work. While I had installed motors on the RA and Dec axes back in December, they were not really functioning correctly. I didn't want to use an unreliable platform. Then I got an idea: I could put the StellarVue AT-1010 on the Vixen Super Polaris! I immediately put the Vixen tripod on the porch.
The first step was to remove the tube rings from the Orion baseplate. Which required releasing the c-clips. The stock bolts proved too long for the Vixen plate; I hadn't noticed that the Orion was thicker. A ¼" spacer took care of that. In short order I had the small rings on the Vixen. Then I installed the StellarVue optical tube. Oh oh. The Vixen plate was longer, forcing the rings into spots on the tube impossible to clamp down around. But when I loosened the bolts and let the rings tilt, I was able to get it to work. Lucky. The OTA was on the Vixen atop the tripod. I installed the counterweights.
I desperately wanted to install the camera, check alignment, and focus but thick clouds covered the sky. Phil promised that the skies would clear. I'd have to wait. I left the deck.
Periodically, I returned. But the skies remained covered. The radar and satellite imagery showed patchy, fast-moving clouds over the Greater Toronto Area. But, in the end, I was clouded out. I torn down the refractor 'scope. And after an intense week and day, I crawled into bed early. Just around the time, 10:30 PM, Phil sent an e-mail to the Yahoo!Group. "Go out now!" The X had appeared an hour early! OK, OK.
Grabbed my 7x binoculars.
The clouds were still very patchy over the High Park area. But everyone once in a while, the Moon would appear in a small open space. I tried to spot the X feature in the bins but couldn't see anything. A combination of the small image size and the drifting clouds.
There was no way I was going to haul out the Vixen and refractor. But the little Celestron 76mm First Scope, sitting on the kitchen table, caught my eye. I put it on the barbecue. Loaded it with the SR 4mm eyepiece. Slewed about until I hit the target. And stared. And waited. And stared.
And, in a brief break between dark clouds... I finally spotted the tiny little Lunar X.
I hate the Moon.
Then I had a horrible thought. Phil had said the night before that the "predicted optimal time [was] 11:50 PM EDT." That was pretty late. I considered that I had been watching Venus and Jupiter from my office window around that time. Low. In the trees. To the north-west. In other words, I wasn't sure I'd be able to see the "event." I checked in SkyTools. The path of Moon in the Nightly Planner went dark around 11:30. I watched the Moon go into the trees across the street and then into the roof of the house around that time. Confirmed. By 11:45 or 12:00, I'd be snookered. The prospect of finding a good spot, moving, going out, setting up, tearing down... not attractive at all. Still, I thought it worth it to try imaging from the porch. From an educational perspective, if nothing else...
As I started to prepare, I realised that the Orion SVD mount wasn't going to work. While I had installed motors on the RA and Dec axes back in December, they were not really functioning correctly. I didn't want to use an unreliable platform. Then I got an idea: I could put the StellarVue AT-1010 on the Vixen Super Polaris! I immediately put the Vixen tripod on the porch.
The first step was to remove the tube rings from the Orion baseplate. Which required releasing the c-clips. The stock bolts proved too long for the Vixen plate; I hadn't noticed that the Orion was thicker. A ¼" spacer took care of that. In short order I had the small rings on the Vixen. Then I installed the StellarVue optical tube. Oh oh. The Vixen plate was longer, forcing the rings into spots on the tube impossible to clamp down around. But when I loosened the bolts and let the rings tilt, I was able to get it to work. Lucky. The OTA was on the Vixen atop the tripod. I installed the counterweights.
I desperately wanted to install the camera, check alignment, and focus but thick clouds covered the sky. Phil promised that the skies would clear. I'd have to wait. I left the deck.
Periodically, I returned. But the skies remained covered. The radar and satellite imagery showed patchy, fast-moving clouds over the Greater Toronto Area. But, in the end, I was clouded out. I torn down the refractor 'scope. And after an intense week and day, I crawled into bed early. Just around the time, 10:30 PM, Phil sent an e-mail to the Yahoo!Group. "Go out now!" The X had appeared an hour early! OK, OK.
Grabbed my 7x binoculars.
The clouds were still very patchy over the High Park area. But everyone once in a while, the Moon would appear in a small open space. I tried to spot the X feature in the bins but couldn't see anything. A combination of the small image size and the drifting clouds.
There was no way I was going to haul out the Vixen and refractor. But the little Celestron 76mm First Scope, sitting on the kitchen table, caught my eye. I put it on the barbecue. Loaded it with the SR 4mm eyepiece. Slewed about until I hit the target. And stared. And waited. And stared.
And, in a brief break between dark clouds... I finally spotted the tiny little Lunar X.
I hate the Moon.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
revised work party date
I jumped into the mini-calendar on the RASC Toronto Centre web site and changed the date for the work party from May 12 to May 5.
Then I changed the date in my personal astronomy calendar...
And my palmtop...
Then I changed the date in my personal astronomy calendar...
And my palmtop...
why not everyone?
Yesterday evening, Eric issued the usual eSCOPE bulletin regarding the latest issue of the RASC Toronto Centre's newsletter. I immediately downloaded a copy. I imagine others did too.
Just now, Eric sent out a note that the SCOPE had been changed. The CAO work party date was modified. He revised the newsletter and made the new copy available for download. But he issued the note to the RASC strategy Yahoo!Group. I thought that a little odd. I don't understand why he didn't use the same method for his initial notice, the MailMan listserv tool. Then it would reach all the same people.
Scratchin' my head on that one...
Just now, Eric sent out a note that the SCOPE had been changed. The CAO work party date was modified. He revised the newsletter and made the new copy available for download. But he issued the note to the RASC strategy Yahoo!Group. I thought that a little odd. I don't understand why he didn't use the same method for his initial notice, the MailMan listserv tool. Then it would reach all the same people.
Scratchin' my head on that one...
Saturday, March 24, 2012
old mags
Lora convinced Phil to purge. I don't know how she did it but he decided to turf some old Sky and Telescope magazines going back to 2004. She asked if I wanted them.
No... Unless they have articles on double stars!
I immediately downloaded the S&T index e-file.
No... Unless they have articles on double stars!
I immediately downloaded the S&T index e-file.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Messier Marathon remote
Guy decided to do a Messier Marathon while in New Mexico, spured on by good weather predictions and the rest of us back home. He gave us blow-by-blow reports as he used his binoculars and telescope. It was amazing. He also squeezed in a bonus object: Omega Centauri.
He said, at the end, "I remember hearing a talk at the Winter Star Party back in the early 1990's, in which the speaker said that Messier Marathons are supposed to be a fun social event and that anyone who does one alone should have his/her head examined."
I, for one, am very glad he did it.
He said, at the end, "I remember hearing a talk at the Winter Star Party back in the early 1990's, in which the speaker said that Messier Marathons are supposed to be a fun social event and that anyone who does one alone should have his/her head examined."
I, for one, am very glad he did it.
watched ATV-3 launch
The European Space Agency's third Automated Transfer Vehicle lifted off just after midnight tonight (12:34 AM Friday) from French Guiana. It is carrying supplies, air, water, and fuel to the International Space Station. It is due to arrive 3 days from now.Once docked, it will also boosted the station.
Then it becomes the garage truck...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
improved battery fasteners
Found wing nuts and spring lock washers for the battery terminal bolts. At Canadian Tire, no less. I recall, on a previous visit, I had not spotted wing nuts the right size. It's all good now. The connections should not be wiggling loose now. This will also facilitate faster swapping of a battery, without tools.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
finished a winter list (Toronto)
I decided to do some observing. Checked the weather at Environment Canada...
Current Conditions: sunny, 22 °C
Observed at: Toronto Pearson Int'l Airport
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Wednesday 21 March 2012
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 102.2 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 19 km
Air Quality Health Index: 4
Temperature: 21.6°C
Dewpoint: 13.6°C
Humidity: 60 %
Wind: SSE 9 km/h
Forecast
Tonight clear, 12°C
Thu sunny, 26°C
Issued : 3:30 PM EDT Wednesday 21 March 2012
Tonight
Clear. Fog patches overnight. Low 12.
Thursday
Sunny. High 26 except 17 near Lake Ontario. UV index 4 or moderate.
6:39 PM, 21 Mar 2012. The Clear Sky Chart was looking good!
7:47 PM. 'Scope set up. Dew heaters installed. Cords tended to, neatly (something I've not really done before). Dew heater controller on marine battery; motor on computer Power Supply Unit. A different configuration then on Monday. Black blind up (this time). Chair out. Started dressing for the cool conditions.
Dug out the voice recorder. Installed new batteries. I decided to do some audio notes. Who cares what the neighbours and passers-by think.
8:01. Put the brown hoodie on. Eyeballed Venus and Jupiter. Jupiter was down in the tree branches. Venus was huge with the 9mm! Looked just slightly over 50% filled. Stared for a while. Could not convince myself of any surface details...
Debated taking the netbook to the kitchen. To be very near the telescope. But I really like the big screen and full keyboard... SkyTools really needs a lot of real estate.
8:21 PM. Started using Sony voice recorder. Wondered if the time was correct on it...
Viewed Jupiter. Two moons each side. Picked up some cloud bands. The south belt was prominent looked normal or typical. The north belt was different, not as thick, seemed to be broken up into multiple bands. The seeing was coming and going but in the 9mm it was surprisingly good. Occasionally went really steady. Kinda cool. Jupiter's northern polar region was quite dark. Did not notice any moon shadows.
8:23. Verified the voice recorder time was off by an hour, comparing to the stove. Still on Standard Time.
8:26. Seeing was really good again. Then went mushy, bad. Then came back. The band near the equator was white. It was tempting to say that the north edge of the white band and the south edge of the north belt was right on the equator but... that doesn't seem quite right. The wide white belt is slightly to the north.
South of the southern belt is another white band. And then it goes a darker shade. Fairly uniform.
The north belt is about half the width of the southern belt. Unusual. Then it goes light, dark, light, and then into the grey polar region.
8:27. The moon "above" (in the ocular field) appeared to moving into the planet. It is about one planet diameter away. Io?
The polar alignment was holding up well. I only did a rough alignment putting Polaris near the 45' ring near the 5 o'clock position. But objects were being tracked well for long periods.
There appeared to be no issue with the drive motor tonight. In the new configuration. It was functioning nominally.
Looked at the sky, Sirius in particular, across the street. Lots of stars were coming out. The sky looked good. Sirius was flickering slightly. Yawned.
Made a mental note to finally mark the tripod feet positions so to speed future setups...
8:30. Wanted to check the moon positions. As I suspected. Io was above the planet. Callisto and Io were to the west; Europa and Ganymede to the east; Io was diving into the planet; but the planet would set before we'd get to see it merge...
8:41. Went to ε (epsilon) Arietis, a tight double. Bumped to the 9mm eyepiece, thinking it was really tight. But I had to hurry: I was getting close to the edge of the roof. And in tree branches, as usual.
[ed: Did know at the time I had already tried for this. But it was on my list "unchecked" so to view again.]
8:44. I got it! Had to be patient. Kept staring at it and waiting for the seeing conditions to cooperate. Very tight double. Crazy tight. Equally bright stars. Orientation was roughly north-south. The brighter star, definitely brighter, was to the north. But only a slight difference in magnitude.
8:45. Occasionally I got a black line; but most of the time they looked like a figure-8. Touching. Super tight even at 222x. Wrong time of year!
SkyTools 3 Professional said the stars were magnitudes 4.6 and 5.6 and approximately 1.4 arc-seconds apart.
8:47. Equal colour. White? That was my first impression. Then I thought them yellowy white. But that might have been atmospheric extinction. Low in the sky. A touch of yellow. ST3P says the primary star is class A2...
8:53. Good timing... The 'scope was half in the roof line now. Venus and Jupiter were beyond the roof. This seemed to match the recently enhanced visibility parameter, as per the obstructed horizon, for ST3P. Cool.
Transparency looked good, suddenly. I could see a lot of stars. A lot of detail. It was striking. It seemed like more stars than I had ever seen before, for the city...
8:54. Viewed the Oregon Scientific portable weather station. 68% humidity. 12.3°C temperature. It had been outside for some time. Still showing the low battery. Tomorrow's weather will be partly sunny. The air pressure was showing as even or steady. The date and time of course was screwy.
9:15. I had a hell of a time hopping through CMa. I had to turn the OTA in the clamps so to get the finder scope up high, above the main 'scope.
9:20. I continued my star hop to HR 2949, aka Markab, using the 36mm. I was close...
This was another target from Turn Left at Orion. But it is also in the Sky & Telescope double star winter list: there it is listed as "k2."
Had to drop the blind in the south a bit, to let more light in the big tube... These Puppis targets were very low.
9:21. Got it. HR 2949. I was sure that I had made it. Very nice double. Equal colours. Yellowy-gold. Equal brightness. Low. Flickering quite a bit. [ed: Haas calls this κ (kappa). Huh. The software doesn't use this name. She also notes them as vivid bright white stars, attractively close.]
Nearby, I saw a wide pair of stars, equally bright, blue-white, at a 45 degrees angle. HD 61687 and HR 2956, classes B3 and B5.
I saw a number of field stars.
9:23. That was something of a challenging star hop. Easily split at 55x. They seemed wider than what ST3P presented. The data said 9.9".
9:30. In SkyTools, I learned something about the wide pair at the 45 degree angle: the star inline with the Markab double, was a double. 6+ seconds of arc separate them. But I could not get see the split... Faint?
Looked again at Markab. Still seemed to be the same brightness. The star closest to the wide double seemed a bit yellow or gold; the furthest star looked blue. Very low. Got some bad seeing. At times the colours swapped! The star closer to the wide pair was perhaps a touch brighter. ST3P said: mag. 3.8 (A) and 4.6 (B). The classes of the A and B stars respectively: B5 and B6.
9:34. Went with a touch more power. Put in the 26mm. The view was still good.
9:35. Spotted a super-faint star. It was near the closer of the two wide stars. It was going toward Markab. Not inline; more like at a 90 degree angle with the other partner in the wide pair. ST3P said it was TYC 06547-2481 1 was mag. 9.9.
I could see more faint stars in the area. Beyond the wide pair, and almost inline, there is a faint star. A very faint one to the right of it.
Centred on the purported double in the wide pair. Still could not see a partner.
9:36. Spotted TYC 06547-1749 1, away, mag 10.66.
Oh! Learned that the partner of HD 61687 was mag 13. So, stop looking...
9:41. My dark adaptation seemed better tonight. I could see things in the hallway better. It seemed bright! Not tripping over stuff. I wondered if it was because of my use of the black canopy on the deck...
9:47. Scanned in the area to the right of that weird orange-blue pair, ξ (xi) Pup. Through the branches... And I found the faint small cluster. Messier 93. First impression was that it is tiny! It appeared small. Has bright stars but not a lot. Just a few easily spotted. No doubt in a dark sky location more stuff would be visible.
9:55. Put in the 18mm. M93 seemed fainter now. Branches in the way? Certainly it is low in the sky. Clouds?
I saw a bright star to the right (HD 62679). Noted a flattened isosceles triangle near the middle. In the centre, two pairs of stars, almost equally spaced, going in the same (east-west) direction (TYC 06540-4459 1 and TYC 06540-4458 1; and then TYC 06540-4460 1 and I 780A). Almost a perfect triangle below (TYC 06540-4466 1, SAO 174426, and SAO 174427). A little winger, three stars, going up. There seemed to be a central thread or band of running left to right, 10 to 4 o'clock (north-east to south-west).
9:59. ST3P said the bright star to the right or west was a double! And it clearly showed two stars in the chart. But I was only seeing one star... Tried to spot the two stars of HD 62679... nope.
10:01. View seemed better. Tried for the double star again. But did not have any luck.
10:03. I had no problem spotting CD -23 06076 at mag 8.35. I thought I was in fact seeing HD 62679 no prob at mag 8.18. ST3P said the companion was mag 11.28. It's probably effectively at least 1 mag fainter through extinction and tree bark. So, I considered that it was there, in the right spot, just rather faint, and for my location and conditions, not visible. I decided to move on.
10:08. Seeing 93 meant I have finished the winter TLAO list! Woo hoo!
10:12. Put the canopy back up. Funny how I was blocking much of the SCT 8" entrance but I could easily see stars of the cluster...
The OS reported 77% and 11.2°.
10:16. Viewed η (eta) Orionis. I was pretty sure I was looking at the right star... but I was not seeing an obvious double star. η Ori was in a triangle, a right-angle triangle, with HD 35456 (at the 90° corner) and HD 35524 at the far end. There were some faint stars in the field. The one at the 90° was slightly brighter than the other one (ST3P said they magnitude 6.9 and 8.0). I looked for a long time at the main star. It was not round. Could not split it... Increased the power but the 9mm was too much.
10:19. It was a figure-8 at 77x.
I thought they looked blue-white colour, like many of the stars in Orion... [Haas describes them as straw-yellow and silvery-yellow. Webb says white and purplish.]
10:20. Viewed η again. Spotted GSC 04757-0674 along the hypotenuse, at mag 10.96.
Yep. I finally saw the double. It needed a lot more power to split cleanly. Maybe the 18mm would work...
10:24. Unsatisfying in the 18.
10:25. That was one tight double. ST3P stated 1.7" separation. At 34° altitude and falling into the pine tree... not easy. I wondered if this was a bad idea going after winter targets so late, in March... would be better to do in January or February. I decided that I would not check it off in SkyTools, so to make me look at it again. Next winter.
10:37. Tried to split 32 Ori. Could not split it. Nope. Tried the 36mm. Seemed that I had touching stars in the 18mm. In the 9mm I was losing it in the diffraction rings and getting annoyed with the slight miscollimation. Off a little bit.
10:39. Yep. I think I saw the double briefly in the 18mm. Orientation matched the view in ST3P. But another one I need to view again.
10:57. Is there a problem with ST3P? When I click the "now" button it is off by 1 hour...
11:01. I found 12 Lyncis. A nice double, in the 36mm, among many faint field stars. Interesting, medium tight. Primary was white, bluish white perhaps; the companion was orange. Very different in mags. Perhaps 1.0 to 1.5. ST3P said they were 4.9 and 6.1. The main star was class A3.
Initially the seeing was OK, then it tailed off. Again. That is, gradually worse, the further I go, later into the evening. Like the other night. Every once in a while, it would get really good, super good. Rare. Day-time heating crap.
There was a bright star, somewhat orange, much further away. ST3P said that was the F-class star HD 47977.
11:05. Ah. Here I was viewing 12 Lyn thinking it was just a double. It is the AC pair that is obvious. This target had ultimately come to me from the Sky & Telescope winter list... I thought, at the time, they were talking about the obvious pair... the AC. But S&T's list has 12 Lyn twice, with the tight AB pair, and the wider AC pair. [ed: Like how Haas shows it...] But it is a quad, according to the SkyTools application.
I think I saw the D star! It is widely separated to the west.
11:11. Waited for good seeing, in the 9mm, to confirm the companions of 12 Lyn. West was straight down in the field of view. The AB pair was inline with D. C was at a 45° angle to AD. A and B are about the same brightness. Same colour. The C star is a little orangey. It was hard to pick a colour for D, it was so dull.
11:14. Back sore. Feet sore.
Confirmed. I saw the A and B stars! They are 1.7" apart. D is mag. 10.5.
11:22. Star to the east is GSC 03778-1013. ST3P says it is mag. 15.11. Ha. No it's not. Star GSC 03778-0871 is in line with AB, mag. 12.54.
GSC 03778-0865 at 90 deg is mag. 12.07.
A neat system. Rewarding at low and high magnifications!
11:34. Viewed 19 Lyn. Another neat quad system. Primary white; secondary blue? Pale blue. Seeing was coming and going...
11:26. Been at this for about 4 hours. I started to think about winding down.
11:36. Humidity was 81; temp 11.3.
11:37. Oh. So the one to the south is D. A and B are in the 45 angle. Now to find C to the west... at mag 10.
11:42. Put in the 26mm. Tried to find the C star. Not convinced. It should have been easy. I could only see A, B, and D. No sign of C. Seeing conditions were poor now.
[ed: I didn't know it at the time but Haas only refers to the A, B, and D stars. That makes it sound like the C star is difficult...]
11:45. I forgot to note earlier that there had been a click or a pop or a snap with the observer's chair. I suspect one (or both) of the dowels in the seat have become unglued. And I remembered I have not yet followed Phil's advice to cut or trim the rear leg of the chair so to change the angle.
11:46. Viewed Mars. Could just make out the ice cap. Was looking straight down over the telescope. So that meant north was up.
11:49. Put in the doubler with the 9mm! 444x!
11:51. I was happy with the telescope configuration. Tracking well (even at this very high power). Heaters working.
Probably not a good scenario for observing where the temperature was high in the day and then everything cooled off. Isn't that a golden rule in summer? Don't expect good viewing when it's been super hot in the day and then it cools off at night...
11:53. There was a dark pattern near the equator of the red world. Almost dead centre. Very dark. Maybe slightly to the right or the east. But SkyTools doesn't show anything...
12:25 AM, 22 March 2012. Viewed Saturn. Very three dimensional. Could see the equatorial belt, light. Could see the planet's shadow on the rings, on the right. Could see the Cassini division, particularly on the right. Pretty easy. Faint moon to the left [Dione; mag. 10.5]. Bright [mag. 8.4] moon (probably Titan), about 4 to 5 ring-widths on the right (west).
12:26 AM. Was at 222x. The seeing was good. Good in this direction (south-east vs. over the roofs).
12:28. I saw it before but I wasn't really sure. There was a faint moon on the same side as Titan, about half a ring-width away [Tethys; mag. 10.3]. I spotted a moon underneath (er, north), very near the pole [Rhea; mag. 9.8]. About half a planet-width away.
12:30. Conditions: 82; 11.6. No luck with M95.
12:33. OK. 5 hours is enough...
12:38. Checked the corrector plate. Looked OK. No dew. There was a spider web. Minor markings... Not pristine any more.
12:43. Shutdown. Ready for bed.
§
Often, the voice recording was broken. I was speaking too quietly and the recorder went into standby...
Current Conditions: sunny, 22 °C
Observed at: Toronto Pearson Int'l Airport
Date: 6:00 PM EDT Wednesday 21 March 2012
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 102.2 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 19 km
Air Quality Health Index: 4
Temperature: 21.6°C
Dewpoint: 13.6°C
Humidity: 60 %
Wind: SSE 9 km/h
Forecast
Tonight clear, 12°C
Thu sunny, 26°C
Issued : 3:30 PM EDT Wednesday 21 March 2012
Tonight
Clear. Fog patches overnight. Low 12.
Thursday
Sunny. High 26 except 17 near Lake Ontario. UV index 4 or moderate.
6:39 PM, 21 Mar 2012. The Clear Sky Chart was looking good!
7:47 PM. 'Scope set up. Dew heaters installed. Cords tended to, neatly (something I've not really done before). Dew heater controller on marine battery; motor on computer Power Supply Unit. A different configuration then on Monday. Black blind up (this time). Chair out. Started dressing for the cool conditions.
Dug out the voice recorder. Installed new batteries. I decided to do some audio notes. Who cares what the neighbours and passers-by think.
8:01. Put the brown hoodie on. Eyeballed Venus and Jupiter. Jupiter was down in the tree branches. Venus was huge with the 9mm! Looked just slightly over 50% filled. Stared for a while. Could not convince myself of any surface details...
Debated taking the netbook to the kitchen. To be very near the telescope. But I really like the big screen and full keyboard... SkyTools really needs a lot of real estate.
8:21 PM. Started using Sony voice recorder. Wondered if the time was correct on it...
Viewed Jupiter. Two moons each side. Picked up some cloud bands. The south belt was prominent looked normal or typical. The north belt was different, not as thick, seemed to be broken up into multiple bands. The seeing was coming and going but in the 9mm it was surprisingly good. Occasionally went really steady. Kinda cool. Jupiter's northern polar region was quite dark. Did not notice any moon shadows.
8:23. Verified the voice recorder time was off by an hour, comparing to the stove. Still on Standard Time.
8:26. Seeing was really good again. Then went mushy, bad. Then came back. The band near the equator was white. It was tempting to say that the north edge of the white band and the south edge of the north belt was right on the equator but... that doesn't seem quite right. The wide white belt is slightly to the north.
South of the southern belt is another white band. And then it goes a darker shade. Fairly uniform.
The north belt is about half the width of the southern belt. Unusual. Then it goes light, dark, light, and then into the grey polar region.
8:27. The moon "above" (in the ocular field) appeared to moving into the planet. It is about one planet diameter away. Io?
The polar alignment was holding up well. I only did a rough alignment putting Polaris near the 45' ring near the 5 o'clock position. But objects were being tracked well for long periods.
There appeared to be no issue with the drive motor tonight. In the new configuration. It was functioning nominally.
Looked at the sky, Sirius in particular, across the street. Lots of stars were coming out. The sky looked good. Sirius was flickering slightly. Yawned.
Made a mental note to finally mark the tripod feet positions so to speed future setups...
8:30. Wanted to check the moon positions. As I suspected. Io was above the planet. Callisto and Io were to the west; Europa and Ganymede to the east; Io was diving into the planet; but the planet would set before we'd get to see it merge...
8:41. Went to ε (epsilon) Arietis, a tight double. Bumped to the 9mm eyepiece, thinking it was really tight. But I had to hurry: I was getting close to the edge of the roof. And in tree branches, as usual.
[ed: Did know at the time I had already tried for this. But it was on my list "unchecked" so to view again.]
8:44. I got it! Had to be patient. Kept staring at it and waiting for the seeing conditions to cooperate. Very tight double. Crazy tight. Equally bright stars. Orientation was roughly north-south. The brighter star, definitely brighter, was to the north. But only a slight difference in magnitude.
8:45. Occasionally I got a black line; but most of the time they looked like a figure-8. Touching. Super tight even at 222x. Wrong time of year!
SkyTools 3 Professional said the stars were magnitudes 4.6 and 5.6 and approximately 1.4 arc-seconds apart.
8:47. Equal colour. White? That was my first impression. Then I thought them yellowy white. But that might have been atmospheric extinction. Low in the sky. A touch of yellow. ST3P says the primary star is class A2...
8:53. Good timing... The 'scope was half in the roof line now. Venus and Jupiter were beyond the roof. This seemed to match the recently enhanced visibility parameter, as per the obstructed horizon, for ST3P. Cool.
Transparency looked good, suddenly. I could see a lot of stars. A lot of detail. It was striking. It seemed like more stars than I had ever seen before, for the city...
8:54. Viewed the Oregon Scientific portable weather station. 68% humidity. 12.3°C temperature. It had been outside for some time. Still showing the low battery. Tomorrow's weather will be partly sunny. The air pressure was showing as even or steady. The date and time of course was screwy.
9:15. I had a hell of a time hopping through CMa. I had to turn the OTA in the clamps so to get the finder scope up high, above the main 'scope.
9:20. I continued my star hop to HR 2949, aka Markab, using the 36mm. I was close...
This was another target from Turn Left at Orion. But it is also in the Sky & Telescope double star winter list: there it is listed as "k2."
Had to drop the blind in the south a bit, to let more light in the big tube... These Puppis targets were very low.
9:21. Got it. HR 2949. I was sure that I had made it. Very nice double. Equal colours. Yellowy-gold. Equal brightness. Low. Flickering quite a bit. [ed: Haas calls this κ (kappa). Huh. The software doesn't use this name. She also notes them as vivid bright white stars, attractively close.]
Nearby, I saw a wide pair of stars, equally bright, blue-white, at a 45 degrees angle. HD 61687 and HR 2956, classes B3 and B5.
I saw a number of field stars.
9:23. That was something of a challenging star hop. Easily split at 55x. They seemed wider than what ST3P presented. The data said 9.9".
9:30. In SkyTools, I learned something about the wide pair at the 45 degree angle: the star inline with the Markab double, was a double. 6+ seconds of arc separate them. But I could not get see the split... Faint?
Looked again at Markab. Still seemed to be the same brightness. The star closest to the wide double seemed a bit yellow or gold; the furthest star looked blue. Very low. Got some bad seeing. At times the colours swapped! The star closer to the wide pair was perhaps a touch brighter. ST3P said: mag. 3.8 (A) and 4.6 (B). The classes of the A and B stars respectively: B5 and B6.
9:34. Went with a touch more power. Put in the 26mm. The view was still good.
9:35. Spotted a super-faint star. It was near the closer of the two wide stars. It was going toward Markab. Not inline; more like at a 90 degree angle with the other partner in the wide pair. ST3P said it was TYC 06547-2481 1 was mag. 9.9.
I could see more faint stars in the area. Beyond the wide pair, and almost inline, there is a faint star. A very faint one to the right of it.
Centred on the purported double in the wide pair. Still could not see a partner.
9:36. Spotted TYC 06547-1749 1, away, mag 10.66.
Oh! Learned that the partner of HD 61687 was mag 13. So, stop looking...
9:41. My dark adaptation seemed better tonight. I could see things in the hallway better. It seemed bright! Not tripping over stuff. I wondered if it was because of my use of the black canopy on the deck...
9:47. Scanned in the area to the right of that weird orange-blue pair, ξ (xi) Pup. Through the branches... And I found the faint small cluster. Messier 93. First impression was that it is tiny! It appeared small. Has bright stars but not a lot. Just a few easily spotted. No doubt in a dark sky location more stuff would be visible.
9:55. Put in the 18mm. M93 seemed fainter now. Branches in the way? Certainly it is low in the sky. Clouds?
I saw a bright star to the right (HD 62679). Noted a flattened isosceles triangle near the middle. In the centre, two pairs of stars, almost equally spaced, going in the same (east-west) direction (TYC 06540-4459 1 and TYC 06540-4458 1; and then TYC 06540-4460 1 and I 780A). Almost a perfect triangle below (TYC 06540-4466 1, SAO 174426, and SAO 174427). A little winger, three stars, going up. There seemed to be a central thread or band of running left to right, 10 to 4 o'clock (north-east to south-west).
9:59. ST3P said the bright star to the right or west was a double! And it clearly showed two stars in the chart. But I was only seeing one star... Tried to spot the two stars of HD 62679... nope.
10:01. View seemed better. Tried for the double star again. But did not have any luck.
10:03. I had no problem spotting CD -23 06076 at mag 8.35. I thought I was in fact seeing HD 62679 no prob at mag 8.18. ST3P said the companion was mag 11.28. It's probably effectively at least 1 mag fainter through extinction and tree bark. So, I considered that it was there, in the right spot, just rather faint, and for my location and conditions, not visible. I decided to move on.
10:08. Seeing 93 meant I have finished the winter TLAO list! Woo hoo!
10:12. Put the canopy back up. Funny how I was blocking much of the SCT 8" entrance but I could easily see stars of the cluster...
The OS reported 77% and 11.2°.
10:16. Viewed η (eta) Orionis. I was pretty sure I was looking at the right star... but I was not seeing an obvious double star. η Ori was in a triangle, a right-angle triangle, with HD 35456 (at the 90° corner) and HD 35524 at the far end. There were some faint stars in the field. The one at the 90° was slightly brighter than the other one (ST3P said they magnitude 6.9 and 8.0). I looked for a long time at the main star. It was not round. Could not split it... Increased the power but the 9mm was too much.
10:19. It was a figure-8 at 77x.
I thought they looked blue-white colour, like many of the stars in Orion... [Haas describes them as straw-yellow and silvery-yellow. Webb says white and purplish.]
10:20. Viewed η again. Spotted GSC 04757-0674 along the hypotenuse, at mag 10.96.
Yep. I finally saw the double. It needed a lot more power to split cleanly. Maybe the 18mm would work...
10:24. Unsatisfying in the 18.
10:25. That was one tight double. ST3P stated 1.7" separation. At 34° altitude and falling into the pine tree... not easy. I wondered if this was a bad idea going after winter targets so late, in March... would be better to do in January or February. I decided that I would not check it off in SkyTools, so to make me look at it again. Next winter.
10:37. Tried to split 32 Ori. Could not split it. Nope. Tried the 36mm. Seemed that I had touching stars in the 18mm. In the 9mm I was losing it in the diffraction rings and getting annoyed with the slight miscollimation. Off a little bit.
10:39. Yep. I think I saw the double briefly in the 18mm. Orientation matched the view in ST3P. But another one I need to view again.
10:57. Is there a problem with ST3P? When I click the "now" button it is off by 1 hour...
11:01. I found 12 Lyncis. A nice double, in the 36mm, among many faint field stars. Interesting, medium tight. Primary was white, bluish white perhaps; the companion was orange. Very different in mags. Perhaps 1.0 to 1.5. ST3P said they were 4.9 and 6.1. The main star was class A3.
Initially the seeing was OK, then it tailed off. Again. That is, gradually worse, the further I go, later into the evening. Like the other night. Every once in a while, it would get really good, super good. Rare. Day-time heating crap.
There was a bright star, somewhat orange, much further away. ST3P said that was the F-class star HD 47977.
11:05. Ah. Here I was viewing 12 Lyn thinking it was just a double. It is the AC pair that is obvious. This target had ultimately come to me from the Sky & Telescope winter list... I thought, at the time, they were talking about the obvious pair... the AC. But S&T's list has 12 Lyn twice, with the tight AB pair, and the wider AC pair. [ed: Like how Haas shows it...] But it is a quad, according to the SkyTools application.
I think I saw the D star! It is widely separated to the west.
11:11. Waited for good seeing, in the 9mm, to confirm the companions of 12 Lyn. West was straight down in the field of view. The AB pair was inline with D. C was at a 45° angle to AD. A and B are about the same brightness. Same colour. The C star is a little orangey. It was hard to pick a colour for D, it was so dull.
11:14. Back sore. Feet sore.
Confirmed. I saw the A and B stars! They are 1.7" apart. D is mag. 10.5.
11:22. Star to the east is GSC 03778-1013. ST3P says it is mag. 15.11. Ha. No it's not. Star GSC 03778-0871 is in line with AB, mag. 12.54.
GSC 03778-0865 at 90 deg is mag. 12.07.
A neat system. Rewarding at low and high magnifications!
11:34. Viewed 19 Lyn. Another neat quad system. Primary white; secondary blue? Pale blue. Seeing was coming and going...
11:26. Been at this for about 4 hours. I started to think about winding down.
11:36. Humidity was 81; temp 11.3.
11:37. Oh. So the one to the south is D. A and B are in the 45 angle. Now to find C to the west... at mag 10.
11:42. Put in the 26mm. Tried to find the C star. Not convinced. It should have been easy. I could only see A, B, and D. No sign of C. Seeing conditions were poor now.
[ed: I didn't know it at the time but Haas only refers to the A, B, and D stars. That makes it sound like the C star is difficult...]
11:45. I forgot to note earlier that there had been a click or a pop or a snap with the observer's chair. I suspect one (or both) of the dowels in the seat have become unglued. And I remembered I have not yet followed Phil's advice to cut or trim the rear leg of the chair so to change the angle.
11:46. Viewed Mars. Could just make out the ice cap. Was looking straight down over the telescope. So that meant north was up.
11:49. Put in the doubler with the 9mm! 444x!
11:51. I was happy with the telescope configuration. Tracking well (even at this very high power). Heaters working.
Probably not a good scenario for observing where the temperature was high in the day and then everything cooled off. Isn't that a golden rule in summer? Don't expect good viewing when it's been super hot in the day and then it cools off at night...
11:53. There was a dark pattern near the equator of the red world. Almost dead centre. Very dark. Maybe slightly to the right or the east. But SkyTools doesn't show anything...
12:25 AM, 22 March 2012. Viewed Saturn. Very three dimensional. Could see the equatorial belt, light. Could see the planet's shadow on the rings, on the right. Could see the Cassini division, particularly on the right. Pretty easy. Faint moon to the left [Dione; mag. 10.5]. Bright [mag. 8.4] moon (probably Titan), about 4 to 5 ring-widths on the right (west).
12:26 AM. Was at 222x. The seeing was good. Good in this direction (south-east vs. over the roofs).
12:28. I saw it before but I wasn't really sure. There was a faint moon on the same side as Titan, about half a ring-width away [Tethys; mag. 10.3]. I spotted a moon underneath (er, north), very near the pole [Rhea; mag. 9.8]. About half a planet-width away.
12:30. Conditions: 82; 11.6. No luck with M95.
12:33. OK. 5 hours is enough...
12:38. Checked the corrector plate. Looked OK. No dew. There was a spider web. Minor markings... Not pristine any more.
12:43. Shutdown. Ready for bed.
§
Often, the voice recording was broken. I was speaking too quietly and the recorder went into standby...
found loose terminal
Oh. I wonder if that was the reason for the tracking problem. I found the battery terminal loose. Tightened it up. Damn it! Spring washers are needed!
Checked the volts. 13.5.
Checked the volts. 13.5.
SCT again
Phil and I discussed the telescope and mount to use at the OSC star party. We settled on the Meade 8" Schmidt Cassegrain on the fork mount again. Like what we used last year.
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