webspotting 12 - ASOD

As published in the Oct/Nov 2009 issue of SCOPE, the newsletter of the RASC Toronto Centre. Republished here with permission.

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You know about APOD right?

You better! It should be in your bookmarks or favourites... You should be regularly visiting. Or else!

Of course, the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site features breathtaking photographs produced by professional and amateur astronomers. The majority of these, while stunning, are captured by extremely large 'scopes, instruments outside the atmosphere, or via probes in the outer solar system.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy these images. But they are not—how shall I say it—typical.

If you've ever been at a star party when there's been a crescent Moon or Jupiter (and his moons) or Saturn (with rings) to show off, you've witnessed the Galileo Moment. The reactions at the eyepiece are priceless. We've all heard the "wow" exclamations, the "ohs" and "ahs," the intake of breath. Kids mumbling "Sick." Or the stunned silence.

But every once in a while, I hear a grunt, a "Hmmm," often accompanied by a frown. Sometimes, the viewer is silent but you can tell, you can just tell, they are not in awe. Invariably, this is when we're after a nearby galaxy, perhaps The Ring Nebula, a loose open star cluster, Uranus or Neptune, even Mars, perhaps a very tight double star. Usually, it happens when we’re preoccupied with something diffuse, ethereal, faint, and fuzzy.

It happened with a friend of mine. After years of bad timing and bad weather, busy summer weekends, lack of convenient transportation, I finally made it to his island cottage in the Muskokas. He was so excited that I had brought my telescope. He was exhilarated as I assembled it. But when he looked through the eyepiece, at long last, his response was clearly disappointment. I could tell his expectations far outstripped what he saw. What a let-down.

Some people, the first time at the ocular, are expecting Hubble-grade images. Fortunately, we're at the star party or observing session as tour guide, to help them, explaining what they are seeing, framing it, sharing the fascinating facts, teaching them how to see these distant wonders.

APOD is awesome. But we're kind of working against it.

I also suspect a good number of the "lightly used" telescopes on sale or consignment are there because the enthusiastic recipient had no reasonable idea what to expect from their backyard. Certainly they did not see anything like the photos on the box.

We might be promoting the wrong web site; perhaps we should make more frequent references to ASOD: Astronomy Sketch of the Day. It is here that one finds representations of a pale and festooned Jupiter from the sidewalk through an 8". Or the tenuous and diaphanous Lagoon Nebula from the country at 100x delivered by a small refractor. Or perhaps the stunning depth of M13 grasped by a big Dob from a star party. How do you draw a half a million stars? In ASOD, you can see tangled prominences swirl above our home star, just like you’d observe through a small H-α 'scope.

A trip through http://www.asod.info/ is a treat. It shows the new telescope owner what they can expect to see. It shows us what we may enjoy with our modest gear. What we can coax out on a good night. Dare I say it presents a realistic view. ASOD shows the serious amateur, in their long journey, what they can learn to see by sketching.