firsts from porch (Toronto)

A number of visual observing firsts this evening...

7:06 PM, 4 Oct 2011. I completed the set-up for the observing session. The usual things. The telescope optical tube assembly was cooling. Earlier I had set up the tripod, triangle, mount with counterweights, and the hand controller. I carefully leveled the tripod and mounted the telescope. And I couldn't see Polaris! I shifted a little to the south. Added the finder scope and mirror diagonal. Had the dew shield at the ready. Dew heaters installed. Observing chair unfolded.

It had been some time that I had used my telescope, I realised. I had let Kiron use it on a number of occasions up at the CAO. So, all the while, I checked for items out of place, missing, checked for damage. Everything was at it should be.

Instrument: Celestron 8-inch SCT
Mount: Vixen Super Polaris
Method: star hopping; Vixen tracking

But I was not only setting up for this one night. I intended to leave some things set-up for a couple of nights. So I had erected the (new) canopy poles, 1" dowel from the building supply store. And then I put up the (new) black canopy fabric. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to successfully suspend it but it went up easy. Starting at the north-west corner, working counterclockwise, securing with simple clothespins, I unrolled the opaque fabric. I had not installed the final and fourth pole at the north-east so I simply clipped the light shield to the current in-place optical barrier on the east edge of the deck. I was feeling optimistic.

Again, earlier, I had brought power out to the deck, once again, through a screen-less kitchen window. On this occasion I had selected a different extension cord, one in a flattened style. Without intending it, I had a better solution, removing a trip hazard. I was able to squeeze the cord down between the deck boards. I brought out the (computer) power source toolbox and hooked everything up.

I considered using the kitchen table as the base of operations. I readied the eyepieces and accessories. I kept a portion clear so I could sit down.

On the other hand, I didn't feel like moving the netbook to the kitchen and struggling with its small display. So, I elected to use the office for the planning station. Use all the computers. I fired up Stellarium 0.9 on John Smallberries so to take advantage of the foreground landscape image of porch, the house, and the trees. On John Little John, I already had SkyTools3 running. And it was connected to the larger ViewSonic external monitor. I put the red film sheets on the Smallberries monitors. I could not recall if I had film for the ViewSonic so I dropped the brightness and contrast and turned on SkyTools red light mode.

Of course, I activated all the red lighting through the rest of the place. Plugged in the Xmas lights in the kitchen. I turned on the living room floor lamp and screwed in the red bulb. Unfortunately, this old incandescent bulb was heat fading and throwing a bright yellow-orange patch on the ceiling. I couldn't find the red crinkle foil that in the past I had placed over the shade. So I found a red CFL and put it in instead. Still bright but a better colour.

Before mounting the 8" tube, I did a proper polar alignment using the built-in polar scope. I hadn't calculated the meridian offset number so I skipped that step. It would be close enough.

I tried to remove the t-ring from the Williams Optics 2" mirror so to use Phil's SCT adapter with compression ring. Tight! My hands slipped. Tried the rubber circle from the kitchen. Tried leather gloves. Wouldn't budge. The t-ring was really stuck. Would need car tools...

With the OTA installed, mirror attached, and eyepiece in place, I double-checked the polar alignment. The tripod or mount had shifted on the weight. No worries. I also compared the alignment to the software. Looked good.

9:06 PM. I stared at Vega for some time. Partly to check polar alignment. It was off a little. I double-checked the built-in dials...

It looked like the collimation is off! Damn it. Ironic.

Considered Messier 101, in hopes of viewing the supernova SN 2011fe again, but it was too late. Behind the gable over the living room.

Considered comet Garradd. In fact, I planned star hop. But the trees still have a lot of leaves... It was impossible to find my reference stars. I threw in the towel.

Continued to check Vega. It was in a flattened triangle with HD 171872 to the west and HD 172149 to the south, α (alpha) Lyrae at the apex.

I saw a faint star to the south, very close to Vega, in line with HD 172149. SkyTools3 said it was about 1.5 minutes of arc away. Made me wonder if Vega is a multi-star system... [ed: In fact, ST3 shows it as a quad! Widely separated stars but dim, around mag 9 to 11. And this star was the B companion...]

The faint B star was PPM 81557. ST3 said shining at magnitude 10.6. Huh. That was pretty low. How low can we go, I wondered... I thought I could test the magnitude limits as I became dark adapted behind my new light shield. Tried for the mag 11.3 and 11.6 stars in-line with HD 171872: got 'em! Then I tried for the mag 12.0 star below (er, south west of) mag 10.0 SAO 67165. And I got it! That was pretty cool. Now, ST3 said GSC 03105-1255 was a 12.05 star but that it was "poor quality." So, I'd need to corroborate this...

But it was time to do some regular observing of new deep sky objects! Off we go.



9:37. Viewed the very small open cluster NGC 637 in Cassiopeia, aka Cr 17 or OCL 329. Star hopped up from Segin aka ε (epsilon) and then HR 511. A T-shape of fine stars. Used the two orange K stars to the south to help focus. Collimation was definitely off but it wasn't too bad. That was fun, the little cluster.

9:47. Decided to try for NGC 559. But when I checked Stellarium, I saw that it would be behind a tree... Hmmm. What to do. There's not a lot of sky I can work with, in the summer, with these bloody trees. Checked the double star life list. Huh. Not much done in Cepheus. Only δ (delta). I knew there were a lot. I recalled seeing a couple of pages worth of targets in Haas's book. OK. How about β (beta) Cephei, aka Alfirk, then. Headed to the deck.

10:15. Got distracted by Jupiter! It had appeared between a gap in the trees. Started with the baader planetarium 36mm Hyperion-Aspherical wide field 2" eyepiece. Enjoyed the four moons. Prominent north and south equatorial belts. It was colourful! Io was on the left, Callisto further out. Bright Ganymede was on the far right; Europa between.

Hold the phone! I can use two eyes. I put in the Rod Ends binocular viewer with dual 20mm wide angle oculars. Wow. Good power. A good view, once I got both at the same focus. There was a dark spot on the lower belt. A shadow? Or a storm?

Oh! There was no shadow now. But there would be! In an hour, as Io drew closer, it would cast a shadow. Oh ho! And around the same time the GRS would make an appearance! The Great Red Spot. Or rather, the Great Tan Spot.

10:48. Took me a while to find β Cep. Partly because it was (somewhat) near the North Celestial Pole and the Vixen mount doesn't like going there. Finally landed on it, Alfirk. And saw, initially, only a single star. Turned away. When I came back to the eyepiece, still the 36mm, it was as plain as day!

A white primary and a pale orange secondary below (to the west). Haas says the secondary is green! Sheesh.

The seeing then went funny! Ugh. Did a cloud go over? There are some small clouds floating by. Anyway, while it lasted, a fine pair. According to ST3, I saw the AB pair. A modest separation, 13.3", but tight at the 56x. The mag difference made this a little more of a challenge, 3.2 vs 8.0. There's a third star purportedly but it's less than half a degree away. Ah, no, not for me...

10:53. I went back for another look. The seeing was still mushy.

10:55. Unplugged the red LED Xmas lights on the porch door. Too bright!

I liked the new canvas. It proved completely opaque. Absolutely no light coming through. But it was not wide enough! There was a 2 foot gap below and that was pretty distracting. The street lights are illuminating the deck of the porch and scattering light up from below. Also, the new neighbours on the main floor use the front room (unlike the previous tenants). And they regularly watch their TV! Jeez. Come on. It's shining up into my eyes! Crikey. Stop watching your TV all night! The lesson here is that I would need to first put another fabric barrier along the railing, to block the light at the low level...

I decided to continue my magnitude limit testing—even though I could not get fully dark adapted. I checked for some faint stars. To the east, I noted a little triangle of mag 11.4, 11.7, and 11.9 stars. There was an 11.9 mag star to the north of β. I recalled seeing this deep in the city before. Perhaps tonight was the same or better. I would have to check my life lists.

Nope, after reviewing my notes, I learned I was not doing anything earth-shattering. I had seen mag 11.9 stars in the 'hood in the past, from High Park, from the back yard of my old place. But mag 12? That I had not done before. If I could do that tonight, that would be a little deeper. So, I decided to push a little harder...

11:09. Mag 12? Confirmed! To the south of β, near SAO 19479, I could easily see TYC 04465-0325 1 at mag 11.98, MLB 366A at 12.03, and GSC 04465-1591 at mag 12.46—with a bit of effort! Now that was something. It definitely seemed that I was getting past 11.9. While at the steep part of the logarithmic curve, I was very happy to eek out a tenth. One for the record books.

11:25. The Oregon Scientific portable weather station reported the humidity at 64% and air temperature at 11.4°C, but I had only moved it outside recently. It showed the air pressure dropping.

11:35. I viewed α Cep, aka Alderamin. Wow. If I did not know they were there, I think I would have missed the faint companions... BU 1502B seemed brighter than BU 1502C.

I was getting a little confused by what I was seeing in SkyTools.

When I opened the Object Information window on Alderamin, it showed it was a "multiple star system." Lower down, it showed three buttons for the companions, marked AB, BC, and CD. So, there were four stars. I clicked each button and read the details:

AB: mags 2.5 and 10.4, PA 19, Sep 199"
BC: mags 10.4 and 11.1, PA 172, Sep 20"
CD: mags 11.1 and 11.4, PA 104, Sep 3"

So that suggested that the B star was brighter at 10.4 than the 11.1 C star. Fine. Jived with my visual impressions.

But I was getting different information when I viewed the Interactive Atlas and Context Viewer. When I pointed to individual stars, I saw the following magnitude numbers...

A: 2.5
B: 11.4
C: 11.1
D: 11.1

That was opposite! I couldn't figure that out. I would have to raise that Greg over at Skyhound... I left it to worry about later and returned to the eyepiece.

Going to the old Meade orthoscopic 18mm 1¼" ocular, bumping to 111 power, improved the view a little. I was interested in splitting the C and D pair.

11:48. I couldn't it. I could not see BU 1502D. It was too faint or too close to C or both. It could not have been the brightness. I could see the mag 11.8 star to the east of the CD star(s). It was the bad seeing and my screwed up collimation. They were not helping!

I was kind of kicking myself. It was funny (not ha-ha) that to review and practice SCT collimation I used my telescope—with a false star—as a guinea pig test subject and made it worse!

I had to keep tabs on the tabby tonight. Nancy has been very curious what I've been doing out on the deck so late. I think he's recovered from his recent long walkabout. Maybe he wants more... I let Nancy-boy out briefly to enjoy the fresh air.

Meanwhile, I noticed The Queen above was clear of the tree... Let's knock off a couple before bed, I thought.

12:15 AM, 5 Oct 2011. Jupiter peeked through the tree leaves again. Ho ho, shadow time! I quickly swung the mount around. Viewed with the 36mm. Could just barely make out the shadow. Put in the binoviewer. And it was easy! A dark small point.

But where was the GRS? I couldn't see... Hold on! It was exactly under the shadow! That was a first! Very exciting. I hoped people were photographing the coincidental phenomena.

I was done. Tired.

12:29. I brought in the eyepieces, OTA, and power supply.

I checked the weather station before I brought it inside: 10.7° and 66%. What a great night, overall. Transparency was good. Not great seeing. A pleasant temperature. No dew.

I was very pleased with some of the evening's milestones. Finding many double stars in Cepheus. The new light barrier worked well (but I need to block the light at the railing). I was impressed to see some magnitude 12 stars. I was very happy to see a spot in the middle of the The Spot, a moon shadow in the GRS on Jupiter. And I didn't get much drifting so I had a pretty good polar alignment.