two objects viewed (Toronto)

Enjoyed some solo observing tonight. Quiet time under the stars.

5:30 PM, Saturday, February 9, 2013. Shoveled the porch. And put the Celestron 8" SCT out to cool. Started slowly setting up, with the intention of bringing the mount out as late as possible.

6:25 PM. Spotted Jupiter and Aldebaran and a few other stars.

6:28. OK. 'Scope outside, OTA on mount, roughly polar aligned, finder scope attached (but unchecked), light blind and towels up, astro chair out, dew shield out (but not installed). Left the OTA and mount bags outside to chill, beside the snow beer. Extension cord out window, GFCI outside and connected. Power astro box outside and ready. Couldn't see the tripod feet marks on the deck in the dark...

Kitchen tidied. Eyepiece case ready, on the stove top. Moved the netbook to kitchen. Red screen filter attached. Woke netbook up. Found Skytools 3 Pro already running. Switched to Nightly Planner from Real Time mode. Turned on night vision mode in software.

Turned the blue Moon light on.

Still need to change. To dry and warm clothes. Current clothes a little damp from the walking and shoveling this afternoon. Wanted the red coat for lots of warmth. And long johns. Lots of layers, obviously. It felt quite brisk out.

6:33 PM. Installed the (dark) red LED keyboard light. Grabbed other one, just in case.

6:38. Considered targets for the evening. But then remembered I'd already thrown together a list. It had some 58 items in it. A tad optimistic.

6:40. I noted the time. The very bright International Space Station flyover was due in 10 to 15 minutes. The alarm Grace had set would be going off soon. I'd better get suited up then...

6:49. Plugged light leaks. Opened a snow beer. Sat on the adjustable height chair and waited for the show to start.

7:01. The ISS faded out a moment ago. The fly-by was done. It was a good one. The station grew brighter than Jupiter (magnitude -2.5) after passing Orion. It turned a slight yellow colouring as it entered Gemini. And then a deep orange at its sunset. I whispered "Hello, Chris," at one point. Very nice pass. Grace texted me a few moments later. She enjoyed it too.

7:05. I checked the Environment Canada weather office page for Toronto. It showed the current conditions as clear and -6°C as observed at Toronto Pearson Int'l Airport on 7:00 PM EST. The forecast was clear with a low of minus 9. I captured the details.

Condition: Clear
Pressure: 103.0 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 24 km
Air Quality Health Index: 3
Temperature: -5.9°C
Dewpoint: -11.6°C
Humidity: 64 %
Wind: calm

Well away from the dew point...

7:26. I aligned finder on Jupiter. Took a little while for some reason. But when I spotted a wide double (turned out to be δ (delta) Tauri 1 and 2) I knew I was in the ballpark and quickly found the planet. Noticed Jupiter sitting in a sprinkling of faint stars.

Jupiter looked good in the eyepiece! The seeing looked really good. I had started, as per usual, with the baader planetarium Hyperion 36mm wide field ocular. I noticed all moons on one side, at 55 power.

7:33. Bumped to 77x with the old Celestron 26mm Plössl. It offered up a good view. But I think the gas giant went behind a tree branch. It had softened. Was a little streaky.

I immediately noticed the drifting problem again. Er, not drifting. Tracking. The object was not staying centred in the field. And when I operated the hand controller, nothing seemed to work. I knew it was not a power issue as I didn't have any dew heaters plugged in. I wondered if it was a mount problem. Something with the clutch? Bad balance? Too much payload? The cold? Old grease?

7:42. Considered a double star target. Looked at the western sky for Andromeda. But it was hard to see any stars there. Seemed to be a lot of light pollution. Probably the uplight, for all the snow, was making it worse tonight. Reconsidered targets straight overhead. Perseus, perhaps...

8:01. Arrived Miram, aka η (eta) Persei. Wow. A lovely double. The main A and B stars were widely separated at 77x. Ugh. The seeing had gone bad. Or it was heat pouring off the roof.

I thought the stars yellow and deep blue. I found the blue colour leapt with averted vision. This double star is from the RASC Observer's Handbook, from the coloured doubles list. The author describes the pair as orange, blue, and faint.

The main star is not faint. But there was a big difference in magnitudes. I guessed 2 or 3. Skytools said it was more like 4.

I noted, in my mirror reversed field, that Miram was part of a big backwards L. HD 17420 was at the top (or west), HD 17465 was at the corner, and the double at the bottom.

I could see GSC 03704-0119 below and right (or north). This was a mag 10.8 star (poor data, according to ST3).

8:14. Looked again. The seeing was better. I went hunting for the C and D stars but couldn't see them. I spotted GSC 03704-0346, a mag 10.9 (poor data) star, to the left (or south east). C and D were bright, according to the software. In the direction of HD 17420. No joy.

Curiously, I noticed, now, I was not having any tracking issues. Something to do with loads? I was on the other side (east now) of the mount... The only change in the field was due to drifting from rough polar alignment. That said, the polar alignment was rather good!

That was a very nice double star.

8:24. Went back to have another look. Popped in the Meade 18mm orthoscopic hoping to draw out the faint C and D companions but saw immediately the view was poor. Worse, in fact. I was having a hard time seeing GSC 03704-0119, and I could not see GSC 03704-0346 at all. The field was soft. Weird.

I looked up (for the first time): crap! Streamers across the sky. There was a lot of them in the north and east. WTH? That was irksome. But I also chuckled. I had walked from the kitchen straight to the telescope eyepiece without looking up. I had no idea what had happened to the sky.

Oh dear. I had an unpleasant thought. They'll be pissed at the David Dunlap Observatory. Reminded me of one of the Members Nights last year: clear during the presentations; cloud afterwards.

Alas, it looked like I'd have to take a break for a bit. Wait for it to clear. Anyhoo, Miram was cool!

Back inside, I checked the NOAA satellite imaging page, the black and white display. It looked like there was some high level stuff passing through... Time for cookies!

8:53. Headed to the office and caught up on emails.

8:59. Peeked outside. I was still clouded out. It was worse actually. The whole sky was covered now. I'm pretty sure it was not the beer.

9:40. Checked again. Still cloudy. Uh huh. This was the "10% cloud" I saw predicted in the Clear Sky Chart earlier.

10:01. The skies looked a bit better.

10:14. There were still clouds off in the distance. And I think the transparency tanked. But the seeing was unaffected. Choose planets then!

I had a stunning view of Jupiter at 222x, using the Tele Vue Nagler 9mm. It was very steady. The Great Red Spot was very obvious. The white zone leading into GRS seems to split around it. Or was that the trailing edge, I wondered?

10:18. The clouds (on Earth) were back. It was bad again. It was affecting the view of Jupiter.

10:22. Part of the reason I set up tonight was that it looked like there was a small chance of being clear Sunday night too. And that would be awesome, to get 2 back-to-back nights. But if that doesn't look like is going pan out, maybe I'll do some solar tomorrow, during the day.

10:38. Clouds covered the whole sky. Weird. The NOAA graphic made it seem clear...

10:50. Still clouds. I checked Jupiter. I was pleased on one hand: it was still in the eyepiece of the 9mm. But it was a bit soft.

11:04. I was getting discouraged. I seriously considered packing up. But then, thought, hey, it's the weekend. I can stay up late. Don't sweat it. And, in general, light levels usually decrease after midnight. Still. There were clouds everywhere.

11:18. I looked at Jupiter again. The view was fair. I put the 9mm in again. And could not see the GRS clearly. Maybe to my left now? I confirmed that in software. But it certainly was not obvious, like before.

11:47. It was still cloudy. Most of the sky. I initiated a partial shutdown: brought all the eyepieces indoors (to warm); turned off the tracking; turned off the GFCI; and I capped the 'scope.

12:24 AM, Sunday, February 10, 2013. The skies were no good. I wrapped up the telescope and crawled into bed.

So, not a terribly productive evening. But easy-going. Quiet. No big hardware issues. And a nice double star. And some good (albeit) brief views of Jupiter's cloud deck.

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Didn't realise I had viewed Miram back in Oct 2011. Noted the colour then as orange and blue. So that better matches the Observer's Handbook data. But I also had trouble seeing, clearly, the C and D companions. According to the written notes. And probably left it as "unlogged" in SkyTools, to have another go.

Oddly, I discovered that notes referred to a sketch. But there was no sketch in the blog entry. Weird. So, dug out the sketch book and scanned it. Finally. And curiously, very strangely, I think the sketch clearly shows the C and D stars... I must have been drinking that night, too!

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There were a few things I thought required some follow-up...

There were several times I thought I dropped things on the deck. Like something from the tripod? But I didn't see anything. So I'll have to check for items missing. And check again equipment lists.

I need to put some shims on Celestron SCT lens cap so that it stops falling off! It is particularly bad when very cold. Seems the cap shrinks a bit.

When I installed the red LED ring light for the tripod, I noticed it did not illuminate. Batteries must be dead. If I remember correctly, I had left them on overnight the last time...

And, the big one: to resolve this mount tracking problem. It's probably old grease in the mount. That the mount needs a general tune up. So I will plan a full mount tear down this summer at CAO.

The last couple of years, I've considered doing it in January and February as there's usually not a lot going on. But if I do it at the CAO, I've access to low-temp grease. And, if I break something, I will still have other 'scopes I can use...