Heard Sharmin, Phil, Dietmar, Grace, Lora, Tony H. outside.
The dos Santos and Sharmin took a look at Venus. I did too. 83% illuminated, according to SkyTools.
Bright stars were showing.
Slewed to Saturn. Tony and Elaine confirmed the moon positions. Spotted Tethys.
Ruoqing was very inquisitive. What's your name? Is this an observatory? Should I make a prayer for God right now? For the weather and to make the clouds go away? Lots of questions.
It was cool outside. Grace said she was cold. Tony and Elaine talked about putting on a jacket. Tony asked if Ruoqing had warmer clothes.
9:31 PM. Reminded people to focus the telescopes for their own eyes. That I often took my eyeglasses off.
King said he could see some moons around the ring planet.
93% humidity. 16.3° temperature. There was enough wind that it was dropping the temperature a bit. Wind chill in the summer!
Sharmin offered to make some coffee.
Grace noticed that Risa's car windows were open.
Ruoqing wanted to know why red light helped preserving night vision. Why the red film helped. He said he wanted to keep his night vision. Wanted to know if there was such a thing as absolute zero. He wanted to know which user account it was. He wanted how I made the mouse trails on the computers. Asked if I believed in God. If not God, what I believed in. Said that the clouds were clearing out because of his early prayers.
I checked the International Space Station flyovers. One at 2:45 AM or so.
Weida took a look at Saturn.
Risa popped in, with a beverage. Asked what the rules were.
Elaine asked what the three planets would be this morning. Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. Demonstrated it in Stellarium. Around 5:00 AM. This morning the Moon would be off to the right. Tony thought Mars and Jupiter was really close. I found that they were separating, closest on the 23rd.
Tony spotted some lightning, off in the distance.
Weida asked to view Venus. Everyone was a little surprised that I could put the 'scope on it. Pointed out that I tracked the ToV and partly eclipse last year down to the tree line. Venus was bright in the sky. King said it was "rainbow-y" in the telescope. Caught Ruoqing moving the mouse on the Dell computer. I asked him to not touch the computers without asking. He helped his little brother Hanning look at Venus. He asked why Venus had rain. Why it had sulphur rain. Why I had keyboard USB lights. Asked him to not repeatedly flex the USB light. He wanted to know what else we could look at. He asked about the software I was using on the Dell. He wanted to know if it cost money. He was disappointed when I told him SkyTools was a commercial (and expensive) application.
Said hello to Hanning. Lei told him to say hi. Hanning wanted to see solar system.
Sharmin requested the Garnet Star, μ (mu) Cephei. She had stumbled across it in her binoculars. Lovely in the refractor. It was a little low.
Millie reported in. She and Tony H. were counting meteors.
9:56. Mmm. Coffee.
Weida asked where the Moon was. Would rise at 3:15 AM.
Ruoqing asked if there were telescopes designed to look at the Sun. I said we could get out the solar filters tomorrow. We hadn't pulled them out at the work party. He asked how small are the solar 'scopes. How much does it cost?
Hanning asked again to see the solar system. He wanted to see one picture. He asked, "Do you have your mouse speed." I was trying to remember the tool I often used (in presentations) to show the view of all the bodies in solar system. I drew a blank. [ed: I was thinking of John Walker's web site.] Instead I looked up the solar system map on Heavens Above. I found the top-down map. The planets were shown as symbols. I quizzed him on the inner solar system. He knew all the answers. He spotted the poster of the solar system on the other side of the warm room. I turned on the light for him.
Sharmin asked to see a cluster. It was still too bright. We decided to view Albireo.
Lei asked if people were going to get up at 5:00 AM. Yeah. Crazy people. At 5:30, Mercury would rise over the hill. The Moon would be a really thin crescent. Lei asked Hanning if he wanted to get up early. Weida wanted to get up to see the planets before sunrise.
We talked about that some books had Pluto and others didn't. Yep. Complicated now... Risa wanted to know why Pluto was kicked out. I mentioned one criteria: that it doesn't clear its own path.
Helped Elaine and Tony with a technical question viewing Albireo in the two telescopes.
Sharmin requested Cor Caroli.
10:15. I slewed to the double. Sharmin said the seeing was bad. Elaine spotted another meteor. I asked her which way. "This way." After learning it was north to south, I suggested it was a Perseid.
Sharmin asked me what Eric's favourite double was. It had a weird name. She couldn't remember the constellation. Ed would often go to it with the 74. Alula Australis? No. Algieba? Maybe.
Risa asked if Cor Caroli was a binary. According to SkyTools, there was no orbital data. But it was updated in 2003.
I took a look. It was an OK sky.
Sharmin asked if we could view The Coathanger, aka Cr 399. I pre-checked the view in SkyTools. It would fit nicely in the Tele Vue 101 with the 55mm eyepiece.
10:25. Asked Sharmin if she saw any colour in the double stars. I thought the primary blue-white and the companion greenish. The RASC Observer's Handbook said blue-green! Sweet. How about that. Then she wondered about more coloured pairs. I showed her my list in SkyTools, with 98 stars.
I suggested ζ (zeta) 2 Coronae Borealis. We headed off to it.
Tony H popped in for a bit.
10:30. Sharmin didn't think there was any colour. Risa thought the secondary, "the smaller one, a touch more warm. The other one, more blue." I thought the opposite. I posited that men were not good at colour. Sharmin disagreed. She said it was that men are not patient. Or don't think. Probably right on all counts. Tony d.S. thought both were white. Again, I thought the opposite colours. Right star is brighter, left is fainter.
Suggested Almaak for good colours. Did a tour of the Andromeda constellation. But our laser pointer was pooched. Risa got hers. Pointed out the Great Square. α, β, μ, ν, and the fuzzy. Then Pegasus.
Tony H spotted a meteor. Of course, it was like a goal at a soccer match. While we were looking east, we spotted a good one.
10:50. Beautiful. The Coathanger. Sharmin wanted to know what the nearby double star was. Opposite the hook. White, wide. Two non-related stars. But one of those stars was a tight double, Σ 2523.
11:10. Tony d. asked for Uranus. And Neptune. He heard they were high. Uranus rose at 11:00; Neptune at 10:30. Suggested looking later, when a bit higher.
Image from Richard Powell's web site.
11:19. I asked Ruoqing how old he was. 12 years old. Asked if he wanted to look at star 12 light years away. I selected Groombridge 34. Weida asked if Pandora was the closest star. Huh. No. Centauri, alpha. Tried to find Groombridge by searching for GX Andromedae in TheSky. Used the designation SAO 36248. Centred. Above the galaxy. Slewed. A little bit of colour. Explained star colours, temperatures. A dim red dwarf. Risa liked that.
Risa offered to make some espresso.
Ruoqing really wanted to see the Andromeda Galaxy. Viewed it in the refractor. I pointed out that it was 2.5 million light years away. He said the Bible says the Earth was created 10000 years ago. And then God created humans after that. The numbers were messing him up.
He spotted my recorder. He wanted to try it. Sorry dude. Asked him not to touch it. He did anyway, while I was out at the telescope.
Tony d. spotted the meteor going south to north. Maybe another delta Aquarid?
Suggested Neptune. Had a hard time to verifying the field.
King thought I looked like Palpatine. Ugly and evil and a little pale, I wondered. He asked me if he would look good disguised.
Asked Tony if he wanted to look at another deep red star, La Superba, SAO 44317. Slewed.
11:30. Ruoqing said he saw the star. He thought it white. Relayed data to Tony. A C-class star. Reminded him of the original stellar classification scale, from O to M. 720 light years away. A "minor" variable. He said he liked the colour.
Weida asked about looking at Pluto. Recommended against it.
Spotted skulls and cross bones on King's knitted sweater. Awesome.
Risa brought me a tasty coffee and shared half a cookie.
We headed to Messier 13 (M13), with Tony spotting. Risa liked my terminology "big gun." She wandered off, mumbling, "big gun, light bucket." She really liked the glob in the Celestron 14" inch, "It's so beautiful. Gorgeous." King thought it bright. Tony enjoyed it.
11:36. Risa and I talked about children at star parties.
Weida topped up my spicy peanuts. Ruoqing thought I was lucky with all the treats, cookie, coffees, spicy peanuts. Well, that's what you get being supervisor. Perks!
Asked Risa if she wanted to help me with a Sky Quality Meter.
Weida wanted to know if I would be up in the morning. I said that I was hoping to do an all-nighter. He said he would likely sleep for a couple of hours. Reviewed timing with Lei and Weida. Talked about how elusive Mercury is. Suggested setting an alarm. And reminded him to check the weather. King said he was freezing.
Tony H. turned on the heat. I said I was fine. He suggested it was for others.
Tony d. wanted an edge-on galaxy. NGC 4565? Or 7965? He recalled a pretty prominent galaxy, beautiful, obvious dust lane in the centre. I suggested Cigar or Bode's. The Cocoon? I slewed to NGC 1023. Tony said he saw a little tiny fuzz. With averted vision.
12:10 AM, Saturday, August 3, 2013. Risa returned to help me. Coached her how to use the SQM. Borrowed her red flashlight. And readied my new log sheet. First reading: 21.14. Second: 21.15; last one: 21.22. Temp: 15. She was curious how much they were. I didn't recall but guessed $100 to $200. Tried to get the serial number but I couldn't remember how to do it.
Explained the two air mass limit and a bit about how SkyTools worked.
Slewed to M74. A joke. Way too low. No chance for the supernova SN 2013ej.
Asked what she wanted to go to. M57? Then she asked what the difference between M12 and M13 was. Both globulars. M13 is big and brighter, magnitude 5.8, 20 arc-minutes in size, 26000 ly. Messier 12 is 6.1, 16", 23 kly. M13 almost straight up; M12 through 1.6 airmasses. I let her slew to M12 in the middle of Ophiuchus.
I turned off the heater. "I'm melting," I said. Risa said, "You're an oven." The baseboard heater in the foot well was making my right eye water.
12:14 AM. Risa mentioned the Garnet Star again. Then she said she wanted to see a supernova. Sounded a little disappointed. I said could go for another one. A different one. She was surprised that there were so many. Targeted Lacerta, the Lizard. Mag 12.8. Easy for the C14. SN 2013dy inside NGC 7250. Risa slewed to it. Much better elevation. Confirmed the orientation of the stars, the pair of stars to the west, the triple to the north.
12:22. Risa shared how impressed she was with averted vision. Made the faint galaxy appear.
We confirmed it! Easy. Bright.
12:31. Tony d. wandered by. Took at look at the supernova. He said, out of the blue: "NGC 6865, but we'll look at it later." Risa helped him spot the SN. Sharmin and Tony H. dropped by. We helped them spot it.
Horvatin suggested the Stephan's Quintuplet for a challenge object.
Tony d. spotted another meteor. Tony H. said, "We'll take it. 29 now. 29 and 3."
Tony H. asked how to input Right A and Dec coordinates in TheSky. They had a heck of a time. I couldn't remember off the top of my head.
Asked if people wanted to look at the comet. C/2010 S1 (LINEAR) in Cygnus. Tony 1, Tony 2, Millie, Sharmin, Risa.
12:47. Suggested to Horvatin to drop the 10mm in the Tele Vue. He panned around.
I found the technique, in the help, for moving the Paramount by RA and Dec: number, comma, +/-number. Easy! In the Find command. Showed Millie and Tony H.
12:53. With Millie at my shoulder, I tried the RA/Dec positioning using Albireo.
While I plotted the path in SkyTools, they found the comet! A fast mover. 5.2 astronomical units away. Magnitude 11.9. Coma diameter is 49". We could not see a tail.
Turned off the baseboard heater. Unboxed and turned on the small ceramic heater. Asked Tony H. to not turn on the baseboard again. Affecting my allergies.
Risa wanted to see the tail displayed in the software. She thought she saw some directionality to it, to the smudge. I kept trying to change the settings in SkyTools but could not see it. [ed: Learned later ST3P automatically suppresses it when it is not visible.] Checked imagery at aerith.net. No tail.
Suggested the next comet. C/2012 F6 (Lemmon). Tony H. looked in the Tele Vue, and asked, "Is that a comet." Magnitude 9.4. Went to Alfirk (a nice double star, by the way).
1:19. Risa returned, after saying she was going to bed. She heard all the oohing and aahing. It was very interesting. A strange shape.
Pulled up more photos. Found 2 week old photos on the net. I was starting doubt it... Field didn't look right.
Tony d. thanked me for the tour. Wasn't sure if he was going to get up for the conjunction.
1:32. Tony H. said he was going to turn in. Then, "We got lucky with the sky tonight." Agreed. Millie said she was tired too. She asked for the coordinates of the comet. She wanted to find it in her 'scope tomorrow.
Tony asked about 9 volt batteries. He had already looked in the kitchen cupboard. He said he put the new coat racks up already, in the Orion room. Tomorrow, he wanted to swap the camera. He wondered about getting another weed trimmer, a heavy duty one. We talked about the lockers. The MODL anniversary. Programmable key-less door knobs. Clearing underground conduits of water. Et cetera.
2:05. Solo. At last. Quiet.
2:07. I thought the comet near 21 34 51 by +70 27 24. Beside TYC 04465-2041 1 and the fainter TYC 04465-1249 1. They are almost pointing to it. No NGCs in the area.The actual comet position was very different than what the software was showing.
Had my personal observing list showing. Now Uranus was up and above the 2x. Reorg'ed my workspace a bit.
2:12. Local weather data from the Davis (which, happily, I did not have to update). 10 minute wind average speed 4.8. Wind direction NW. Current wind speed 3.2. High 20.9. Outside humidity 98. Barometer 1009.5. Looked low. Temperature 13.4. Inside the house, 21.1 and 63%. I had the Oregon on the back deck picnic table and the OneWorld in the warm room.
2:20. Viewed ζ Herculis. Very tight! Two pairs of stars off at the 3 o'clock position, mag 11 and 12 stars, plus a brighter one, mag 9.5, about ¼ of a field away. The split stars were in a 10 o'clock 4 orientation. I would have guessed the primary at the bottom-right. Needs good seeing. Both seem the same colour, a pale yellow. Oh! One of the fast movers: 34.5 years. ST3P said 1.18 separation as of June. A single star in the Tele Vue. Decided to bump the power, in the big 'scope, with the 18mm.
2:26. Not confirmed. I decided that I should go back.
2:32. Split ζ 1 Aquarii in the Tele Vue with the 5mm. Same colour, slightly different brightnesses? In the C14, easily separated. Exactly the same brightnesses. Mag 3.6 and 4.6. Huh. Current sep. is 2.32". A longer orbit (and I removed it from the fast movers list). About 100 light years. [ed: Previously viewed.]
A few mosquitoes tonight. Killed about a half dozen.
The new door closer was operating very slowly...
Viewed Neptune.
2:43. I spotted Triton. Popped out with averted vision. Switch eyepieces around with the two 'scopes. The moon was mag 13.5.
2:48. Saw PPM 240278 to the east, a bright star, mag 10.5. GSC 05807-0503 to the north west at 12.9.
2:53. Very low power in the Tele Vue. Viewed NGC 956. Near Messier 34 (M34). Not very exciting. Open cluster. aka Cr 27 or OCL 377.
2:59. Viewed 19 Piscium. aka TX. Flipped the eyepieces. 27 to the C14; 10 to the TV. Lovely orange star. Colourful. Another C-class star. Fairly empty field. Not a lot going on. A variable but not a wide range...
Made a mental note to bring out the new mosquito bug repellent thing. The strip and the fan. Need to test it. They were after me again!
Consider the supernova in Messier 74 again.
3:07. Spotted the galaxy. Viewed in the C14. Used the checkmark feature to show the galaxy and SN 2013ej in relation to one another. Damn. Clouded out.
3:10. Lost the sky to the east. Weird. It went black! Very foreboding. Checked the satellite imagery. Didn't really see anything "big." Something was moving really fast. Merging from the east? Checked the water vapour view. Had to resign myself to objects in the west.
3:13. Saw a short bright meteor near Lyra going down into Hercules.
3:19. Viewed NGC 7008. A planetary nebula in Cygnus. Large in the C14 with the 27mm. Not round. Looked like a flame. A double star to the south. Another pair to the south-west. Cool object.
Really dark to the east. No sky glow. Just nothing! The mothership?
Mozzies buzzed the recorder.
3:30. The sky was back. Yeh.
3:47. Sky was good near zenith. Still bad to the east. Which would thwart our attempts at the conjunction.
Decided to go for the quasar HS 1626+6433.
Verified I was in the correct field. Confirmed. Between stars SAO 17089 (mag 10.3) and TYC 04193-0523 1 (mag 11.4). Headed back to the ocular...
3:52. I saw a pair of stars to the west, mag 14.1 and 15.1, about ¼ of a field away. Near the SAO star, I spotted a mag 14.5 star. Spotted GSC 04193-0663 at 14.9 to the south. Happy to be seeing things in the magnitude range. Made it feel like the quasi-stellar target was within grasp.
Headed back out to confirm. Clouds!
Parked the Paramount and closed the roof. Put the Dell to sleep.
4:00. Local weather. 10 min average wind 6.4. Direction WNW. Current wind 8. Humidity 100%. 1010.1. Temp 13.3. Wind chill dropped it two tenths. I was feeling chilled, despite 3 layers.
4:04. Still cloudy to the east. Heavy in the south-east. Just spotted the thin crescent Moon fading in and out, rising over the hills. Cloudy at zenith, north. Bah.
§
Wow. What a day. Made it to the CAO, after a little adventure. Received many guests (although more are on the way). Had surprisingly good skies for much of the evening. Did the dog and pony show for our various guests. Seemed like everyone had a good time. Lots of meteors for the outdoor Observing Pad crew. And I was happy to see a few cool objects, like some comets, and that very interesting planetary!
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