Tag Archives: Nagler

CNYO Observing Log: International Observe The Moon Night, 6 September 2014

Posted on September 13, 2014 1:41 pm - - 1 Comment

Larry Slosberg and I (Ryan Goodson) arrived at the Onondaga Creekwalk at 7:30 p.m. for the CNY edition of the International Observe The Moon Night. We quickly realized that the Moon would be obstructed by a row of large buildings, making this locale not ideal for the night. We decided to scout other locations.

After a quick walk to The MOST, we found the perfect spot on the same sidewalk shared by both a vacant building under construction and the ever-trendy record store The Sound Garden. Our fear was that foot traffic would be slow, but the Moon was well positioned and slowly traversing its way over The MOST, so we decided this would be the spot.

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After a quick set-up (and by quick I mean lightning fast – a couple NMT’s – whadya expect?), our earlier fear of lack-of-traffic was quickly replaced with the anxiety of too many onlookers and not enough scopes! I had set up Dan Williams’ 8” scope, and Larry was equipped with his car dwelling 12”. Thankfully, Dan Williams and Raymond Dague of the Syracuse Astronomical Society made an appearance and aided Larry and I with the part of the outreach I call the splainin’ (that’s okie for explaining). Larry was certainly the star of the show with his use of common objects to put stellar sizes in perspective. Dague and Williams both provided excellent commentary about the Moon and what turned out to be a far bigger hit – Saturn and Mars!

After pointing Williams’ 8” at Saturn, the comments ranged from, “That has to be fake,” to “Get the hell outta here! I’ve never seen anything so incredible!” Since this was a night dedicated to the Moon (albeit nearly full – maybe next year we get a petition making the rounds to move the special occasion to a first quarter date), we had to go back to our lunar companion and get a few oohs and aahs from those views as well.

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For the reader wanting the specifics, the scope I had used was an 8” F6.5. The eyepieces used for both the Moon and the planets were a 31mm Nagler (43x magnification), a 12mm Delos (110x magnification) and for the steadiest moments I would use a 2X Celestron Ultima Barlow in conjunction with the Delos to yield that sweet spot of 222x for Saturn. Through the 8” F6.5, this view revealed the ringed planet, the Cassini Division, 4 moons, and subtle surface detail (the surface detail part probably only seen by the more experienced observers in the group). In fact, it was this view that a group of Chinese tourists seemed most excited about. One of the last of the public onlookers to leave had stated that the night had been the most magical she can remember.

The Moon was viewed through both scopes and always filtered. The views were big and bright, with most of the questions relegated to wondering about the maria and larger craters. A young college student said she was excited to finally have tidal lock splained in a way she could understand-thank you Larry Slosberg for relating information in such a candid way!

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Before wrapping the event up we pointed toward a number of double stars and talked a bit about the large number of planetary systems being discovered by professionals and amateurs alike. The session closed around 9:45 PM, and we went home energized and ready for the next CNYO event.

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CNYO Observing Log: Cherry Springs Star Party, 26 – 29 June 2014

Posted on July 10, 2014 7:19 pm - - 1 Comment

This past June 26 – 29, the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg PA hosted their annual Cherry Springs Star Party (CSSP) at, appropriately, Cherry Springs State Park – the second location to be designated an International Dark Sky Park (wikipedia entry). The park’s about 3.5 hours from Syracuse and, by most metrics, in the middle of nowhere (if you find petrol as you approach the park, get it).

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Some light and relevant U-Haul reading on the way to CSSP.

There’s quite literally no basic cellular service anywhere after the 3 hour mark (certainly the case for AT&T customers), leaving the park wifi and, of course, AstroGizmos to provide all the connectivity one should otherwise be trying to get away from for a weekend of observing (but definitely couldn’t get away from, so both wifi’s were much appreciated!). And for those wondering “does anyone make those?” – AstroGizmos had available 12 V hair dryers (with varied powering options) for those looking to evaporate eyepiece condensate on dewy nights (I now have mine).

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Cherry Springs State Park – first sign in the park.

Besides the great dark skies, the CSSP also provides CNY clubs a chance to hang out and do nothing for a few days. I set up shop with fellow Kopernik members at the usual Kopernik location (the first left after the “Nova” signpost). My vehicle was extra full this year with a special delivery of New Moon Telescope Dob #17 to Pedro Gomes, known previously on the CNYO Facebook Page as the hardest working observer in Watertown (now at points south).

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A panorama from the Kopernik site. Click for a larger view.

For those roughing it on the site for the entire party, a not-untypical Saturday schedule might involve (1) staying up as late as the caffeine will allow, listening to angered attendees when someone accidentally turns on their car lights (which is less funny when you’ve waited a half-hour for your eyes to fully adjust to the dark, moonless sky), (2) sleeping in until the Sun cooks you in your tent or vehicle, (3) listen to someone (Pedro) tell you about the black bear that passed by his scope and tent the night before (the presence of a few black bears also explained the gunshot fired by camp rangers the night before), (4) going to the vendor tent, (5) making a trip to catering (well, trucks and tent) to wait in line to eat, (6) going back to the vendor tent, (7) attending one or more of the scheduled lectures and checking out the raffle donations (to pass the time until nightfall), (8) vendor tent, (9) raffle!, (10) caffeinate and apply bug spray (although it wasn’t too bad this year), and (11) See 1.

Observing Tip: If you want to make the most of a Star Party, consider taking a break from your usual caffeine intake a few weeks in advance. That first cup of coffee will feel like rocket fuel.

I’m pleased to report that the raffle was a complete success for your’s truly. Not only did I score free admission to the upcoming Kopernik AstroFest in October, but I also managed to walk away with the 8 mm Delos graciously donated to CSSP directly by TeleVue Optics. The company rep, John, and I even had a good exchange Sunday morning (he having done some imaging of the Veil Nebula that night, I having passed around my trusty OIII-filtered 26 mm Nagler to others wanting to observe the same in the Kopernik camp). Admittedly, my bias towards TeleVue eyepieces is strong (and in the official record at Astronomy Technology Today), so the Delos was a very welcome addition (one should not observe Saturn without it!). And it will be present at CNYO events for those wanting to compare and contrast. Many thanks to TeleVue, Kopernik, and all of the CSSP donors (amateur astronomers take their raffle prizes very seriously)!

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Patrick Manley (left) and Pedro Gomes listen as collimation guru Howie Glatter (right) talks shop. Click for a larger view.

I was told that Thursday night was great but very wet. Friday night (my first night there) was a patchwork of clouds and less-than-thrilling seeing conditions. Saturday night was out-and-out fantastic. Going from about 9:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., my list included Saturn and Mars, 35 Messiers, 20 NGCs (including my personal favorite, NGC 4565), and a lot of just staring into “nowhere particular” just to enjoy the visual peace and quiet.

Blazar-3c424.3-pic-SDSS-credit-580x485The one object I did want to take a stab at seeing was Blazar 3C 454.3 in Pegasus, having seen the announcement cross the CNYO Twitter Feed in the form of a link to universetoday.com (image at right from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey). Blazars are so bright that astronomers didn’t know until the 1970’s that they weren’t actual stars in our own Milky Way. Blazars are the cores of galaxies where matter is being sucked into a supermassive black hole, releasing in the process jets of energy perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy and right in our direction (so these host galaxies would appear to us like the Whirlpool Galaxy, where we’re seeing the whole galaxy face-on as we stare down its rotation axis).

The blazar in Pegasus recently peaked at around 13th magnitude and has been dimming since. That’s dim. That’s far dimmer than binoculars and small scopes will reveal, but is just fine for a 12” Dobsonian (where 15th magnitude is possible under ideal conditions – which Cherry Springs almost certainly is). While not particularly impressive in any kind of scope, this blazar is noteworthy for being 7 billion light years away. When the photons beaming through that new 8 mm Delos left their home galaxy, the Sun and Earth were still more than 2 billion YEARS away from being ANYTHING. That, to my mind, compensates for the dim.

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The view to the East at Sunset on Saturday night. Click for a larger view.

By 2:45 a.m., the Kopernik crowd had thinned to just Keith Werkman and I. I packed up the scope and pulled out the camera for a few long-exposure shots just in time to see a few randomly-oriented bright meteors (not affiliated with the Boötids Meteor Shower, which peaked the night before) and a Milky Way band bright enough to read by.

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Another view of the Kopernik site at the CSSP. Click for a larger view.

Groggy and sore from our respective sleeping arrangements, the gang began to split just after breakfast and a final clean-up of the grounds. Having now survived my second CSSP with quite a bit of excellent viewing (and viewing tools) to show for it, I and others await next year’s CSSP and next month’s Black Forest Star Party at the same location.

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Drafting/Architect Circles – Know Your Field Of View!

Posted on June 26, 2014 10:36 pm - - Leave a Comment

From the “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” Department…

Binoculars are, far and away, the best way to start in observational astronomy (after you have some of the constellations figured out first, of course). The Moon reveals great new detail even at low magnification, the four Galilean Moons of Jupiter are obvious (when they’re not transiting or being “occulted” by Jupiter), all of the Messier objects are find-able (with a little practice and either lots of time or one lucky clear evening in March), and the sky becomes a busy highway of satellites that are otherwise too small to reflect significant light for naked eye viewing. Perhaps less pragmatically but nonetheless significant, the ownership of one simple, easy to produce, easy to use, easy to master piece of paired glassware connects you to the magnification-enhanced world of astronomy begun with Galileo, who used a much poorer quality and lower magnification telescope than those found in Big-Box Stores to forever and disruptively change how Western Civilization (and beyond!) placed itself in the Universe.

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That all sounds profound I guess, but you’ve got a book open and are trying to keep track of a flashlight while keeping your arm still as you bounce your head back-and-forth in this really dense part of sky because you don’t know if you’re looking at M36, M37, or M38 in Auriga and you know you’ll NEVER find that part of the sky again. The, if you’ll pardon the expression, dark art of star-hoping is one that absolutely requires practice. More importantly, it requires having a proper frame of reference. I admit that I spent more than a few months with my trusty Nikon Action 12×50′s without ever actually having a handle on just how big the piece of celestial real estate I was staring at was.

It may seem obvious but is something you (well, I) didn’t think to use to your (well, my) immediate advantage. The magnification in the binos does NOT change! You are constantly looking at the same-sized region. This means that you can easily correlate magnification to real estate and know exactly what the limit of your in-eyepiece star-hopping is.

My solution, and one that is generally applicable to all your binoculars (and low-magnification eyepieces in your scope), was to buy an architect or drafting circle set. Yes, one of the green numbers with all the holes. If you have one book you’ve committed to (in my case, Sky And Telescope’s Pocket Sky Atlas, but I also have a copy of the Cambridge Star Atlas that hasn’t had its spine properly cracked yet), find some obvious star groupings, see how many of them you can get in your field of view, crack your book open to the right page, and overlay until your circle engulfs only what you see.

Simple! This simple tool dramatically improved my star-hopping aptitude. Using the Sky Atlas and a pair of 12×50′s, I can just barely get the stars Mizar/Alcor and Alioth from the handle of the Big Dipper into the field of view – this corresponds to a 1.1250″ circle…

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For the Cambridge Atlas, this same piece of sky encompasses a 0.8125″ circle.

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I can plot the path to dim or densely-packed objects at leisure by finding bright stars or small groupings and “walking” my view along the path of overlaid circles, always knowing what I should and should not be seeing at any time (minus the odd planet, satellite, Milky Way supernova, etc.).

Depending on how much celestial real estate your star atlas covers per page, you can even take it one step farther. I have recently begun carrying around Version B of the awesome TriAtlas, which is a free 107-page star chart with stars down to magnitude 11.6. This means lots of stars, but also a full 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper for each of 107 pieces of the entire sky. In working through Coma Berenices to find my favorite galaxy (NGC 4565), I found that the effective magnification of the B TriAtlas charts are such that my 40 mm Pentax XL 40 (which, in my 12.5″ f/4.87 Dob, corresponds to a magnification of just under 40x) shows a piece of sky that corresponds to a 17/32″ (or 0.5312″) circle. This now becomes my finder circle for knowing what I should see through this eyepiece (inverted in the Dobsonian, of course). With some object found by a 40x search, I can then step up the magnification with my 26 mm Nagler and 10 mm Ethos.

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As ever, the value of a very low-power eyepiece cannot be overstated! For those wanting to try this at home and don’t want to wait for shipping, drafting circles are available at Staples and Office Max in their “drafting” section. Those in Syracuse can also find them at Commercial Art Supply (where I get ALL of my red acetate).

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