Monday, September 28, 2015

A Harvest Moon Eclipse

With this month's lunar eclipse favoring the east coast of the United States - the Moon well above the horizon at mid-totality before midnight on a Sunday evening - I was hoping for some clear skies so that I could put the 80mm Vixen through its paces. However, the weatherman had other ideas. I kept checking every 15 minutes or so once the eclipse had started shortly after 9 p.m. but conditions were overcast.
Finally a little before 11 p.m. I saw one or two postings on Facebook from folks who were saying they could see something. I stuck my head out the window and sure enough the clouds had broken up enough to reveal a coppery Moon hanging high in the eastern sky. While not practical to set up the Vixen I grabbed the camera, telephoto lens, and tripod and headed for the back yard.
Lunar Eclipse in Pisces with High Thin Clouds
The view was fantastic - a fairly dark eclipse I would say, with a color range from darkish red-brown to the copper colored edge nearest the limb of Earth's shadow. I really felt at home with the DSLR this time in manual mode, firing off a range of photos and adjusting them based upon the near instant feedback displayed on the LCD. The clouds continued to try to take back possession of the evening but not before I was able to secure a few memorable shots.
The one thing that I have to say - I am so tired of all this "Super Moon!!" junk in the papers and social media. And the fact that we had a "super" Moon undergoing eclipse - well one would think that it was as rare as a Venus transit. It was a great eclipse to be sure, but the slight difference in the Moon's size as it was near perigee was more of an academic footnote than of any real visual consequence.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Urban List: M13

Observation
Object: NGC 6205 - M13 - Great Cluster in Hercules, The Wall
Deepsky Catalog: NGC 2000
Log Type: Urban Sky
Date Observed: 9/8/2015  03:15 UT
Object RA: 16h 41.687m
Object Declination: 36d 27.58833'
Object Type: Gb
Constellation: Her
Magnitude: 5.9
Size: 16.6
Locate Method: Star Hopping
Observing Location: Tomney Residence - Front Driveway
Object Rating: A
Primary Equipment Used: Vixon ED80sf (80mm f/7.5)
Power/Magnification Used: 30x
Transparency/Seeing: Deepsky Clear / Deepsky Mostly Stable
Detailed Observing Notes: Nice wide field view of M13 including the two neighboring ~6th magnitude stars (SAO 65508 and 65481) - the former actually exhibits some orangish tone in the view. M13 appears symmetrically round and pretty even in illumination, no striking brightening as at the core which was a little unexpected and possibly due to small aperture. Size is about 4' and there is no resolution, even with averted vision. Very nice object even if only 80mm of aperture in play..


Photography
   Equipment: Vixon ED80sf with Meade 2.0x Barlow, Canon Ti3
   Total of 8 - 60 second images stacked in DeepSkyStacker



Sunday, August 23, 2015

Almost Heaven

The Perseid meteor shower is without doubt one of the more reliable displays of shooting stars. I have fond memories of setting the alarm for 2 a.m. as a teenager to catch the view from our lawn, lying in wait for that next superlative streak of light that would make me call out a shout of approval to the heavens above. I also have great memories of Stellafane visits during the Perseids, especially when either son would make the trek with me to Vermont.

This year was one of those fortuitous alignments of new moon and Perseid peak. My plan was to attend Stellafane to try some photography and visual observing using the Vixen. The weather gods were not cooperating, offering possibly a clear night Thursday but not many prospects beyond that. Unfortunately one can only gain an early Thursday entry if you had put your money down and pre-registered.

In contrast the forecast looked pretty good for West Virginia near Spruce Knob. I did a quick check of the North Mountain Vacation Rentals site to see if any cabins were open, and to my delight I saw that there was a Wed-Thr vacancy. Deb and I visited there last fall but the weather did not cooperate at all for any observing that trip, but I knew the cabins were nice and the owners very hospitable to star gazers. When I called Patty, one of the owners, right away she inquired "So you coming here for the meteors?"


While the cost of camping at Stellafane was certainly less than a two night cabin rental there were other advantages to the change in plans. First, the drive was much shorter, about half what it'd be to Vermont. The drive is also without tolls, unlike the shortest route up to Springfield. And then there is the enjoyment of a cabin with indoor plumbing as opposed to a spot-a-pot.

Wednesday night started out partly to mostly cloudy but the forecast had indicated that it would clear off by midnight. So I put my feet up and dozed off waiting to see if the weatherman got it right. When I stepped out around midnight it was indeed clear, and the sky oh so full of stars. The Milky Way was bold overhead, making it hard to even pick out the cross of Cygnus. When a sporadic cloud would intrude it was a black hole in testimony to the lack of lights below to illuminate it. And almost immediately the Perseids began to punctuate the night. From my perch on the hill I probably caught about 30-40 through the evening as I worked on taking some shots of the Pleiades and M31 through the scope. Around 3 a.m. I tried taking a series of tripod mounted time exposures of the northeast but was not lucky enough to capture anything.

Awaiting Perseids

The next night promised to be a repeat, and as the twilight deepened my delight rose. I had changed my location so as to get a better alignment for the scope on this evening, and it paid dividends with better if not perfect tracking. From this vantage point I could take in Scorpius and Sagittarius, visiting the show pieces like the Lagoon, the Butterfly Cluster, M4, and others. The 20-30 second images were revealing detail, creating anticipation that the stacked end product would be a fine souvenir of the evening.

The Lagoon Nebula
As the evening wore on I turned my attention to the planetary nebula highlights of the Ring in Lyra and the Dumbbell in Vulpecula. I had hoped to be able to increase the magnification in my images with the use of a Barlow but was not having luck getting the focus, so I stayed with prime focus shots. When the Andromeda Galaxy cleared the trees I also gave it attention with a series of short exposures.

Globular M4

Dumbbell Nebula
At around 2 a.m. I noted that Aquarius had cleared the mountain and was visible. I had deemed that this was an opportunity if ever there was one to try to bag the elusive Helix nebula. The limiting magnitude had to be at 6 or better (able to see M13 naked eye), so it was possible to spot 5th magnitude υ Aqr which lies a little east of the Helix. Centering the star and then panning I was amazed at how readily I was able to identify the ghostly Helix in my field of view. Large and with a more vacuous center, not a lot of details at 80mm of aperture and 30x with no UHC filter, but still an impressive object. A simple sketch and then it was time to pack up in deference to the dew that was becoming more prevalent in the cool mountain air.



What a fabulous two nights! Comfortable accommodations, very dark skies, lots of Perseids on display, imaging success to some degree, and of course adding the Helix to my trophy wall of DSO. I really hope I can make this trek a couple times a year to enjoy this full splendor of the night sky above - it is almost heaven!


Saturday, July 4, 2015

A Celestial Pairing

The media was abuzz the last week with the close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the western sky. It really was eye-catching, the two brightest planets coming so close together. Of course the media in its subtle secular way promoted this as a recreation of the Star of Bethlehem. But let's not digress...
The closest approach was on Tuesday evening. The mid-Atlantic has had a very rainy June - wettest month of June on record as a matter of fact. So the pattern has been clouds and more clouds, making for scant opportunity to follow the two planets drawing closer and closer. On Tuesday the skies to the west were pretty hazy, and the planetary pair were just able to pierce the shroud to be captured. At least I could say I saw it!
Venus (lower) and Jupiter June 30th
The next night was a bit better - not a wonderfully transparent sky but certainly clearer than a normal evening we've had lately. I got the camera onto the tripod and headed outside. The pair had grown perceptibly apart and had shifted into a side-by-side alignment, but still close to one another. I took my first dozen shots (that is so nice about a digital camera, immediate feedback and no worries about a cost associated with each camera click) when suddenly it stopped working! I quickly saw the issue - no space left on the card. Quick dash inside to load a new card and I was back in action.
Over the period of about 40 minutes I grabbed about 50 shots. One somewhat frustrating thing was that the part of the sky where they glistened must be a flight path - I had more than one shot polluted by a plane intruding into it - but nothing a little digital slight of hand won't be able to erase since the exposures were pretty short. Below is the shot that for me will go into the scrapbook when I want to remember this appulse. (Click for full view)
Venus and Jupiter July 1, 2015 10pm
Canon Ti3 18mm f/3.5 4 sec exposure