Great Expectations

As the holidays unfold, we can be certain that a multitude of shoppers are weighing the decision of putting a telescope under the tree for a loved one. As seasoned amateur astronomers, we often try to provide advice on potential purchases to friends and strangers alike on social media. Increasingly there are good resources made available by the amateur community on what is a good starter scope for the newbie in hopes of avoiding a “hobby killer.”

Unfortunately, the seed of a budding amateur astronomer can be poisoned even more thoroughly than any poor telescope long before the instrument finds its way into their hands. It comes about when they develop expectations that are impossible to meet. It’s often said in business that to “under promise and over deliver” leads to a happy customer, but sadly that axiom is often turned on its head when it comes to starting off exploring the heavens.

APOD from 12/03/2021

Don’t take umbrage, but one of the primary offenders is the experienced amateur astronomer amplified by social media. While it is certainly not done by intent, posting those amazing pictures of what’s up there readily kindles a desire to replicate that. Some folks will also assume that they can actually see that object with their eye, having no understanding of the power of a CMOS chip in gathering up photons. The photo does not come with a disclaimer of how many years the author has been at this, nor the investment they have sunk into their equipment. The uninitiated will assume that the same technological magic they find in their phone will make creating their own picture of the Cygnus Loop a breeze (or at least doable.)

The other, and in my opinion bigger, contributor to inflated expectations is the media. In the good old days, one had a better sense of what sources of news were reputable. If the tabloid in the supermarket checkout line had 72pt type headline declaring “Super Blood Moon to Appear!” you were suspicious. If Sky & Telescope had “Best Lunar Eclipse of Year” you knew you could bank on it. But now, thanks to the digital revolution and lack of standards, anyone can be an author (including your humble blogger) without benefit of an editor. That can be a good thing in making voices heard, but it also opens the door to hyperbole in the pursuit of new content and clicks. You need look no further than the hubbub over Comet Leonard this month. Yes, it has technically been a naked eye object, but only if you were observing from a dark sky venue. For the vast majority of readers Comet Leonard is not going to be visible. I personally could not even catch it with 7x50 binoculars in the pre-dawn sky a couple weeks ago given the light pollution in Towson.

Is this even an actual image of Leonard??

What to do? One of the best things is to afford the curious a chance to actually look through a telescope in a suburban setting. HAL does a great job of this and should be commended for their persistent efforts to host star party events for the public. But you can do some sidewalk astronomy right from your own sidewalk. Maybe instead of hiding out in the darker back yard put the rig out in front of the house shortly after dusk as the neighbors are taking fido for his walk. Let them take a peek at the Orion Nebula or M15.

HAL Public Star Party 2021

 
 

You can also offer a (gentle) reality check in the comment sections of the social media posts that are overselling a celestial event. You can still be upbeat about the occurrence but let people know if certain equipment or experience is going to be needed. Inform them that that total solar eclipse this month is indeed an awesome sight to behold, but you’ll need to be in Antarctica to have a ringside seat.

Finally, if you are on social media, consider posting some of your images and experiences along with a few words about what went into achieving it. When you find a good article about getting started in amateur astronomy, share it. If you see someone starting off in the hobby, offer words of encouragement. You won’t be able to dispel every inflated claim made by astronomical B. T. Barnums, but if you establish your cred as a bona fide amateur astronomer, that person who is wondering if they might enjoy astronomy as a hobby will seek you out – and they will be in good hands.

Partial Beauty

Normally a partial eclipse, be it Lunar or Solar, is an interesting phenomenon that I'll observe and maybe snap a few photos - if it's convenient. Having seen my share over the years it's not something I am going to plan a PTO day for. It's pretty much a "yep, there's the hunk taken out of the Moon/Sun, right as it should be" event.

The partial Lunar eclipse last week was a bit of a different animal. First, it was darn near total at 99% - a circumstance that had not occurred in quite some time (the media was all over it heralding it as the longest partial eclipse in 500 years). Secondly, unlike a Solar eclipse where that 1% makes a huge difference in what you see, a Lunar eclipse so close to totality would likely be a fine sight. Prior Lunar eclipses have always begun to turn the Moon orangish before becoming totally immersed in the Earth's shadow, so certainly that should occur with this one.

Thursday evening started off overcast but with promises from the weather prognosticators that skies would clear after midnight. With calling out to work the next morning not an option I planned to do some simple naked eye viewing and perhaps try to grab a few shots with the camera. After the HAL meeting I got the Canon onto the tripod and set the alarm for about ten minutes prior to shadow maximum.

All too soon the phone began to chime and I arose to peek out the western bedroom window to see what we had. There it was, a dark red orb with bright edge at about 8 o'clock.

Faux "Diamond Ring"

What immediately leapt to mind was how we sort of had a Lunar eclipse version of the "Diamond Ring", the tiny part of lunar limb still bathed in sunlight acting like the emerging Sun at 3rd contact. HAL member Richard Orr did an excellent job of capturing the effect in his photo seen here. It was a beautiful and slightly eerie sight, resonating on an emotional level with ancient cultures who would be concerned about what was happening to the Moon.

Hyades, Pleiades, and Eclipsed Moon

While it was cold out it was no where near as bitter as the last Lunar eclipse (January 2019) under a "polar vortex". As my eyes adapted to the night I took a moment to appreciate the beautiful scene before me - a ruddy Moon beneath the Pleiades and adjacent to Hyades (the "V" asterism of Taurus). Framing the Moon on the camera's display at the lens' maximum focal length of 300mm I worked to get a focus. While there are a lot of pluses when using a digital camera rather than film, I hate the Buzz Lightyear nature of focusing where you can go to infinity and (just a tad) beyond. In the good old days you twisted the focus collar all the way to infinity and you were confident you had Moon and stars in sharp focus. And as fate would have it, my high power shots proved to be a tad soft once I saw them displayed on my laptop later that morning.

I went through a variety of lower focal lengths and exposures to record the surreal beauty of the coppery Moon gracing Taurus. After about half an hour I went back inside to warm up and nap a little before starting the day. My preparation and the eclipse itself might have been partial, but the enjoyment and beauty of it was total.

Pleiades and Partially Eclipsed Moon

64° N

Among the items on my bucket list is to see the northern lights, a fairly rare event from Maryland’s latitude. The last significant event around here was in the fall of 2001, but I was sadly unaware that it was happening. I still remember my disappointment the next morning when my boss exclaimed “Wow, did you see that sky last night!?”

With COVID vaccines making it reasonable to travel again I began thinking where my wife and I might go to perhaps witness the aurora. One logical approach was to investigate a tour with that objective such as those offered by Sky & Telescope. They were conducting a trip to Iceland in the fall of 2021 and the itinerary looked very nice – if you’re big into astronomy. My wife has a natural curiosity about the night sky but is hardly an aficionado of the heavens, so planning our own expedition where we could explore items of interest and possibly catch a northern lights display in the evening seemed ideal.

At 64° N in latitude the island nation of Iceland is certainly far north enough to regularly witness auroral displays. A little research also uncovered that October was not simply a random month selected by the official tour, but being near the equinox it has a better chance of seeing a display. It basically has to do with the favorable presentation of the magnetic field lines in interacting with the solar wind as discussed in the October 2021 issue of S&T.

We arrived quite early on the morning of October 4^th and were greeted by a taste of Icelandic weather – a very blustery, rainy, and cold dawn, quite a rude change from our departure the prior evening with temps in mid-seventies. We made our way to the Northern Lights Inn where we would be staying for the week and grabbed a quick nap. That afternoon we explored the capital city of Reykjavik, roughly 25 miles away.

That first evening the skies were partly cloudy with roughly 50% of the sky being obscured at any one time. The wind in Iceland is seemingly perpetual and vigorous, so it was not exactly pleasant to step outside for any length of time. Being some 24 degrees more northerly in latitude I was immediately struck by the height of the Big Dipper which was near its anti-culmination point due north. From Towson it is so low to the horizon I lose sight of it, but here it was skimming above the rooftop with ease. Polaris had ascended noticeably higher and, while it was only midnight, Jupiter was already drawing close to the horizon in the southeast. I had anticipated in this little coastal town of Grindavik that the skies would be quite dark, and while the Milky Way was plainly visible it was not nearly as robust as I was expecting. I scanned the northern skies for any signs of the ethereal emerald glow without success, so I turned in with hopes that we’d get an aurora wake-up call from the inn keeper.

The next day we toured the "Golden Circle" and visited some spectacular scenery. Þingvellir National Park showcases the mid-Atlantic rift where the American and European plates meet (one of the few places where it lies above sea level). There was also the majestic Gullfoss water falls - we only wish we had more time to linger there.

On the ride back to the inn I was checking weather and aurora potential for the evening. The skies were predicted to be partly cloudy with (as usual) brisk winds, the KP index was around 3, a slight potential for auroral activity. A little before midnight I went out with camera in hand in search of Northern lights. It was mostly clear with the light dome from Reykjavik visible in the northeast. While scanning the skies I also decided to take some 20 second constellation shots, which was challenging because of the wind buffeting the camera on its tripod. After about 30 minutes I decided to go inside and hope for an aurora wake-up call (which never came).

The next day I was reviewing the constellation shots when I was startled to see the characteristic green glow beneath the Big Dipper. It turns out that while I wasn't successful visually capturing the Northern lights I had managed to record it photographically. Retrospectively, it obviously makes sense that over a 20 second interval the CMOS chip could record the glow when it was too faint for my eyes.

 

The Northern Lights under Ursa Major

The remaining 2 evenings in Iceland were overcast so there was no additional opportunity to catch the lights. And, of course, the following week I saw reports of some fantastic aurora lighting up Icelandic skies - timing is everything. Our trip was truly memorable - surreal and beautiful nature, superb seafood, and welcoming people. I guess I'll put an asterisk next to that bucket list item of seeing the Aurora Borealis in that while I did not see them, I did manage to photograph them. 😊

A Camera Upgrade

Like most enthusiastic amateur astronomers I have a long list of gadgets and upgrades I'd like to acquire. But until I hit the lottery I have to prioritize these things. High on the list has been to replace my nearly ten years old planetary video camera. An ImagingSource DFK21AU042 color camera, it has served well and still can acquire good images of the brighter planets. But with a maximum frames per second (fps) of 60 (and 30 for dimmer Saturn), I feel the need for speed.

Based on what I've seen posting images to the ALPO gallery as well as some Internet research, I concluded that a ZWO camera would be a reasonable brand to go with. Another relatively easy decision was to get a color camera again. A monochrome, using R-B-G filters to create a final image, certainly offers better results, but it significantly increases the amount of time to acquire and process the files. And of course there is the several hundred dollars of investment in a filter wheel and those filters. I need to keep it a bit simpler, at least for now.

My other two primary criteria were a smaller pixel size and the ability to achieve a fps rate above 60. Fortunately ZWO does offer a nice comparison grid to see the differences among their many products. I finally settled on the ASI178MC with its 2.4µm pixel size (less than half the size in my existing camera) and potential fps greater than 100. I tried initially to order from distributors in the US but everyone was back-ordered, whereas ordering from ZWO directly I had my camera in about a week.

The first clear night (surprisingly I did not get the month of clouds curse that often accompanies new equipment purchases) I targeted Jupiter and Saturn with the Cyrus 10" reflector and the ASI178. FireCapture immediately recognized the camera, but I was stymied in getting the frame rate to exceed 60 fps, even with cropping the region of interest (ROI). But even so I was happy to see I could image Saturn at that rate which my old camera never achieved.

Saturn using the ASI178

A little more research provided some insight as to what might have been blocking the higher frame rates. The camera can run in either 14 bit or 11 bit color modes. The smaller color palette of the 11 bit allows a higher rate - but there was no way (that I could find at least) to specify the bit level using FireCapture. I downloaded the free ZWO interface, ASICap, and readied my laptop to use it the next clear evening.

The ASICap did the trick. As soon as I switched to 11 bit mode the frame rates could be boosted significantly, up to 150 fps on Jupiter with a tightly cropped ROI. With a faster speed there is a greater chance of catching more of those milliseconds long windows of stable seeing, hopefully leading to more sharp images in the sample. Of course seeing has a lot to do with the outcome regardless of fps, and so far I've not had a really good night of steady skies.

One unforeseen (but predictable) consequence of the higher frame rate is the much larger video file that is produced. Previously a 2 minute run on Jupiter yielded about a 2-3 GB AVI file, but now I am producing files that hit 7-9 GB in size. This then leads to a storage issue with no really great solution (at least not suitable economically). I will probably fill up my 2nd TB of online storage by October, so I will have to come up with a plan. Right now I am thinking of starting to rate the video captures in terms of quality and interest with an eye to discarding those below a certain rank (contrary to my planetary video hoarding tendency). 

ASI178 at work

 

One unexpected benefit with using the ASI178 is the much larger field one can start at, making it much easier to find the target, center it, and only then reduce your ROI to have it fill most of the frame.

In terms of the ASICap interface, while it is workable I still prefer FireCapture. For one thing I like having the ability to briefly pause the capture and nudge my target back into the field if it has drifted out. I also find the more prominent display of the metrics during capture (fps, elapsed time, file size) much easier than the small font at the bottom of the ASICap screen. I also like that everything of importance fits on the FireCapture screen whereas I find myself scrolling a good deal in ASICap. 

Hopefully an evening with some steady seeing will present itself soon so that I can get a true sense of what the camera can achieve. In the meantime, as often happens when I have new equipment, I plan on spending some time searching CloudyNights and YouTube for tips and advice from my fellow planetary imagers.