Stellafane 2013

Maybe it's because it's like 10°F outside and I'm longing for some warmer weather - but it occurred to me that I never posted any of my images or experiences at this summer's Stellafane convention. So, in the spirit of better late than never...!

It had been a decade since my last trip north to the Stellafane convention, and with this year's event running from Aug 8th - 11th in close approximation with the Perseids I decided to pay a visit. I had originally planned to take off on that Thursday morning for the approximately 7 hour trip to Springfield, Vermont but, to be honest, I am indeed a fair weather camper. The forecast was not just for rain but for heavy rain, so I opted to use Thursday to tweak my yard sale refractor for some piggy back photography. Friday I was on the road by 5: 30 a.m. and arrived at Breezy Hill by early afternoon.

As I expected all the prime spots were taken by those willing to put up with the rain on Thursday, but the convention grounds are pretty large and I headed for the southeast corner where I've camped many times previously. While little had changed to the topography of the place I was a bit dismayed to see the field pretty much designated for vehicle parking, with "No Camping" and "No Observing" signs prominently posted. In the past we would park there and set up the tent on the perimeter of the field, pulling the scope out of the car in the evening for observing car side.

Big Dipper skimming the Vermont horizon

Friday was drizzly but towards evening there were signs that the weather might break. Sure enough around midnight the sucker holes blossomed into major openings. I pulled my 15x70 Oberwerks from the car along with my tripod and Canon Rebel T3. A major objective for me on the trip was to begin to learn how to use the DSLR for astrophotography (don't get me started about how taking shots with a SLR & film was, in many ways, a simpler process!). Happily the initial tripod shots were a success, so I turned in around 1 for some sleep.

Saturday morning dawned with a crisp blue sky and the promise of a dynamite night ahead of us. I wandered up to the swap tables, always an interesting assortment of items there, from the quirky to the classic. As my stomach began growling I took the car and drove the short jaunt into town where the local Royal Diner served up a generous portion of blueberry pancakes with real Vermont maple syrup. Hey Guy Fieri - you need to check out this place!

The rest of Saturday was spent enjoying the talents of my fellow astronomers. A good walk over to the pink club house to look over the telescope entries was fun.

Gorgeous view atop Breezy Hill

I am always amazed at the craftsmanship and sometimes whimsical approach that various contestants apply to their entries. There were also talks given in their large pavilion throughout the afternoon. Phil Harrington gave a great overview of building one's own backyard observatory, and Richard Jakiel did a survey of lunar features that are readily imaged with backyard telescope and webcam.

Saturday evening started with the featured program and keynote address. The raffle was drawn for some very nice gifts that had been donated to the convention, and then John Bortle presented the "Shadowgram" in which he reminisced about the history of Stellafane and some of the luminaries who have attended. The keynote was provided by Brother Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory on the topic of comets. By the time he concluded the skies were clear, dark, and enticing.

Lyra and Hercules

Feeling roguish I pulled my 60mm refractor and DSLR and set up beside my car (I figured if anyone objected then I could pop it back in within a minute). I spent until about 2 a.m. photographing the sky and seeing how well my piggy back tracking setup would work. I also glimpsed multiple Perseids streaking across the sky, but none on any of my shots. Probably the most memorable view was M31 (and M110) in the Oberwerks - awesome does not even begin to describe how impressive that galaxy looks set amid a dark sky and these binoculars. The size of the galaxy is really brought home with that view, and the clarity in the optics makes me think I could even make out a bit of the dark lane in Andromeda. The only drawback to the evening were the antics of some others on the field. I know it was not set aside as an observing area and therefore have no right to complain, but playing with green laser pointers, packing your car at 11:30 p.m. with the dome light on, and cavalier use of unshielded flashlights was really disappointing to see.

Cassiopeia and the Winter Milky Way

Overall I would have to say that this year's Stellafane convention was a great success. It was (as usual) very well organized, had a great set of speakers, interesting telescopes on the field, and clear skies that showed of a limiting magnitude of 6 to even my aging eyes (with glasses)! What more could you want in an astronomy event?

Jupiter Under A Wolf Moon

You have to love the Indian names for the various full moons throughout the year (so much better than the inane "Super Moon" hype we have had the last few years when full moon coincides with perigee). So this week was the Full Wolf Moon¹ - and while you might expect evening temps in the 20s or lower under a Moon with such a chill name, we actually caught a break. Temperatures were a tad above freezing and a bit of humidity in the air offered some stability to the atmosphere.

When I am on the fence about setting up the equipment for a session I usually do a quick check on two things:

1. Will the Great Red Spot be visible?
2. Are the Galilean moons doing anything noteworthy?

Well fortunately the GRS was due to make an appearance, transiting a little after 8:30 local time, so even though Jupiter can be awesome with unpredicted features on any night, I knew that on this night I could catch GRS for the first time in 2014.

The Wolf Moon trailed Jupiter in the eastern sky as I set up the scope, camera, and laptop. It served as a pretty good target for fine tuning my focus, although I prefer a little more terminator to work with. For whatever reason it took a solid half hour to get everything set and ready to roll, hands growing colder as I tweaked and calibrated to the best of my ability. Finally a little after 9 I started capturing, and I could tell right away on the screen that the Great Red Spot was visible and clearly past central meridian.

As usual the southern edge of the SEB preceding the GRS was the most intense cloud feature. The SEB itself appears bifurcated pretty much throughout this side. The NEB has some hints of a couple of festoons, and the NTB seems to be a bit more compact and intense longitudinally near the meridian. All in all a nice start to 2014!

¹To catch up on the names of the other 11 full moons check out Weird Full Moon Names of 2014 Explained over on Space.com

An Oppositionless Year

Rather hard to believe that there are only a few days left in 2013 - a year in which Jupiter never reaches opposition. But such years are grand for us northern hemisphere observers because the king of the planets rides high in Gemini these evenings, ascending beyond the murky atmosphere into cold winter skies. While observing in temps at or below freezing is something I grow less fond of each year it is still worth pursuing to catch Jupiter in this prime time (just no wind please!)

Even though I had set the scope out to chill about 30 minutes ahead of time the seeing still started off pretty wretched - boiling almost to the point of smearing the nearby Galilean satellites into invisibility. But the good thing of this session was that I somehow managed to set the tripod down in a really fine alignment with the pole - tracking was really awesome, keeping old Jove centered for minutes at a time.

As often happens after a half hour or so the seeing began to steady and I became a little more confident of the focus - especially when I began to pick up on Ganymede's shadow transit which started at about 9 p.m. local time. Ganymede always presents a large shadow and is less common than Io transits so it felt good to capture this (so for this apparition I have a Callisto transit and a Ganymede). Not a lot of belt activity seen, but clearly the SEB is back and fully recovered from its swoon. And yet again, I am amazed at the detail that can be captured with a simple 6" reflector.

With the tracking doing so well I couldn't resist giving the Orion Nebula a shot. Now clearly, while a videography approach works well on planets there's a lot to be desired for anything deep sky. I pulled the Barlow and set the exposure to two seconds at about 3 frames per second and let it run for a couple of minutes. Standard stacking in Registax 6 and some playing with the wavelet filters and - voila - a reasonable facsimile of the winter showpiece.

Here's hoping for more clear skies in January as Jupiter comes to opposition, and the will power I'll need to take advantage of them!

Jupiter Apparition 2013-2014 - First Light

With a forecast by the Clear Sky Clock for clear and steady skies for this morning, plus an infrequent Callisto shadow transit on tap, I set the scope out before going to bed last night so it would be at ambient temperature. I turned over around 5 a.m. and debated whether to sleep or observe - the observing urge won out.

The skies were steady, probably a 7/10 - with some scattered thin clouds. Jupiter stood pretty high in Gemini, certainly above 25 degrees off the eastern horizon. Hauling out the video equipment I leveraged the nearby last quarter moon for refining my focus, then swung over to Jupiter. The videography started in earnest at about 5:35 EDT and ran for about 15 minutes (have to get ready for work!)

This evening I processed the files and a couple of them were pretty decent, the one here is one of the better results. (I am always amazed at what the planetary astrovideography process can accomplish with even a small scope like mine). Callisto, outermost of the 4 major satellites, is just now beginning to cast its shadow onto the Jovian disk when it cuts in front of the planet. Due to the planet's inclination and Callisto's distance it is only around the time when Jupiter's orbital plane crosses Earth that we see this (we also begin to see "mutual" satellite events where the satellites cross in front of one another. So for the next couple of years we get to see some of the less common Galilean satellite phenomena, such as this Callisto shadow transit.

Jupiter - what a fascinating target!

Luna C&C

It would not take much statistical analysis of my observing log to determine that I'm a fair weathered observer. The spring and fall - no bugs, slight chill in the air - are so ideal for an evening under the stars - or in tonight's case the waxing gibbous Moon.

I set the scope up and hooked up the video camera for some lunar photography. A couple days past 1st quarter brings some impressive sights to the terminator. Two of my favorites are the relatively young crater Copernicus and the large older crater Clavius. I began with the 2.5x barlow in place and focused the image that I saw on the screen, doing several runs at a high frame rate of 1/60th per second. Then I ended with a few runs without the Barlow.

Copernicus

When I went inside and began the processing I was disappointed to find that the higher power images were a bit mushy - either I misjudged the focus and was just outside of it or the seeing was not that steady (but that is unlikely that I could not get 100 or so good images out of some 3,000 frames that each run encompassed). Fortunately the videos without the Barlow appeared much crisper and are presented here.

Clavius (large crater at lower mid-right of image)

Fact Sheet

Sep 14 2013 at 21:30 EDT
Towson, MD USA
6" f/8 Newtonian
DFK 21AU04S Camera

Venus & Luna Pairing

Well this evening when I stepped outside to set out the recyclables I was greeted by a crescent Moon hanging low in the southwest with brilliant Venus. While these pairings are not that uncommon they never fail to instill a sense of natural beauty like a colorful sunset or snowy pine tree.

I also feel I am finally getting familiar enough with the Canon Ti3 that I can pull this off. I had to remember how to adjust the exposure, and then how to adjust the white balance for my twilight shot, but all in all I am pretty happy with the outcome. And indeed, the one big advantage that the DSLR has over my SLR is that while it may be far more complicated I do get to see the outcome immediately!

Sunday Sept. 8, 2013

20:15 EDT

Towson, MD USA

Canon Ti3 Rebel

190mm at f/5

aprox 1/3 second

ISO 800

Saturn With Cassini Division

June 9, 2013 01:32 UT
Towson, MD [Location: N 39° 23' W 76° 36']
Clear, 78° F
Transparency: 4/5
Seeing: 5/10
RV-6 Newtonian (150cm f/8) with TeleVue PowerMate 2.5x
Camera: DFK 21AU04S 1/15 sec exposure, 30 fps Registax6: 35 frames from about 1200
CM I: 55.8°
CM II: 185.9°

First attempt at Saturn with this setup. Far more challenging in terms of Saturn being dimmer than Jupiter, getting every other frame in the stack blank because of the fps vs. exposure. Still not bad, clear Cassini division, general south hemispheric shading and a hint of dark polar point.