Date & Time: April 23, 2009 20:45 EDT
Location: Tuckahoe State Park, MD
Sky: Clear, light wind
Seeing: Bad (1/5) Transparency: Excellent
Equipment: 25cm Newtonian f/6 with 9.7mm Plossl

Notes: Springtime is always the best time to get a look at Mercury during an evening appearance. About an hour after sunset while waiting for the sky to darken at Star Gaze XV the messenger planet was easy to spot about 10 degrees above the horizon. As usual there was little more than a phase to be discerned in the eyepiece, the combination of turbulent seeing (Saturn barely showed any global detail when viewed) and low altitude wrecking havoc with the image. At the moments of semi-steady seeing it appeared to be at just past dichotomy, a very fat crescent.

Saturn Apr 17 2009

Date & Time: April 17, 2009 21:45 EDT

Location: Towson, MD

Sky: Clear, little wind

Seeing: Steady, 7/10 Transparency: Good

Equipment: 25cm Newtonian f/6 with 9.7mm Plossl

Notes: Saturn's "ears" have returned, the ring system closed up sufficiently to make it look like a knitting needle is spiked through the planet - I can barely detect space between the rings and the limb. Riding reasonably high in Leo's hind quarters the seeing is pretty good and I can definitely make out a southern equatorial belt as a subtle but distinct feature. The northern counterpart is less well defined and offers a fuzzier border with the equatorial zone which is clearly the lightest part of the orb.

Titan is the brightest moon preceding the planet by multiple radii; to the north of it is a fainter star that is probably Iapetus. Another moon (Dione?) precedes the planet as well but is much closer to the rings while a fourth moon (Rhea) hangs just north of the trailing ansa.

A Regal Eclipse

The prospects for this lunar eclipse did not seem too promising with a "winter advisary" in effect this afternoon. The Alberta Clipper came through and hit us with a dusting of snow, making the commute a little longer but prettier. The Clear Sky Clock was boldly predicting that the fast moving storm would move off and not impact viewing, and it was right.

At 10 p.m. I made my way to the side porch, snow crunching underfoot, and found the Moon a gorgeous coppery hue set amid Saturn and Regulus. The north side of the Moon was clearly deeper into the umbra and was fairly dark, probably midway in the Danjon ranking of a 2. Of course the heavy concentration of the dark maria regions in that hemisphere probably increased the effect on that northern limb. It's an odd sight and yet somehow familiar after 40 years of amateur astronomy, a ruddy Mars-Moon orb hanging in the freezing February sky, making me wonder if the view would be similar if I resided on Phobos. It definitely is an oddity than strikes your senses.

Lunar eclipses are big photographic opportunities and challenges. The coloration is beautiful and the wide range of brightness from the limb closest to the Earth's shadow to that farthest is often easy for the eye to appreciate but hard for the photographic medium. In choosing my plan of attack I at first thought of trying to use the "yard sale scope" as a 60mm telephoto lens or at least afocally with my 35mm camera. Manipulating equipment when it's cold out is always a bit challenging, but I soon figured out that the attachment device was not long enough to get the camera to the focal point. Next I tried the digital movie camera to see if I could position it hand-held at the eyepiece to record the event, but the camera's autofocus would have none of that. I then tried holding the 35mm at the low power eyepiece, and while I could see the shadowed Moon the stray light from the neighbor's yard interfered too much. While I'm sure I could have perservered with any of those issues to get some sort of through-the-scope imagery it seemed against the spirit. Lunar eclipses are events of a large scale that you're meant to appreciate in a casual context, and removing my gloves to work with cold metal in 30 degree weather to possibly have a keepsake seemed a bit too anal.

I fell back to simply taking the cam-corder and seeing what it could do. At first the autofocus acted as though it was bewildered, but then after a few moments it conceded and began to bring the Moon in and out of focus. With the telephoto mode our eclipsed satellite actually had a fair size, and at wider field it would pick up Saturn and sometimes Regulus as well. The challenge, of course, is trying to hold the recorder still, each shiver magnified as well as my subject. After about thirty minute of admiring nature's spectacle I retreated inside to see what the tale of the tape would be.

It has been a while since I've done any astrovideography - so much so that my current desktop did not have a copy of Registax on it. But first things first, reviewing the raw footage. While most of it has the Moon scooting all over the field I have fleeting moments of Gibraltar like stability from which I can make an AVI file. From there the miracle of Registax took over to fashion the image here (actually two miracles, the second being that I could work the software enough without reading the manual to produce the result - I can't wait to see what I get when I know what I'm doing!).

While I know that it's no prize winner I also can't help but be pleased with the result given the effort put in, allowing me to both enjoy the event as well as catalog it. And after all, isn't that what amateur astronomy is all about?

Seeing and Transparency

Additional scales used for observations

Seeing
1 - Turbulent, unsteady
2 - Few moments of stability, higher power useless
3 - Average
4 - Above average, high power tolerated well
5 - Exceptional seeing permitting power 50x objective

Transparency
1 - Hazy or foggy, only brightest stars visible
2 - Thin clouds, losing at least 1-2 magnitudes
3 - Average
4 - Above average with slight gain in limiting magnitude. Blinding sunset.
5 - Exceptional, gain of nearly a full magnitude over average night.

Object Rating Scale

Rating of objects is a sum of these attributes

Targeting
How easily can you locate the object?
0 No significant nearby guide stars, only chance is by sweeping areas. Over 10 minutes to find.
1 Several degrees from bright stars but fainter stars in finder can guide. Found in under 10 minutes.
2 Bright stars in area to triangulate from. Found in 1-2 minutes.
3 Near bright star or directly visible. Found in less than a minute.

Visibility
How easy is the object to see - its brightness
0 Object needs confirmation by star chart
1 Subtle, needs averted vision
2 Visible but enhanced by averted vision
3 No averted vision really needed

Wow Factor
Subjective impression on the observer
0 Is there something there?
1 Object is distinct from the field stars
2 Object is above average and one you'll want to revisit
3 A memorable classic that you frequent

Interest
Does the object have some background history of interest
0 No realy historical or scientific background to the object
1 Object has historical or scientific significance

Maximum Score: 10

Eta Cassiopeia

Object: Eta Cassiopeia
Constellation: Cas
Type: Double Star
Date and Time: Jan 6, 2007 00:30 UT
Conditions: Partly cloudy, 60°, light winds
Instrumentation: 60mm refractor, 10mm (80x)
Rating
Targeting: 3
Visibility: 2
Wow: 0
Interest: 1
Total rating: 6
Comments: This double is easy to locate near Alpha Cassiopeiae and is fairly obvious as a double at 80x. The secondary is a good deal fainter (7.5) and colorless compared to the significantly brighter primary (3.4) which appears to have a bit of a yellowish – orange tone. PA guesstimate was 330°, actual is 307°. Sparse field stars accompany it. This primary is apparently pretty similar to Sol and so offers you the perspective of what our own star would look like ~19 light years away.
Sketch:

Genesis

Those of you who subscribe to the Delmarva StarGazers Yahoo group are aware of Don’s challenge to rekindle some of the passion that most of us have for this crazy hobby. To one degree or another we all succumb to other obligations and distractions that reduce our astronomy activity to little more than occasionally visiting APOD or spending 15 minutes skimming Sky and Telescope or Astronomy. And then there’s the issue of venues – many suburban members face the combination of a limiting skyline and abundant sky glow on the home front that quickly infuse one with a sense of futility in setting up a telescope. Yes, countering the influences and carving out that time at the eyepieces will likely be a bit of a battle.

Step one for me is to join the DSG even though I’ll likely be in absentia at meetings given my Baltimore County residence. But really my attendance does not matter much given that electronic communication today allows me to be a “virtual” member, plus I’ll hopefully still rub elbows with the membership at Tuckahoe occasionally.

Second, I’m going to need some focus for the observing in order for it to be satisfying. Don’t get me wrong, there’s immense pleasure in just kicking back and soaking in the grandeur of the night sky in an unstructured approach – just not from my backyard. From attempting to accurately time the transit of a Jovian feature to bagging another faint fuzzy from the Herschel list, purpose serves as catalyst for getting out there. Pragmatism will also be important to reclaiming an active observing status. If the prospect of wrestling the 10” to the porch and awaiting it to cool on a winter’s evening is too off-setting then the 7 x 50 binoculars for a short 20 minute sortie will serve the purpose.

So what will this series be about? For the moment the project that captures my imagination is revisiting the AL’s Urban List and assessing it. A few years ago at a yard sale to raise funds for my sons’ scout troop there was a 60mm refractor for sale. Not a typical Tasco fiasco, but one with a surprisingly nice GEM. So when there were no takers I acquired it for $15 (the hard part was convincing my better half that I needed yet another, smaller scope to add to the stable). I upgraded the two eyepieces and tacked on a red-spot finder to make it more functional, and it resides covered on the porch, ready to go at a moment’s notice. So my question is just how realistic is the Urban list for a 60mm refractor in limiting magnitude 4 skies? What may have been overlooked from the list – and what should have never made the cut?