Images, Observation Log

First Session of 2006

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I took the scope out tonight in manual mode — with the EOS300 Digital Rebel mounted at prime focus — to take some shots of the waxing gibbous Moon. The illumination was at about 84% so it was bright and the skies were about as good as they get. It was a chilly 64º F! 🙂

I was once again a little disappointed with the shots I got. I took a number of different exposures as usual and although some of them came out “OK” I really didn’t capture it. It always seems like I forget something until I get back in the house with everything put away. Tonight, in addition to the manual exposure settings I had wanted to take some shots at full auto… the Moon nearly filled the frame so the camera would have probably handled the decisions better then I. Here was the best of the lot.

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The upside to tonight’s excursion was that I had my 3 year old son out with me and he got his first look through the telescope. He was awfully impressed! You may be asking “How impressed can a 3 year old be with a telescope view?” Well, to kind of put things in perspective, “Moon” was one of the first words he learned after the requisite “Mama” and “D” (don’t ask me, that’s what he called me) and it was one of the first objects he identified for us “out of the blue” by pointing. He is also aware of what a telescope does, “it makes things look bigger” (thank you Dora).

I lifted him up to peer at the Moon through the 40mm eyepiece, “OOHHHH!! The Moon Daddy… the Moon!” He then seemed to be inventing adjectives to describe it, “It’s so ??????, it’s VERY ??????.” Then he’d look up to the sky, back to the eyepiece, back to the sky again as if to verify his “findings” 😉 We then swung around to Saturn and I switched to the 9.7mm eyepiece. He evidently is “aware” of Saturn as well as he exclaimed “Y’ook Daddy, it’s the planet with the Goldie Ring!”

The final clue that he enjoyed himself came after we’d gone inside and put everything away. Every 5 minutes for the next half hour he would say “S’ank you Daddy I had a very good time.” My wife and I were floored! He’s NEVER said ANYTHING like that before. He couldn’t stop himself. He even had to repeatedly check to see if I had a good time too. “Did YOU have a good time Daddy? I had a good time.” It was too cute!

Seeing the light of the Moon illuminate his pupil the first time at the eyepiece… listening to him fumble with his limited vocabulary trying to express himself… realizing that he is FAR more aware than he typically lets on. It was truly an unforgettable experience.

Eqiupment, Images, Observation Log

Tuesday Two-fer

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Well at long last the sky has cleared up and the haze has lifted. The temperature is 47º F (which is so cold for us here that I’m tempted to express it in Kelvin… but anyway) and I’d say the seeing is about as good as it ever gets.

I took the scope out on Christmas day and pointed it at a distant terrestrial object (a tree) in order to train the drives but clearly I did something wrong. I went out tonight and began the alignment procedure and the telescope asked me to verify it was pointing at Sirius — the first “alignment star” it chose — not even close. Back to the old drawing board I guess. I didn’t need Autostar to find something like Saturn so I set up for imaging anyway. Here is the result of my labor.

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Yes, not the prettiest but I consider it practice for the Jan 27th opposition. You can clearly see the Cassini Division and some banding in the atmosphere (South Equatorial Belt). Also you can note the sliver of a shadow the planet is casting on the left hand side of the rings behind it. At the eyepiece there wasn’t as much color as captured here, but there was far more crispness and detail in the ring system. There has got to be a better way to do this.

Earlier in the evening just after sunset, I pulled the scope out in manual mode with the Canon EOS 300D at prime focus. I took a number of shots of Venus at varying exposures, 1/200 sec came out the best which incidentally was the first one I took.

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I found that with any longer exposures, shutter-induced vibration blurred the image as the scope (with the camera attached) was sorely out of balance. I need to quit talking about making a counter-weight for this configuration and just do it! I have all the freakin’ parts for crying out loud.

Lastly, for Christmas Santa left me a Canon Angle Finder C, a Canon Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3for me Digital Rebel (300D), and the Orion Deluxe Stargazer’s Filter Set for the telescope. Hopefully I’ll get to give all these items a good workout soon!

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy holiday!

In the News

Hallelujah!!

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Praise the Intelligent Designer!! A Pennsylvania school district can not teach the concept of intelligent design.

“We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,” Jones writes in his 139-page opinion posted on the court’s Web site…

Read the CNN article.

One small step.

Reviews

Cosmos Boxed Set (Collector’s Edition) DVD

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I purchased the Cosmos Boxed Set (Collector’s Edition) DVD a number of months ago. I was only recently able to make some time to get through the last few episodes and I wanted to say that I am as impressed with the series now as I was when it first aired in 1980. Even after 25 years the content is still just as relevant and inspiring as it was then. I particularly enjoyed the “10 years after” commentary added by the late Carl Sagan at the end of most of the episodes of this edition.

One thing I found really disappointing (although it has nothing to do with the actual series itself) was clicking through to CarlSagan.com — only to find the site mostly broken and non-functional. The site clearly hasn’t been updated since before the failed launch attempt of Cosmos 1 (July 2005). There is absolutely NO excuse for something like this and in this age of online information it does the legacy of the late Carl Sagan a gross disservice!

Having said that, the Cosmos series itself is spectacular and a must-see for any participant in humanity. I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the editor’s review on Amazon.com — which says it far more eloquently than I ever could.

“In the course of 13 fascinating hours, Cosmos spans its own galaxy of topics to serve Sagan’s theme, each segment deepening our understanding of how we got from there (simple microbes in the primordial mud) to here (space-faring civilization in the 21st century). In his “ship of the imagination,” Sagan guides us to the farthest reaches of space and takes us back into the history of scientific inquiry, from the ancient library of Alexandria to the NASA probes of our neighboring planets. Upon this vast canvas Sagan presents the “cosmic calendar,” placing the 15-billion-year history of the universe into an accessible one-year framework, then filling it with a stunning chronology of events, both interstellar and earthbound.

From the lives of the stars, to creation theories, functions of the human brain, and the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence, Cosmos asks big questions. When appropriate, Sagan offers big answers, or asks still bigger–and yes, even spiritual–questions at the boundaries of science and religion. What’s most remarkable about Cosmos is that it remains almost entirely fresh, with few updates needed to the science that Sagan so passionately celebrates. It is no exaggeration to say that Cosmos–for all the debate it may continue to provoke–is a vital document for humanity at a pivotal crossroads of our history.” – Amazon Editorial Review

Experiences in Urban Backyard Astronomy