Sunday, January 30, 2011

I'm going to check out the snow and do a little observing at HJRO

8;35 pm until ?


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Sunday, January 23, 2011

George has the imaging setup running and we are in a warm control room

What fun.

I ran outside and looked at m42 outside through the binocular telescope and then through his c14. It's only about 4 degrees out.

M42 looked nice through the little binocular telescope, but it looks so much brighter with the c14.

He had the field reducer on it. With a 7mm eyepiece and 2500mm as the focal length we had 350 power at the higher power when looking at it. That brought it close enough to see two additional stars in the trapezium or six stars altogether.

That was enough for direct viewing. We came back in and I warmed up a bit before leaving.


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Sorry but it's freezing out and I didn't clear off the dome

It's the kind of evening where you grab a pair if binoculars or a small telescope, bundle up and run outside for a brief look at Jupiter or perhaps Jupiter and then m42.

It's not a kind if night where I would bundle up try to clear the dome and hope it would open while I wait and huddle by the heater.

I've heard the transparency is good for imaging. I was going to travel to a friends house and take some telescopes out there. I figured we'd look briefly from his dark sky site for maybe 20 minutes then watch movies.

Then another friend called me back. I caller George to chat about weather conditions then he invited me out to his place to so some remote imaging. Remote imaging is where you sit inside and control the telescope from a warm room. Tonight remote imaging sounds a lit better than sitting inside the observatory. When I loaded up the car today with some equipment my lungs hurt from the cold air.

In other observing news I woke up early at about 5:30am I ventured out in the cold to look at Saturn this morning. I couldn't stay out long and had to check out Venus as well. Venus looked so bright this morning I thought at first it was a jet aircraft or helicopter.

I stayed out maybe 20 minutes and my hands started to grow numb and hurt from the cold. I wasn't wearing any gloves and the near zero degree temperatures may it a brutal viewing adventure. I was happy to get back in a warm house and go back to bed.

Saturn looked wonderful but my scope wasn't cooled off and perhaps some haze made seeing less than ideal. A 40mm was fine the 15mm showed some degrading if the image not a lot of detail in the 1500mm focal length nexstar 4se. The 8mm was showing only a large fuzzy planet. Venus seemed much better for some reason. It almost looked like I'd see surface detail when viewing it with the 40mm. The 15mm if course would not show surface detail, just a larger ball of gas which is half illuminated by the sun.

Here's a shot of the cloud and sky conditions near sunset.

Clouds will increase after midnight tonight.




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Saturday, January 15, 2011

At lake Erie metropark




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Friday, January 14, 2011

Tomorrow many faac members will be at the lake Erie metro park nature center

Many Ford Amateur Astronomy Club members will be at the Ice Daze event.

It's at lake erie metro park south of Detroit. The hours of e event is from 10am until 10pm. Visitors will still have to pay standard metro park sticker fees, but once your in the park the event is free.

If the sky is clear we will have telescopes there for public viewing. If it's cloudy we will still have some telescopes and astronomy items on display.

Drop by some time if you want to chat with one of our astronomers. For viewing you will want to be dressed warm.

The telescopes will be on display inside the nature center if we aren't able to view due to weather conditions.

In HJRO news I picked up a broom with a long handle to clean off the dome. A grant request is being worked on for more equipment that might enhance the observatory capacity. We will see how that goes.


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Sunday, January 9, 2011

I texted this out to some friends

Oh man the moon is awesome tonight though the binocular telescope, it's great. The relief position of the terminator line. Spectacular.
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Additional note:
Conditions are not that great but the moon makes up for less than perfect seeing. I expect clouds in and off tonight and plan on leaving around 8 pm but returning later in the evening aa well. I'll put out an update.


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We will open at 6 pm tonight, but there is snow and ice around the observatory

It's cold out and it will be getting colder as the month progresses. If you wish to observe I'd suggest dressing as warmly as possible and wear a lot of layers. You can't dress to warm when your observing and this is especially true in the winter.

We will be open but there is light snow and ice around the observatory on the walk. Dress warm and wear something that is suitable for walking in light snow if you are interested. Beware of ice near the door, I dontknow if I'll have time to shovel the snow away.

We should be open from 6pm until 8pm. We may be open later meaning we may break for a late night trip for hot chocolate or snacks nearby and return for more observing if things go well and the sky conditions are good.

I spent some time getting snow to melt off the dome. There's a chance we will use telescopes outside if we have a problem with the shutter. We may do some observing outside with a binocular telescope looking at the moon.



This is not a student event


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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Bad weather an poor seeing kept me out of the observatory tonight

I was hoping the viewing conditions would improve. Clouds threatened to obstruct viewing and I got out from home and went out to eat later in the evening. I actually list track of the sky and looking up the weather when a Faac member called me. Sean asked if I was heading out? I took a look out of the pizza parlor where I ate and saw the sky looked clear but this with a lot of lights. It can look clear but have haze. I called Tim and Jennifer as well a couple of other club members Abd called Greg Ozimek as well. I also called George Korody who was imaging and he's out to the easy of Lincoln Park, so his conditions may move in toward us. He said seeing was hazy and poor. He was imaging but it was less than what hrs want to brave the cold. I had preloaded some equipment in the car but removed my telescope. I needed to make some soup for my mother who was feeling I'll and has been eating up all the homemade soup. This took longer than I expected as I was missing some ingredients.

Finally while talking to George he mentioned radar showing clouds moving into Wayne county. That was enough to keep me from continuing. Consider that snow might still be on the shutter from earlier and it's bitter out. It's one thing to go out in the cold when the viewing is excellent. It's much more difficult to go out when the conditions are marginal, cold and getting worse.

To verify u made the right decision I quickly grabbed my little f4 four inch reflector and put an eyepiece out and walked outside to look at the Orion nebula. The conditions were far from ideal, and haze was present an affecting view in the 30 degree area above the horizon.

It was to cold and viewing was to marginal to open up tonight. I sent out a text message to Tim, Jennifer and Sean that I wouldn't be opening up the observatory tonight.

In other news a recent frequent observer Art in the club sent me a message to say hi to everyone in the club. He recently went in for some tests and possible surgery and things are not bad. I have to verify his message but it seems that he had a minor thing and nothing to worry about.

I could go on and report about health reports I've heard recently from my relatives and the various club members, but this is a blog that should be mostly about observing. The winter can be a tough time, cold and harder long nights. Keep warm and take care if yourselves out there. The sky will be clear in future days so there's no point in pushing things.

I've heard that the long term forecast is for bitter weather. I doubt well open up at night with the very bitter weather we've been having. We have a heater but when it gets very cold the few who show up end up sitting around the heater and surviving a bit keeping warm Abd chatting without much observing. We had a very last moment cold observing session a fee days back and the conditions were very good for astronomy viewing but we were so cold we only looked at a few objects. We were to cold and it was to late to even think much about what we should be looking at. Sean and I made it out that night.

In the future we nay have a better way to deal with the cold and observe with the dome operating while visitors are in some warm nearby location. This would involve a few modifications and we are working on a wish kist of items to enhance the observatory and increase our options.

Greg

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