Tuesday, September 18, 2012

I did a little bit of wide field observing tonight, but stayed home

Here is a self timed photo that I took.

You can see I'm looking up through some small binoculars. M45 looks almost like a Christmas tree ornament. It is above the tree in a nearby yard. Jupiter is much lower in this photo. The bright object low to the left of the tree.

I'm hoping to do astronomy solar observing at Hfcc tomorrow, so I didn't open up tonight. Clouds were out earlier but the skies looked nice around midnight. Hopefully we will have clear skies for solar tomorrow at Hfcc.



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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Today, I forgot it was Sunday. . . took a break from observing


With all the observing happening yesterday. I was out in the daytime for an 11AM observing session that turned into a long observing session and discussion . . . into dinner/late lunch. That solar observing session netted us some photographs, but we were having some problems focusing the cameras on the solar detail with Harold's HA setup on the C14. I think this was due to our cameras being in the well lit environments.

Then in the evening. . . I went out for a short session. Was really tired but went out at about 10:20PM. Met a few observers and we had a nice long marathon kind of observing session ending with Mike and I looking at Jupiter (taking a few stills) and then looking at M42 as it was rising just high enough to view. It was a very exciting night. For some reason when I woke up this morning I thought it was Saturday. . . probably to tired. There were some things to do around the house and I didn't drift off to sleep at 3AM after observing but actually played with some images for a while of Jupiter and ended up turning in at 5AM. Woke up around 11AM. Actually waking up a bit while sleeping as well. So that lack of sleep contributed to a generally non-productive day.

I was held up at home with some things to do and went out for a late lunch/dinner around 4PM. Drove out to the Belleville Michigan area. I ate in that area, and was still very hungry after dinner. About ready for a second dinner. As I started to drive back I felt tired and ready for a nap. Rather than hit I-94 I decided to park and take a nap on a street in the car in Belleville. I actually had drove out and packed my car as if it was Saturday and in case I ended up observing. A short 30 minute nap did me good. Then I decided to check out the waterfront near the lake there and saw the setting sun. Since I had my binocular telescope with me, I decided to do a little solar observing and look at sunspots. I could see two sunspots but the haze from clouds and setting sun in a lot of haze hindered the view and eventually decided to put the telescope away. I had a camera with my so I decided to take a few shots of the sunset and the lake with the Canon EOS. I took a few different exposures with a tripod hoping to play around a bit later with an HDR processing program or Photoshop.

Here's a fairly quick Fusion results from four photos of the sunset. I didn't process this to much differently than Photomatix Pro would do with default fusion settings.

Had a nice but slow time. There was a lot of haze. Ate a late dinner and went to Meijers to run an errand. I actually saw one of the regular visitors James at Meijers as I was heading to the check out and went up greeted him. He was picking up a few things at Meijers as well. As it was hazy out, but clearing and I was tired I decided to not try to open up tonight. I may open up early tomorrow if I wake up early enough and perhaps go by the school and do an impromptu Solar Projection. Right now HJRO is not setup for WIFI as we lost the network connection so any Solar would be "optical projection" of a safe image into the classroom using my Solar Projector setup.

Enough late night posts. . . which hopefully will make sense to the readers. . .

Here's a quick "fusion" of the four exposures from the Sunset in Belleville today.


A Recent Photo of Jupiter, tweaked a bit in photoshop


This was just a quick photo of Jupiter over the weekend that was taken at HJRO. It was taken Sunday morning at about 2:30AM. I processed the image lightly using photoshop. I'm just learning Photoshop and this was just quickly changed a bit using RGB curves to bring out a little band detail. The moon Europa was throwing a shadow near the far right edge of the planet, which is tilted in this photo. The curve adjustment actually brought down the moon's brightness enough to cause it to disappear from the image.



Wednesday, September 12, 2012

I've been so busy observing at the observatory it's delayed my video edit project

Have the Trace Bundy DVD ready to ship, but I need to get digital assets together, meaning source video clips to include on separate media.

I've been opening up the observatory so much lately and doing star gazing so much, it's slowed down the process of editing.

For three days I observed and opened up the observatory. Last night I had it open from 3 to 6am to look at Jupiter and other objects, but mostly Jupiter and the Orion nebula. Orion rises early in the morning before the sunrise at this time of year. The nebula looked awesome early this morning. I felt like I could see faint color aspects in the gas cloud, but this after photographing it. It's difficult to say if my old eyes were really picking up color in the 14 inch telescope. I was looking at low power with the field reducer in. A c14 at f7 with low power would provide a very bright image, so hints of color may have been showing up with averted vision, but it also seemed to suggest faint color aspects with direct vision. I kind of wish I had a large dob with more light gathering power, something like a Newtonian with a 20 inch mirror to see if I could pick up direct color at 5am this morning.

I slept for a short time this morning and went to Hfcc fir "welcome back days" only to discover they may have been rescheduled. So I woke up early for no apparent reason. Ate lunch, chatted with a friend in the club then went back home to get another nap.

Here is a quick photo of the core of m42, the Orion nebula that I took through the c14 at f10 using a canon Eos t1i.

This was a fairly short exposure, perhaps 15 seconds at iso 3200. I don't recall the exact exposure length but I can look it up if someone wants to know.



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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Wide field photo from later in the evening after leaving HJRO.

Here is a photo from last night.

Notice the interesting glow of the leaves of this tree. The top leaves glow at night, probably due to street lights hitting it.

The glow reminds me of some old quirky set from an early star trek show or something. It's noticeable when viewing the stars near this tree at night. This photo is a little brighter than it would appear to an observer due to the long exposure. The leaves of the nearby trees to the naked eye would be a little green and mostly dark, the camera picks up more color. The glow of the leaves is a little less colorful as well in person but still very noticeable at night.

You can see the open star cluster m45 above and slightly left of the glowing leaves in this photo.




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Monday, September 10, 2012

Skies were really nice Monday night.

We opened up at 9pm.

Art, Dan, Mike, Rick and I viewed mostly Messier objects tonight and a very red star in Lyra. Some of us also took a quick glance at Jupiter and M45 through the binocular telescope before we left.

I also looked at Saturn through the Meade refractor at about 8:50. Saturn is so low during sunset it's nearly impossible to see it with the c14 now. I also looked at Saturn briefly with the vixen binocular telescope.

There was another discussion about radio astronomy, specifically a kit NASA shows and has write ups on which allows one to listen to radio signals from Jupiter.

I also very briefly at 7pm looked at the sun, but clouds were interfering with the best views.

We saw the ring nebula, swan nebula which looked really nice with an oxygen 3 filter, and objects like m13, m2 and other globular clusters. We could not see the little dumbbell but could easily see the dumbbell nebula.

We didn't look at planets, other than Jupiter and Saturn. Unless Dan looked at them while I was taking a break getting hot chocolates from Tim Hortons.

We also saw the butterfly nebula with my binocular telescope. The butterfly nebula looked very faint, that is we could see the star cluster pattern but no nebulosity, due to sky glow. It was really low on the southern horizon when we viewed it. Only five degrees above the horizon. It was close to nearby radio tower lights in the distance near Meijers. Transparency was so good you could really see down toward the southern horizon. Of course the butterfly cluster was so low the telescopes inside the observatory would have no hope of viewing it as the wall is to high and the telescopes are limited to about 14 degrees above the horizon. The c14 is, the Meade can look lower but only to the west for the most part due to it's placement high on the tube on top of the c14.

No photos from tonight, but there is a chance I'll take a quick wide angle still of the sky later to tonight while running late night errands.



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Photo of some of us inside the observatory last night

Five of us made it out to observe. We observed, m45, the double cluster, the Wild Duck cluster, a few globular clusters including m13, the Orion nebula, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. We didn't stay out late enough to view the moon. We were able to view Jupiter at 110x through the binoculars, but it was so low and rising in the Eastern sky that it offered no more detail than 48 power provided in the Binocular telescope. James and I took a quick look at Jupiter which was still fairly low before we closed up the dome for the evening. We left around 1:30am. The sky was still nice and clear with some haze in the far east, but I was a bit tired from the days activities, so I closed up a little earlier than I might had I been more rested.

There was also a bit of discussion about radio astronomy and other topics. Mike was pointing out where we might put an antenna near the observatory if we wanted to setup a radio telescope kit to listen to Jupiter.

We also talked a bit about Astronomy At The Beach which is a public viewing event that will happen September 21 and 22, 2012 at Maple Beach in Kensington Metro Park hours for that viewing event is 6pm until midnight.

Below is a picture of four of us last night at HJRO.

(One of the visitors, James French wasn't in the frame when this photo was taken.)

Pictured below are Mike, Greg, Dan and Tim (sitting at the computer console).

The red lights we use to preserve night vision was the only light, other than the monitor that provided light.



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Saturday, September 1, 2012

HJRO is not open due to clouds, detailed explanation

Here is a response i wrote to an email I just received asking me if I was opening up the observatory tonight. It's Saturday and cloudy out so there is nothing to view.
There might be a few typos in my reply below. Not a perfect letter or post.

Briefly I usually don't open up HJRO when its cloudy out. And sometimes I have opened up for a planned group visit when it was cloudy, but it's better to visit when it's clear out. We can't see through the clouds with the telescopes. And the tour might be a little boring for most without being able to observe. I could I suppose open up once in a while and give an equipment tour or talk, but I try to focus on having the chance to show people the sky as well.

This last week I was at the observatory and had it open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Each time I opened someone asked me if I'd be open the next day. As it was clear I opened up for others. You can imagine that can take a toll on a persons schedule, being at HJRO four days in a row. And I'm a volunteer. If I'm open so much during clear days, you can see why I'm a but reluctant to open up on a cloudy one during the same week.

We only have three authorized key keepers for the observatory, for security reasons and I usually have the most free schedule and live close by, so I'm already opening up 90 percent of the time. As you can imagine, I'm reluctant to commit to opening up on cloudy days/nights, when I already open up so much on clear nights.

-----
(more details in copy of letter below)

Sometimes I'll announce if the observatory will be open on my blog Hjrobservatory.blogspot.com

I need to work on announcing that more before I open. (Sometimes I'm in a rush and don't post on this blog I'm open especially since my Blogpress stopped working on my iPhone.) You can still call the observatory phone or email me when it's clear out. I'll chat with anyone and answer the requests and questions even when it's cloudy, but right now I don't open up when it's cloudy.

Last week I was open every night from Monday through Thursday. There was a common trait of course. People were asking me to open and there were clear skies.

Right now the skies are overcast. I have not made it a practice to open when it's cloudy, because I usually want to be able to observe visually and show others the stars, planets, moon, etc.

We can't see through clouds. The telescope can see some objects through thin clouds or through "sucker holes", clear parts of the sky in partly cloudy skies.

Sometimes we open up for a small group ahead of time, preschedules openings like club scout groups, If it's cloudy we simply give them a tour and pray for some clear spots to appear in the sky to hopefully observe a little. We have often cancelled group visits, when the sky isn't clear and tried scheduling an alternate date.

Should we give tours in bad overcast weather?
This email request today along with a phone call I received brings to mind a question of where should the observatory go or what should be our future goals be? Should we try to plan bad weather presentations? I could perhaps open up even in bad weather and give tours, but there is little to do or show. I suppose I could make up a list and show equipment and perhaps do other presentations. But what would those presentations be? And would people want to come even when it's cloudy to a very small observatory. Our site is not suited to av presentations as the observatory is small. We usually give small presentations showing things off the iPad, or computer screen. Sometimes we show a video feed from the telescope as well on a small monitor.

As I'm a volunteer, I have to pick my days to open up HJRO carefully. I have limited time to be there, so I choose the best clear nights when I'm available. Some clear nights there are other astronomy events and I may attend those, but this only affects maybe 30 percent of the clear nights. I often will sacrifice a trip to a better darker site for the chance to open up HJRO for others and because it's close by. I feel that I should try to have it open as much as possible on clear nights and sometimes during a clear day for solar.

There will perhaps be more goals of our being open longer in the future on clear nights for Internet broadcasting as well. But I'm not sure how that will be possible without affecting the time I would open up for local visitors. Things may get more complicated, with some plans to show kids in Australia for example the nit sky up here over the Internet. This is one goal proposed by one of our main core volunteers, it will be interesting to see how that may work out, or not work out. Scheduling might make that goal difficult.

Some other dreams which are just dreams right now.
If we had a bigger building, perhaps a display and multimedia room. Like a control room with a mini planetarium or something, right next door to the observatory, I'd have much more to show the public and could have a program that didn't rely on good weather.

I thought, for example, a room that could seat up to 30 people, a small building with multimedia projection and perhaps even a small telescope museum display area with up to 8 telescopes on display would be a good goal. Such a building would have to be close to the observatory. And we'd have to find funding permissions and build it. And there is a drainage field requirement a certain amount of space for lawns around the observatory due to the massive size of parking lots and cement nearby. I don't know if we could get support and funding for this goal and it seems very unlikely right one. We have school facilities, but teachers are not paid to work nits and have a life and other things to do, so I don't think we could open up a classroom for some kind of cloudy night program/presentation. It kind of leaves the observatory in a kind of limbo in a sense. Like a real small one room schoolhouse, to small for a class and without a teacher. Since we are volunteers and not teachers working for the school district it's easier to show adults the observatory than school children. In a sense once you graduate from high school you get better access to the schools observatory as a visitor than when you were a student.

I have thought a little bit on what could be offered as a program to do something when the sky is cloudy. Some have suggested a fixed schedule being open would help others plan; that is true. But I haven't come up with a serious plan as to when we'd be open, and what we would present. Much of what we'd present would be cyber stuff perhaps on the web available from the home. Maybe some PowerPoint or photo shows. We could show video I suppose but the small observatory would only seat a few people for that kind of presentation. Perhaps questions and answer sessions and speaker presentations would be good, but the small observatory is only fit for small groups. There is another problem. That is people will say they are interested and say they will show up, even club members, then because they are busy or distracted, they won't show up. Things happen and they of course put astronomy way back on the back burner. Sometimes I spend an hour or two waiting for a visitor, of course I'll observe while I wait, and they won't show up. So that makes me reluctant to expand a schedule or try to setup times when conditions are even worse out - a cloudy night.

Presentation sessions at places like HFCC college's planetarium need to have volunteers and equipment, videos present shows to the public as well. This may be something that would require more commitment than members in the FAAC club are willing to do. (And we'd be hamstrung by only having three key keepers to open up.)

90 percent of the time I'm the one to open up the observatory and let the public inside. This due to security concerns. There are three key keepers, one is busy with a home business, Tim Dey. The other is in Northville, and has his own observatory. George K. And then, there is me. I'm single so I have more time. Club members know I'm retired as well and at times I will open and stay open very late at night. When other club members, visitors show up.

I can give a 30 minute tour and talk about the history and equipment very easily without sky watching. But I think most would be bored with this.

My goal is to have every visitor look through e biggest telescope we have on site, when they visit. My reason for this is that is what I'd want to do if I visited an observatory. If you can't look through the scope, maybe you won't get a chance to return and maybe you'll never see the view. I went to an observstory, Perkins observatory in Delaware Ohio and when I was there conditions were not perfect and the view would have been bad through the biggest telescope. They had a 32 inch telescope there. Because conditions were bad they didn't let people look through the telescope. They had tons of stuff, a library, computers, displays and a nice tour, so there was a lot to see. The sky was pretty good however and they let us look through a 14 inch obsession Dobsonian telescope. It was cool, but I left wishing I could have looked through the big telescope. Don't get me wrong, the tour of the observatory was really cool, they opened up the huge dome and cold air rushed in. It felt like they were opening up a huge hanger in a Star Wars movie on the ice planet or something like that. Really cool. But I realized I felt disappointed because I didn't get a chance to look through the big telescope, even at a fuzzy less than perfect image.

When I realized that I felt that way, I thought one of my goals should be to insure ever visitor gets a chance to look through our c14 when they visit. Even if we are doing photography when they arrive, the visitor should get priority and we should stop our photography for a while to let them look up. So that is one of my goals, for night viewing. To show every visitor something through the biggest telescope.

I consider the observatory to be primarily a visual place for people to look through the telescope. We have photographic capability and can photograph the sky through the telescope and also take pictures or video of visitors if they want us to and present a number of photo or video memories of your visit.

I need to work on a Menu list of features we can offer, as we have about 20 things we can do. But I rarely have opened up during a cloudy day for visitors. Maybe this should change and maybe I should offer a fixed schedule and program so people can plan a visit?

Let me know what you think about these thoughts. Do you want to stop by to see the inside of a dome and no stars, planets, moon, etc. Just to look at the inside and maybe see a couple of telescopes? Maybe I should work up a plan for a cloudy night tour for folks.

Greg


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