As you can see there was a lot of earthshine lighting up the dark side of the moon.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Friday, May 25, 2012
A basic photo of the moon from the other night
This is not a great shot but a typical iPhone shot through an eyepiece. Wanted to document how the moon looked with the iPhone and the exposure almost always doesn't work out with the iPhone.
As you can see there was a lot of earthshine lighting up the dark side of the moon.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
As you can see there was a lot of earthshine lighting up the dark side of the moon.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
It's a nice night for viewing but in bike riding
I tested the new solar projector again today. The evening looked to be good until midnight, but I've done a lot of viewing lately so it was time for a break.
I decided to try to find a friend who went bike riding tonight. I couldn't find him as he left earlier in the evening and wasn't answering his cell phone.
The weather is a perfect 71 degrees out and the moon and stars are shining brightly. I leaned back a bit and looked up at the night sky in a dark neighborhood while coasting. A nice leasurely pan of the sky. . . Well it was more like a downward tracking view as I was riding.
I almost wished I carried a small telescope to do some late night sidewalk astronomy at a bike ride destination. I've done this before using the Bushnell wide field telescope I have. But tonight it's likely the only observing I'll do is naked eye viewing.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I decided to try to find a friend who went bike riding tonight. I couldn't find him as he left earlier in the evening and wasn't answering his cell phone.
The weather is a perfect 71 degrees out and the moon and stars are shining brightly. I leaned back a bit and looked up at the night sky in a dark neighborhood while coasting. A nice leasurely pan of the sky. . . Well it was more like a downward tracking view as I was riding.
I almost wished I carried a small telescope to do some late night sidewalk astronomy at a bike ride destination. I've done this before using the Bushnell wide field telescope I have. But tonight it's likely the only observing I'll do is naked eye viewing.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Lights, camera, action at HJRO last night - observed Saturn, Mars and a UFO
(Now for the rewrite.)
After attending the FAAC Monthly general meeting Thursday I drove to HJRO to open up. Some members had asked if we’d be open, so I arrived and three of us viewed the crescent moon through my binoculars.
Clouds were moving rapidly through the sky and haze seemed evident from the view when I first arrived. Conditions were improving as the clouds were swept away with brisk winds.
Art, Rick and I spent most the time talking early on. We had observed earlier in the week and talked about the club meeting and upcoming plans for the transit of Venus event, where Venus passes between the earth and the sun and we can view it’s disk against the setting sun. (Of course one must have a proper way to view this event and we have telescopes with safe filters for this.)
We had a phone call from Tim Campbell as well. He said he was running late and couldn’t make it out. I replied at that time, the sky didn’t look to good and he wasn’t missing much. But this was before I took the photo of Saturn and before the clouds really cleared away.
Maybe thirty or forty minutes after telling Tim the viewing wouldn’t be very good, the sky improved and viewing became much better. This night might have rated as one of the best ten nights of seeing and viewing as far as sky quality, but recent excellent nights, probably would displace it from the top ten nights of the last year at HJRO. We had a few good nights in the winter, and a few really good nights as recently as this past week. Some of the nights this past week would have to be in the top five I’ve seen at HJRO this year. Warmer weather and no mosquitos is another plus.
At about 10 pm the three of us sat in a few chairs and were startled a bit by a rustling of leaves from some animal that seemed to run by under Rick’s chair. We thought it might be a rabbit as there are a few around the area who eat grass at night near the observatory. We thought we could see the rabbit nearby and Art and Rick tried shining a light at it. I decided to get my 7 by 35 binoculars and take a closer look and it turned out the imaginary rabbit in the distance was just a lawn marker flag waving in the wind.
Shortly afterward we saw a cat out in the field nearby, we figured this cat ran by our chairs and we mistook it for a startled rabbit.
- The UFO
Then perhaps five minutes later, Art looked up to the south east and said, "what the heck is that?" Rick and I couldn't see it at first and Art was pointing and said “look where I'm pointing”, then we saw it. A light flickering glow, like a high altitude aircraft, but it was moving faster than a satellite. It seemed to be moving in a straight line like a man made satellite.
Art had spotted an actual UFO (since we never identified it). It flew at a rate that seemed to be faster than a jet and silently for the most part. We could hear a steady wind as there were wind gusts at that time. I wasn't sure if I heard a jet sound. I guessed out aloud, "maybe it's some kind of experimental military aircraft."
Was it a men in black moment? Was the cat an alien that landed in the nearby field?
UFO details.
The “craft/light” seemed faster than a satellite, faster than the ISS, but still taking nearly 90 seconds to go perhaps 100 degrees across the sky, mostly across the sky. A bit faster than an orbiting man made object. It disappeared below the trees in the north, near the school board building. I was tracking it a bit with my binoculars, but it stayed out of focus as I tried to adjust the binoculars, but it only popped into focus for maybe 2 seconds or less. It had a crumpled look almost like a bunch of wrinkles or panels were in it’s dark shape with the bottom half perhaps light. I guessed from the view this might have been some kind of home made UFO, like a trash bag with a candle in it. Rick remarked that the object moved in the direction of wind gusts to the north and it likely was some kind of bag.
A Late night guest
At about 11:30 a guest dropped by, he was running track and came by to ask about the gate access. His name was Jeremy and he was a former student of Lincoln Park High School. He never saw the inside of the observatory, it was out of commission when he was going to school here.
We spent about 90 minutes talking and viewing. We gave him a tour of the observatory and aimed the C14 at Saturn. The view was much better than I had expected, based on wind and haze and clouds we saw earlier i the evening.
Fine details could be seen using the 10mm eyepiece (391x) and even 8mm (nearly 500 power) on the c14.
We only looked at Saturn and Mars through the big C-14 telescope.
I also briefly aimed the Vixen telescope at Saturn to show Jeremy a really low power 26x view of the planet. I also showed him many iPad astronomy apps and we talked about Android astronomy apps as well. We visited for perhaps 90 minutes. Jeremy enjoyed the tour and said he’d visit again and bring a younger nephew who he felt would enjoy a tour of the sky as well.
Jeremy spent some time looking at Saturn through different power eyepieces and I showed him how I can take a photo of Saturn with a very high powered eyepiece setup on the C14. And I took the following photo. This was taken at 888x and the iphone image was processed a bit in an application for the iPad called Filterstorm.
By the end of this evening’s viewing the others had left. I started to close up and move some of the things I took to HJRO back to my car. Suddenly police cars started rushing up and down Champaign street. It looked like some kid of high speed chase, but I didn’t see the other cars they wee chasing.
Apparently a mysterious night visiting cat and possible UFO were not enough excitement last night - more excitement had to happen. I had to have a spot light shine on me with red and blue lights flashing before the night would end.
Two police cars turned down Lafayette street to chase someone or something. A third police car, joined in and then turned and rolled into the parking lot fast. It raced up and then stopped with lights still flashing and a strobe light taking away any night adapted vision I might have while loading up. The Police officer probably saw my car from a distance and guessed I was the bad guy racing away from them. The police spotlight was shining on me as I was putting an eyepiece bag into my trunk. The police officer quickly jumped out of the patrol car and asked me "who I was" and "if I had rushed out of the Parking lot earlier". If you see blue and white lights and a spot light and a UFO, you better hope your not abducted/(arrested) next. If arrested late at night, it's better I suppose to be arrested by an officer, than some cat like alien flying a UFO.
I replied that I was a volunteer for the Lincoln Park observatory. I thought, "I’m glad I have my FAAC badge on". The Police officer seemed satisfied with my response and quickly drove off to continue his pursuit.
The scout cars were long gone chasing bad guys into the night, and I finally left in peace, without cats, rats, rabbits or aliens.
When I arrived at my house, the sky still looked good at 2am. Some clouds were up about 6 degrees above the northern horizon, but much of the sky at 2am was still clear.
After attending the FAAC Monthly general meeting Thursday I drove to HJRO to open up. Some members had asked if we’d be open, so I arrived and three of us viewed the crescent moon through my binoculars.
Clouds were moving rapidly through the sky and haze seemed evident from the view when I first arrived. Conditions were improving as the clouds were swept away with brisk winds.
Art, Rick and I spent most the time talking early on. We had observed earlier in the week and talked about the club meeting and upcoming plans for the transit of Venus event, where Venus passes between the earth and the sun and we can view it’s disk against the setting sun. (Of course one must have a proper way to view this event and we have telescopes with safe filters for this.)
We had a phone call from Tim Campbell as well. He said he was running late and couldn’t make it out. I replied at that time, the sky didn’t look to good and he wasn’t missing much. But this was before I took the photo of Saturn and before the clouds really cleared away.
Maybe thirty or forty minutes after telling Tim the viewing wouldn’t be very good, the sky improved and viewing became much better. This night might have rated as one of the best ten nights of seeing and viewing as far as sky quality, but recent excellent nights, probably would displace it from the top ten nights of the last year at HJRO. We had a few good nights in the winter, and a few really good nights as recently as this past week. Some of the nights this past week would have to be in the top five I’ve seen at HJRO this year. Warmer weather and no mosquitos is another plus.
At about 10 pm the three of us sat in a few chairs and were startled a bit by a rustling of leaves from some animal that seemed to run by under Rick’s chair. We thought it might be a rabbit as there are a few around the area who eat grass at night near the observatory. We thought we could see the rabbit nearby and Art and Rick tried shining a light at it. I decided to get my 7 by 35 binoculars and take a closer look and it turned out the imaginary rabbit in the distance was just a lawn marker flag waving in the wind.
Shortly afterward we saw a cat out in the field nearby, we figured this cat ran by our chairs and we mistook it for a startled rabbit.
- The UFO
Then perhaps five minutes later, Art looked up to the south east and said, "what the heck is that?" Rick and I couldn't see it at first and Art was pointing and said “look where I'm pointing”, then we saw it. A light flickering glow, like a high altitude aircraft, but it was moving faster than a satellite. It seemed to be moving in a straight line like a man made satellite.
Art had spotted an actual UFO (since we never identified it). It flew at a rate that seemed to be faster than a jet and silently for the most part. We could hear a steady wind as there were wind gusts at that time. I wasn't sure if I heard a jet sound. I guessed out aloud, "maybe it's some kind of experimental military aircraft."
Was it a men in black moment? Was the cat an alien that landed in the nearby field?
UFO details.
The “craft/light” seemed faster than a satellite, faster than the ISS, but still taking nearly 90 seconds to go perhaps 100 degrees across the sky, mostly across the sky. A bit faster than an orbiting man made object. It disappeared below the trees in the north, near the school board building. I was tracking it a bit with my binoculars, but it stayed out of focus as I tried to adjust the binoculars, but it only popped into focus for maybe 2 seconds or less. It had a crumpled look almost like a bunch of wrinkles or panels were in it’s dark shape with the bottom half perhaps light. I guessed from the view this might have been some kind of home made UFO, like a trash bag with a candle in it. Rick remarked that the object moved in the direction of wind gusts to the north and it likely was some kind of bag.
A Late night guest
At about 11:30 a guest dropped by, he was running track and came by to ask about the gate access. His name was Jeremy and he was a former student of Lincoln Park High School. He never saw the inside of the observatory, it was out of commission when he was going to school here.
We spent about 90 minutes talking and viewing. We gave him a tour of the observatory and aimed the C14 at Saturn. The view was much better than I had expected, based on wind and haze and clouds we saw earlier i the evening.
Fine details could be seen using the 10mm eyepiece (391x) and even 8mm (nearly 500 power) on the c14.
We only looked at Saturn and Mars through the big C-14 telescope.
I also briefly aimed the Vixen telescope at Saturn to show Jeremy a really low power 26x view of the planet. I also showed him many iPad astronomy apps and we talked about Android astronomy apps as well. We visited for perhaps 90 minutes. Jeremy enjoyed the tour and said he’d visit again and bring a younger nephew who he felt would enjoy a tour of the sky as well.
Jeremy spent some time looking at Saturn through different power eyepieces and I showed him how I can take a photo of Saturn with a very high powered eyepiece setup on the C14. And I took the following photo. This was taken at 888x and the iphone image was processed a bit in an application for the iPad called Filterstorm.
By the end of this evening’s viewing the others had left. I started to close up and move some of the things I took to HJRO back to my car. Suddenly police cars started rushing up and down Champaign street. It looked like some kid of high speed chase, but I didn’t see the other cars they wee chasing.
Apparently a mysterious night visiting cat and possible UFO were not enough excitement last night - more excitement had to happen. I had to have a spot light shine on me with red and blue lights flashing before the night would end.
Two police cars turned down Lafayette street to chase someone or something. A third police car, joined in and then turned and rolled into the parking lot fast. It raced up and then stopped with lights still flashing and a strobe light taking away any night adapted vision I might have while loading up. The Police officer probably saw my car from a distance and guessed I was the bad guy racing away from them. The police spotlight was shining on me as I was putting an eyepiece bag into my trunk. The police officer quickly jumped out of the patrol car and asked me "who I was" and "if I had rushed out of the Parking lot earlier". If you see blue and white lights and a spot light and a UFO, you better hope your not abducted/(arrested) next. If arrested late at night, it's better I suppose to be arrested by an officer, than some cat like alien flying a UFO.
I replied that I was a volunteer for the Lincoln Park observatory. I thought, "I’m glad I have my FAAC badge on". The Police officer seemed satisfied with my response and quickly drove off to continue his pursuit.
The scout cars were long gone chasing bad guys into the night, and I finally left in peace, without cats, rats, rabbits or aliens.
When I arrived at my house, the sky still looked good at 2am. Some clouds were up about 6 degrees above the northern horizon, but much of the sky at 2am was still clear.
Monday, May 21, 2012
I'm going to post a few more photos about Last Saturday's viewig
This is a summary of last weekend including Friday's viewing.
We saw a huge solar flare blasting off the son Friday. It was late in the day when I first opened up HJRO and met Tim Dey. Tim and I were on the phone a lot and chatted with Greg Ozimek (another FAAC member) over SKYPE and Facetime. Some other members arrived and looked at the huge solar flare blasting off the sun through our Lunt solar telescope in the observatory.
We had other visitors at night. Then we opened up the next day (Saturday), to view solar flares, and also opened up in the evening and had many visitors. I have some photos of those which I may post in another post. I like to take late night photos as long exposure photos from a bit of a distance allowing some of the night time sky to be in the photo and the stars to be in focus. The long exposure will make the subjects appear bright and fairly visible, and the stars will pop out in the background. Sky glow at HJRO from other lights will hinder the effect of seeing the stars in these photos. Glow from the observatory often gives an interesting late night glowing effect. It's nice if the shutter is open and the red lights are on inside, giving the observatory a reddish glow.
The visitors were about a dozen members of the HFCC astronomy club on Saturday night as well as perhaps three sets of visitors who came in from the late night parking lot rush to pick up returning kids from a Cedar Point field trip. About 40 cars came into the lot after midnight and turned off their lights. I went out and asked one of them what was happening and the parent inside the car said, everyone was there to pick up kids from two busses returning from Cedar Point. Brian volunteered to invite each family to get a quick late night tour of the observatory. I'd say only three families stopped by. Some of them didn't bring kids, just parents. It seemed to me that it was three parents from different cars and some kids stopped in. They were able to look at Saturn and the Ring Nebula. We also saw many other objects. Those who stayed late, saw Pluto on the Stellacam, and also some other objects that are to faint for visual viewing in our bright sky location. We also saw Mars, Venus, Neptune, the blinking Nebula, the double cluster and the "double double" a double star which has two double stars in it, showing four stars in a double star system. We also saw the ghost of Saturn nebula, M13, and likely there were other objects some saw when I wasn't inside which I may have missed.
We looked at a lot of objects. Some stayed longer than others, and I was there for 8 hours until 5:30am. Yes it was an all night observing session and I went to be Sunday at 6am and woke up around 12:30 in the afternoon.
Then Sunday I opened up HJRO again shortly for about 45 minutes. Only one other FAAC member could make it out for viewing apparently, Brian Kutscher. Dan Barriball arrived shortly before we left to Allen Park. We took a little three car convoy to Allen Park to a location on a hill where there is a large mall complex. There is a pumping station across from the Meijers and a small parking lot with a hill that overlooks a large pond. We had a fairly clear view overlooking houses in the distance towards the west from that location. I forgot my Canon camera, locked it in the observatory and decided I had time to drive back and get it before the eclipse would begin. But I also live close to the observatory and decided I could get my large 10 inch telescope and observe the sun with that and a white light solar filter. I had a choice to make, get the camera or the telescope. There were other telescopes there of course, but also other cameras that the other FAAC members had.
I decided to get the telescope and leave the Canon EOS locked up in the observatory. Was able to return and with a little help setup the telescope and mount. That 10 inch telescope is pretty heavy when setup with it's portable mount (200lbs).
I don't have lens covers for the small refractor on my telescope and keep forgetting to create one. A spare sock was used to block that, so any visitors would not see any image if they happened to come up and try to look through the refractor. I don't have a cover for the finter either so i used some tape to attach a folded envelope and cover the finder. The solar film holder was taped over the opening of the telescope. It's important to firmly tape or attach a solar cover with screws or some heavy duty mounting system when viewing the sun. You don't want the wind to blow off the solar filter in front of the telescope while viewing the sun. Instant blindness could result. If the filter doesn't screw onto the telescope or use screws to securely attach the filter, you may need to use some pieces of tape to attach the filter firmly.
We saw the moon start to cover the sun and start to move and cover more and more of the sun. The eclipse would not be visible during the entire event as the sun was low and setting as it started to happen. It would be something we could view for perhaps 30 minutes, but clouds cut the effective viewing time down to something more like 15 minutes. We had many visitors who just saw us and dropped by to take a look. I didn't take any photos of the visitors, but only photos of the four of us who set out from the observatory site. This included myself and Mr. French who made his first visit at HJRO the night before and also stayed at the observatory all night. Mr. French and I saw the ISS around 5:10am Sunday morning at the end of the early observing session. I took some photos of the ISS flyby. I'll try to post that up on the blog, but it's just a small dot in the image as I took it with my Canon EOS and not through any powerful telescope. It's more of an event documentation photo than a zoomed photograph of an object.
Now back to the visitors during and after the solar eclipse. We had perhaps four visitors look through our telescopes at the sun and eclipse when it happened. Others arrived afterwards and looked at Venus and Saturn. I didn't show them Mars because the view wasn't very impressive and we were breaking down and trying to get out of there before a bunch of visitors kept us out there later. Breaking down Big Bertha took maybe 10 to 15 minutes. A few of us chatted for a while after Brian had left. At about 10:30PM Dan and I drove over to Taco Bell and grabbed a small snack. Dan and I visited for perhaps another 50 minutes and finally left. The sky looked clear and I put out a post late in the evening as I picked up my Canon EOS from the observatory. The sky was clear at 1:15am last night, but I was too tired to open up the observatory and observe.
I've left out a lot of details of course. So many conversations, and many of them between others. Some visitors enjoy and discuss astronomy applications on the iPad and at times I show these to visitors. The nights have been very comfortable as well and they are the nice cool, but not to cold, spring nights without many bugs that an observer dreams of having. Basically perfect observing nights. I heard someone say we are supposed to get rain today. Much of the day has been clear, but I haven't gone to do solar observing because I have other things to do during the day.
We saw a huge solar flare blasting off the son Friday. It was late in the day when I first opened up HJRO and met Tim Dey. Tim and I were on the phone a lot and chatted with Greg Ozimek (another FAAC member) over SKYPE and Facetime. Some other members arrived and looked at the huge solar flare blasting off the sun through our Lunt solar telescope in the observatory.
We had other visitors at night. Then we opened up the next day (Saturday), to view solar flares, and also opened up in the evening and had many visitors. I have some photos of those which I may post in another post. I like to take late night photos as long exposure photos from a bit of a distance allowing some of the night time sky to be in the photo and the stars to be in focus. The long exposure will make the subjects appear bright and fairly visible, and the stars will pop out in the background. Sky glow at HJRO from other lights will hinder the effect of seeing the stars in these photos. Glow from the observatory often gives an interesting late night glowing effect. It's nice if the shutter is open and the red lights are on inside, giving the observatory a reddish glow.
The visitors were about a dozen members of the HFCC astronomy club on Saturday night as well as perhaps three sets of visitors who came in from the late night parking lot rush to pick up returning kids from a Cedar Point field trip. About 40 cars came into the lot after midnight and turned off their lights. I went out and asked one of them what was happening and the parent inside the car said, everyone was there to pick up kids from two busses returning from Cedar Point. Brian volunteered to invite each family to get a quick late night tour of the observatory. I'd say only three families stopped by. Some of them didn't bring kids, just parents. It seemed to me that it was three parents from different cars and some kids stopped in. They were able to look at Saturn and the Ring Nebula. We also saw many other objects. Those who stayed late, saw Pluto on the Stellacam, and also some other objects that are to faint for visual viewing in our bright sky location. We also saw Mars, Venus, Neptune, the blinking Nebula, the double cluster and the "double double" a double star which has two double stars in it, showing four stars in a double star system. We also saw the ghost of Saturn nebula, M13, and likely there were other objects some saw when I wasn't inside which I may have missed.
We looked at a lot of objects. Some stayed longer than others, and I was there for 8 hours until 5:30am. Yes it was an all night observing session and I went to be Sunday at 6am and woke up around 12:30 in the afternoon.
Then Sunday I opened up HJRO again shortly for about 45 minutes. Only one other FAAC member could make it out for viewing apparently, Brian Kutscher. Dan Barriball arrived shortly before we left to Allen Park. We took a little three car convoy to Allen Park to a location on a hill where there is a large mall complex. There is a pumping station across from the Meijers and a small parking lot with a hill that overlooks a large pond. We had a fairly clear view overlooking houses in the distance towards the west from that location. I forgot my Canon camera, locked it in the observatory and decided I had time to drive back and get it before the eclipse would begin. But I also live close to the observatory and decided I could get my large 10 inch telescope and observe the sun with that and a white light solar filter. I had a choice to make, get the camera or the telescope. There were other telescopes there of course, but also other cameras that the other FAAC members had.
I decided to get the telescope and leave the Canon EOS locked up in the observatory. Was able to return and with a little help setup the telescope and mount. That 10 inch telescope is pretty heavy when setup with it's portable mount (200lbs).
I don't have lens covers for the small refractor on my telescope and keep forgetting to create one. A spare sock was used to block that, so any visitors would not see any image if they happened to come up and try to look through the refractor. I don't have a cover for the finter either so i used some tape to attach a folded envelope and cover the finder. The solar film holder was taped over the opening of the telescope. It's important to firmly tape or attach a solar cover with screws or some heavy duty mounting system when viewing the sun. You don't want the wind to blow off the solar filter in front of the telescope while viewing the sun. Instant blindness could result. If the filter doesn't screw onto the telescope or use screws to securely attach the filter, you may need to use some pieces of tape to attach the filter firmly.
We saw the moon start to cover the sun and start to move and cover more and more of the sun. The eclipse would not be visible during the entire event as the sun was low and setting as it started to happen. It would be something we could view for perhaps 30 minutes, but clouds cut the effective viewing time down to something more like 15 minutes. We had many visitors who just saw us and dropped by to take a look. I didn't take any photos of the visitors, but only photos of the four of us who set out from the observatory site. This included myself and Mr. French who made his first visit at HJRO the night before and also stayed at the observatory all night. Mr. French and I saw the ISS around 5:10am Sunday morning at the end of the early observing session. I took some photos of the ISS flyby. I'll try to post that up on the blog, but it's just a small dot in the image as I took it with my Canon EOS and not through any powerful telescope. It's more of an event documentation photo than a zoomed photograph of an object.
Now back to the visitors during and after the solar eclipse. We had perhaps four visitors look through our telescopes at the sun and eclipse when it happened. Others arrived afterwards and looked at Venus and Saturn. I didn't show them Mars because the view wasn't very impressive and we were breaking down and trying to get out of there before a bunch of visitors kept us out there later. Breaking down Big Bertha took maybe 10 to 15 minutes. A few of us chatted for a while after Brian had left. At about 10:30PM Dan and I drove over to Taco Bell and grabbed a small snack. Dan and I visited for perhaps another 50 minutes and finally left. The sky looked clear and I put out a post late in the evening as I picked up my Canon EOS from the observatory. The sky was clear at 1:15am last night, but I was too tired to open up the observatory and observe.
I've left out a lot of details of course. So many conversations, and many of them between others. Some visitors enjoy and discuss astronomy applications on the iPad and at times I show these to visitors. The nights have been very comfortable as well and they are the nice cool, but not to cold, spring nights without many bugs that an observer dreams of having. Basically perfect observing nights. I heard someone say we are supposed to get rain today. Much of the day has been clear, but I haven't gone to do solar observing because I have other things to do during the day.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
We had a great time observing the eclipse in Allen Park
Dan, James, Brian and Mohammed came out to observe at the hill overlooking a nature pond in Allen Park. We saw the moon start to cover the sun. We had four telescopes setup. I had enough time to drive home and pick up big Bertha a ten inch Newtonian and set it up with a white light filter. Several visitors saw us and stopped by. Some riding bikes other walking or driving by stopped to take a look through our telescopes which had safe sun filters. Mohammed brought a safe solar film viewer as well that works with a large piece of film material on a card. It's made by thousand oaks.
I took some photos with my 3d camera as well. The sky looks pretty good tonight but I observed for ten hours yesterday so in too tired to open the observatory up late Sunday night. Even though the sky is excellent and it will be cloudy tomorrow, an amateur astronomer has to get some sleep sometime.
Greg
Video clip below was just a short clip shot through the eyepiece of big bertha using my iPhone. Others took much better photos and video sequences. Notice the cloud bands with clouds moving in.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I took some photos with my 3d camera as well. The sky looks pretty good tonight but I observed for ten hours yesterday so in too tired to open the observatory up late Sunday night. Even though the sky is excellent and it will be cloudy tomorrow, an amateur astronomer has to get some sleep sometime.
Greg
Video clip below was just a short clip shot through the eyepiece of big bertha using my iPhone. Others took much better photos and video sequences. Notice the cloud bands with clouds moving in.
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Will be doing brief solar observing at about 5:30pm and then drive to Allen Park for eclipse
We will be doing a little solar observing tonight at about 5:30pm and then drive to Allen Park near the Meijers and Taco Bell on the hill to observe the first part of the solar eclipse.
You can only see the first half hour of the eclipse before the sun sets. Only part of the sun will be covered.
You need to use safe solar viewing methods to observe the sun today. Don't observe it unless you have a safe method that has been checked out by an astronomer.
There are safe viewing filters to view the sun which are built for telescopes. There are solar viewing glasses as well. And only one kind of welding glass, number 14 which is safe to use to view the sun. Don't view the sun with other strange home made methods. Unless it's a pinhole projection system which is a pin hole in a piece of paper and you look at the shadow of the sun on another object or piece of paper, You would project the sun using the pin hole, not look at the sun directly through the pin hole.
Other methods, using foil from wrappers, Mylar balloons and exposed film ARE NOT safe. Do not use these other methods, because UV radiation will not be filtered out and it can damage your eyesight. When in doubt ask an amateur astronomer or look at excellent observing website, like the one for Perkins observatory.
Here is a photo of the sun I took through a safe solar telescope last Friday. The photo shows only a part of the sun, with a large prominence blasting off the sun.
I took this through our Lunt Solar telescope with an 8mm eyepiece and a handheld Canon Eos camera pressed up against the eyepiece. The high power and short light throw distance of the eyepiece prevented me from getting the entire solar disk in this photo, but you can see the large flare.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
You can only see the first half hour of the eclipse before the sun sets. Only part of the sun will be covered.
You need to use safe solar viewing methods to observe the sun today. Don't observe it unless you have a safe method that has been checked out by an astronomer.
There are safe viewing filters to view the sun which are built for telescopes. There are solar viewing glasses as well. And only one kind of welding glass, number 14 which is safe to use to view the sun. Don't view the sun with other strange home made methods. Unless it's a pinhole projection system which is a pin hole in a piece of paper and you look at the shadow of the sun on another object or piece of paper, You would project the sun using the pin hole, not look at the sun directly through the pin hole.
Other methods, using foil from wrappers, Mylar balloons and exposed film ARE NOT safe. Do not use these other methods, because UV radiation will not be filtered out and it can damage your eyesight. When in doubt ask an amateur astronomer or look at excellent observing website, like the one for Perkins observatory.
Here is a photo of the sun I took through a safe solar telescope last Friday. The photo shows only a part of the sun, with a large prominence blasting off the sun.
I took this through our Lunt Solar telescope with an 8mm eyepiece and a handheld Canon Eos camera pressed up against the eyepiece. The high power and short light throw distance of the eyepiece prevented me from getting the entire solar disk in this photo, but you can see the large flare.
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
Will be open until 6:30pm for solar observing and then again at 9pm for night observing
I'm at the observatory now.
Will look at the sun through a safe solar telescope until 6:30pm
The eclipse is tomorrow night but it starts late and will not be visible from HJRO due to it happening just before sunset.
I'm observing sunspots today.
We will look at Venus, Mars, Saturn and M13 tonight and other objects as well.
Here's a picture of the sun on a video monitor at HJRO yesterday. It looked better in person viewing it through an eyepiece.
If you arrive use the small gate near the middle school. Please do not walk on the track as there is poison on the football field, chemicals to kill the grass as they will be installing AstroTurf.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Will look at the sun through a safe solar telescope until 6:30pm
The eclipse is tomorrow night but it starts late and will not be visible from HJRO due to it happening just before sunset.
I'm observing sunspots today.
We will look at Venus, Mars, Saturn and M13 tonight and other objects as well.
Here's a picture of the sun on a video monitor at HJRO yesterday. It looked better in person viewing it through an eyepiece.
If you arrive use the small gate near the middle school. Please do not walk on the track as there is poison on the football field, chemicals to kill the grass as they will be installing AstroTurf.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Friday, May 11, 2012
Sometimes you just have to stay home, HJRO was closed Friday night
We observed past midnight last night. I actually went out and grabbed a snack and warmed up at the local White Castle after observing last night. Art and I ended up talking about many subjects late into the night at White Castles and didn't keep track of the time. We should have set an alarm because we talked until Art received a phone call from his wife and noticed the time on his phone, 3:20am.
Staying out late of course can make astronomers tired in the morning and put a stop to other plans. I loaded up my truck today, then discovered a problem with my truck, worked on it a bit and reloaded all my telescopes into my other car. I was going to go out and look up somewhere. I wasn't sure where. Everyone had plans, the key keepers at HJRO and Art was busy so I didn't announce the opening of HJRO this Friday night. I also thought I might visit an observatory in Ohio tonight, but that plan fell by the wayside. So I ended up eating out late at night and getting some photos from Thursday night into my computer and then my iPad for editing. I still may look up a bit, but it's so late and I have family plans tomorrow so I can't really announce and open up HJRO tonight. I basically missed opening up tonight. Sometimes I just can't open up HJRO even though conditions are nice out.
Rather than moan about not being out tonight, I'm going to be positive and post about last night Thursday's observing session which was great.
Thursday night
We had six Faac members out Thursday night.
Art Parent, Tim Dey, Tim Campbell, Brian Kutcher, Dan Barriball.
We also had four visitors, three of them from HFCC, Penny, Cassie, and another young lady, (but I forgot the last gals name, sorry). We also had Dave a scout leader who had his troop at the observatory earlier. We looked at a number of objects. I was outside at times and didn't follow all the conversations and at times missed looking at some objects, so I can only post about the objects that I saw.
We looked at different times and some objects rose or set at different times so some of the visitors didn't see as many objects. We looked at Venus, it's crescent sliver very sharp and bright of course. We viewed Venus through the C14 and also through my Vixen BT-80 binoculars. Venus with a 15mm eyepiece was a lot larger in the C14 because that large telescope has a much longer focal length. (3911 divided by 15) is a lot more power than the 36 power vixen binocular setup I was using at the same time. Venus almost looked like a crescent moon in the C14, very large, but of course we could only see it's thick atmosphere, no craters can be seen through that thick carbon dioxide atmosphere.
We also looked at Mars and Saturn. For Mars I could make out a white dot that looked like the ice cap, but it was difficult to see, Brian mentioned he couldn't see the ice cap. We could see one dark surface feature on mars, not a lot of surface detail, considering the clear and excellent conditions the sky presented. Maybe an image of mars would have looked better, but we didn't spend time with a camera to take an images of Mars.
Saturn was delightful.
The Cassini division was very sharp and looked very dark and precise like a dark roadway in the rings, with very good seeing. It was very sharp perhaps 50 percent of the time and at times there was some movement in the image, like a slight thermal movement of air currents, not much movement, maybe a bit of moving of the details. There was a bit of cloud detail I could see on Saturn as well. I didn't take any really good images of Saturn or any other object as we did mostly visual observing. The night merited photography but with so many visitors, we just looked up at the sky and visited and chatted about astronomy subjects. Outside the observatory, I gave a tour of some of the many astronomy apps on my iPad to a few of the visitors. I also took out my Canon Camera and Fujix camera to take a few photos of the visiting HFCC club members. The Fujix camera can take 3d photos but this are better in daylight or with a flash, so it's not something I can use a lot during observing sessions as the flash will affect a visitors night vision.
A different subject for a paragraph about photos of visitors.
(Sometimes we take photos of visitors when they visit the observatory so they will have a record of their visit, sometimes we forget or are so busy viewing that we forget to offer to take photos. Visitors may take photos at times during an event, or when they are finished viewing. We usually don't fire flash photos of course during a session of viewing, or take photos away from the observatory with the door closed and warn other observers we are taking flash photos. I also like to take a long exposure photo without flash at times which will not affect the dark adapted eyes of those viewing, but it may cause the photo to be blurred if the visitor moves during the long timed exposure.)
- Back to the observing list
We also looked at M95, which was very faint and close to Mars, barely visible in the C14 mostly with averted vision, meaning looking away from it in the eyepiece you could see it without looking directly at it.
What is averted vision? The sensors in the center of your eye are not as sensitive to low light so if you look a little to one side of a faint object you may see it better and it may kind of pop into view. With a very faint object, you may not see it very clearly and it may kind of appear and not be very clear if it's near the limits of your eyesight and vision. M96 was almost as faint as M95. m96 appeared a little brighter than m95 and I could see it better with direct vision than m95. (M95 and m96 are galaxies.)
Some of us Faac members who stayed late also looked at m13 which had risen quite high on the sky. m13 is a globular star cluster without thousands or tens of thousands of stars in it. It had risen so high we had to drop the shutter panel to allow the telescope to look almost straight up to view m13. (This was past midnight.) We also looked at the Double double, literally two double stars in Lyra. For some reason we could not see the double double as clear as other objects, it could have been deteriorating sky conditions as the temperature dropped. We looked at the double double with 15mm and 8mm eyepieces on the c14 before closing up the dome. After closing up the dome I noticed the moon was out low and below the field of view inside the dome, but within the range of a telescope outside. So we quickly looked at it with my binoculars.
We also looked at the moon as it was rising over the tree line, with my BT-80 binoculars. The moon was partially obscured by a tree top as it was rising. The view of the moon behind the tree rising was spectacular with binoculars, a really nice 3d effect, the tree and moon behind it. The Vixen BT-80 with 32mm eyepieces gave 26 power and this was giving a very nice view of the moon. I almost forgot we also looked at the Ring nebula. Last night we had very clear and steady viewing, we were using a 15mm and 13mm eyepiece. I've seen it slightly better on rare nights, but this night would have been perhaps in the top ten or twelve nights as far as viewing conditions that I've seen over the past year.
The weather was getting cold near the end of the session, which was after 1am. I think we left around 1:30am. I mentioned we might be out until 2am but it was getting cold out. Art and I were the last two to leave.
Below is a photo of Art Parent and Brian Kutscher showing off the new observatory door sign. This sign was donated to the observatory by Tim Campbell. This photo may look a little strange, because it's a 3d photo. You can see the 3d effect if you view it with red/blue 3d glasses used to view 3d movies. This anaglyph image was created using a 3d app on my iPad. I shot the image using a fujix 3d point and shoot camera.
Staying out late of course can make astronomers tired in the morning and put a stop to other plans. I loaded up my truck today, then discovered a problem with my truck, worked on it a bit and reloaded all my telescopes into my other car. I was going to go out and look up somewhere. I wasn't sure where. Everyone had plans, the key keepers at HJRO and Art was busy so I didn't announce the opening of HJRO this Friday night. I also thought I might visit an observatory in Ohio tonight, but that plan fell by the wayside. So I ended up eating out late at night and getting some photos from Thursday night into my computer and then my iPad for editing. I still may look up a bit, but it's so late and I have family plans tomorrow so I can't really announce and open up HJRO tonight. I basically missed opening up tonight. Sometimes I just can't open up HJRO even though conditions are nice out.
Rather than moan about not being out tonight, I'm going to be positive and post about last night Thursday's observing session which was great.
Thursday night
We had six Faac members out Thursday night.
Art Parent, Tim Dey, Tim Campbell, Brian Kutcher, Dan Barriball.
We also had four visitors, three of them from HFCC, Penny, Cassie, and another young lady, (but I forgot the last gals name, sorry). We also had Dave a scout leader who had his troop at the observatory earlier. We looked at a number of objects. I was outside at times and didn't follow all the conversations and at times missed looking at some objects, so I can only post about the objects that I saw.
We looked at different times and some objects rose or set at different times so some of the visitors didn't see as many objects. We looked at Venus, it's crescent sliver very sharp and bright of course. We viewed Venus through the C14 and also through my Vixen BT-80 binoculars. Venus with a 15mm eyepiece was a lot larger in the C14 because that large telescope has a much longer focal length. (3911 divided by 15) is a lot more power than the 36 power vixen binocular setup I was using at the same time. Venus almost looked like a crescent moon in the C14, very large, but of course we could only see it's thick atmosphere, no craters can be seen through that thick carbon dioxide atmosphere.
We also looked at Mars and Saturn. For Mars I could make out a white dot that looked like the ice cap, but it was difficult to see, Brian mentioned he couldn't see the ice cap. We could see one dark surface feature on mars, not a lot of surface detail, considering the clear and excellent conditions the sky presented. Maybe an image of mars would have looked better, but we didn't spend time with a camera to take an images of Mars.
Saturn was delightful.
The Cassini division was very sharp and looked very dark and precise like a dark roadway in the rings, with very good seeing. It was very sharp perhaps 50 percent of the time and at times there was some movement in the image, like a slight thermal movement of air currents, not much movement, maybe a bit of moving of the details. There was a bit of cloud detail I could see on Saturn as well. I didn't take any really good images of Saturn or any other object as we did mostly visual observing. The night merited photography but with so many visitors, we just looked up at the sky and visited and chatted about astronomy subjects. Outside the observatory, I gave a tour of some of the many astronomy apps on my iPad to a few of the visitors. I also took out my Canon Camera and Fujix camera to take a few photos of the visiting HFCC club members. The Fujix camera can take 3d photos but this are better in daylight or with a flash, so it's not something I can use a lot during observing sessions as the flash will affect a visitors night vision.
A different subject for a paragraph about photos of visitors.
(Sometimes we take photos of visitors when they visit the observatory so they will have a record of their visit, sometimes we forget or are so busy viewing that we forget to offer to take photos. Visitors may take photos at times during an event, or when they are finished viewing. We usually don't fire flash photos of course during a session of viewing, or take photos away from the observatory with the door closed and warn other observers we are taking flash photos. I also like to take a long exposure photo without flash at times which will not affect the dark adapted eyes of those viewing, but it may cause the photo to be blurred if the visitor moves during the long timed exposure.)
- Back to the observing list
We also looked at M95, which was very faint and close to Mars, barely visible in the C14 mostly with averted vision, meaning looking away from it in the eyepiece you could see it without looking directly at it.
What is averted vision? The sensors in the center of your eye are not as sensitive to low light so if you look a little to one side of a faint object you may see it better and it may kind of pop into view. With a very faint object, you may not see it very clearly and it may kind of appear and not be very clear if it's near the limits of your eyesight and vision. M96 was almost as faint as M95. m96 appeared a little brighter than m95 and I could see it better with direct vision than m95. (M95 and m96 are galaxies.)
Some of us Faac members who stayed late also looked at m13 which had risen quite high on the sky. m13 is a globular star cluster without thousands or tens of thousands of stars in it. It had risen so high we had to drop the shutter panel to allow the telescope to look almost straight up to view m13. (This was past midnight.) We also looked at the Double double, literally two double stars in Lyra. For some reason we could not see the double double as clear as other objects, it could have been deteriorating sky conditions as the temperature dropped. We looked at the double double with 15mm and 8mm eyepieces on the c14 before closing up the dome. After closing up the dome I noticed the moon was out low and below the field of view inside the dome, but within the range of a telescope outside. So we quickly looked at it with my binoculars.
We also looked at the moon as it was rising over the tree line, with my BT-80 binoculars. The moon was partially obscured by a tree top as it was rising. The view of the moon behind the tree rising was spectacular with binoculars, a really nice 3d effect, the tree and moon behind it. The Vixen BT-80 with 32mm eyepieces gave 26 power and this was giving a very nice view of the moon. I almost forgot we also looked at the Ring nebula. Last night we had very clear and steady viewing, we were using a 15mm and 13mm eyepiece. I've seen it slightly better on rare nights, but this night would have been perhaps in the top ten or twelve nights as far as viewing conditions that I've seen over the past year.
The weather was getting cold near the end of the session, which was after 1am. I think we left around 1:30am. I mentioned we might be out until 2am but it was getting cold out. Art and I were the last two to leave.
Below is a photo of Art Parent and Brian Kutscher showing off the new observatory door sign. This sign was donated to the observatory by Tim Campbell. This photo may look a little strange, because it's a 3d photo. You can see the 3d effect if you view it with red/blue 3d glasses used to view 3d movies. This anaglyph image was created using a 3d app on my iPad. I shot the image using a fujix 3d point and shoot camera.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Hjr observatory will be open tonight. From about 9pm to 2am
If your underage you can get a tour by bringing a parent along. Visitors over 18 are welcome as well of course. Some club members of the Faac astronomy club will be present. We will be looking at Mars, Venus and other objects. We may have other telescopes outside as well.
It will be cold out so dress warm and in layers. You can access the observatory from the small entrance gate near the middle school parking lot. We will likely be open by about 8:45pm. If we aren't there early we should be there by 9pm. So if there is a delay, if it's clear out we will be there tonight. Some members will be at an astronomy special interest photography meeting at Hfcc today, so they may arrive a little late. Some members may arrive late after other evening activities as well. We should be open late into the night and may se the moon rise later in the evening. I feel that this will be a good night tonight of observing and can see the observatory being open from 9pm until 2am or possibly later.
Greg
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
It will be cold out so dress warm and in layers. You can access the observatory from the small entrance gate near the middle school parking lot. We will likely be open by about 8:45pm. If we aren't there early we should be there by 9pm. So if there is a delay, if it's clear out we will be there tonight. Some members will be at an astronomy special interest photography meeting at Hfcc today, so they may arrive a little late. Some members may arrive late after other evening activities as well. We should be open late into the night and may se the moon rise later in the evening. I feel that this will be a good night tonight of observing and can see the observatory being open from 9pm until 2am or possibly later.
Greg
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Last nights super moon
Some friends and members mentioned the super moon event last night. This is just a full moon being closer to earth at it's closer point in orbit.
Art called to see if I would open up the observatory. I said I could and some clouds were in the area. Supposedly the clouds were going to clear. Tim said he'd be viewing it from Lake Erie metro park. We called a few members last minute and mentioned we'd go to lake Erie and also try to open up he observatory.
Art and I started out late, we met and car pooled to get to the metro park. I hit a traffic jam at fort street due to a train and we arrived after the moon rose over the lake. Clouds obstructed the view so we didn't miss much.
Tim was in a spot a half mile away from a parking area taking photos. I felt a little under the weather so I didn't take my canon Eos camera with me. I only had an iPhone. I took a couple of shots of the moon over the lake with my iPhone, they were not very good here is one of them.
We left lake Erie at about 10pm and Art and I drove to HJRO not knowing if the clouds were gone. Much if the sky was clear and I texted a few members. Dan showed up at HJRO he had been in Wyandotte in bishop park Shen the moon rose but clouds obstructed his view of the moon low over the water as well.
Fast moving clouds ended our shirt observing session, the three of us mostly talked. We actually talked a lot about hospitals and operations last night at HJRO rather than much about astronomy.
The sky was full of clouds so we left around midnight and Art and I went to white castles for a late night snack. As we sat there we joked that the sky would likely clear once we were at white castles. We left and the sure enough the sky was almost completely clear. It was late and we both had a long day sone clouds were out near the horizon in the north and far south so we called it a night. But then I had a few late night errands to run and had to pick up some bread my sister baked for my mom. I was unable to drive by her house due to observing so she left the bread in a bag outside her house in a nearby city. I drive out there and decided to drive back on champaign street past the observatory. The sky was clear so I decided to grab my canon eos and try to take a photo of the full moon over the observatory. I snapped a few stills and left without opening up. I arrived at home and sone neighbors were arriving home late as well. I unloaded my car and one of my neighbors walked out and stood silently and standee up at the full moon for a fee minutes. I dint know if he thought I'd bring out a telescope as I was unloading one but he went back to his family car and disappeared as I brought out my handheld binoculars to take one last look. The full moon is rather flat without many shadows so it's less interesting to view and very bright, better viewed with polarizing or moon filters through telescopes.
I finally went to sleep, I looked at the moon a little bit, not really seeing it once all night in a telescope however. I only saw Mars and Saturn last night at HJRO with Art and Dan. Sone nights are like that. As the weather was so unpredictable and poor I didn't announce our opening to the club or on this blog. Poor weather ruined much if the viewing so visitors didn't miss much. Most in the faac club who we invited out were too busy with other commitments. They really did t miss much. I enjoyed the visit to lake Erie that was fun but a little frustrating because I've been experiencing a few health problems and that was a bit if a distraction as well. Here's one of the iPhone photos from lake Erie.
As you can see this kind of photo doesn't show any moon details.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Art called to see if I would open up the observatory. I said I could and some clouds were in the area. Supposedly the clouds were going to clear. Tim said he'd be viewing it from Lake Erie metro park. We called a few members last minute and mentioned we'd go to lake Erie and also try to open up he observatory.
Art and I started out late, we met and car pooled to get to the metro park. I hit a traffic jam at fort street due to a train and we arrived after the moon rose over the lake. Clouds obstructed the view so we didn't miss much.
Tim was in a spot a half mile away from a parking area taking photos. I felt a little under the weather so I didn't take my canon Eos camera with me. I only had an iPhone. I took a couple of shots of the moon over the lake with my iPhone, they were not very good here is one of them.
We left lake Erie at about 10pm and Art and I drove to HJRO not knowing if the clouds were gone. Much if the sky was clear and I texted a few members. Dan showed up at HJRO he had been in Wyandotte in bishop park Shen the moon rose but clouds obstructed his view of the moon low over the water as well.
Fast moving clouds ended our shirt observing session, the three of us mostly talked. We actually talked a lot about hospitals and operations last night at HJRO rather than much about astronomy.
The sky was full of clouds so we left around midnight and Art and I went to white castles for a late night snack. As we sat there we joked that the sky would likely clear once we were at white castles. We left and the sure enough the sky was almost completely clear. It was late and we both had a long day sone clouds were out near the horizon in the north and far south so we called it a night. But then I had a few late night errands to run and had to pick up some bread my sister baked for my mom. I was unable to drive by her house due to observing so she left the bread in a bag outside her house in a nearby city. I drive out there and decided to drive back on champaign street past the observatory. The sky was clear so I decided to grab my canon eos and try to take a photo of the full moon over the observatory. I snapped a few stills and left without opening up. I arrived at home and sone neighbors were arriving home late as well. I unloaded my car and one of my neighbors walked out and stood silently and standee up at the full moon for a fee minutes. I dint know if he thought I'd bring out a telescope as I was unloading one but he went back to his family car and disappeared as I brought out my handheld binoculars to take one last look. The full moon is rather flat without many shadows so it's less interesting to view and very bright, better viewed with polarizing or moon filters through telescopes.
I finally went to sleep, I looked at the moon a little bit, not really seeing it once all night in a telescope however. I only saw Mars and Saturn last night at HJRO with Art and Dan. Sone nights are like that. As the weather was so unpredictable and poor I didn't announce our opening to the club or on this blog. Poor weather ruined much if the viewing so visitors didn't miss much. Most in the faac club who we invited out were too busy with other commitments. They really did t miss much. I enjoyed the visit to lake Erie that was fun but a little frustrating because I've been experiencing a few health problems and that was a bit if a distraction as well. Here's one of the iPhone photos from lake Erie.
As you can see this kind of photo doesn't show any moon details.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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