There was a FAAC meeting at HFCC

The general meetings for the FAAC club are in the UAW conference center which is the building in front of the campus, closest to the street. This building is on the southern side. It's not the cafeteria building, which is also close to the street.

Sometimes after a general meeting we open up the observatory. We have the installation situation of the bleachers and lighting completed enough to start using the observatory again, but I had some errands to help a friend with car trouble. None of the other FAAC core group that would be at the observatory and help run it was available tonight, so I didn't open up the observatory at all.

I had a good time observing when I could away from the observatory. I even wrote a highly speculative piece on observing what appeared to be a 3d like effect in viewing the double cluster. There is a strange optical effect that is repeatable, at least with my eyes, that shows stars in small groups that appear to be fixed and moving in front of other stars, while I move my eyes behind the binoculars. This for the Vixen binocular telescope. It's a visual thing that appears to be happening. I haven't verified that others have seen this, up to this point I have witnessed this effect. I had one FAAC member look briefly at the double cluster and he saw the entire field of view shit, but no stars staying fixed within the field of view. I don't have perfect eyesight and some of this might be due to some kind of optical defect in my eyes. There are other possible explanations, the most common ones the few club members I've talked to have come up with was not the theory I put forth in the newsletter article. I put out a kind of strange explanation that this could be happening due to the construction of the eyes themselves, that perhaps curved parts of the retina are causing a difference in speed at times for different parts of the field of view.

Some others have said that this could be "field curvature" in the optics of the telescope. At least two members think that could be what I was seeing. There are also other optical effects such as Pseudo 3d effects when viewing small groups that have been mentioned by some. There is also some interesting reports on optical effects that different people have seen. One person I talked to on the phone reported seeing a "moving stars in front of background effect, when walking and looking up naked eye without optics at the Milky Way galaxy in a very dark sky site. He said stars moved in front of the Milky way, and seemed to move that way when he was walking and moving. He said this was some kind of optical effect that he mentioned and others at that time didn't believe he was seeing that effect and thought he was joking.

Another member of the club said, he has seen an effect while flying where a star would appear to move in relation to others because after staring at it for some time, the eyes, without a frame of reference will start to move on their own and cause the star to move.

Another member of the club listened to me on the phone and we chatted for some time and he ventured to say that something optically could be happening, perhaps something to do with the different response that one might get from the central part of the eye, verses the side, because we have more cones in one part and more rods in the other. That was an interesting explanation as well. Some of these have agreed at least in some brief discussions that some of the movement I've seen if it's happening would not happen from misaligned optics in the binocular. Something else is going on.

The next step would be to see if others can see this effect. I'd be out tonight especially if I could get other viewers out there to look through the binoculars at the double cluster and survey if they see this effect with their viewing.

I'm hoping to get detailed viewing reports from some club members at next Saturday's beginner's night which will be at the FAAC picnic at Island Lake Spring Mill pond.

I don't know also if some of this is due to specific details in my eyes that may not be common and causing this optical effect. The effect can be altered a bit, certain stars concentrated on and targeted in an optical manner, that may not be apparent at first and these may seem to jump out in front and be "fixed" during this viewing process.

Basically the effect that I'm seeing is some stars remain fixed in the field of view while others seem to move in a field of stars behind those. I'm saying behind because that is what it looks like. It looks like the fixed stars are floating at fixed points in space in front of the other stars that make a blurring like move and change their position. This visual effect can be altered some, that is targeted on certain stars, based on what I cast my vision on, meaning central target of focus in the field of view.

I had one member who has done extensive visual viewing mention that this could be an optical effect from the eyepieces, agreeing with me and mentioning strange side effects of a wide field Televue eyepiece. When I told him that I was using Plossl eyepieces, he felt that the Televue eyepiece of that type would not cause a drastic effect that would resemble what one might see on a wide field Televue. So he kind of hedged his thoughts, it could be field curvature of the lens system and then again it might not be. Another interesting view that sometimes one can see with wide field telescopes is an alignment ring pattern around stars when colimnating a telescope. The stars may have a "dot pattern" inside a ring which should be centered. It may be when you are completely aligned and inside the center of the exit pupil cone of light and the star is in the center of the field of view. In cases where the star drifts to the edge of the screen, the center spot in the star test image, may drift to one side especially if you are near the edge of the optic, and this is more visible with wide field Newtonians. If that is the case, perhaps this would point to field curvature kind of 3d effects that are presenting themselves in the eyepieces as I look at the double cluster and do the "move of my eyes" behind the eyepiece in a horizontal manner.

It's interesting to guess at what might be the cause and try to design some kind of test or set of questions to help explain what this is that I am witnessing. I'm literally seeing some stars remained fixed while others move in the Field of View. And this can be repeatedly viewed (at least by me) and done instantly by relative movement of my eyes to the fixed movement of the telescope and eyepieces on a target. This means I'm varying the parts of the light cone that are entering the eyes. This brings a 3d like (video game like) effect on viewing of the double cluster. The effect is greatly diminished for some open clusters like M45 in comparison. The effect happens in both horizontal and vertical movements. The stars are not moving at all when the eyes are fixed in one spot, and there appears to be no heat or seeing effects that make the stars vary in their position, through boiling atmospheric condition. So the effect is wholly dependent on the activity at the eyepieces.

Binocular vision brings out the effect perhaps 10 times more than you would see without both eyes. Also the edge of the field of view, more toward the periphery of the field of view, seems to move more than stars closer to the center which remain fixed.

The fixed stars in some cases may be fixed, but also move a bit in relation to other fixed stars, distorting somewhat at least their angles, in relation to other stars. This is another perhaps secondary visual thing I've seen when experiencing this for at least one wide field of "fixed stars" that were a little wider apart than some tight and non-moving groups of stars.

The stars that don't move are clearly seen and seem fixed. So other stars look to "move behind them" but I have not seen one star move from one side of a fixed star to another with this effect, which of course proves that this is not a real parallax effect. It's a kind of optical illusion that creates a parallax like view of the "live movement" of the stars.

As this is an optical effect from visual astronomy, it's unlikely and kind of photograph can be taken to prove or disprove various theories or show this "as a recorded thing that happened."

That is enough of a post for now. I'd like to test viewing the double cluster tonight from my brighter sky location, but I'm to tired and it's too late to check on that. I need to get some sleep and rest up for an early morning errand tommorrow.