I'm going to try to open up tonight, probably from 12:30 to 2am

I don't know how long I'll be out.  I would like to go out and take a look at a few targets.  I'm actually thinking about taking one of my smaller telescopes and the C8 out to the observatory and toy with those for a while.  I'd take out the RASA (Rowe Ackerman Schmidt Astrograph) but weather looks like it will be getting cloudy and that setup takes to much time to setup.   I'm a bit tired as well, so I may be better off taking a camera and perhaps even using the  14 inside the observatory. 

I have a number of smaller telescopes that I use often at home over the past year now.  We will see how things go tonight.

I'll probably send out a bulk email to some people on a mailing list as well in case someone wants to show up.

Greg

Aother solar iamge added below.
 Below is a close up of a solar flare that was happening during the eclpse.  This was taken through a C9.25 telescope with an Airy Lab 9.25 HA filter setup.  The telescope is capable of taking very close HA images which is high resolution and very close and small cropped pieces of the sun.  Here we can see that the sun looks like a bit of a piece of a crescent, because this image was taken during the solar eclipse.

I also have a Lunt 100mm HA telescope which can show detail and zoom in, but will not get as close as this image or show the level of detail possible with this C9.25 special Hydrogen Alpha setup.

Test From my PC - will blogger allow photos now

I'm not very active with blogger or opening up the observatory much.  The reason for not being active with blogger is the interface seems broken and I can't see old photos or post new ones.  I haven't replaced this blog with another one, but I probably should and may do that if I start getting more active and open up the observatory more.   I haven't been opening it up because I just have a lack of time with family responsibilities.   Sometimes I will open up the observatory but usually it's so late at night that I'm not even putting a post out because I have to wait for the entire family to be asleep before opening.

It's easier to do observing from my home because it's not scheduled or announced for the most part and I can quickly break down the observing equipment at times.  If I open up and announce the observatory as b
eing open I will end up wanting to stay and if sick people at my house who are not feeling well need my help, I'll feel tied down to the observing session and not want to return home as it could be difficult.

Others from time to time will open up the observatory but not as often and I rarely hear of the opening before they open it up.

We were open for the total eclipse but of course we didn't see totality with our location.  Perhaps as many as 300 people visited the observatory but this is just an optimistic guess.  The crowd at any one time seemed a lot smaller and I'm making my estimate based on people coming to observe for a while and then leaving to go elsewhere.  We were pressed for time during the eclipse transit because our setup time was truncated.   People arrived earlier than we had hoped because a newspaper story said we'd be opening at 11am, rather than 12:30 in the afternoon.   And we couldn't setup equipment as early as some had hoped.  Some were talking about starting at 9am but the new track was being sprayed by a crew who knew nothing about the observing event.  They were told to quit by 11am.

We ended up setting up equipment and I brought five setups for the event, not counting handheld solar binoculars.  We had 4 pairs of solar binoculars and I had a solar binocular telescope setup as well.

I'll try to post a photo now, but I doubt it will show up.

Looks like the photo showed up from the PC.  So perhaps I can throw together more posts with images originating from the PC.

Test

No photos test.

I've been doing a little bit of astronomy when the sky was clear and have been focusing on using a new telescope and camera to take images.

I don't think this text blog message will post so this is a test.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A quick photo from home.

Been doing some testing of different pieces of equipment at home. This limits some of my observing time at HJRO.

Below is a sample test session the lunar image isn't very good. Because I setup the equipment very quickly and the camera wasn't square with the optical path. My attempts at sharpening the image were a little overdone as well.

https://flic.kr/p/JcDR3u


It takes a lot longer to put a post out in blog press on the iPhone now. This is because the site doesn't allow pictures to be easily uploaded. So I have to put them on Flickr.

Blog press used to be a wonderful tool for the iPhone and iPad but now it's pretty backward
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

We will be opening up HJRO at 9:30pm tonight

I've been not updating this observing blog much. Been busy with family issues but also I've been getting involved in learning to use some new solar equipment I picked up.

We obviously, won't be looking at the sun tonight. We will focus on Jupiter, Saturn and especially Mars later in the evening.

Mars is closer to the earth than it has been in the past 8 years.

Hopefully we will have some good observing and perhaps we will get some decent photos through the c14.

Hope to see you at the observatory.

Greg

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Another live view shot of the moon on the TV monitor at HJRO

2010 visitor at HJRO

Here's one of the nearby residents in Lincoln Park, who visited the observatory.  This guy used to visit the observatory way back in the 1970's as well.  So I've probably seen him as a visitor when I was in the old Junior High and now much later.  The observatory is open free to anyone who wants to stop by and visit.  Whenever we are open.  Of course the trick is driving by and finding us open on a clear night. 

Live TV view of the moon using the Stellacam 3

Here is a sample of what we'd see on the TV monitor if we were viewing the moon.

Live view on TV monitor of a comet

Here was a live view of one of the comets we viewed from some years back perhaps 2011.  I'd have to look up the details in the old posts.  Basically this is a view we had live on a TV monitor using our black and white stellacam 3 camera.   The camera was mounted to one of the telescopes.

Old Telescope tube at night

Here is another photo of the old tube, this time at night with a time lapse exposure showing the constellation Orion in the background above the large 9 foot tube.  You can make out my "ghost" exposure to see the size of that old tube.   For about a year we stored the old tube at a friends house, thinking about how much effort it would take to do a full restoration of the tube and mirror.   Eventually the tube was removed and a different member of the club actually took it home as a kind of geeky Astronomy item.  It's gifted to and hanging in the garage of one of the FAAC members now, saved from the dumpster.

Old telescopes built by students in Lincoln Park

 Above is the two mirrors from the 12.5 inch telescope and the 8 inch telescope.  We refer to the mirror size or objective size when referring to a telescope.  So a 12.5 inch telescope like the newtonian we can see below has a mirror with 12.5 inches as it's diameter.

Below I decided to take the telescope tubes on a quick trip, below is a good size comparison of the three telescopes which were built by Lincoln Park students.  The 12.5 inch was built in 1962 by Hector J Robinson's students, the 8 inch blue tube was built by our club back in 1977 and I built the small white F4 four inch telescope in 1977 as a student.  The only one that is currently working is my old small four inch reflector.

These aren't the only telescopes that students in Lincoln Park built.  There were about 8 telescopes built back in the early 1960's by Mr Robinson's class which were smaller than the 12.5 inch monster that eventually ended up being housed in the observatory.  And we also built a 10 inch F5 telescope for Mr. Bruce Coultas, the 8th grade principle back in 1977.  We built two telescopes in 1977 and I built a third at my house.  

The 10 inch newtonian telescope built for Mr. Coultas was "to heavy" according to later reports by Bruce.  He said it was so heavy he had to have his son help him take it out to view with it.   The 8 inch blue tube was also quite heavy.  I can remember spending an evening fiberglassing that tube and painting it with Mr. Coultas.  That tube was pretty heavy.  The large simple pipe mount design on those old telescopes was pretty bulky as well.

Jon Blum - FAAC Vice President visits HJRO and looks up through the C14

Jon visited HJRO back around 2010 and took a look up through the C14.  I took a 10 second exposure of him looking through the telescope using my Canon EOS t1i.

What I like about the photo is the stars are in focus outside the dome.  I planned it that way.  Also this was a photo I took while holding the camera by hand.  It's much better to take a long exposure photo using a tripod.  But this turned out pretty good.  How did I hold the camera that still?  I actually was leaning against the door of the observatory with the camera pressed to my face.  So the door and my sitting there kept the camera fairly still.

Jupiter Shadow Transit photo, using Canon EOS t1i

At times when looking through a telescope one can see a shadow of one of the moons traveling across the surface of the clouds.   This dark spot is from one of it's moons. 

Saturn an iphone photo through the eyepiece at HJRO

This is one of many photos I tried to get of Saturn.  I simply held the phone up to the eyepiece at a very high power and took this photo.   This photo was through the C14 at HJRO.

This photo was sent to Tim Dey who tweaked the detail a bit using photoshop and emailed the photo back to me at the observatory.   Not bad for a photo taken with an iphone.

A safe look at the sun through a solar telescope.

We have a solar telescope that can show Hydrogen Alpha detail, hydrogen plasma blasts off the sun and can be viewed with a special telescope using special filters.  This telescope provides a view that is a lot like this photo which I snapped through an eyepiece at HJRO.  The Lunt telescope offers great views. It's nice to be able to look at the sun safely during the day.  This is one of the views the science classes at the middle school get to see from the observatory when we open it up for the school tours in the daytime.

Here's another look at the C14 inside the observatory.  In the background we can see some photos that George Korody took.   George had a C14 of his own and took many great photos with it.  He helped setup the observatory and has been a FAAC member for many years.  On the C14 we can see there are two telescopes which are kind of difficult to see from this angle. A Stellacam Camera which is a special astrophotography video camera is mounted on the back of a Meade 80mm refractor telescope.  Cables hook the camera up to a normal TV set which can show live views of the moon or even the planet "pluto".  When we saw Pluto on the TV monitor, we did that using the C14 and the Stellacam.

I used to store Big Bertha inside the observatory and roll her out when we opened up.  One of the problems with that large telescope is it barely fit through the door and it took up a lot of space.  When George was visiting the observatory and opened it up he tripped over it's legs a few times in the dark one night.  I wasn't there to roll it out and George wasn't very happy to have a huge tripping hazard inside a dark observatory. . . .

It was to much of a hassle to leave it in there.  Here we see there is another binocular telescope in the photo which I also brought once in a while when we would open up.  So we have two telescopes outside ready for visitors to use in this photo.

Here is a photo I took of myself looking up at Saturn back around 2009 or so.  I'm looking through a telescope called Big Bertha, by it's former owner.  This telescope was built back in 1962 and is the same age as the old black tube 12.5 inch telescope that used to be used inside the observatory.  This telescope has a 10 inch mirror so it offers a view that is not as bright as the former telescope in the observatory.  This is a wider field of view however than the old telescope.  It has a F5.35 focal length which is fairly wide field but offers good planetary views as well.  It is quite heavy with the mount being an old style mount with a lot of weight in the mount and counterweights.  The tube, and mount weight about 200lbs fully assembled.  It offers pretty great views and has a corrector plate much like the SCT inside the observatory, but this is a Schmidt Newtonian.  It's corrector plate cost about $345 when the telescope was built and is a custom optic built by the same company that used to build corrector plates for Celstron.  This corrector plate would cost $1800 to replace (back in 1982), and maybe even much more today (maybe $3000).  The cost to replace the corrector plate in this is more than the entire scope would be valued at.  So it's a fairly rare telescope as it's a one of a kind telescope.  But rare doesn't necessarily mean it's valuable from a market perspective.  This telescope has a lot of history as well.  Harold "the telescope man" who is a member of the club sold this telescope to me.  And he had thousands of people look through this.  One members of the club took his first look through this telescope at the sky many years ago.  Harold showed him Saturn at that time.  This offers great views, but for high powered views of a planet like Saturn, the C14 inside the observatory will offer an even better view.  I still enjoy this telescope.  It's biggest drawback is the time and effort it takes to set this up.  I actually lost one of the slim counterweights that are in this photo and have not replaced that yet.  The mount is a tracking mount, meaning it's motorized and will follow the object, but it's not a GOTO mount.  It won't find the object.  On the back of this telescope is a smaller 60mm refractor.  I'd like to have a better goto mount for this telescope someday, but a nice mount for this sized telescope as it's a heavy telescope would cost me about $3,000 so I haven't bought one yet.

Looking in the back of the old Blue tube telescope we can see the back of the mirror, but we can also see that the coating on the mirror is damaged or missing.  This from the aluminum in the mirror surface decaying or being destroyed by bird droppings.  Someone left the covers off both telescopes, so both of the old mirrors would have to be re polished to get them back into good condition and have them re-coated with a fresh surface.  Rather than coat them as the club has access to plenty of telescopes we removed the mirrors and they can be seen at the observatory, complete with the decay that happened to them.   We stored the old tubes for a while, but they were finally removed from the observatory.  Newer tube designs which are lighter are much better than these old heavy tube designs from many years past.  There a much better ways to make a telescope portable and more usable, so we didn't restore those telescopes. 

Back in 2009, 2010 we still had these old telescope tubes inside the observatory.  You can see the old black tube up against the wall.  This was a 9 foot long tube that housed a 12.5 inch mirror which had a focal length of abut F7.5  It offered great views through an almost perfectly figured mirror.  The mirror was damaged over the years from bird dropping that fell on the mirror as the cover fell off the telescope while the observatory was closed.   Acid from insects and bird droppings likely etched the mirror.  It was far easier to replace the telescope and update it with a newer telescope, like the C14 you can see on the pier in the foreground.   On the shelf behing the C14 we can see a blue tube newtonian telescope tube, that was built back in 1977.  That had a 8 inch F5 mirror.  We built that telescope back in 1977 when I was president of the Lincoln Park Astronomy Club, a student club that used the observatory back in the 1970's.