See our vacation, friends & family get-together pictures

Cruises, Orchestra tours, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Holidays, Fall in New England, Bicycling. Here they are.

Being the photographer, I’m not in many of them!

More to come.

Observation Log 3/30/04

3/40/04, 7:30PM-8:30PM. Canon 10×30 Image Stabilizing binoculars An enjoyable time just browsing around. My idea to try using Norton’s Atlas rather than Starry Night Pro didn’t work out. There are far fewer stars in the atlas than are visible through these binoculars. I was frustrated trying to look up interesting things I saw in the sky, and not being able to find them in the book. Plus, the Moon was washing out most all naked-eye viewing near zenith, and my glasses kept fogging up. It was 32°F out.

It is fascinating how many satellites soar overhead. I like finding them by accident. I happened upon five tonight, and in particular two that crossed paths such that I could see them both in my 6 degree field of view for about 10 seconds. Alas, neither Heavens Above nor Starry Night can tell me both of their names. One may have been the Okean 2 rocket body, but I think what I saw was too dim for that. Anyway, it was a treat.

Speaking of treats, purely by chance I spotted the ISS rising out of the WNW. I got the binoculars on it and watched for a few moments, when it went behind a tree. A walked into the clear, and looked again, but it was gone. It turns out it flew into the sunset at 37° altitude. That would have been amazing to see through the binos, with the white fading to a deep red. There will be other chances.

Observation Log 3/28/04

3/28/04- 9:30PM-10:45PM- OB10x70. Coma Berenices, Leo Minor (naked eye, and for the first time!). Dew was a problem. The 1st quarter moon reduced seeing. The Moon itself was nice. Basically I just wandered the zenith to the southern sky, looking for interesting things. The Oberwerk 11×70 binoculars are too weak for most galaxies, alas.

Arghh. The next morning, I looked at my binoculars. I had accidentally knocked them over on the tripod with all the legs retracted. I thought they were fine, but in daylight today, I see one of the objectives is half peppered with dirt. Time to read up on cleaning techniques and get some supplies. Probably a bulb for squirting air, and perhaps a soft brush. This one will probably require some solution too, once the scratchy stuff is off. I’ve read that just running distilled water over mirrors is good. Lenses, too, so long as care is taken to keep the water away from the edges of the lens, where it can seep inside the instrument.

I think next time I go out to just browse the sky, I’ll take my Norton’s 2000 Star Atlas instead of Starry Night Pro, and see how it goes. It seems like I spent a lot of time futzing with things like limiting magnitudes, labeling options, and having to remove a glove every time I needed to use the trackpad. We’ll see if a book isn’t simpler–there are times when I see star patterns in the sky and want to know what I’m looking at, and give up after 5 minutes’ wrestling with SNP.

2004- 0 miles and not counting yet.

Missed it by that much.

Mother Nature surprised the meteorologists today, and we had a beautiful afternoon, dry and just under 70 degrees. Unfortunately, I had several hours of running around, shopping, and other chores to do. By the time I got home at 3:15PM, it would have taken me until 4:00 to get dressed, stretch a bit, and do a quick once-over on a bike that hasn’t been touched since last year. And then I’d be fighting Friday afternoon rush hour traffic for at least an hour.

So, right or wrong, I decided to wait for a better day. What a shame.

Observation Log 3/24/04

3/24/04- Installed Bob’s Knobs.
Installed Ray’s Brackets.

6pm- Showed Jan all five naked eye planets! 8:45 pm- Celestron NexStar 8i telescope. Collimate. Split Polaris for first time. Tube currents for ~2 hours. Dew. Runaway altitude axis- balance or Declination nut? Better w/ 1.25″ eyepieces, so it’s probably a balance problem.

Jan came back out for amazing views of Saturn, Jupiter w/ 17mm Nagler! Collimation pretty good, need excellent seeing to do better. 10PM-12PM- tried “Tour” button, but GoTo problematic. Had to re-align a lot. Saw Kemble’s Cascade. Must practice balancing the OTA in the field.

StarFinder™ 532nm Green Laser Pointer & Mount from ScopeStuff.com

Whether on a scope or just pointing out stars in the sky, this is one sexy piece of equipment.

Orion 2″ Moon filter

I guess I asked for this… it looks like I need a new set of 2″ filters for my 2″ eyepieces.

I do enjoy exploring the Moon, so this was a must. I haven’t used it yet, but I got a good deal on it. If there’s anything remarkable about it, good or bad, I’ll report back.

Observation Log 3/22/04

Venus in broad daylight!

3/22/04 2:15 pm- saw Venus in daylight, with & without Can10x30!!! Again the next day. Later, split Mizar. Scope needs collimation.

Ray’s Brackets

Adding a 2″ diagonal and eyepiece caused a few problems: balance, and the new diagonal didn’t clear the scope base. Here’s the solution.

The N8 bracket from Ray’s Brackets solved both my problems easily. It places two aluminum brackets between the scope base and the Optical Tube Assembly. It was also pretty easy to install, taking less than a half hour. Now I can loosen two thumb screws and slide the OTA forward and back easily, to balance the scope easily. Honestly, I haven’t quite got it dialed in yet. It works great with the 2″ setup, but when I put a 1.25″ eyepiece and adapter into the 2″ diagonal, I get the slippage in the altitude axis again. In retrospect, I should have bought TeleVue’s heavier brass 1.25″-to-2″ adapter, which helps offset the loss in weight. But I can deal with adjusting the bracket in the field.

And, in the off-chance I go insane (or become insanely rich) and try my hand at astrophotography, I can slide the OTA far enough forward to mount and balance a camera on the NexStar 8i.

Celestron f/6.3 Focal Reducer/Corrector

An accessory to gather more light and halve the magnification of my eyepieces.

The idea behind a focal reducer/corrector is to make a few expensive, high-quality eyepieces more versatile. While a Barlow lens will double or triple the magnification of an eyepiece, this reducer halves the magnification. So, I can use one top-notch $350 eyepiece with incredible optics in three different powers. The other benefit is that it widens the apparent field of view, which is nice for seeing larger objects or more stars at a time. It also makes the view brighter, since lower magnifications discard less of the light coming into the telescope.

I’ve used my reducer a few times, without a light pollution filter, or a contrast enhancing filter, I can’t see very much within 20° of the horizon. The reducer is so good at increasing brightness that it picks up all the haze too. I like this lens, but I think I’ll like it more with an LPR filter. I wish Baader made their Contrast Enhancer filter in a 2″, or even better, an SCT cell like the reducer.