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Thank you Chris, Julie and Joe for coming to the Star B-Q.
Thanks also to Julie for giving me the "heads up" that I-90 was clear to Rushford exit. The construction people did a great job, and it was like driving home on a magic carpet. (At least as far as the turnoff.)
One more comment on the 2" 90 degree star diagnol. Williams Optics also offers one for $109 dollars, but that one is for a refractor telescope. You need the next one up. It should fit onto a Maxsutov.
Clear skies!
I'm hoping to get out there tonight to see if I can spot Comet 103P Hartley. Has anyone from the RAC spotted it yet?
If memory serves me correctly, this will be the first comet to be shown to the public at a Spring Grove star party. I hope John Preston and all the other astro-imagers get some good shots of it.
I tell you what…a six pack of Spring Grove pop to the first one to post a picture of it in the forum! ;D
This is my 1st attempt at video with a comet. I hope it opens. This is 103P/Hartley in Cassiopeia tonight.
It's 27 minutes compressed down to 16 seconds.
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WOW!!! is right! I got out there for two hours tonight, and even though the astronomy newsmags and websites say that this is "the brightest visitor of the year" and "easily seen through binoculars and will reach naked eye visibility", it took me a solid hour to pin it down.
I spent an hour with my 15X70 Celestron binoculars and could not find it. I knew it was near Lamba Casseopia, but could not definately tell where it was. I searched a wider area and still had no luck.
It was only when I switched to my Celestron G8 and tried likely looking targets around Lambda that I actually found it on my third try. What a feeling of accomplishment that was! To me, it is not a great telescopic object yet, at least, I doubt it would get many "Wow's" at a star party from the uninitiated. Visually through a telescope it looks more like an elliptical galaxy except for the greenish color. It was an extremely satisfying object to finally find. Very glad to get out there tonight.It looks like Randy will get a six pack of Spring Grove Lemon Sour!
Jupiter had a grand display of moons tonight, along with the Moon moving its libration away from Mare Oriental. Lacus Veris and Lacus Autumni are still visible. Dew was a problem tonight, but during the defogging sessions I used the binocs to view all the Fall Favorites. The Flatin Farm was quiet tonight, but I kept thinking about earlier this month. That was really fun.
God bless you all, Dean
That's very impressive Randy! Great job! How many exposures and how long was each one? Was this with your Obsession?
Luka, the original file from the Mallincam was 48,000 frames over ~ 1600 seconds. So the only processing I did was compress the file 10 x 10 times (100x) to bring it down to 16 seconds. My alignment was done a bit sloppy therefore the drift. The faint flash at 4 sec was when I opened my garage door. The artifact on the left side of the screen late in the video was light leaking in from my neighbor's house lights.
Did anyone get out tonight?
I had to tend bar from 6 to midnight. Once again it was an awesome sky walking home.
Thanks so much to Starbie for coming down to the Uff Da Fest Star Party. The LCAAS had 3 of their folks there. Thanks to them also. Dark Sky Jim couldn't make it because he was fighting a cold. No probllem.
Tomorrow night on the CSC looks AWESOME. Let's all get out there locally and have A Glorious Night For Astronomy!
P.S. Would John Preston please post to the forum on the heavenly bodies he imaged on Saturday night?
Well, I got out for four hours tonight. I had a buddy named Danny Neuzel show up. He stayed for the whole four hours! 😮
I showed him all the obvious stuff and a lot of the not so obvious. He loved every minute of it. I'm going to hire him to show up at star parties just for his vocal expressions when he sees something new. He has 10X50 Bushnell binoculars and I guided him through the best of the fall objects plus a bit of the summertime bino objects that we can see. He definately has the astronomy bug and I bet I can talk him into coming up to some of the meetings. 8)
Comet 103P Hartley in Casseopia is now a naked eye object! A week ago, I would have bet a 30 pack of Schmidt beer it wouldn't have made it. It is a little more impressive in the scope, but still does not sport a tail. However, tonight I could watch it and could see movement from the beginning of the observing session to the end. It's position in Casseopia adds an extra "star" that makes that part of Casseopia look like a short, fat, Cepheus. ::)
We finished with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. It was A Glorious Night For Astronomy! ;D
103P Harley is now visible with my 10×50 binoculars from within the Rochester skyglow. I would not describe its appearance as obvious, nor horribly bright. I looked up the position in Starry Night Pro, hunted, thought I found it, and then verified it by noting landmarks and going back to the software. It is a faint, diffuse glow.
Hello astronomy fans. I got out there again for 3 hours tonight. The transparency was great, but the seeing wasn't quite as good. I could still see the comet naked eye, but just barely, and only because I knew where it was. Binocular speaking, it's good and now only one FOV away from the Perseus Double Cluster. Tomorrow night they will be in the same FOV.
Telescopically Comet 103P Hartley is a nice object, but I've seen better comets. Still, when it comes to comets, observers can't be choosers.
Jupiter had just 3 moons tonight and I couldn't hang around to see the fourth one reappear. I also observed Uranus and the Helix Nebula. Also did a binocular tour of Ursa Minor.
I recorded NGC 188 in Cepheus tonight to start my Caldwell search. I've seen it before and it is an interesting, but somewhat obscure object. A very good astronomical history on it, however.
No observing tomorrow night. I'm going to watch the Twins kick the Yankees butts!
Last weekend I shot 2 more videos of the comet Hartley. Although average in appearance, what makes this most interesting is its close path to earth, coming within .2 AU from us by late month/early November. This makes its apparent motion quite visible in the eyepiece if observed for just a few minutes. I shot 40 and 60 minute videos, in which the comet moves 3-4 arc minutes across the sky – the equivalent distance of half way across the face of the Dumbbell nebula. I'll bring those to the meeting next week…
GO TWINS!!
Who is headed out tonight? I'd like to take a swing at that comet.
The darker the better – Eagle Bluff?
Kirk
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