Messages

46

General Discussion / Re: Armchair Observations

« on: June 01, 2020, 03:25:06 PM »

While the evening star Venus has sunken from view Mercury is still (barely) visible in the NW after sunset.  SOHO image from today (left) shows Venus approaching inferior conjunction in Taurus.  A screenshot image from several weeks ago using a moon filter on my 10 inch SCT is attached.

47

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: February 22, 2020, 12:40:55 PM »

Agree Jeff tonight might be fine.  Joseph and Luka had good viewing at Root River Friday night I understand.  I used binoculars and showed our dinner guests some constellations Friday nite just before they went home.

48

General Discussion / Re: Armchair Observations

« on: January 27, 2020, 01:21:30 PM »

Almost missed this small sunspot group!
 

49

General Discussion / Re: Armchair Observations

« on: January 10, 2020, 01:03:13 PM »

SOHO images (C3) from early Jan 2020 show conjuctions of planets Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter as well as a possible coronal mass ejection (CME).  Selected images are below, but also run the SOHO Movie Theater https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/Theater/ (with C3, 512 resolution and dates Jan 6 thru Jan 8th) for a nice video of the events.

50

Outreach Programs / Re: Public Sky Observing at Oxbow Park

« on: December 18, 2019, 04:13:14 PM »

Agree with Luka.  What was your experience Jeff!?

51

Outreach Programs / Public Sky Observing at Oxbow Park

« on: December 11, 2019, 12:32:30 PM »

Just wanted to say that our 12/6/2019 outreach at Oxbow Park was interesting and enjoyable!  Josef has posted cool pics of the event on our website already.  Our outing happened to coincide with Oxbow's ZooDazzle.  While there were bright lights all around and high clouds many of the ZooDazzle attendants were interested in looking at the moon through our telescopes.  Many of these people had never looked through a telescope before.  Other future Oxbow outreach encounters will be done under darker skies (and probably with less of the public attending) ... but that's OK too.

52

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: November 22, 2019, 02:38:25 PM »

Thinking tonight would be best as well Jeff.
EDIT: Guess I will not be able to join you all.  Sorry.  Have a great night.  And I'll be unable tomorrow night as well.  Bummer!
Bob

53

General Discussion / Re: Armchair Observations

« on: September 01, 2019, 12:04:21 PM »

Now go to the SOHO Movie Theater https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/Theater/ and choose the C3 image at 512 image resolution, the dates Aug 30 to Sept 1 and generate the images, and watch the neat celestial (solar system) orbital mechanics of Venus, Mars and Mercury.  Notable is the faster orbital motion of Mercury (than Venus) as it swings into superior conjunction and the slower motion of dim Mars (with respect to the background star Regulus on the far right) as Earth overtakes it and Mars moves towards conjunction with the sun.  (No need to download the 250+ images generated; just use the buttons below the first image to play the sequence)!

54

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: August 30, 2019, 05:19:24 PM »

Hope you had a great night at Root River Park John and Josef!  I decided to stay home (good skies at my place too) and learn to use my setting circles on my old 8 in scope that I bring to outreach.  I got the dec circle OK but still struggling with the R.A. circle. (my clock drive doesn't work on this scope).  Also used the 10 inch to see M 30, M 72, M 73, M 27 (Dumbell), M 31, 32 and 110 (Andromeda), M 57 (Ring), M 56 and M  75 (many of those globular clusters.)

55

General Discussion / Re: Armchair Observations

« on: August 28, 2019, 12:34:25 PM »

Thanks Luka!  Had to post again as Mercury has now entered the fov of C3 SOHO's camera.

56

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: August 25, 2019, 07:00:48 PM »

The moon 2 days past first quarter on July 11th highlights the crater Copernicus (with its rays and secondary craters) and portions of the Apennine mountains.  Imaged with my Meade 10 inch SCT and Orion 5 MP camera.  Images stacked with Autostakker2 and Registax 6. (I had to learn to use these apps for surface videos before getting a reasonable stacked image!)

57

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: August 23, 2019, 07:13:59 PM »

Gear loaded, I'm heading to Root River Park.
Bob

58

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: August 23, 2019, 10:35:45 AM »

Hope the sky was clear and dark enough for you Rick at Root River park last night. 
I will go wherever the group is going tonight but cannot Saturday night.  Hope the clouds don't get in the way!
Bob

59

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: August 22, 2019, 02:54:55 PM »

Thanks Jeff.  I have a birthday in the cities to attend this weekend so may not be able to observe with you all ... but I'll see what I can do.
Also wanted to post this 'fix' for the Orion Paragon-Plus L-bracket mount:
After reading Dean's post above I was motivated to get a fix for my Orion Paragon-Plus binocular mount.  The main problem with the L-bracket that comes with the mount was a limitation on how low to the horizon you could point the attached large binocular (about 20-25 degrees above horizontal).  As the commercial machine shops in Rochester were not in the business of bending my L-bracket, I had to devise a fix of my own!  The L-bracket was wider than the metal pivoting block it was attached to causing the limitation.  As the bracket could be removed a simple solution presented itself. (see photos below).  Inserting a small block of wood and using longer machine screws would allow the bracket to pivot to near horizontal.  I cut out a one-half inch section of a hickory hammer handle ($3.49 at Menards) that was slightly less wide than the pivoting metal block and using longer machine screws (6MM X 30MM Metric Socket Head Cap Screw (2 @ .69 each) was able to make the fix.  I am now ready to tackle those binocular highlights Dean mentions in Sagittarius and Scorpio!
Bob

60

General Discussion / Re: Observing tonight?

« on: August 22, 2019, 01:02:39 AM »

Wow what a great night Dean! Where were you observing from? Scorpio and Sagittarius have such great binocular highlights but it looks like I'll have to bend my Orion L-bracket a bit so I can see some of those objects in the lower 20 degrees of our southern sky.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot was prominent tonight while the moons were widely spread out.  The image below shows 3 of the moons (from L to R Ganymede, Io and Europa).