Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

Ida came, and Ida went. The arrival of the out-of-season hurricane that had us Gulf Coast denizens so het-up for a few days was actually pretty anticlimactic. She did indeed pass right over good old Chaos Manor South, her eye making a beeline up Mobile Bay. Or would have had there been a real eye left. Ida sat offshore for several hours and ground herself down to a disorganized Tropical Storm before finally making landfall. There were some gale force wind gusts and a lot of rain, but mostly she was a tempest in a teapot. We didn’t even cancel classes at the University that Monday night, so I taught as per normal.

Or, as an alternate title, “Some Days You Eat the Bear; Some Days the Bear Eats You.” Mr. Bear didn’t get me Saturday night before last, but I did come home with a few claw marks on my posterior. I’d had high hopes for the weather, since we’d enjoyed a week of blue skies. Wouldn’t you know it? The more the Moon shrank, the angrier the weather gods became. The Weather Channel’s predictions went from “clear,” to “mostly clear,” to “partly cloudy,” to “mostly cloudy” over the course of just a few days. Mainly because there was a storm system slowly driftin’ in from Texas. But that wasn’t the only reason.

Apologies to Leroy Shield, whose wonderful little song by that name you should know if’n you don’t. This, muchachos, constitutes a short intermission in the current observing program, The Herschel II Project. Got out to the PSAS darksite this past Saturday evening, mostly for a pre-Chiefland shake down of the scope, my dear old NexStar 11, Big Bertha, who, due to weather and other factors ain’t been out of her case since last July. I had high hopes, but the weather didn't exactly cooperate. After hauling Bertha out to Tanner-Williams, I had about two hours before the EVIL CLOUDS pushed in, but I did get about ten - twelve Herschels, includin' everything in Cygnus. I still have to transcribe my notes on the objects I saw Saturday night, though, so that will be next week. What’s on my mind this Sunday mornin’? Hecate. Diana. Selene. Artemis. Luna. You know, the good old MOON.

I’m goin’ from dim Herschel galaxies to the dadgummed Moon in one fell swoop? Yep. They don’t call me the original astro-dilettante for nothing. And the Moon has a lot to recommend her. I suppose this one might be better titled “The Moon and Me,” but that don’t have as nice a ring, and I hope the story of my ongoing love affair with my silv’ry lady may inspire you to discover her charms as well.

I suspect you, like most of us, spent some time touring the Lunar landscape when you were a novice. But I also suspect you probably haven’t done much Moon watchin’ for a while. If not, you should. Our friendly neighborhood natural satellite has a lot to recommend her: she’s available for most of every month in some shape or fashion, she’s immune to light pollution, and she don’t require a big scope to show you a lot. You may even, like me, eventually decide that deep, deep, down it’s not really PGC lint balls you love. That you are, like your Old Uncle Rod, a lunatic, and haven’t outgrown the Moon afterall.

I’ve always loved Luna. She never had quite the allure for me Mars did when I was a youngun, but almost. Certainly I was spellbound by Destination Moon when it played down to the Roxy in its third or fourth run. It’s a lot like Conquest of Space. (You did round up a copy of that and Angry Red Planet and watch ‘em didn’t ya?) Mostly unknown actors, but with a real name behind ‘em, Robert Heinlein, on whose novel the film is based and who served as technical advisor and who may even have done a short cameo in the film. I’ll have to run down a DVD of the movie, but I’ve been told it’s The Man Himself doin’ the countdown in the early minutes of the film. Oh, the Ames Brothers didn’t really go to the Moon with our valiant crew.

As Apollo came on apace, the Moon was ever more in the consciousness of those of us who lived through the 60s. Other than Destination, what caught my attention was Men into Space, a short-lived series CBS ran, believe it or not, in primetime beginning in 1959. I probably saw it for the first time when they reran it on Saturday mornings in the early 1960s. Mama was not apt to let this little feller stay up much past 8, even to watch somethin’ I pleaded was EDUCATIONAL. I’ve never seen the show again, but I recall its episodes, which took us from a Moon landing to building a Lunar base, seemed awfully realistic. And maybe they were. The USAF Ballistic Missile Office helped out with the show, and many of the ship designs and much of the artwork were by Chesley Bonestell.

There were plenty of Moon books too. Starting with Heinlein, whose The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) became a big favorite of mine in the Palomar Junior days. Before Heinlein—and after—though, there was Patrick Moore. The world’s most famous living amateur astronomer, as those of you who, like me, hang on his every word know has always been a huge Lunatic. As he’ll tell you, the Moon is his passion, and she’s been prominent in most of his many books. I know I eagerly devoured 1953’s A Guide to the Moon when I ran across it in Kate Shepard Elementary’s library. How it got there, I haven’t a clue. I am pretty sure Mama, who was the school’s librarian, didn’t order it, as she was more interested in getting the word out about Little House on the Prairie at the time.

So, yeah, I did a lot of Moon watching till the end of the sixties. She was the one thing that lived up to my expectations in my puny Pal Junior and my even punier Tasco 3-inch Newtonian. As a matter o’ fact, until I was finally diverted by the deep sky in the early 70s, I looked at the Moon more than anything else. Beginning with my first telescope. I don’t mean my Tasco 3-inch, but the first scope I ever looked at anything in the sky with, the cobbled together 6-inch below.

This Thing was ATMed by a pal of The Old Man’s. I can’t quite remember if it was a ham buddy or a fellow engineer at the TV station where he worked, but I suspect the latter, since the telescope sported a “mount” made out of a cast off piece of a microphone boom. The mirror was a long focal length sphere (I’d guess in retrospect), an f/10 at least, maybe as much as f/12. It had not only been ground and polished by the OM’s bud, but had been silvered at home, and by the time my brother posed with it, shortly after it came to our house to stay, the primary was badly tarnished. By the way, the bro, who in the picture seems kinda engaged by the scope, never deigned to look through it as far as I remember. Go figger.

Despite the tarnish, the old scope with its single home-brew 30-mm (or so) eyepiece was quite capable of delivering a good image of the Moon. It looked just plain wonderful to naïve little me—when I finally got Luna in the field. Even back in the dark ages, we suffered the New Telescope Curse, even if that scope was a crude thing with a riveted together stovepipe for a tube, a plumbing parts focuser, and a screen door spring for a “slow motion control.” ‘Course, to me it wasn’t humble at all; it was on the almost-scary side of wonderful, and as soon as the skies cleared I was out to have a look at a near-full Moon hanging in the east. Thank god the mic boom stand still had its wheels; otherwise I’d never have been able to move the hulkin’ scope from carport to driveway.

The first hurdle was gettin’ at the eyepiece. I’m older than my brother, but still I needed that chair you see him perched on to position myself comfortably. Next difficulty was putting the Moon in the eyepiece. I’d never even touched a Real Telescope before, and I hadn’t imagined that would be a problem—you jus’ pointed the thing at the Moon and there it was, right? Ha! Since there was no finder, it took much repeated sighting along the tube accompanied by continual hopping on and off Mama’s castoff dinette set chair before I succeeded in getting the Moon in view.

When I finally did, though, MAN OH MAN. Once I figured out you could push the eyepiece in or pull it out to get a sharp image, anyway. At the scope’s long focal length, I couldn’t see all the Moon at once, but what I could see was flat out crazy. Yeah, I know, we tell the novices, “Don’t look at the Full Moon, there’s hardly any detail to see at a high Sun angle,” but I was seeing tons of detail. Seas, rays, rings that I suspected might even be the legendary CRATERS. I was just about speechless at the sight. And so were the nextdoor neighbor kids when they wandered by. Almost speechless. I remember the youngest of ‘em took one look and started bawlin’. We determined that it was his firm belief that Santa Claus lived on the Moon, and that our scopin’ out his digs might impel the fat man to pass us by come December the 25th. Then as now, I’ve been known to observe with some strange folks.

I don’t remember using the 6-inch much after that magical first light; it was too much of a pain to point at anything, and shortly after that first look at the Moon I took possession of my Tasco, which, if not as good optically, was one hell of a lot easier to aim. Once I had a scope that was really mine, I undertook a Survey of the Moon. Following Sir Patrick’s advice, I began to draw craters with abandon. How good were the sketches I did with the Tasco and with the Palomar Junior that followed her? I wish I knew. Sometime over the last 45 years, the earliest of my observing logs (mostly on steno pads) were lost—it’s tempting to blame the ex, but I really don’t know what went with them. I do remember how hard I tried to GET IT RIGHT when I was sketching, and you can only imagine how much I’d give to have one of those little notebooks again.

That was not the Whole Big Thing for me when it came to the Moon, though; that was MOON PICTURES. As I’ve recounted before, likely ad nauseum, almost as soon as I got my hands on the Tasco, I began trying to take astrophotos of the Moon with it. First with my silly little Argus box camera, and then, with the OM's help, with his marvelous Exacta. As I’ve said before, these pictures (that's one at the top), though not very good as we judge such things today, amazed my friends—and frankly anyone else who saw ‘em—in those simpler times. Even four decades later, I can’t help feeling a little pride in what I accomplished when I look at the few surviving prints. I believe I even took a top spot in a Junior High Science Fair with a project built around my Moon Pictures.

That was the high point for my Lunar imaging career for a while, though. By the beginning of the 1970s I had a good homebrew six inch (I thought so, anyhow) and the wheels to get me to darker observing locations. Naturally, my focus shifted to the Messier and the NGC beyond. Much as I hate to admit it, I also gotta say that by the end of Apollo I was, like most of the U.S. population, at least a little ODed on the Moon. The result was I didn’t do much more than take casual glances at Luna for 15 years.

I didn’t get back to Diana till I was forced to. When I moved back to Possum Swamp, I found myself suddenly bathed in light pollution. Real bad light pollution. I eventually learned to deal with that and continue to observe the deep sky, but while I was findin’ my way vis-à-vis urban observing, I just looked at the Moon. A lot. Not just when it was in its all-too-familiar before-first-quarter phases, either, but the less observed time after Full Moon. I could hardly believe the cool stuff I was seeing under differing lighting conditions as the terminator marched back across Hecate’s face. Even when I turned back to the Great Out There, I continued to look at the Moon, as I still do even now. Those months of intensive Moon watching showed me why I’d been so fascinated as a youngun—in spades.

I didn’t leave it at lookin’ neither. My reintroduction to the joys of Lunar observing coincided with my renewed interest in astrophotography. I got me a copy of Michael Covington’s Astrophotography for the Amateur, and set out to learn that frustrating art all over again, maybe the right way this time, beginning with the Moon. My new Moon Pictures weren’t done much differently from the old ones. I set up my 8-inch f/7 Coulter Dobsonian in the front yard of Mama’s house and snapped away in afocal fashion at the total Lunar eclipse of November 1993. I don’t know if it was the bigger scope that helped, but my images and the ones that followed were a lot better than those from the old days. My technique was the same simple one: I placed my camera, a Pentax K1000, on a tripod next to the scope, pointed the lens into a long focal length eyepiece and snapped away.

Over the next few years, I refined my technique, shooting prime focus and eyepiece projection with cameras mounted on the rear cell of my C8. I was particularly pleased with my nice orange-red pics from the eclipse of September of ’96. I still longed for the one thing that had always eluded me, though: close up, detailed shots of craters. When I was a sprout, I thought I could do that by shooting a wide-angle picture of the terminator and blowing up the craters with the enlarger in the darkroom. That yielded a Moon that resembled slightly lumpy mashed potatoes, as did my attempts at eyepiece projection imaging. Those I got with the C8 in the 1990s were better, but not that much better. Taking high magnification images of the Moon was not easy. Even fast films required relatively long exposures; the inevitable gust of wind or the bang of the SLR’s mirror-return ruined most of my shots.

I found the answer one afternoon when I was reviewing some vacation video tapes Dorothy and I took on our visit to the Pisgah Inn and began idly wondering if I could videotape the Moon with the 8mm camcorder. Shortly, I was in the backyard with my 12.5-inch Meade StarFinder Dob doin’ just that. The results were crazy good compared to the best closeups I’d been able to get with 35mm film. After a little experimenting, I got a video sequence of Copernicus that filled the screen and revealed a huge amount of detail—relatively speaking.

Which was cool to look at on TV, but how could I get stills? I happened to meet a guy at a local star party, Charles Genovese, who had the answer. He was doing some amazing video work on the Solar System in the mid 1990s. It doesn’t look like any of his web pages are still on the air, but he was a true video astronomy pioneer whose results were just killer. Hell, he had a video that actually showed the rille down the Alpine Valley, plain as day. For stills, he advised me to look into a little gadget called a “Snappy.” This was, he said, a frame grabber that plugged into your PC’s parallel port (bet you sprouts don’t know what that is) and which, he said, could produce amazingly good still images from video. Before long I was making Moon Pictures that, if not as good as Charles’ were, were still derned good. My video image of a Moon-Saturn occultation actually won an imaging contest. I won an astrophoto competition. Me.

From there it was video all the way for the Solar System for a while. Under the guidance of another video astronomy wizard, Jim Ferreira, me and and bunch of like-minded folks who were calling ourselves “astrovideographers” started a mailing list and began pushing back the frontiers of what amateur astronomers could image of the solar system. The Video-Astro story is one for another time, but one of the things we discovered as a group was the PC23C surveillance video camera. One of these sensitive little black and white imagers mounted on a C8 could deliver Lunar images way better than even what the camcorder could do. Especially when you processed and stacked many frames with a new program called Astrostack.

We were justly proud of our video efforts, and the Videoastro list continues to this day, but there is no denyin’ our efforts were eclipsed by those of a group pushing a different sort of imager, the webcams people had begun using for video conferencing with computers (and, less, uh, “business-oriented” online activities). I used a modified webcam, a SAC 7B, to finally capture that stinking rille down the Alpine Valley. It was clear as day, just like Dr. Genovese’s had been—well, if’n you held your mouth just right.

Being able to get this level of detail sure did kick my Luna Love up another notch. I was finally able to wander the Moon’s surface and take-in all the amazing sights I’d previously seen only in my mind’s eye with the aid or Mssrs. Heinlein and Clarke. Us webcamming Lunatics were so overjoyed with our results that in the early 2000s a bunch of us grouped together on Yahoo (natch) with the intention of producing a “Webcam Lunar Atlas.” That never quite got off the ground (you can see what we did accomplish here), but we had a lot of fun with it for a while. Unfortunately, my writing career was finally going somewhere, and I reluctantly dropped out of that worthy project.

I didn’t drop out of Moon watching, though. Not hardly. My re-infatuation with Selene impelled me to rejoin the ALPO and begin paying the rest of the Sun’s family the attention they so richly deserve. Mostly, though, I stuck with Luna. There was a lot of excitin’ stuff a-goin’ on. The webcam revolution was accompanied by a general renaissance in amateur interest in the Moon, and with that, new Moon books. Sir Patrick came out with Patrick Moore on the Moon, which, even more than his others, communicated the man’s enduring love of Luna. There were plenty more good books too, but it wasn’t just books where the Silvery Goddess was making her influence felt again. Sky and Telescope, for example, started a new Moon column done by Lunar guru Chuck Wood. If my understanding of the Moon has improved lately, it is largely thanks to him.

One thing I did wonder, though, “When will there be a Megastar for Moon watchers?” If you don’t know, Megastar was the first really deep deep sky charting program for PCs. Me and my fellow Lunatics dreamed of something that would do the same for us. We had to wait a while, but eventually someone listened, that someone being Patrick Chevalley of Cartes du Ciel fame. What he and Christian Legrand did was give us a program to take us very, very “deep” on the Moon.

In addition to a highly detailed high resolution zoomable map of Luna, the Pro edition of their Virtual Moon Atlas includes access to things I’d only dreamed of in the 1960s, like images from the renowned and apparently rare (I never saw a print copy) Consolidated Lunar Atlas. Hell, VMA will even send your go-to scope to craters and other Lunar features. If that ain’t finer than split frog hair, I don’t know what is. Wait, I do know what is: IT’S FREE. Yep, just like Cartes du Ciel, Virtual Moon Atlas is a labor of love and a gift to the amateur astronomy community. Do yourself a favor: go to the website and download it. While you are at it, send the boys an email THANK YOU.

With the maturing of the gosh-darned Internet, things have just got better and better for Lunatics. VMA is great, but there is lots more. Things that, like the Consolidated Lunar Atlas, I’d only fantasized about using. A quick Google will turn up not just the whole Consolidated Lunar Atlas, but The Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon, and The Lunar Aeronautical Charts (a fave of mine). And that’s still only the barest tip of the central peak. Do you like the Astronomy Picture of the Day? Well, hell, you oughta love The Lunar Photo of the Day by the aforementioned Mr. Chuck Wood. I could keep goin’; it’s just a wonderful time to be a Moon watcher, and I’m constantly amazed more of my fellow amateurs ain’t. Yep, in my opinion Lunar observing is undergoing a huge resurgence, but there are still plenty of our brothers and sisters who don’t realize it’s more fun to look at the Moon than at the boob tube on those nights off from galaxy chasin’.

My current Lunar program? Oh, it’s modest folks, very modest. I’m embarrassed to admit I can’t recall the last time I took a Moon Picture. And it’s been a lot longer since I’ve done a drawing of her wonders. I can’t even remember the last time I pointed a C8 at her, much less the C11 or a larger scope. But that don’t mean I’ve deserted my first love. She still is that, inconstant as I’ve sometimes been. Yeah, Lunar observing right now consists of hoppin’ outside with the StarBlast and giving the current phase a half hour once over once in a while. But still I admire—nay, worship—her serene and inscrutable countenance, and, like her timeless tides, my full attention to her beauty will come again.

What’s going down at the ol’ Manse this week? In support of my Herschel Crusade, I’ve put together a list in SkyTools 3 format of all the Herschels. Over two thousand DSOs, that is. You can download that at the SkyTools Yahoogroup and it will likely be up on the SkyTools website for download from inside the program afore long. Who do we have to thank for Unk’s current HERSCHEL MADNESS? The wonderful Miss Dorothy, of course. She came home one afternoon bearing a GREAT BIG (and old) book, The Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel she bought for me at a rare/antiquarian book sale. Ever since I began to read Sir Willie’s story in detail, I’ve had a growing yen to follow in his and Caroline’s footsteps.

As intimated up top, next week Unk pulls up stakes and heads for the storied Chiefland Star Party. It will be HERSCHELS, HERSCHELS, HERSCHELS when I get there. If the skies are good we’ll see how many aitches the NexStar 11 and Stellacam 2 can bring back. As for this evenin’, Friday as I hunt and peck this out, it’s Greekfest time. Much food and desert will be involved and undoubtedly many adult beverages as well. Good thing it’s only a couple of blocks away. If’n I ignore the condition of my skies, I start thinkin’ there really is somethin’ to this Urban Lifestyle.

OK…where was I? Oh, yeah. I’d just run through Sue French’s “Splashing around the Dolphin” out on the field at the 2009 Deep South Regional Star Gaze. Though, as is usually my wont, I gave each object its rightful share of eyepiece time, goin’ through Sue’s DSOs didn’t take all night, not hardly. Even for your Old Uncle, for whom “all nighter” is rapidly evolving into, “Well, I’ll hang in till two a.m., anyhow,” there were still plenty of hours of darkness to be filled. Believe me; I had no problem doing that.

Mostly by looking at objects from Steve O’Meara’s recent article in Astronomy Magazine I mentioned last time, “Ghost Hunt.” This is a good mix of mostly spectacular Messiers and NGCs, and there is further interest added by fanciful names, some his, some not, Mr. O has appended to these DSOs. If you are an Astronomy subscriber, go dig up November before you head to the club dark site next time; you’ll be glad you did. Not? Check out your local library. If you are a subscriber, you can view/print Steve’s list online here.

What did I do besides admire the pretty ghosts? Well, I chugged a couple of Monster Energy Drinks. As I’ve told y’all before, in moderation these are the best “observing accessory” I’ve discovered in ages. “In moderation” because if I drink even one too many, I begin to feel weird and jittery—moreso than normal, anyhow. That given, they do keep me going through the small hours. Past two a.m.? Not even The Monster can help. It ain’t just my advancing age, neither. In order to get to my engineering job on time, I have to get up at 4:30 in the cotton pickin’ morning. Four days a week. Week after week. I can still get adjusted to the nocturnal star party existence; it just takes me more than a day or three to slip back into the vampire lifestyle.

In addition to providing me an’ Old Betsy with some terrific sights, these Halloween ghosts also gave us a chance to try out my new 1.25-inch OIII filter. Naturally, I already had a 1.25 OIII, a Lumicon I bought back in the early 90s. But I didn’t like it much anymore. It was one of the old ones, one of the pinkish-tinted ones, and while it had done a good job for years, I wasn’t very satisfied with it of late. It seemed denser than it used to, and also seemed to provide less of a contrast boost. Can a line filter like the OIII degrade over the years? I expect one can, but, bein’ honest, I’d guess it’s probably more likely my eyes have gone south than the Lumicon.

I bought a Thousand Oaks 2-inch OIII from Gary Hand a couple of years back, and have been very pleased with it. This green-blue tinted filter does a bang up job on lots of nebulae. Unfortunately, unless I wanted to use the 8 and 13 Ethoses in 1.25-inch mode in an adapter, there was no way to use this fine filter with them. I preferred not to use a 1.25-inch adapter with these 1.25/2-inch format eyepieces, even if they would reach focus that way on Betsy, so I reckoned it was time to go OIII shoppin’.

Thank whatever gods there be that watch over equipment crazy amateur astronomers that our old Friend Rex rolled-in with his Astro Stuff store. I was soon perusing his wares. Turned out he did not have any Thousand Oaks filters, but he did have a 1.25-inch Celestron OIII. I thought that would be near about as good, since I’ve admired my friend Pat’s 2-inch Celestron OIII for years, and as far as I have been able to tell it is at least as good as my T.O. I ponied-up the reasonable amount Mr. Rex was asking, and soon had my very own Celestron filter. Well, it has the Celestron name on it, anyhow. Like many of their non-Chinese accessories, it was actually made by Baader.

How would she do? In the interest of finding out, I punched NGC 6888 into the Sky Commander Friday night and began pushin’ Betsy towards Cygnus. The Crescent Nebula is one of my all-time fave objects, and, in the right circumstances, it can be a downright showpiece. Which is not to say this arc of nebulosity, gas thrown off by a misbehavin’ Wolf-Rayet star, is not a challenge. Under less than optimal conditions it can be just that for a 12-inch. Even under good skies, I find it takes an OIII to give this dim loop much in the way of form and substance.

Despite the DSRSG’s very good, though damp, skies, I didn’t expect too much. Yes, with a decent OIII, the Crescent can show off, well, its crescent. Look like its pictures? Not even close. In images, including the short, unguided one here, taken with my C8 and Meade DSI, the interior begins to fill in with glowing gas. In longer (and better) shots, clumps and dark lanes begin to appear. In the very deepest exposures, the thing begins to look more like an oval than a crescent. All I expected and wanted was just a good look at the arc of dim light.

The Sky Commander indicated we was there, so in went the 13 Ethos—without a filter to begin. What did I see? Not much, muchachos, not much. After a little straining, I began to believe we were on the correct field. There were some very dim wisps there, but not much more than that, even with averted vision. For a minute I’d thought maybe the Sky Commander was hosed-up. That would have been a first, however, as this wonder-computer has literally never missed for me. “Let’s try the filter, then.”

It’s a damned good thing I don’t have a really big Dobsonian, one that requires you to climb a ladder to get at the eyepiece. If I’d a-had one o’ them monster scopes, I’d shortly have been picking myself up off the ground. To put it mildly, I was amazed at the difference the filter made. From “almost there,” NGC 6888 went to “bright and obvious.” But that was not the brass ring. The brass ring was that I soon began to see the things I thought were reserved for very large scopes or images. Almost immediately, it became obvious the area between the “horns” of the Crescent was not empty, but filled with a faint haze. Then I began to see mottled detail in that haze. I have never had as good a look at this object with Betsy—never. Was it a better OIII filter or the good skies or the fact that NGC 6888 was just past culmination that did the trick? Maybe the combination of the three.

I won’t say it was all down-hill from there, but that was the high point, I suppose. Nevertheless, I looked at mucho cool stuff as the hours slipped away. I found, for example, that the Celestron-Baader filter gave a splendid view of M17 as it plunged into the west. The Swan wasn’t just hanging in space, but floating on a huge sea of nebulosity. I didn’t just do nebulae, though; I looked at galaxies, too (without the OIII, natch), plenty of the little fellers spangled through Cetus and Sculptor and other dusty out-of-the-way corners.

What kept me going till two and after wasn’t the Monster Energy Drinks; it was, good, old M42. Long years ago, back when my buddy Pat was still attendin’ the DSRSG, we made a pact: “No going to bed before M42 is good and high.” In Mr. Pat’s absence, I’ve held to that, even if it ain’t always easy. It wasn’t easy on this night. Despite those caffeine—and who knows what else—laden energy drinks, taking plenty of breaks, and doing the other recommended actions (hydrated myself with water and pigged-out on Jack Link Teriyaki Steak Nuggets), I was draggin’ butt by one o’clock. I knew what awaited me in the eyepiece once the Great One was good and high, though, so on I pushed. The way the Great Nebula looked in the 28 Uwan when Orion was finally up enough probably deserves a whole blog entry of its own, but for now I’ll just say I looked and looked and looked and looked.

After half an hour of open-mouthed gazin’ at The Sword, there came the point when there was no denyin’ it: time to pull the Big Switch. My ego was somewhat soothed by the fact that most of my fellow Friday night observers had deserted the field even earlier than me. When I returned to the lodge, I was still pumped, and thought I’d watch a movie on the laptop. I got maybe half an hour or so into 2001: A Space Odyssey, not quite to the point where cave-ape Moonwatcher throws that dadgummed bone in the air, and found myself slipping into dreams. Dreams decorated with glowing M42s and M17s and NGC 6888s.

Next morning, though not early next morning, after gobbling down a breakfast that was thankfully not served till very late, I spent some time thinkin’ about what I might put on Saturday evening’s observing agenda. For a while, I’d had an idea that it might be time for Unk to tackle the Herschel II, the second list of Herschel objects, which is the Astronomical League’s follow-on to their famous Herschel 400 “Observing Club.”

What’s that? What’s a “Herschel”? As most of y’all know, Sir William Herschel, the justly famous amateur astronomer who discovered Uranus way back in the 18th century, was also a deep sky powerhouse. Using big self-made telescopes not much different from our Dobsonians, really, he was the first to see many of the objects that eventually found their way into the vaunted NGC catalog.

Despite “his” objects having been assimilated into the NGC, Herschel’s original observations remained easily available, and one of our deep sky pioneers of the last century, Father Lucian Kemble, became fascinated enough with ‘em to go through Herschel’s records and compile a “Herschel List” of the great man’s 2500 DSOs. But not many amateurs undertook to observe this list. Not only was it huge with some pretty difficult objects on parade, especially for the days of 4-inch f/15 refractors and 6-inch f/8 Newtonians, some of the 2500 were not there at all.

Nobody paid much attention to Kemble’s labors till the membership of Saint Augustine, Florida’s Ancient City Astronomy Club began castin’ about for something to “do” after the Messier, and were pointed at the Herschel List by Sky and Telescope's James Mullaney. When they checked out the massive thing, it became obvious why tickin’ off Herchels wasn’t popular: nobody would want to run through the list as it was.

The Herschel as compiled by Fr. Kemble was saddled by typos, duplications, non-existent objects, and objects with incorrect coordinates. Some of the problems were Herschel’s, some were Kemble’s, but all needed to be fixed. Once the ACAC folks were done, they found they were left with a list of 400 galaxies, clusters, and nebulae that would be visible in “reasonable” telescopes: 6-inches and up for the most part. The AL built the list into an Observing Club with certificates and pins and rules and yadda-yadda-yadda, The Herschel 400, and the rest, as they say, is amateur astronomy history.

As amateurs always do, though, we wanted more. As the sizes of our telescopes increased, the quality of our eyepieces improved, and the influence of high-tech aids like computer atlases and digital setting circles and go-to began to be felt, the Herschel 400 began to seem pretty dadgummed tame. Into the breach stepped the Rose City Astronomers of Portland, Oregon. This fine astronomy club took it upon themselves to cull another 400 objects from the H list. In due course, the AL was running a “Herschel II” Club.

What is the Herschel II like? There is no denying its objects are tougher than those in the first go-round. The original H has some fairly challenging DSOs, but really nothing that will make a C8 owner sweat. The Part 2? The Rose City folks advise you to think “10-inches” minimum, and given what I’ve seen thus far, that is probably not a bad idea. I would also guess, however, that somebody with some experience and some good skies could probably whip this thing with an 8—or even smaller scope—without much trouble. It’s no secret that, given good skies, the knowledge level of today’s amateurs and the quality of their equipment means conquering objects called “impossible for an 8-inch” ten years ago is easy even for Bubba down to the club.

Nevertheless, 12-inches is probably a good middle-of-the-road aperture choice for the Herschel II. At least if you don’t want to drive yourself completely bugs, or if your skies ain’t all they might be, or if you want the possibility of seein’ at least some of these DSOs as more than Cosmic Dust Bunnies. Requisite sky quality? Unless you’ve got a truly big gun, you’ll want to do most from the club dark site if you plan to observe visually. If your lookin’ is to be with a Mallincam or some such, the backyard may be comfortable and productive.

Rules? I ain’t much on rules. Which is maybe the reason I never sent-in to the AL for my Herschel 400 certificate despite having gone through The Whole Big Thing at least twice. The Messier was fun, but that was enough. “Following rules carefully” is not the way I like to play the amateur astronomy game. If you do want the AL’s handsome certificate and pin, you can find the do-bees and don’t-bees on their website. Me? I plan to observe the II how and when I feel like it.

To tell the truth, there are not too many rules associated with the Herschel II. In recognition of the difficulty of at least some of the objects, the powers that be have ruled that go-to and digital setting circles are OK for finding, and that CCDs and videocams and other imaging devices are OK for seeing. Me? I plan on a mix. Some I’ll just eyeball with my 12-inch Dob or my NexStar 11. Some I’ll video with my Stellacam II. Some will sit for more formal portraits with one of my CCD cameras.

By Sunset Saturday, the die was cast: Unk would attack the scary Herschel II. To do that, I’d need a list of the objects, of course. Something I did not find on the Astronomical League website. Apparently, they’d rather you buy a book containing the HII, Observe: the Herschel II, from the Rose City Astronomers, who still administer the Club. I’m sure it’s nice, and buyin’ it might be a good thing to do if’n you are after a certificate. I just wanted to look at the objects. If you feel the same, you can find the HII list in a couple of places online, including this beautiful website. I’m lucky since I have both SkyTools 3 and Deepsky on my astro-laptop’s hard drive. Both programs have readymade HII lists, either included in the basic installation or available for download.

So the plan was…the plan was…? Yeah, I’d need some kind of an at least vague and nebulous plan if I were to finish the list in a reasonable amount of time. How long is “reasonable”? I’m not setting a time limit on myself; all that would do is add stress and gum up the works. I’d like to finish in a year, by October 2010, but with the weather lately, who knows? While the first outing, below, was from the dark DSRSG, and the next will be from the Chiefland Star Party which is, if anything, darker (and blessed with low horizons), I’ll no doubt have to hit a lot of H IIs from the PSAS’s local dark site if I am to finish anytime soon. Objects I've already observed? I'll look at 'em again for The Project.

Equipment-wise, as above, I’ll likely mostly use the 12-inch Dobsonian and the Nexstar C11, but I may try my 8-inch New Wave Dob, too. Support will be provided by the abovementioned Skytools 3 and Deepsky. SkyTools will be my primary aid for charting and organizing and logging, but Deepsky, that other excellent observing planner, with its DVD of images from the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) and—very valuable—its database of observations by accomplished observers like Barbara Wilson, will backstop ST3. As usual, I’ll record my notes with my little Sony Pressman microcassette recorder and transcribe ‘em into SkyTools after the fact.

With all decided—nay, writ in stone in my informal way—it was time to hit the sky. Was I a little nervous about tackling these (in)famous objects? A little. As Angus Young says, It’s a Long Way to the Top if you Wanna Rock and Roll. But…NO PAIN, NO GAIN. And despite the rumored difficulty of some of the list members, I suspected the Ethos eyepieces I’d have available, and the Sky Commander DSCs, and 12-inches of super-duper coated primary mirror would make the list less of a nut to crack than the H400 was for me and my analog setting circles/50mm finder-equipped C8 back in The Day.

So, on to the H II. Again, don’t expect any hard and fast schedule here; I’ll observe the objects when I can. How will I attack the list, exactly? Likely I’ll do some hoppin’ around the sky on any given evening. I’ll try to stay with a constellation until all its DSOs are in the bag, but if that gets to be a pain due to sky placement, as Aquila did by bein’ up in Dobson’s Hole on the first outing, expect me to veer off in another direction.

OK, then, fasten them seatbelts, HERE WE GO! After giving Miss Dorothy her customary look at M13, I punched-in “NGC 7640” on the Sky Commanders and cruised over to the other side of the sky, to Andromeda. This is not an object you hear a whole lot about, and that’s a shame, since it is something of a prize and surely is a standout in the ranks of the H II:

Next up on the list was NGC 206, the huge star cloud in M31, but before moving on to that, I couldn’t resist taking a quick peep at the Blue Snowball planetary nebula, NGC 7662, which was nearby. Blue and beautiful and bright it was. OK, over to M31…

I figgered NGC 513 would be the first challenging object of the H II, given its listed magnitude of a cotton-pickin’ 13.4. Turned out that was not so, probably because this galaxy’s small size, .7’ x .3’, keeps the surface brightness up despite the forbidding mag value:

At first glance, this galaxy is just a fuzzball. Continuing to stare at it through the 13mm eyepiece, though, shows it to have a brighter center and to be elongated. Mostly visible with direct vision.

Continuing in Andromeda landed me on NGC 214. Given that images of this galaxy make it look like a smaller twin of M77 or M94 with a blazing Seyfert-like nucleus and medium tight spiral arms, I expected a lot. Unfortunately, the little thing could not quite deliver:

So much for Andromeda. Where to? Lookin’ up from the eyepiece showed Aquarius to be in a good spot. What’s there? There’s the spectacular M2, of course (and, yes, I popped over for a look see). There’s the Saturn Nebula as well, but mostly it is galaxy-galaxy-galaxy, and most of them are kinda dim. The first entry in Aquarius, NGC 7600, wasn’t so bad, though:

Pressing on, the next Aquarian, NGC 7171, which I figured would look better than NGC 7600 given its better magnitude of “only” 12.2. Its fairly large size, 2.8’ x 1.7’ minutes, does keep it relatively dim, if not challengingly dim:

Like the previous entry, NGC 7218 doesn’t have a scary magnitude, being about 12, but it’s also comparatively large at 2.5’ x 1.3’, and is on the dim if not overly difficult side. This is for sure not something most people would ever look at if it weren’t on an observing list.

I doubt NGC 7392 would be on anybody’s hit list, either. In its POSS plate, it looks very interesting, showing prominent barred spiral structure. In my 8mm Ethos? Not so much, though not completely devoid of interest.

Next to NGC 7640, NGC 7184 is probably the coolest Herschel II galaxy in Aquarius:

With NGC 7377, we are back to Aquarius’ cosmic lint balls.

And that was Aquarius, Jeezus Pleezus. It was a little easier than I’d expected, but by the time I finished, 11 p.m., I was ready for a break. Which consisted of the first Monster Energy Drink of the night and a handful of the aforementioned Jack Link Steak Nuggets. A quick visit to the little astronomer’s room, and I turned to Aquila’s NGC 6804 in a quest for More Better Gooder:

Nice planetary, though one that at first looks more like a dim galaxy than anything else. A bit of staring with the 8mm, though, and it takes on a more planetary-like appearance. It’s a large gray ball about a minute across that shows off a prominent central star.

As I mentioned earlier, y’all, I decamped from Aquila due to its near-overhead residence in Dobson’s Hole. Using a Dob at the zenith is almost as bad as cruisin’ with an equatorial at the North Celestial Pole. Cranin’ my neck around, I spied Perseus beginnin’ to ride high in the east, and scrolled down to his objects in SkyTools 3.

The first of which was an open cluster, NGC 1348, which I was sure I’d ne’er visited before. One look told me why:

Not all Herschel IIs are disappointin’, however; NGC 1491 sure was an exceptional exception:

Which was followed by the even cooler NGC 1624:

You don’t normally associate the prominent “winter constellations” with galaxies, but Perseus is loaded with ‘em, including NGC 1169:

NGC 1605, my next Perseus DSO was an open cluster, though not much of an open cluster:

Back to galaxies in Perseus with NGC 1161:

I generally like small open clusters. I’ll make an exception in the case of NGC 1193, though.

Can it get worse than that in the Herschel II? It can and it did with NGC 1582:

Nobody would call NGC 1175, a near 13th magnitude edge-on Sa island universe, “prominent,” but it wasn’t hard or bad, either.

NGC 1003 is another faintish near-edge-on Perseus Sa:

Some sources list the magnitude of NGC 1207 as as dim as 13.8, which is enough to scare li’l ol’ me for sure. The reality was not nearly as horrible as that:

I don’t care how dim it is supposed to be; it's a little big, 2.3’ x 1.7’, but it’s easy. Popped right out in the 13 Ethos. It’s even visible with direct vision, but is better with averted vision. Doin’ that makes it look slightly elongated.

NGC 1058 is both (relatively) large and (relatively) bright, magnitude 11.8 and 3’ x 2.8’:

Oh, for a break from dim galaxies and puny galactic clusters. NGC 1579 delivered that:

So much for Perseus. With Cepheus riding high, he seemed a natural for my next set of destinations.

Even more than Perseus, I don’t tend to think of King Cepheus as the home of galaxies. They are there, though, of course, including NGC 1184:

Being where he is in the sky, Cepheus is also possessed of plenty of open clusters, one of which is NGC 7762:

After giving NGC 7762 enough of a look—at least five minutes—to assure myself I’d seen everything it had to offer, I pulled away from the eyepiece and headed over to the EZ Up, intending to chug another Monster and take a short break. I sat down at the laptop first, to click up my next target. I was downright flabbergasted to see SkyTools showin’ the local time to be almost 2 in the a.m. I put down the Monster.

The fact that it was now early Sunday mornin’ dissuaded me from pressin’ on. All too soon, it would be time to pack up and head back to The Swamp. Yeah, I was on a roll, but Cepheus and the rest of the gang would still be around in a month’s time, when they’d be on display in the wonderful skies of the Chiefland Astronomy Village.

My score?

I’m mainly known for writing about equipment; my two books on Schmidt Cassegrains see to that. But I’ve also written one devoted to using the pretty toys we obsess about, 2006’s The Urban Astronomer’s Guide. Of course I love my Astro Stuff, and during the long and unrelievedly cloudy summer just past, a lot of my amateur astronomy enjoyment did come from—had to come from—talking about, writing about, and reading about gear, since I couldn’t actually use it much. With the coming of blessed fall, though, that’s changin’. The passing fronts are bringing clear skies in their wake, and I am going to take advantage of ‘em, you betcha.

Yeah, yeah...I know pards...after waitin' all week, you was wantin' and expectin' a little more than this. But this, I'm sorry to say, is it--for a few days, anyhow. Miss Dorothy and I just walked in the door from the 2009 Deep South Regional Star Gaze where we had a great time with old friends, won some cool prizes, and did some pedal-to-the-metal deep sky observin' until the wee-est of wee hours with our 12-inch Dob, Old Betsy. Said observing will no doubt be fodder for several entries here, including my long-promised new deep sky series. Maybe two series of articles on The Great Out There, who knows? When? I will try to have a real blog entry for y'all up at midweek, but if things at work are as hosed-up as I speck, don't look for it till Sunday, muchachos.

Hokay, I'm gonna grab them stacks of undergraduate papers that are cryin' out to be graded, do that, wash the ol' bod, and then get some well-deserved rest to the tune of a nice steak and a few whiskies. Till later this week, then, y'all...keep the bugs off yer glass and the Bears off yer--tail!