Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

But that’s next year. How about this year? How about now? Even in the sparse years, 2019 – 2020, for the little old blog from Possum Swamp, I have always managed to get the Christmas Eve edition out. And so it is this Christmas Eve in the strange and alien Year of our Lord 2021.

What exactly is going on at the New Manse here on the borders of the Great Possum Swamp this Yuletide? As you can imagine, it is a quiet Christmas Eve. Until the plague well and truly takes its last bow, no festive Christmas Eves like those of yore drinking Margaritas and eating fajitas at El Giro’s Mexican restaurant—though there is still an El Giro’s, which is barely two miles from Unk’s suburban digs. That will wait for next year (I hope).

What’s it like on this numinous day? Well, it don’t feel very Christmassy. Now, I don’t expect a white Christmas in the Swamp, but I do expect something with more of a Christmas feel than this. A glance at the weather station display in Unk’s radio shack shows it’s 73F outside and climbing. Whatev’. Unk will not let the cursed weather gods spoil his Christmas Eve.

You know what? In some ways, I’ve always preferred Christmas Eve to Christmas. There’s that wonderful sense of anticipation of wonders to come that maintains even in these latter days. And one of those wonders is one of your old Uncle’s astronomy traditions. To wit, my Christmas Eve viewing of that greatest of all ornaments, M42, The Great Orion Nebula.

So, what was up with that this Xmas Eve? In the days leading up to the glorious 24^th, Unk had been purty derned sanguine, “Hell, why not get the GM811 and C8 out into the back 40 and get started on the articles about the mount?” But in addition to temps in the 70s and rising humidity, the weather had brought clouds. Not in overwhelming numbers at first, mind you, but they were flowing in from the southwest. So, the Losmandy, C8, and laptop might be a bit much. But which scope wouldn’t be a bit much?

My beautiful little C90, "Stella." I’d been thinking I needed to get her out of her case after the long, weary spell she’s spent in there. And she’s about perfect for a humid, hazy night where the light pollution is amplified and I only want to look at bright stuff anyhow. Under those conditions, her 90mm of aperture and f/11 focal length can surprise.

Miss Stella's optics still look good all these long years down the line.

Many have been the permutations of Celestron's little (Gregory) Maksutov Cassegrain. In addition to the orange tube, there’ve been black-tube models, chrome-plated ones, rubber armored scopes, and the current dirt-cheap (f/14) Synta version. It’s been a spotting scope, it’s been on fork mounts, it’s been sold with GEMs. And most have been good little telescopes. The optics, including those of the current bargain-basement model, have always been good—though you often hear the opposite about the original orange-tube models.

There is a reason for that, campers, and it has nothing to do with the telescope’s actual optical quality, but with its focusing method. You see, the earlier C90s don’t focus by moving the mirror forward and back like SCTs or the current Chinese C90. They focus by moving the corrector and secondary forward and back. You twist the front part of the OTA to focus, not unlike a camera lens.

That works well, but you have to learn to exercise a light touch, or you get terrible shakes. Especially since the temptation is usually to under-mount this small but long focal-length scope. Those “bad optics” are usually due to owners not being able to attain sharp focus due to the shakes. Mount the girl on a sufficient mount and you will see how sharp C90s can be. My own orange tube is dead sharp with excellent optics.

Overkill? Not at Chaos Manor South it wasn't!

The original telescope used the old Japanese Standard .965” eyepieces. Since you won’t want to mess with those if you, like me, acquire one of the original C90s, you have to rectify that one of two ways:  With an adapter called an “LAR,” a Large Adapter Ring, or with a hybrid .965” – 1.25” diagonal. I have an LAR and can even use 2-inch diagonals with the li’l C90, but most of the time there’s no reason to do that. My (Scopestuff.com) hybrid diagonal is just fine.

So, I grabbed the C90 case out of the sunroom closet where the astrostuff (sorry Rex) lives. And also, my SkyWatcher AZ-4 altazimuth mount, which is perfect for the little gal. However, to mount my spotter-heritage C90, which sports only a ¼-20 tripod block, on the AZ-4 I’d need a Vixen dovetail on the scope. I have one from Orion that has an integral 1.25-inch bolt for easy mounting to the OTA. But nowhere could it be found. I know I have it still—I saw it not long ago—but where?

While, as my loyal readers know, I’ve divested myself of a lot of unused astrostuff over the last six years, I still have a lot. Including a heavy-duty William Optics Vixen dovetail with a captive 1/4 20tpi bolt. Way overkill for a C90, but it would work fine. Slapped that on the girl, mounted her on the AZ-4, and out to the backyard Stella went to wait for darkness and for Orion, who, according to Stellarium, would be high enough for a look by 8:00pm.

There was no denying that by 2pm the scent of skunk was in the air. Clouds weren’t just flowing in; they were pouring in with the sky almost totally overcast. I didn’t stress out. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been cheated out of my M42 on Christmas Eve. But the Clear Sky Charts was still predicting mostly clear.  Anyhow, if there weren’t even sucker holes by your old Uncle’s (increasingly early) bedtime, I’d just bring Miss Stella back inside, the work of maybe 5-minutes, one of the prime attractions of the little critter.

So, Unk settled in with a bottle of sarsaparilla to watch television with the cats and see what would happen. I peeped out at the sky every once in a while. By 6pm, it was looking a small amount better, and I actually got a look at Jupiter in a sucker hole. Naturally, the seeing was dreadful, but Stella had no trouble showing the equatorial banding on and four Galilean moons nicely spread out on each side of Jove. Then the clouds cam again, and back inside I went. 

Finally, it was 20 hours local. It was time. Best look I have ever had at M42? No, of course not--the drifting gangs of clouds saw to that. But it was there. My little telescope was showing the wonder to me, just as my Palomar Junior had showed it to me many, many long Christmas Eves ago. The clouds came, and the clouds went and it was enough. 

What more is to be said? Have a wonderful Christmas everybody. These are tough times, but steady as she goes. I'll be back here again, soon. I promise!

Nota Bene:  Want some Christmas Eve Cheer in the old Chaos Manor South Tradition? This here is one of my favorites.

Nota Bene 2:  I appreciate all your kind comments. Unfortunately, the university email system pretty much prevents me from replying to them. Feel free to email Unk direct, however.   

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 8:16 PM 2 comments

Your broken-down old Uncle had also been experiencing some health issues that made him reluctant to hit the backyard. You know, this “getting old” stuff is for the birds. Finally, just as clear weather came and Unk began to feel more like his old self, a third shot of Moderna had him laid pretty low for a couple of days.

Thankfully, all that is now past, and I am indeed close to being my old self again for good or ill. In fact, this past week I felt Good Enough to tackle my number one astronomy priority, checking out my faithful Celestron Advanced VX GEM mount. If you’re a faithful reader of the Little Old Blog from Possum Swamp, you know my AVX took a bath some months ago. I’d left the mount outside under a Telegizmos cover. Said cover was beginning to show some wear five years down the line, but it had not had a huge amount of use, and I thought it would be OK.

That’s what I get for thinking. I noted some gathering clouds as I covered scope and mount following my backyard observing run, but it didn’t look like seriously bad weather was on the way. Unk was soon snoozing peacefully and was not fully awakened by the sound of heavy rain and thunder. Oh, I came somewhat to my senses, but thought, “The scope will be fine under that cover,” turned over, and went back to sleep. The next morning, I found that dadgummed Telegizmos cover had leaked and mount and scope were truly drenched.

What to do? I first addressed the C8, Emma Peel, my Edge 800 SCT who’d been riding on the mount. There was a little water in the tube. But as you know, your ol’ Unk is nothing if not experienced in pulling SCT correctors. In just a few, the scope was dry and snug again in her case. The mount? That was a different story. It looked wet enough that I thought there was likely some water intrusion. Removing the plastic cover of her electronics enclosure, I did note some dampness. Rut-roh Raggy…it doesn’t take much to cause problems.

What I did was dry the boards off with gentle heat from my heat gun, and leave the mount head open in the air-conditioned sunroom of the New Manse. For several days. I then had another look. Didn’t notice any signs of corrosion, soo….  I applied power and the AVX appeared to function normally for an indoor “fake” alignment. However, nothing would tell the tale like a long evening under the stars. And there things rested for a wearyingly long time.

Finally, just the other day, the Clear Sky Charts and other weather resources indicated I might get some clear—if cold—weather following a front passage. Maybe one night. I was determined to take advantage of that, and despite some high haze I got the mount into the good old backyard.  In the interest of keeping things simple, I left the StarSense camera and hand control in their box and just plugged in the good, old NexStar+ HC. It had been so long since I’d done a non-StarSense alignment, I wondered if I’d still remember how to do one.

Which telescope went on the mount? My SkyWatcher 120mm APO. It had been way too long since I’d used this pretty telescope and was anxious to point her—Hermione Granger is her name—at Jupiter before it was too late. It was pretty clear seeing wouldn’t be too hot, not hardly, but I wanted a look at Jupe anyhow.

OK, power on…the NexStar display came to life with only a slight delay despite the cold weather (it was in the fricking 40s, y’all). I was gratified to see the mount's real time clock was only off a few minutes despite it having been months and months since I replaced the little internal battery and not having used the AVX frequently. Not at all. Hokay, let’s get aligned.

By “aligned,” I mean the Autostar 2+4 alignment. I planned on nothing more than some casual looking, and, so, my polar alignment consisted of merely eyeballing Polaris through the mount’s hollow polar bore. One of the great things about the Celestron NexStar goto system is that it is quite immune to goto errors caused by polar alignment.

It turned out I did remember how to do an old-fashioned alignment.  Got it started and the HC requested Vega, which was pretty far off center, but still in the finder. Centered it up in the eyepiece, remembering—shazam! —to do final centering with the up and right keys only. Altair next. That sparkler lined up, the NexStar+ axed if I wanted to add calibration stars “Sure, why not?” The first, Fomalhaut, was behind a tree, so I picked another. Calibration star three was near-centered in the eyepiece of the main scope when the mount stopped, but I did one more anyway…well…just because I could.

The resulting alignment? It was a good one. For a while, anyway. Anything I requested was in the center of a 12mm eyepiece. Heck our first target, Jupiter was centered in a 7mm when the slew stopped. And that’s the way it was until I decided to fetch my observing chair, and in the course of placing it at the scope bumped the tripod, but good. Henceforth, objects were toward the edge of the 12mm, but always in view. And…that’s just the way it goes on an Uncle Rod observing run, as you surely know if you’ve been reading here long.

Next up? If I couldn’t take a picture of the Great Globular, maybe I could get a parting glimpse of him as he plunged into the west. By this time, M13 was maybe 15-degrees above the horizon. Alas, when the slew stopped and I inserted the 13mm Ethos I saw exactly nuttin-honey.

I wasn’t about to give up. I suspected the problem was the focus difference between the 13 and 7mm eyepieces. I should have focused the 13mm before I left Jupiter. Down here in the horizon muck, no bloated stars were visible in the field to use for focusing. So, off I went to Vega to focus. There I sharpened things up. Did I note the utter lack of false color displayed by the SkyWatcher APO? Nope. After this long, I just take it for granted. Vega was a pure, icy blue sapphire.

Back to M13. I spotted the cluster the moment the slew stopped. Not bad, really. Dim, sure, but grainy and wanting to show a little resolution. Would more magnification have helped resolve more stars? Perhaps, but the cluster was dim as it was. Pouring on more aperture would have helped, but I wasn’t about to lug out the 10-inch Dobsonian, Zelda. The SCT? My observation is there’s not a huge difference in visual images presented by the 8-inch SCT and 5-inch APO, not enough to justify me changing OTAs, anyhow.

What next? How about M57? OK. Off to Lyra we went. The Ring was just that, a perfect little donut displaying plenty of contrast. Since the constellation was riding high, I thought we might essay the somewhat dim globular cluster M56. It was actually pretty good, looking much like the horizon-bound M13. My observation over the years has been it takes about 10-inches of aperture to make this somewhat neglected glob look good. And 12-inches is better. My long-gone old friend, my 12-inch Dobsonian Old Betsy, could make this seemingly nondescript object into a freaking showpiece.

The next target, M76, the Little Dumbbell is thought by some to be “difficult.” Not so. I once viewed this little sprite with my old 60mm ETX from deep in the light polluted suburbs, at my old observing site at the public schools’ Environmental Studies Center. The secret is an OIII filter. But it has to be the right OIII filter. I walked into the sunroom and fished a little box labeled "OIII" out of my accessory box. Onto the 12mm it went--with some difficulty. I was nonplussed that for some reason it didn’t want to thread onto the eyepiece properly. With the filter finally in place, still no M76 did I see. What the—?

My red flashlight revealed the problem. On the edge of the filter-holder was inscribed “Lumicon.” When I bought this one in 1995, I thought it was the bee’s knees. But either it has somehow degraded over the years (possible, I guess), or I just know more about filters 25 plus years down the road. At any rate, this old thing (one of the pink-hued Lumicons) doesn’t work very well, and the filter threads on it were never quite right. In I went and retrieved my Celestron (Baader) 1.25-inch OIII. Ahhh…there it was. Not only was the mini-Dumbbell visible, it even showed off its twin-lobed shape.

After that? Hermione and I hopped around the sky, me occasionally looking at SkySafari on the iPhone for inspiration. In no particular order…

M103. This oft-overlooked small (6’) but brilliant galactic cluster was just beautiful.

M31 and company. M31 looked maybe a bit better than it usually does from the suburbs. M32 was a brilliant little thing, naturally. M110 was something of a surprise. It was easily visible despite sometimes being a trial from compromised skies.

M27, the (big) Dumbbell was attractive, especially with the OIII. Unfortunately, haze was developing in Cygnus area, and I had a hard time seeing nearby M71, the loose little globular star cluster once thought not to be a glob.

NGC 457, The E.T. Cluster. Does this little guy ever look bad? Well I remember showing him off to Miss Dorothy from the urban backyard of old Chaos Manor South. He looked good there, and he looked great here, a little stick figure awash in a sea of stars.

M15, The Horse's Nose Globular. Haze was creeping into the Pegasus area now, so I didn't expect much from this little glob. Surprise! In addition to M15's preternaturally bright core, quite a few teeny-tiny stars were on display at the edges of this wonder.

Alas, before long, old Unk had reached his infamous “I have had enough” stage. Those of you who know me or who’ve been aboard this blog for long know that happens once my feet get cold. When they do it is time to throw the big switch and cover the scope. Which I did. Said cover being a new one, which I hope proves to be better than the lastun.

As for the mount, the Advanced VX, I was satisfied all is well with it. Not a single hiccup from power up to power down. Which is a very good thing. I need a mount in this weight/payload class, and with anything that comes from China—as the AVX and her cousins do—being nigh impossible to get these days, I certainly wouldn’t want to go mount-shopping right now.

Alrighty then. See y’all next time. Which will surely be by Christmas Eve for our traditional blog post. But I do hope “sooner.”

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 10:27 AM 6 comments

Where it all began...

I did get the Advanced VX mount out one evening long enough to test a new astronomy program—which will be the subject of an upcoming Sky & Telescope Test Report. But only long enough to do that. As you may recall, my AVX took a bath, literally, recently due to a leaky scope cover. During the brief period before a fresh batch of clouds blew in, the AVX seemed OK, but I am not willing to give the mount a clean bill of health until I can spend a few hours under the stars with it.

Anyhoo, like last time, I didn’t want to let a month go by without a blog. So, here are my reminiscences on the vaunted Herschel Project.

Act I:  The Dipping of the Toe…

I was thinking about the ‘Project the other day. Maybe because Son of the Lockdown has me at home again without a whole lot to do. “What in tarnation is Unk talking about this am? Too much Yell Saturday night, maybe?”

What I’m talking about, Skeezix, is The Herschel Project, the observing project of a lifetime, of my lifetime anyhow. Most of us conceive big observing programs at some point in our astronomy careers, but most of those fall by the wayside long before they are finished. Mine didn’t. Maybe because it had such a clear goal and maybe because the equipment I was using at the time was so well suited to accomplishing that goal. Maybe an even larger reason was two books I’d read.

Anyhow, set the WABAC machine for an October Night in 2009. Your Uncle was out on the observing field of the old Deep South Regional Star Gaze in the days when it was held at the Feliciana Retreat Center in the backwoods of Louisiana. What I was doing was wondering what the heck I was gonna look at.

It had been a good night with my 12-inch Dobsonian, Old Betsy. I’d seen more than a few deep sky wonders, some pedestrian, some not so much. One in the latter category was the Crescent Nebula. That night it was a spectacle, with the center of the crescent beginning to fill in with textured haze in my 12mm Nagler 2. But suddenly, just after midnight, my observing list was done. There weren’t enough objects on it to see me through two nights of a star party much less three. I reckon I hadn’t been sanguine enough about what Betsy could accomplish under dark skies on a superior evening.

After a look at M42, I essayed a few easy showpieces, covered Bets, and headed back to my little motel room in the Retreat Center’s Lodge where I ruminated on the What to Look At business. I spent some time wondering what that might be to the accompaniment of a little Rebel Yell and a DVD of 2001:  A Space Odyssey. By the time Moonwatcher had thrown his bone into the air, I thought maybe, just maybe, I had a glimmer of an idea.

I was nervous as sunset Saturday came in; I’ll admit. I considered the Herschel II a difficult, daunting, and even scary list. Maybe that was because I hadn’t taken a really good look at the details of the list's targets. Most of its dimmest DSOs are small and thus not much of a challenge for an 8-inch telescope under good skies. So, I was a little skeered as I punched the first object ID into Betsy’s Sky Commander digital setting circle computer.

The Results of what I was now calling “The Herschel II Project”? Between sunset and 2 am on Saturday evening at Deep South, I logged 26 Herschel IIs. And I wasn’t trying to move particularly fast.  Maybe the H2 wasn’t as hard as I thought?

Act II:  The Big Enchilada with Julie, Julia, Bill, and Lina

That idea was bolstered by my object haul on my next dark sky Herschel observing run. I realized if I were to finish in a year, I’d have to get on the stick given our usual weather in the southland. That in mind, I packed up my Toyota with a ton of astro-gear including my Stellacam-equipped NexStar 11 GPS and headed south for the Chiefland Astronomy Village despite the fact we were dealing with the lingering effects of (yes) Hurricane Ida.

Out on the Billy Dodd Observing Field, I discovered the true power of a C11 and a deep sky video camera. The old Stellacam, which had a maximum exposure of 12-seconds, was purty humble, but man did it pull in Herschel IIs. They fell to the C11 like autumn leaves before the wild hurricane fly. The grand total after my second big expedition?  Over 100 more objects:  159 down, 241 to go.

The former came to me thanks to the wonderful Miss Dorothy. One day there was a rare book sale at the university where she was a Department Chair. One of the volumes on sale was that big, fat Scientific Papers. She bought it for me, lugged it home, and I was soon immersed in reading the words of The Man himself and learning more about him and his sister and fellow observer, Caroline. That led to me devouring biography after biography of the pair and becoming even more interested in (or maybe obsessed with) both Herschel and his deep sky objects.

The latter was a book that brought its author deserved if brief fame. It was the adaptation of Julie Powell’s The Julie-Julia Project blog articles wherein she cooked all Julia Child’s recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. That’s just the jumping off spot for a little tour de force of a book that showed everybody what one of these new-fangled blogs could be when coupled to a big project and written with humor and heart.

Unk was smart enough to put two and two together, a big project and a blog, and thus was born “The Herschel Project,” aka “The Herschel 2500,” aka “The Whole Big Thing,” aka “The Big Enchilada.” I would observe all the Herschels, not just the H2, all of them. Which, after eliminating the non-existent and duplicate objects left me with 2500 targets, some of which were considerably dimmer and more obscure than those in the Herschel II. The details? As I wrote in the blog one Sunday morning:

The perceptive (or nitpicky) amongst y’all may have noticed something different from the last Herschel blog. The title is no longer “The Herschel II Project,” but just “The Herschel Project.” What does that mean? Well, I’ll tell ya: the more I’ve researched ol’ Willie and the more of his objects I’ve seen, the more I’m inclined to go past the Herschel I and the Herschel II and tackle The Whole Big Thing, the 2500 objects (give or take) that constitute the entire Herschel List, the whole schmeer, that is.

That might seem like the project of [many] years, but with modern technology and with a little luck, I don’t believe it will be. Based on the slew, and I do mean slew, of Herschels I captured down in Chiefland this past weekend and which I’ll tell you about next week, the Big Project seems more and more doable. Not only did I do bunches of Herschel IIs, I did Big Bunches from the parent list, the Big Enchilada, finishing all the multitudinous galaxies in Aquarius and most of ‘em in Cetus. So, I am on the verge of committing myself to going for the gold.

And commit myself I did. I wasn’t about to be pinned down regarding time limits, but I secretly hoped to be done in about two years, by sometime late in 2012, maybe.

It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, of course. I missed my self-imposed deadline for completing the Herschel II by 6-months, not wrapping it up until April 2011. For months, I was down to a mere handful of HII spring galaxies that always seemed too low or behind a cloud or a tree. I finally completed the Herschel II Project down at Chiefland and heaved a sigh of relief. But not too much relief. I still had an almost overwhelming number of Herschel Big Enchilada Objects to go.

But that number soon wasn’t so daunting. Trip after trip Down Chiefland Way, doing 100 or more objects every time, soon whittled the big list down. So did getting into the blessed zone. I developed a routine that served me well.

The night before a Big Enchilada Trip, I’d load up Miss Van Pelt, the 4Runner, with plenty of gear and a telescope appropriate for the conditions I’d face. That was usually the C11, but if things looked iffy I might drop down to the C8. I’d invariably bring the Stellacam (or, as the project rolled on, the color Mallincam Xtreme), since I soon learned video would be key to allowing me to complete all those objects in just two years.

When we rolled into Chiefland, I’d check into the old Holiday Inn Express. I found being able to get a some rest in comfort following a long night on the field allowed me to be ready to face the stars with a will on the next evening.

Thence, back to town for a stop at the Walmart. Therein, I’d stock up on snacks for the observing field—being able to take a break, drink some water, and half a bite to eat helped me pull some really long runs. In those days, I wasn’t much of a health food fan, invariably choosing Jack Link Sasquatch Big Sticks. Another big help on those late/early runs? Monster Energy Drinks. After WallyWorld, it was supper, usually at the Taco Bell next door to the motel.

Finally, it was time to hit the Herschels. My final and most effective lineup of gear included, in addition to the telescope and Mallincam, a little DVD player I used as a monitor, Orion’s digital DVR, and a Laptop connected to the scope running Greg Crinklaw’s SkyTools 3 (the software of the Herschel Project) and NexRemote.

My procedure was simple. Click on an object in ST3, send the scope there with the program’s Real-Time module. Center it up in the field of the camera if necessary using a Wireless Wingman gamepad. Record 30-seconds of video and an audio commentary on the object. Repeat as often as the sky, available objects, and your old uncle’s stamina held out. When I could no longer hold out, back to the motel for a little Yell, some silly TV like Ghost Adventures or UFO Hunters, and some sleep in an airconditioned/heated room.

Following this simple, rote routine allowed me to observe with maximum efficiency. Still, I was surprised how efficient I was. I completed the Big Enchilada, The Herschel 2500 Project, on a dark run in Chiefland in July of 2012, months sooner than I dared hope when I got the crazy idea to observe over two thousand faint deep sky wonders.

Act III:  August and Everything After (the Herschel Project).

It’s hard to let go. And at first, I didn’t. I just kept observing Herschels. I told myself there were reasons for that. For one thing, I had all along thought the Herschel Project might form the basis of a book. I wanted better images of the Herschels than those I’d captured with the Stellacam, so it only made sense to go back and re-image many of them with the Mallincam Xtreme. I also thought I’d want some sketches of objects to show that while the project was mostly done with video, I’d done a fair amount of visual observing too. I spent a couple of memorable nights on the CAV field observing the old fashioned way—with eye and telescope.

So it went for quite some time, beginning in 2013. That year was notable since it was when I retired—in the spring. My first Herschel run after that was a memorable one. I headed for the Feliciana Retreat Center, the place the Herschel Project was born, and the Deep South Regional Star Gaze Spring Scrimmage (the smaller spring event I’d always had to miss because of work).

I had a new telescope with me, my retirement gift to myself, a Celestron Edge 800 SCT (along with an Advanced VX mount to replace my old CG5). What do I remember most about that expedition in addition to nearly being the Lone Astronomer of Feliciana (see this)? How wonderful it was to get up Sunday morning and realize I didn’t have to be in a hurry.

I could leave anytime I wanted and get home at any time I wanted—no work on Monday morning. That home, by the way, would soon not be the legendary Chaos Manor South. Lots changed following the end of the H-Project including where Dorothy and I lived. We decided downsizing made sense and lit out for the suburbs.

And so, it went for the next couple of years, with Unk grudgingly hanging onto the Herschels. Oh, I tried a couple of other observing projects, but none lit my fire like the Herschel Project had. I was beginning to believe lightning only strikes once.

How about the book? I began assembling it much the way Miss Powell assembled her blog into one. But I only worked on it for a little while. Many things were changing with me in addition to the above, and I found my heart just wasn’t in it. Then, I had the second edition of Choosing and Using a New CAT to get out.  And a new deep sky observing book to write…and The Herschel Project Book just kept receding farther into the background—where it remains to this very day, nine years after the last object was in the can.

Eventually, I stopped looking for another big “Herschel Project.” If one comes to me, so be it. But, as above, I have decided The Big Enchilada really was the observing experience of a lifetime. That's OK. Even if I didn’t have all those old blog articles, and videos, and photographs, The Herschel Project would remain green in my memory where it shall remain to the end of my days.

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 3:53 PM 0 comments

Plenty of clouds down Chiefland way...

I haven’t been able to keep the blog on a monthly basis. Heck, I haven’t been able to keep it on a bimonthly schedule. When I can’t/won’t get out with a scope thanks to clouds, what am I gonna write about? Oh, I could go in for nostalgia, but there’ve been a bunch of posts of that sort over the fifteen years the blog has been around (yes), and that well is almost dry, muchachos.

I know it’s a cliché, but the dadgummed weather is just crazy-cloudy these days. A decade of Unk’s impressions doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the world of climate science, I know, but my impression is things are worse clear sky-wise. As I’ve said before, I noticed a change in my part of the country, the deep south, beginning nearly a decade ago, around 2012.

In those days, I was still loading up the truck, Miss Van Pelt, with a ton of astro-gear and heading south to the Chiefland Astronomy Village down in Florida at the drop of a metaphorical hat. I maybe didn’t get down there every dark of the Moon, but I got down there plenty, whether to pursue the Herschel Project, or just to take a picture of M13 from a dark sky, or play around with some new gear.

I’d usually do three days, and you know what? Even at the height of those southern summers I’d usually get two clear nights and sometimes three. But, then, about, yeah, 2012, I noticed the summer weather seemed different. I began to spend a couple of nights of a three-night run in the cotton-picking Chiefland Days Inn instead of on the observing field. And then there began to be complete skunkings. To the point where I grew reluctant to drive six freaking hours to sit in a déclassé motel room.

A rainy night in...Florida.

And it has now got to the point where (to me) the weather is more than noticeably worse year-round; not just in the summer. To include increasingly troublesome hurricane seasons  that stretch well into the fall.   And the weather ain’t just worse way down in Florida, but here along the northern Gulf Coast and throughout much of the country from what I hear. I maintain, again without scientific evidence, that something has changed with the weather and not for the good.

I’ll also admit I’m less hardcore than once I was. To be honest, I have trouble convincing myself to brave the clouds and the bugs and the haze and the heat to see a little something from suburban skies. I know I’ve missed some cool views that way, but there it is. Forty lashes with a wet noodle for Unk, and I promise to get out into the backyard more frequently henceforth. If it ever clears up and Gulf storms stay away.

Rather than let another month go by blogless, I thought you, my (overly) loyal and kind readers, might enjoy a little something…just a few bullets, really, about what's been going on around here (I almost said “around Chaos Manor South,” but those days are gone forever).

·       I had the pleasure of reviewing Phyllis Lang’s latest edition of Deep Sky Planner (Version 8, if you can believe that). You can read all about it in my Test Report in the upcoming issue of Sky & Telescope, but I can tell you it’s a goodun. 

·        Don’t forget to check your scope covers before you use them. I had a Telegizmos cover I bought back around 2016. While it wasn’t their “365” model, it was a good one, well made I thought. Six years is six years, though, and it did get a fair amount of use in my backyard. It’s so nice to be able to leave a scope set up under a cover for a few days. Almost as good as an observatory (which I have no interest in building at this juncture in my life). I should have paid more attention to it, though. The cover was looking a little tattered…but so what? The “so what” is we got a right good rainstorm in the early hours one morning and the cover leaked. Badly. 

There was some water intrusion into the tube of my SCT, Mrs. Emma Peel. That was not a huge problem to fix, however, since I’d become rather experienced in disassembling the Celestron (I’m still mad at them). However, what was even more drenched with water was my Advanced VX mount head. Rut-roh, Raggy. 

·       I love the AVX. It has never failed me for anything I’ve wanted to do with it. Heck, I’ve even gotten good guided astrophotos with it and the SCT at f/7. I’d hate to have to think about replacing it. I opened up the mount, dried it out, and let it sit in a low humidity environment disassembled for some days. Back together, I did a fake alignment indoors and the mount seemed fine. The only true test is under the stars, of course, and I have not been able to do that yet.  Fingers and toes crossed. 

·       If I have to replace the mount, what would I replace it with? Maybe not an AVX. You never know the truth of what you read on the consarned Internet, but it seems like not everybody gets a VX as good as mine. I’d probably replace it with… I dunno… An HEQ-5? iOptron’s new lightweight mount, the GEM 28? Search me and hope I don’t have to find out. 

·       What else…what else? Some folks get the impression I’m now telescope poor. Yes, I did sell off a lotta stuff, the larger instruments (good thing I did given my current condition), and also some of the less used astro-junk. But I’ve still got… 

66mm William Optics SD patriot refractor.

80mm WO fluorite APO.

80mm SkyWatcher f/11 achromat.

90mm Orange Tube Celestron C90.          

100mm f/5.6 Explore Scientific achromat.

100mm Celestron f/10 achromat.

120mm SkyWatcher f/7 ED APO.

125mm ETX 125 (the storied Charity Hope Valentine).

150mm Zhumell f/8 achromat.

200mm Edge SCT, Mrs. Peel.

250mm Zhumell f/5 Dobsonian, Zelda, who is now my Big Gun. 

And I still have a couple of boxes of eyepieces, three mounts (the AVX, a SkyWatcher AZ-4, and my Losmandy GM811G). So, don’t weep for me, AstroBloggers. That I got rid of so much and still have so much is a sign  I let my astro-buying get a little out of hand for a “while.” I’m good now and feel good equipment wise. 

·      What gets used the most? That’s easy, the 80mm APO, the SCT, and the 120mm APO. That’s for “serious” astronomy. What do I mostly use for a quick look at something and to keep my proverbial hand in? The 80mm f/11 SkyWatcher on the AZ-4 alt-azimuth mount. 

·      Do I at least think about new stuff? Not much. I don’t need more eyepieces, I’ve clearly got all the scopes I can use, and the three mounts are more than good enough. Assuming the Advanced VX still works. If it doesn’t? I need something in a similar weight class. As above, in the event, I’m thinking about an HEQ-5. I wouldn’t mind going back to EQMOD for scope control. I’ve also, yes, considered the iOptron GEM 28. Its weight and payload are impressive sounding. But I hear a lot of not-so-good experiences with their mounts. But I’m, yeah, hoping not to have to go our and buy any mount anytime soon. 

·       Astronomy software? These days my needs are simple. What I mostly use is three programs, which tend to the simpler compared to what I ran during, say, the go-go days of the Herschel Project:  Deep Sky Planner, Stellarium, and Nebulosity. 

·       There are many things to like about DSP. It is a mature and capable astronomy program. But sometimes it’s the little things. What has encouraged me to adopt it for my personal use? Nice large fonts. Having to squint at minute text on a dim red screen, even with your glasses on, ain’t no fun. 

·       Stellarium? I still love Cartes du Ciel and use it for some tasks. But Stellarium has come an awful long way in the last five years, and I don’t know what else I require. It’s just so pretty, too. That it now has built-in support for ASCOM makes the deal on this (free) software even sweeter. 

·       Nebulosity? It just works for acquiring images with my old Canon 400D and 60D (which are actually more sophisticated and capable than your silly old uncle needs for his astrophotography). It also has the best stacking routine in the bidness.

And…and…and… Can’t think of nuthin’ else campers. I hope to be back here again soon. Probably with the results of the AVX post deluge check ride. Till then, then...

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 4:03 PM 14 comments

That often sought after but also much-feared Ground Truth? I am a FAR less active observer here in my late 60s (it feels awful strange to say “late 60s”) than I was even five years ago.  In part, that is due to the accident I had in early 2019 that most of y’all know about. I talk about it more than I should, perhaps, but that is because it now seems to have been the watershed between “young” Uncle Rod and "old" Uncle Rod.

How has that affected my observing? Well, most noticeably it left me not as able to deal with gear setup. And I don’t just mean heavy stuff. This afternoon I made the mistake of picking up my ETX 125’s tripod with my “bad” arm and it sure let me know that wasn’t what I should have done. Thankfully, I began selling off my big/heavy astro-stuff—the C11, the truss-tube Dobsonian, the Atlas mount, etc.—about five years ago. I had a strong whiff of “change is in the air” even then.

Certainly, I still have telescopes and mounts. I have a C8, a Celestron Advanced VX mount, some nice refractors ranging from 6-inches to 66mm in aperture, a Losmandy GM811G, and my 10-inch truss tube scope, Zelda. And, when I’m feeling good, I can handle any of ‘em. When I’m not so good but still want to look at something, my 80mm f/10 Celestron achromat, Midge, on an AZ-4 alt-azimuth mount works—like she did for the Saturn – Jupiter conjunction.

But it ain’t just that I sometimes have a hard time physically dealing with telescopes and mounts. That is far from the whole story. Another result of the accident is a lingering fear of falling in the dark. For that reason (and the pandemic, of course), I haven’t been to a star party since January 2019. Heck, I haven’t even been out to the local dark site. I feel much more relaxed in the familiar backyard even if it means giving up magnitude 6 skies for mag 5 ones (at zenith on a good night).

I also feel the cold more acutely than I did. This had actually begun some time before 2019, but seems to have accelerated since then. The result is unless it is a mild night, I’m staying inside. Oh, I can still do astrophotography on cold nights, since I can get the scope/camera/mount going with the aid of PHD Guiding and Nebulosity and duck back into the den while the exposure sequence runs. But that doesn’t much feel like a night out with the telescope to Luddite Unk.

Even my astrophotography has ebbed. Not so much in the number of targets I shoot, but in how I do it. ‘Twas not long ago I was eager to embrace the latest hardware and software to hit the imaging game. Now? I have more time to play with such things, but I just don’t seem to have as much patience for the new and (for moi) complex—at least not when it’s dark and I’m hooking things up by flashlight.

I know the big deals today are things like Sequence Generator Pro, and small computers like Raspberry Pis mounted on the scope to manage everything and shoot images to a phone or tablet. Not for Unk, I guess. If I take pictures, it’s usually with my thirteen-year-old Canon 400D DSLR. And I no longer participate in the Cloudy Nights mounts forum quest for ever tinier PE figures. Nor do I dream of more-better-gooder to the tune of ten thousand-dollar telescope mounts. If my stars look round, and I think my pictures look pretty, that is enough. More than enough.

Still as pretty as the day I met her.

And that’s the way it is at the beginning of a new decade of this new century. Hey, y’all, I ain’t looking for sympathy. Don’t need it. I was quite active in astronomy from the 80s and into the mid-90s, and extremely active from the mid-90s to about 2015. There weren’t too many things in the sky I didn’t see or image; too many outstanding astronomers I didn’t meet; and too many star parties, museums and observatories I didn’t visit. It was “What a ride, what a ride!” folks. I just wanted y’all to know the reasons you don’t and won’t see the blog as frequently as you once did (I would still like to do at least one new article a month).

Enough of that stuff. Let’s talk telescopes. Not quite a year ago, I resolved to get my beloved 15-year-old ETX125 PE, Miss Charity Hope Valentine, out of mothballs. I replaced her LNT battery, got her into the backyard and had a good time. For a while. The next time I drug Charity out, she was acting a mite peculiar. The Autostar display would come and go. Sometimes she wouldn’t respond to commands. Once in a while the Autostar computer would reset.

Now, I was tempted to say “She’s just gettin’ old—like you, Unk.” But I didn’t want to leave it at that. Charity still looks beautiful—as pretty as the day I met her. I’m proud to say I’ve taken good care of her. Surely, I could do a little troubleshooting?

A 16-year-old Autostar cable.

Which I did—some eight months later. What was up with that? Well, at the time I discovered Charity’s problem we were right at the start of the 2020 hurricane season, which was a doozy, and whose storms stretched on to November. Then it got cold and I went “refractors on grab ‘n go mounts” all the way (Charity is less of a hassle to carry and set up than a fork-mount 8-inch SCT, but not by much).

Anyhoo, couple of days ago, I got off my butt and ordered a replacement from one of my long-time go-to vendors, Agena Astro Products. After it arrived, a test with Miss Valentine showed it and her worked just fine. What was left to do other than set the girl up in the backyard on a cool but not bitter spring night?

Now, originally the scope to be set up wasn’t going to be Miss Valentine. I still have every intention of carrying on with the New Herschel Project. However, one look at the afternoon sky showed that was likely a non-starter. While still clear, there was obviously increasing haze. The C8 would stay inside and the ETX would go outside because of the degrading conditions—the situation that is her forte'.

When it finally got dark (blast this DST), out back went your old Uncle. As you know if you’ve read my past installments concerning her, Charity can be a neurotic sort. Some nights, gotos are bang-on all over the sky. Others, she can’t find anything. Which would it be tonight?

While I probably should have done drive training after a year, almost, of the scope not being used, it was chilly, so I just set Miss in PE home position—turned counterclockwise in azimuth till she reaches her hard stop—and turned on the power. That is all you have to do with the ETX PE. The scope reads the time that’s kept current with the battery in her LNT (“Level North Technology”) module, finds tilt, level, and north with the aid of her sensors and compass, and heads for the first of two alignment stars. Charity chose Sirius and went that-a-way.

Charity has the most trouble with targets anywhere near zenith. That is compounded by her long focal length and the fact that since she is limited to 1.25-inch oculars, you ain’t gonna be using long focal length ultra-wide 2-inch eyepieces to make finding easier. Nevertheless, my girl put both M35 and M37, both of which were up pretty high, in the field of that 25mm. How did they look? Not so hot. The haze was thickening and really scattering the light pollution.

But, with Charity aligned, I thought we might as well visit some old friends anyhow. Which? Oh, the usual heavenly masterpieces like the above-mentioned open clusters, and, of course, M42. If you’re an “advanced observer” you’d probably scoff at the targets Charity and me essayed (we spent quite a bit of time on the near First Quarter Moon). I know. I once fit that “advanced” appellation and was more interested in chasing quasars than looking at the dumb old Moon. But that was then and this is now and Rod and Charity had a fine time oohing and ahhing at marvels that never age even as we do.

Note Bene:  Miss Dorothy and I have now received both doses of the vaccine and hope the same is true for you.

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 8:24 AM 9 comments