Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

How was the weather down here in The Swamp? Normal.  Hazy, muggy, and warm (mid-seventies long after sunset). The ETX125 is easy enough to set up and tear-down, though, 5 - 10 minutes tops, barely enough work to make Unk break a sweat. Given the minimal amount of effort required, I didn't mind taking a chance on not seeing nuttin' honey.

On my way to the site, it did look as if that might be the result; I drove through a fairly intense thundershower on the way to the PSAS Tanner-Williams, Alabama observing field. By the time I'd arrived, unpacked, and schmoozed for a while with the three bubbas of mine who'd also had the intestinal fortitude to head to the dark site, though, the skies were looking a little better—if hardly perfect. While conditions were far from ideal all evening, my dark site getaway turned out to be well worth the trip. Heck, it was worth the trip for Saturn alone. The seeing was very good despite poor transparency.

Some of the stuff Miss Valentine showed me on this evening...

Saturn. The seeing was good. Real good. A 9mm Celestron "Circle T" Orthoscopic eyepiece from way back when did an amazing job on the ringed wonder. As always, I was struck by the way disk details stand out in the little scope's high-contrast images. The N/S equatorial belts—and other disk features, too—really were starkly visible. Not only did I see Cassini's despite the current (shallow) ring aspect, I glimpsed the far more difficult Crepe ring as well.

M13. Sweet. Certainly the 125 didn't give up too much to a nearby NexStar 8 SE. In fact, the view was slightly better in the 125, I thought, with a slightly darker background (even at comparable magnifications) under these poor conditions—lotsa light scatter from the light dome to the east.

NGC 6210. Well, I saw the Turtle (planetary nebula), at least.

M5: again, Charity kept up well with my buddy's C8. This big ol' grandpappy of a globular star cluster looked absolutely terrific.

M92: Hercules' "also ran" glob was nearly as good as Messiers 5 and 13.

M10 and M12 were OK, but both of these Ophiuchus globulars were in a particularly yucky part of the sky all evening, and not as nice as they normally are. That is, both were essentially fuzzballs with a few tiny stars winking in and out.

M82. When the haze would thin a bit, I picked up a fair amount of this weird galaxy’s dark-lane detail.

M3 and M53, the spring globulars, both showed decent resolution.

M80: well, it was there, anyway. This small, compact (Shapley – Sawyer Class VII) glob doesn't let me see stars with anything less than the C11 when conditions ain’t just right.

M4, the Cat's Eye Cluster, did indeed show off its cat's eye aspect, a line of stars, the iris of the cat's "eye," running right across the cluster's center.

M68 is not often a standout, and in these skies, this globular star cluster was only a dim fuzzball.

M67: This aged galactic cluster has always been one of my faves, and I remembered to catch it before it plunged too far into the western murk. Pretty good, considering. Wish I had caught it earlier.

M65 and M66. I'll admit that under these conditions I had to locate these Leo showpiece galaxies in my pal's C8 first. They weren't obvious in the haze in the C8 and were barely there—but there—in my ETX.

M105 and company. During a time when this galaxy group's area of Leo was in a sucker hole, I was able to see not just 105, but the brighter of its two companion galaxies.

Omega Centauri was, by the time I thought to go there, only about 10 degrees above the truly icky southern horizon. The Mother of All Globs appeared as a vague but large nebulous patch, not much worse than what was in the 8-incher next door.

M104: at times the Sombrero Galaxy’s dust lane was visible.

M87. This monster elliptical was visible, sure, but dimmer than it usually is in this scope.

M107: BARELY there in the 125 or the C8 on this evening. I had to convince myself I was really picking up this globular cluster in either scope.

The Ghost of Jupiter (NGC 3242): this planetary was not only large and bright but showed off a strong robin's egg blue color.

And so it went until the skies closed down completely at about midnight...

Let me say rat-cheer that every single object I requested wound up in the field of the 26mm Meade Plössl after go-toing a go-to. I didn't obsess about alignment. Didn't level the tripod; just plunked her down, that’s the grab ‘n go way. Didn't pick special alignment stars, either. Merely did an LNT Easy Align and accepted whatever star picks the Autostar came up with (Arcturus and Procyon). I did use a 25mm crosshair eyepiece to center the alignment stars, but that was the only particular care I took. Certainly not everything was dead center in the eyepiece after go-tos, quite the opposite, but everything was, as above, in the Plössl’s field somewhere, from one side of the sky to the udder.

Eyepieces? Ah, there's the wonder of the thing. One of the joys of the ETX is that it is not picky about oculars. I just slung a box of el cheapo 1.25-inchers in the Camry. In addition to the supplied Meade eyepiece (which is not bad at all), I used a 15mm Orion (Synta) Expanse, a 20mm Expanse, an 11mm Birdseye (80-degree AFOV), and as mentioned above, an ancient Circle T Celestron Ortho. None of these oculars cost more than 50 bucks, give or take, but all essentially offered pinpoint stars to the field edge—one of the benefits that comes with f/15.

To sum up? Evenings like this (and vacation trips) are why I bought Charity Hope Valentine in the first place, and she again impressed me in this role. You know what, though? The images she was turning out were good enough that I began to wonder what she might do at a real DARK site. Maybe someday, you never can tell. So, two and a half years down the road, this little scope is still Unk Rod's Best Girl—or thinks she is, anyway.

BTW, we had torrential rains Friday, and the result was the skeeters were REALLY out for blood. Didn't just have to just spray myself with Deep Woods off; I had to practically bathe in the stuff and reapply it every 30 minutes as I sweated it off in the damp and still air of The Swamp.

When the sky clouded over, the scope was back in the Toyota and Unk was headed back to Chaos Manor South in 10-minutes, tops. Once more within the comforting confines of Chaos Manor South's den, the bug spray washed off, the Rebel Yell poured out, and the cotton-picking Ghost Hunters on the boob tube, I ruminated on the evening's adventure. The least I could say about it was I'd seen a lot more than I would have if I'd been setting in front of the cable TV all night. And if I hadn't had Miss Charity, I'd have been tempted to do just that. That is the real beauty of a Charity Hope Valentine night, muchachos.

That’s not all the CAT book news, however. I’ve just finished a new revision to my FREE Uncle Rod’s Used CAT Buyer’s Guide. The NINTH if you can believe that. In addition to more new old scopes, the whole blessed text has been tweaked fairly extensively (awkward prose given the heave-ho, typos exorcised, factual errors corrected). How do you get it? Glad you asked. Go here:

http://skywatch.brainiac.com/used/index.htm

Udder than that? Hope those of y’all living in the good, ol’ U.S. of A. are having a cool-groovy memorial day weekend. Me? I gotta work tomorrow, dang it. But I did get in a few good hours of deep sky observing last night. That’s rare enough down here in Possum Swamp at this time of year that I'm still walking on Cloud Nine and I’m not that miffed about the back-to-the-grindstone thing.

How useful will WWT be to us (“us” being amateur astreonomers)? Hard to say. My brief exposure to it indicated it might be a tad awkward to use out in the field. In my initial foray, I didn’t see a horizon line or any way to turn one on, and found it a bit difficult to get oriented. Telescope control? ASCOM is a no brainer and should work well. Keep in mind, of course, that you must have a ‘net connection to make this thing work. That’s not too much of a problem anymore, though. Many folks have wireless broadband that extends well into the backyard. Star parties? It’s been a while since I’ve been to one without wi-fi.

Yes, there is often that “but.” Earlier in the day, intense thunderstorms bordering on the frightening passed through. How frightening were they? The cats spent the balance of the morning and afternoon hiding under the bed.

We lost the Internet completely, early, too. Despite the best efforts of AT&T’s technical “support” to misdiagnose the problem, Unk finally troubleshot it to a blown surge suppressor and got ol' Chaos Manor South back online for a look at Weather Underground. The rain was torrential. Selma Street flooded and then threatened to escape her banks. Despite the nastiness, it cleared by mid afternoon, just as Wunderground predicted. B-u-t. I figured the Dark Site, out Tanner-Williams way, would look like Lake Okefenokee. But. I wanted to look at the deep sky. Hungered for the deep sky. What the heck. Threw the gear in the car and headed out ‘bout 6pm.

Arriving at our sweet little spot of blackness on the Google Earth Light Pollution Map, I found the field not exactly dry, but not full of standing water, either. Didn’t need my galoshes for setting up the Dob, after all. Yep, Dob. As most of y'all know, I use ‘em, and, frankly, when the night threatens to be "iffy" but I want some aperture, that’s exactly what I do choose: Old Betsy, our time-honored f/5 truss-tube 12.5-inch. She goes together quickly, breaks down just as quickly, and her amazing Sky Commander DSCs never miss a beat. That’s what I thought anyway.

Like many of y’all, I’m guessing, I always try to maximize my observing time, so as soon as I can see a couple of alignment stars, even barely, I get the Sky Commanders cranking. On this evening, I used the stars I have been using for the last several months with the DSCs: Polaris and Sirius. Lined up on the two sparklers. Hit enter a couple of times, boom, done. Or so I thought. It was now dark enough to make out brighter DSOs, I figgered, so I punched up M3 as a quick check. Pushed-to the spot the Sky Commanders told me to push-to to. Nuttin’ honey. Slewed around a bit. Uh-uh. Hmmm. Maybe still too bright for even that spectacular glob? My observing buddy for the evening had his Dob pointed to little Mercury, who was skulking just above the western horizon. Thought I’d try that. About 20 degrees off. What the frak?

"Maybe, just maybe," Unk speculated, "Sirius is getting a wee bit low in the west to be a good alignment choice. How about Polaris and Procyon?" Same-same 20 degree miss. Maybe I was pushing some button wrong? Nudder alignment, this time Polaris and Sirius again. And, again, no joy. What the H-E double hockey sticks was going on? I was facing north contemplating the sitchy-ation when my optic nerves and my few surviving brain cells conspired to provide the answer: “Rod, you dummy, you are aligning on Kochab and Sirius, not Polaris and Sirius.” Doh! That sorted, the Sky Commanders were back to their usual spot-on accuracy.

Almost all was to the good after that. Turnout by my fellow club rascals was a little disappointing—just one other die-hard in addition to Unk--but I could see why. With the Sun barely down, scope, eyepiece case, observing notes—ever'thing—were already covered with a nice coating of dew. "Alabama rain," we call it. Looking down-field into the west, ground fog/mist/whatever was all too evident as well. So be it. My buddy and I started working Coma – Virgo hard.

How’d we do? I’d estimate that by midnight, when the fog, real fog, rolled in for good, we’d done, between us, over 100 galaxies--and a handful of other object types, too. Standouts? For me, probably the Whale, NGC 4631 and The Silver Needle, NGC 4244. The Whale was not just bright, showing off her vaguely Cetacean shape, she was accompanied by The Calf, little NGC 4627. I was not overly surprised to see the little guy in the 12.5, but I was impressed that he showed in my companion’s 10-inch Discovery Dob under these humid and hazy conditions. The Silver needle in the 12.5-inch was actually anything but a Silver Needle. It was a sprawling thing, reminiscent of NGC 253, I thought.

Lotsa good stuff, in other words. But it was not all gravy. I had three problems over the course of the evening. First, was the omnipresent dew. Before long I found my secondary fogging up. What to do about the dew? I had my zapper gun with me, BUT I’d neglected to bring a battery for it. No extension to run it off the car’s 12v receptacles either. It was either shut down or find out why the AstroSystems secondary heater I’d installed during the scope's recent repair and refit wasn’t doing its job.

A little poking around revealed the heat from my fingers would warm the temperature sensor enough to turn the heater on. A few minutes of doing that and the dew was cleared. Repeat as needed. Why wasn’t the heater firing off automatically, though? A look at the instructions the next morning pointed to the default temperature setting, which I’d left alone when I'd installed the thing. This setting would probably be great for Colorado. Not for Possum Swamp, though. I’ll disassemble the secondary holder this week and adjust the temperature to the "Spongebobsquarepantsville" level.

My second problem was not really a problem, just an annoyance. Following crazy-heavy rain, the skeeters were out in force. Luckily, I’d remembered the Deep Woods Off this time. In my experience you need something of this strength, something that contains plenty of DEET, or you’ll soon wind up anemic down here. As it was, the little devils buzzed me continuously, but didn’t bite a bit.

The most serious problem, however, was the sky itself. Large areas, anything anywhere near the Mobile, Alabama light dome, were gray. Low power views were vile. That bright background didn’t just obscure detail; it looked plain ugly. I fought this with the only tool that seemed to help, a 13-year-old 12mm Nagler Type 2. This old warhorse, ably assisted by a 16mm William Optics Uwan and a 7mm Uwan, provided enough magnification to keep the grays out but enough field to keep DSOs pretty. Alas, as well as the 12 and the 16 did, I couldn’t help thinking TeleVue's new 13 Ethos would be even better. Sigh. There goes the piggybank.

And so it went, galaxy after galaxy looking surprisingly good, even when the ground fog rolled in and we were peering up through it. Man was it wet. Miserable. I hope those of y'all who observe from west of the Missiissip know how lucky you are. Even the coyotes had enough sense to stay in their dens on this night—they usually put in an appearance, curious about what we dumb humans are doing. And yet…and yet…miserable as it was—I’m still drying out the gear—today I’m haunted by my memory of that massive whale swimming in a pitch intergalactic sea. Worth the discomfort? Yeah it was, muchachos.