Sunday, September 29, 2013
Pore Old Blue
Hard as it
is to believe for those of us who are involved in the business of amateur
astronomy or who are at least Cloudy Nights addicts, astronomy is still a
solitary occupation for some folks. I know for a fact, muchachos, that some of
y’all don’t do much Internet astronomy beyond looking at the Sky and Telescope website and, of course, the Little Old Blog from
Chaos Manor South.
In other
words, you are not into the gossipy side of amateur astronomy. You don’t know
or care pea-turkey about the rumors, obsessions, fads, and fancies found in
places like the Cloudy Nights BBS, Astromart, the Yahoogroups, and Ice in Space. Your knowledge of what’s going on
with the telescope makers is limited to what you see in the ads in Sky and ‘Scope
or on a dealer’s webpage. Some of y’all don’t even belong to your local club,
which is still a prime source of amateur astronomy information, WWW or no WWW.
Not that unwired
astronomy is necessarily a bad thing. For every gram of wisdom dispensed on the
above Internet forums, there are kilos and kilos of the stuff you find on the
south pasture. That’s just the nature of Internet forums on any subject.
However, if what you read on the Cloudy Nights don’t always get the details
correct, you do get the broad strokes. Like the fact that Meade Instruments, the beloved “Old Blue” of American telescope
companies, has been in serious financial difficulties for a couple of years
and has just been sold to a Chinese
company that is something of a cipher.
“So what,
Unk?” Well, beyond the fact that I hate to see another American telescope maker
bite the dust, I worry about those of us who are unconnected and have not got
the word on Meade. Like the person seriously thinking of spending multi
thousands of dollars on an LX-850 rig. Of course, the Meade story might have a
happy ending; the new owners might infuse enough cash that the company
comes roaring back. But any number of Bad Things could still happen, and this is a
time for looking before leaping when it comes to buying Meade telescopes. How
did they get into such a jam? That is a kinda long story, but maybe I’ve got
just enough time to tell it on this Sunday morning.
I reckon we
ought to start at the beginning, back in 1972. Unk was still struggling along
with his homebrew 6-inch Newtonian, but he
was confident his ship would some in someday soon and that onboard it would be
a Cave or a Unitron. So, despite being an essentially penniless undergrad, I still
paid plenty of attention to the ads in Sky
and Telescope (there was as yet no Astronomy
Magazine). As ’72 wound down, and ’73 came in, Young Unk began noticing new,
small ads from an outfit called “Meade Instruments.”
They weren't
anything special, but since you tended to see the same old ads month
after month back in them days —Jaegers ran basically the same ad for years—even small new ones stood out.
Meade, it appeared, was just another company importing the cotton-picking
Japanese refractors Unk and his buddies (wrongly) assumed were junk. Back then,
“made in Japan” was synonymous with “crap,” strange as that may seem now.
What Meade
was was the dream of the young California engineer, a man a lot like Tom
Johnson, who founded Celestron. John Diebel’s dream was to start a telescope
company. John’s story, which I had the pleasure of hearing from him once, is
one of those good, old-fashioned success stories Americans love. He started Meade
on his kitchen table. Literally. The company didn’t stay in John’s apartment
kitchen for long, though. Thanks to his drive and talent, it grew like Topsy.
What really got
Meade rolling was that John Diebel soon began selling good eyepieces at good prices.
The “Research Grade Orthoscopics” he imported from Japan were good then and they
are good now, and eyepiece connoisseurs and collectors still seek them out. Mr
Diebel followed the eyepieces with plenty of ATM stuff like finders, telescope
tubes, primary mirror mounts, focusers, and suchlike. These accessories were
not much better than what you could get from other sources, like University
Optics, but they were competitively priced and Mr. Diebel made customer service
a priority. That was rare in the astrobiz of the 1970s and is why most of his
competitors stayed small and/or faded away.
By the end
of the 1970s, Meade wasn’t just a player; they were out Edmunding Edmund and
out Criterioning Criterion. As the 1970s ran out, Diebel and company (they’d
incorporated as Meade a few years before), were selling a complete line of
telescopes, Newtonians and refractors, including some rather impressive
instruments. Their top Newtonians were excellent and not much different from
the highly regarded Caves. If anything, they were more modern looking, and their
quality was right up there with Tom C’s best. Meade had gone from being back in
the pack to ruling the Newtonian roost as famous names like Cave, Criterion,
and Edmund began a slow fade.
Diebel
didn’t just stick to Newts, though. He’d begun with refractors and continued
selling them. He hooked up with the same Japanese supplier who provided the
components for Unitron’s scopes. Soon, Meade was marketing refractors that
looked just like Unitrons, sometimes performed better than they did, and sold
for less money. I was able to have a shoot-out between a 4-inch Unitron and its
4-inch Meade analog one year at TSP; the victor was the Meade by a hair.
Meade’s path
to continued success was not assured, though. At the end of the 1970s, amateur
astronomy was changing. The switch to smaller cars that began after the gas
crunch of 1973 and the fact that amateurs were becoming more interested in
taking pictures, meant Celestron and its C8 were coming to dominate the market. The
old-fashioned GEM mounted long focal length Newtonian was on its way out. They were difficult to
use for astrophotography, and who wanted to try to pack an 8-inch f/7 Cave in a
Ford Maverick?
Some of the
old-line companies, like Star Liner and Optical Craftsmen, ignored the new
reality and disappeared. Others, like Edmund and Criterion, recognized the
warning signs and either left the scope business or turned it into a sideline.
Criterion actually tried to compete in the new arena with an SCT of their own,
the Dynamax. It was not a success, however, and the father and son who owned
the company were smart enough to sell out just as the excitement over Halley was reaching a fever pitch. Meade? As the
1980s began, Meade was balanced on the edge of a knife.
What saved John
Diebel’s company was that he embraced change. SCTs were the way to go, but,
unlike Criterion, he didn't just try to copy the Celestron C8. What John did was make a good 8-inch SCT with some features the
C8, which had remained static for a decade, lacked. This Meade SCT, the “2080,”
with its snazzy blue tube, didn't just look more modern than the Orange Tube
Celestron, it featured a major improvement, a worm gear drive in place of the
spur gear system the C8 used. Amateurs took notice and began buying Meades.
The 1980s
was a time of great promise for the scope business. That’s the way it seemed at
first, anyhow. Halley’s Comet, the greatest astronomical event since, well,
since the last time it flew by, was upon us and there seemed little doubt both
Celestron and Meade would sell plenty of telescopes. Both companies had spent
the first half of the decade in a costly features race that involved Super C8s
and Super C8 Pluses and LX2s and LX3s and were ready to cash in on Halley mania. The sky was the limit,
especially for Meade, who was catching up with and even surpassing Celestron.
With Halley
was approaching, both Tom Johnson and John Diebel chose to sell the companies
they’d built. Why? Don’t ask me, but maybe after years of hard labor they
just wanted to enjoy life. And perhaps, as is the case with many engineers,
they didn’t find managing nearly as
much fun as creating.
Celestron
went to Diethelm, a Swiss investment firm, and Meade to the Harbor Group, a
similar U.S. company. What did both concerns have in common? They weren’t much interested in telescopes; they just wanted to make some quick bucks. At least
Diethelm’s owner seems to have been somewhat interested in astronomy; there was
no one like that at Harbor Group as far as I know.
The result
was predictable. The prospect of Halley gold made it impossible for the companies
to resist producing as many telescopes as humanly possible during the years of
the comet’s approach. They wore out their work-forces, management, and equipment
in the process, and came close to ruining both companies’ reputations. They also produced many more scopes than they could sell when Halley turned out to be a disappointment for the public. Would things
have been different if Diebel and Johnson had still been on the job? I like to
think they would have been.
When the
comet had flown away, Meade and Celestron both had a lot of recovering
to do. It took years for them to get their optical quality back to where it had
been before the comet, till the beginning of the 90s, really. But that didn't
stop them from introducing new telescopes. Meade’s big effort in the wake of
Halley was the LX6, which the company was betting a lot on. This was the
follow-on to the LX5, which came out just after the comet’s apparition in 1986.
The LX6 was
that elusive “SCT of a new type,” which was to be the company’s flagship scope.
What was so new about it? In addition to just about every feature you could pile
onto a non-computerized telescope, it had f/6.3 optics. To this point, Meade’s
amateur grade SCTs had all had f/10 optics. The LX6 would offer wider fields
eyepiece for eyepiece for visual use and shorter exposure times for
astrophotography. But amateurs just didn't buy the LX6 in numbers. Maybe partly
because f/6.3 was too wild a departure from the tried and true, and maybe partly
because it took Meade some years to get f/6.3 right. F/6.3 LX200s are usually good.
LX6es? Not so much.
The end of
the 80s and the beginning of the 90s was probably the low point for Meade. They
were struggling along, barely keeping their heads above water. The situation
wasn’t any better at Celestron. Everybody who wanted a scope had bought one
during Halley; the market was oversold. The only solution Diethelm and Harbor
could come up with was a merger. The SEC said “no,” however (a couple of
times). What saved Meade, then? One thing:
John Diebel didn't like the way things were going and bought his company
back.
The second
Diebel era at Meade was the company’s golden age. They just went from strength
to strength. The SCT that followed the LX6, the LX200, was an immediate and
huge hit. It, like Celestron’s Compustar, which came first, was a computerized
go-to telescope. The difference was that Meade was able to sell the LX200 at a
price within reach of serious amateur astronomers—the Compustar was priced for
schools and colleges. Meade also knew how to market the scope; Celestron and
Diethelm didn’t seem to have a clue what to do with the Compustar.
One facet of the LX200 story I think is telling? It shows Meade’s true strength.
Sure, they are an innovative company, they've always had plenty of good ideas. But they are at their best when they build on and improve someone else’s ideas, not when they are trying to break new ground themselves. They are at their worst
when they try something out of left field, like the LX6 or RCX400. That is not
a criticism. Meade has been incredibly successful in making complex ideas work.
Anyhoo, the
LX200 was followed by a long string of successes: the ETXes, the LX90, the LX50, and the LX200
GPS, all the way up to the turn of the century. Meade was clearly number one by
the mid 1990s, and it looked to me as if Meade were just going to get stronger. As
the company came to ever more dominate the telescope business, John and his
colleagues took Meade public. I suspected we’d soon be reading Celestron’s
obituary.
That’s what
would have happened in a Zane Grey pulp. Old Blue would ride off into the
sunset with a tip of its cowboy hat, victorious after one last shootout at the
Orange Tube Corral. But real life is full of surprises, like the return of
Celestron. Despite being mishandled by the company that bought them from
Diethhelm, the often reviled Tasco, the company was very much back in the game
by 2000. That year, Celestron introduced an SCT, the NexStar GPS, that suddenly
made the LX200 seem old and outdated. And Celestron would soon be bought out
again, by Chinese optics giant Synta, who had the cash they needed to make a
real comeback.
How did
Meade respond to that beautiful NexStar GPS? With the LX200 GPS. Which was a
good enough scope. It just didn’t offer anything new or even a price break as
compared to the NexStar. It was not unlike the original LX200 except that the
old controller was replaced by an Autostar HC, and it used a GPS receiver,
natch, to get time and position, just like the
NexStar. The new LX200 was a good scope, just not a very exciting one.
Meade, like
the Cylons, HAD A PLAN, apparently, and part of that plan did make them seem a
lot like the dadgum toasters. They brought
a lawsuit against Celestron, and to many of us amateurs it began to seem as if
they were trying to sue their competitor out of business. Meade sued Celestron
over the north and level alignment routine used by the NexStar GPS in
alt-azimuth mode. Amazingly, they were able to convince a judge they
should be awarded a patent for the idea of pointing a telescope north to align
it.
I don’t know
how much Meade spent on lawyers, but the return really wasn’t worth it near as
I can tell. Yes, Celestron had to pay royalties to Meade, but only for a brief
time. Celestron quickly developed a couple of non-infringing alignment methods.
Most of all, the lawsuit lost Meade some of the respect of the community.
They began to seem more like, yeah, the Cylons than the Rebel Alliance, to mix
a metaphor.
I didn’t
much like Meade’s sue ‘em tactics, but I was fully onboard for the second part
of their plan: a truly revolutionary SCT, the RCX400. When I heard about it
for the first time in ’05, I was gobsmacked. It was Meade’s biggest leap since
the old LX6. But even moreso. The RCX would be built around an optical design that
reduced coma. It would be an f/8 instead of an f/10. The OTA would feature motorized
focusing AND collimation. There’d be a built in dew heater. There would be USB
ports in addition to serial ports. What Meade was promising us was all the
things amateurs had been asking for in an SCT for years.
What did I
think of the RCX when I got my
hands on one in 2006? Mostly I was
impressed. I was a speaker at the 2006 Cherry Springs Star Party, and the Meade rep who was there with a spanking new
10-inch RCX 400 allowed me to use the scope all night long one evening. The
images were extremely impressive, as was the go-to accuracy. I was purty happy
with the motorized focusing (which moved the corrector forward and back) once I
got the hang of which buttons to mash.I did wish Meade
had gone to a higher grade of motors than their usual slot-car jobs for this premium SCT. When you were slewing the RCX at high speed, it sounded
like a weasel with tuberculosis. The mount fit and finish could have been a
hair better, too. All things considered, though, I wanted one. I predicted Meade would have a big hit on their
hands.
Much as Unk
hates to admit it, he was wrong. Why? Two reasons. First of all, the telescope
got some bad press. Instead of calling the RCX design a “reduced coma SCT,”
someone in the company, probably a dadgum pencil pusher in marketing, insisted
on calling it an “advanced Ritchey Chretien.” It was clearly not of that
design, and Meade was promptly sued by a group of r/c makers. Meade lost the suit, and
while they only had to pay token damages, their reputation was taken down
another notch.
What really
killed the RCX, though, was QA problems. Many telescopes were dead out of the
box or failed quickly. This was a bad problem for a scope that was the most
expensive SCT the company had ever sold. The usual culprit was the focus/collimation
system, which was executed way too cheaply. There were other problems, too. In
fact, just about everything except the optics could be problematical with the
RCX.
Even the
folks who had RCXes that worked well were getting skittish. If something bad
happened to the telescope’s complex electronics, you didn't have an option
other than getting Meade to repair it. If, years down the road, Meade stopped
fixing RCXes, you were the one who would be in a fix. The mount and tube were
tightly integrated, with the focuser electronics being in the base. You
couldn’t easily remove the OTA from the fork and put it on a German equatorial
mount as you could any other SCT.
Why did
Meade drop the ball on the RCX? Bit off more than they could chew, I reckon. It
was a design that was brilliant in many ways, but also complex. To work well,
corners could not be cut. The problem was that Meade’s resources were no doubt
being well and truly stretched. It was now really too expensive to make
telescopes in California.
Following John Diebel’s second retirement, Meade began to have more
and more financial difficulty, which was probably abetted by its
a-little-too-late decision to move production to Mexico. Yes, that sprawling and
famous Irvine plant featured at the front of every Meade catalog was closed. It
took a while for Meade to get it together south of the border, but it appeared
they would. I know I was mightily impressed by the LX200 ACF SCT my Chiefland
buddy Mike Harvey bought. The ACF incorporated reduced coma optics like the RCX
(but at f/10), and I was just blown away by the images.
Despite rumors of a financial melt-down, it seemed like business as usual at Meade. They announced two
brilliant sounding new products, the LX800 GEM and the LX80 combo alt-az/equtorial
mount. I thought both could be game changers. GEMs are fashionable, and other
than the abortive Max Mount project, Meade hadn’t done much in that area for
years other than the uber cheap LXD55/75. The LX800 might be just the ticket
for imagers, especially with its Starlock system, which integrated go-to and
guiding, and would supposedly make both things easier and better than ever. And
iOptron had shown amateurs wanted “side by side” alt-az rigs like the LX80. I
predicted the LX80 would take astronomy by storm at a price well under 1000
dollars.
Things at
Meade were only OK on the surface, however. Both mounts were released before they
were ready. The LX800 was quickly recalled because it didn’t work at all. The
LX80, which I’d looked forward to? My good buddy Jack Huerkamp got one, and I
was able to try it at the 2012 Deep South Regional Star Gaze. I was terribly disappointed. Way too much play in the gears.
A tripod head that was too weak (several owners had the thing break and send the mount crashing to
the ground). A persnickety Autostar controller. After almost a year, Meade
re-released the LX800 as the LX850, which appeared to work fine, and announced
plans to fix the LX80. Unfortunately, time had run out for Meade as Meade.
A few months
back, word came that Meade was looking for a buyer, seriously looking for a buyer. As in, if they were not bought out
operations might have to cease. At first, it looked like Meade was going to the
Chinese firm JOC. I thought that would be a great match, since that company's U.S.
subsidiary is Explore Scientific, headed by Scott Roberts, one of the talented
folks who made the old Meade tick.
Alas, ‘twas
not to be. It appears Meade has been
purchased (“merger” is the term the Meadesters are using) by another Chinese
company, Ningbo Sunny. No, I hadn’t heard of
‘em either. It seems they have some optical expertise, at least in the
microscope realm, producing, judging by their web page, some pretty
sophisticated-looking instruments. Telescopes? That is a different matter. Near
as I can tell, what they make are the sorts of scopes you see for sale on the
fracking eBay. You know, “Red Telescope, Green Telescope, Blue Telescope.”
I sure hope
Ningbo doesn’t just want the Meade name, something to slap on dimestore telescopes,
much the way the current owner of Tasco slaps that name on their pitiful junk. What
gives me hope is that Synta and JOC have shown there is an at least somewhat
profitable market for amateur telescopes in the U.S. With the economy slowly
coming back, who knows? Celestron, after all, didn’t start to pull out of their
nosedive till they were bought by Tasco. Finally, the world of Chinese
corporations is a strange one, with it very unclear who really owns whom or
runs whom and who intends to do what.
In other words,
y’all, we will just have to wait and see. I am hoping it won’t be long before
the future course of Meade is clear. But you know what, muchachos? No matter
what happens, John Diebel’s and Meade’s mark on amateur astronomy will be a
long-lasting one. The LX200 alone sees to that. Me? I’m gonna go pat my sweet little ETX, Charity Hope Valentine, on her pretty OTA.
Nota Bene: Got comets on the brain thanks to the brouhaha over ISON? You might want to read Unk's take on the hairy stars if you haven't done so already...
Nota Bene: Got comets on the brain thanks to the brouhaha over ISON? You might want to read Unk's take on the hairy stars if you haven't done so already...
Next Time: Ode to Junior...
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Destination Moon Night Two: 23 Down, 277 to Go
It’s been a
while since I spoke to y’all about my
Moon project, over three months. But that’s not because I’ve lost
interest in Luna. It’s because of the fraking weather. As I have said before,
this has been absolutely the worst summer for observing I remember since 1994.
I dang sure haven't given up on my project to image the Moon’s top 300 features,
which I outlined here, I just haven't been able to
do anything about it, muchachos. Not till last Saturday evening, that is.
Compared to
what we have had lately, the weather Saturday afternoon was turning out to be real nice. It was clear, if
a little hazy, and while temperatures were not that low, in the low nineties, the
humidity was more bearable than it has been for months, somewhere in the 60%
range. And a beautiful Moon just two days past First Quarter would be hanging
in the sky till the wee hours. Time for me to hit the Possum Swamp Astronomical Society observing
field.
At our
little slice of dark sky heaven at sundown, I wasn’t overly surprised to be
alone. I’d put word on the PSAS Facebook page that I'd be at the dark site for a Lunar run, but I suppose most of the membership can observe the Moon from
home. Our many and ancient trees down in the Garden District make that
purty much impossible for me.
I left the
runway lights of the private airfield we use for observing on as a deterrent to
baddies like Mothman and the Little Grey Dudes from Zeta
Reticuli 2 and got to work setting up. What exactly did Unk set up? My current
Moon picture rig, Mrs. Emma Peel, the Edge 800 SCT, on her VX mount. Yes, I
know aperture is as important for Lunar and planetary work as it is for
the deep sky, and that Big Bertha, my NexStar 11, might have been a better
choice. The problem with that is Unk is lazy and getting lazier.
Camera? That
would be the successor to my much-loved SAC 7B, the ZWO ASI120MC. I am testing another new planetary cam, the Mallincam SSI, but
until I get some software problems (no doubt caused by your silly old Uncle) ironed
out, that one is benched. This would only be my second time using the ZWO, but
given my good initial experience with it, I expected great things.
One thing
would be different from the first outing with the ZWO: I’d be using a different
computer program to control it. One wise thing the ZWO folks have done is spend their time making their camera drivers as good as they can be rather than developing a control program of their own. The result is the ZWO will work with
most of the software Solar System imagers are using today, including Sharpcap, the program I used for first light with the ZWO.
Sharpcap is a great program. It is not
feature-laden, but it is very easy to use. That made it a natural for first
light with the ASI120. As you know, I am not immune to the allure of the More
Better Gooder, howsomeever, and had been hearing a lot about the soft used by the crème de la crème of planetary workers, Firecapture.
I downloaded a copy and gave it a try indoors not long after I got the camera,
but it tended to lock up the computer.
Then, just a
few weeks back, I learned Firecapture’s
author, Torsten Edelmann, had released a new beta that was purty much
guaranteed to work with the ZWO. Lotsa boys and girls were giving it good notices,
and a look at the Firecapture website
showed the new one would do just about everything except make Unk’s biscuits in the morning. So,
I decided to give it a go. I’d keep Sharpcap
at the ready, of course, in the event things went south with the new FC version.
After I got
Emma on her mount, I spent a few minutes preparing the Thermacell bug repeller.
The mosquitoes weren't bad at sundown, but the deeper twilight became,
the fiercer the bugs would no doubt become. Thermacell dispersing its funny but
not unpleasant smell, I sat and twiddled my thumbs waiting for Polaris and some
alignment stars to appear.
I had the
best of intentions, y’all. I’d do a 2+4 go-to alignment with the VX followed by
an AllStar Polar alignment. That was my intention,
but I got antsy. Diana looked so beautiful hovering over the field in her
shining silver gown that I just couldn’t wait for stars. I aligned the RA axis
of the mount north as well as I could with the aid of my compass, kicked on the
mount’s power, and told the VX to do a Solar System Alignment.
I’d used my
phone to provide exact time, and I’d been careful with the compass, so I wasn’t
too surprised when the mount stopped within a degree or so of Hecate. I
centered her up, hit align on the hand control, and we were off to the races. I knew tracking wouldn’t be perfect with such a casual polar alignment,
especially given that I’d be shooting at about f/25, but it ort ta be good
enough. I’ve even been told a little drift makes it easier for Registax to properly align and stack the
frames of .avi movie files.
Hokay. Time
to get rid of the diagonal and eyepiece and mount the camera. I don’t insert
the ZWO directly into the scope. Instead, I use it with the Meade 1.25-inch flip
mirror I bought a dozen years ago to go with my ill-fated Starlight Xpress cam. A garden variety Barlow, an Orion Shorty, is inserted in the flip mirror’s rear port. It might be “garden variety,” but this inexpensive Barlow is one of the
best I’ve ever used. The ZWO camera with an IR block filter screwed onto its 1.25-inch
nose-piece goes in the Barlow. Finally, the eyepiece tube of the flip mirror is filled
with my good, old Meade 12mm reticle eyepiece. When you are dealing with higher
focal ratios and tiny imaging chips, a flip mirror ain’t just a help, campers, it’s a
freaking requirement.
I plugged the
ZWO’s USB cable into the Toshiba laptop, which responded with a reassuring
bing-bong, and lit off Firecapture. The program recognized the camera immediately and ran perfectly all night long. I need to spend more time reading the software's help files, but it is so
well-designed and intuitive I had no trouble operating it.
Copernicus
 |
| Click the pix for larger versions... |
Where to
start? Copernicus, natcherly. For me
this massive “new” crater is the most beautiful feature on the Moon. I think so
now, and I thought so back when I was a little bitty kid just starting to explore Luna.
When I was so green I didn't even know how to pronounce its name. I called it “copper-nick-us” till I was corrected by one of the younguns in our Backyard Astronomy Society who'd somehow learned how the crater’s name was supposed
to be said.
Copernicus
was just about perfectly placed on this evening. Not so close to the terminator
that detail would be lost in shadow, but not so far away that its massive ray
system would steal the show. I flipped the flip mirror up, centered the crater
in the cross-hairs, flipped down, and focused up the onscreen image.
Which was
easy to do. Despite the fact that I had selected the ZWO’s maximum resolution
mode, a healthy 1280x960, Firecapture
was still delivering over 30 frames per second. With images refreshing at
such a rate, focusing was a dadgum joy. So much easier than it was with the
SAC 7’s pitiful 5-f.p.s. at 640x480. I fiddled with exposure and gain till I got a good looking
image, and recorded a 30-second sequence that resulted in dern near 1000 frames
being captured.
No, it
really don’t get any better on the Moon than this. Copernicus ain’t just large
at 93 km across (I always amaze the youngsters at public star parties by
telling them Copernicus would extend over halfway between Biloxi and
New Orleans), he’s fresh and relatively untouched by the ages, being “only” 800
million years old. The floor is unspoiled and its terraced walls are steep and sharp
looking. With camera or eye, there’s plenty here to see here, from the complex
central peak that rises 1.2 km high, to the ray system that begins to “shine”
not long after sunrise on Copernicus’ walls.
Gay Lussac
There are
quite a few interesting small craters in Copernicus’ neighborhood, both those
with names, like Fauth, and those that have only been given letters.
Unfortunately, there was only one other crater in the field on my hit-list of
300 features from the old Norton’s Star
Atlas. If Copernicus looks fresh and new, Gay-Lussac is the opposite. This crater, named for a 19th Century
French Physicist, has walls with an “eroded” appearance and a floor that’s a
tumbled down mess.
Clavius
After Copernicus the Great? That was easy:
to the Moon’s southern highlands where the huge crater Clavius was sitting in the Sun.
Clavius, famous as the site of the Moon base, Clavius Base, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is a huge thing
225 km across. It is the third largest crater on the Moon’s nearside. What
makes it incredibly interesting, though, it not just its size, but the detail
on its floor, and especially the arc of good looking craters, Rutherford and
the “unnamed” Clavius D, C, N, and J.
In addition
to the letter-craters and Rutherford, which intrudes into one of Clavius’
walls, the floor is peppered with many other smaller pits that stand out well. The
better your scope, camera, and seeing (which is the most important thing of
all), the more fascinating detail you will see here.
Plato and the Alpine Valley
Hokay, back
north again to the more uncluttered part of Hecate’s shining visage. The area
of Plato and the Alpine Valley is a wonderful one for visual observers and
imagers alike. It is, above all, a place of challenges: the Plato Craterlets and the rille down the center
of the Alpine Valley (Valles Alpes).
Plato is a great dark lake of a crater
that easily dominates the whole area. It’s very old, about 3.84 billion years,
close to the same age as nearby Mare Imbrium, and it is large, 109 km in
diameter. Due to its position near the Moon’s limb, it looks oval to us, but is
actually round. Except for a few possibly volcanic pits here and there, the
Moon’s craters were created by impacts, and that process is unable to produce a
strongly elongated crater.
There are
plenty of other large and sharply defined craters on the visible face of the
Moon; what makes Plato special is its floor, which was obviously flooded with
basaltic lava. And what makes that floor especially interesting is the presence
of numerous small craterlets scattered across it. There are four craterlets in the 3
km diameter range that are doable visually with 12-inch telescopes under good
seeing and at high power.
Not easy,
mind you, but doable. I’ve actually
detected the two largest of these little guys with an 80mm refractor when there
is a high Sun angle at Plato. At that time they are easy enough to see as white
spots. Seeing them as actual craters, though, does require considerable telescope
horsepower, good seeing, and patience.
Imaging the
craterlets is way easier. The most prominent ones showed up almost any time I
pointed my old SAC 7 at Plato, and in a modern camera like the ZWO they
actually look like, yeah, little craters.
The better the seeing the better they look, of course, and the more of ‘em you
record.
Plato is
notorious as the site of reports of Transient Lunar Phenomena, “TLPs.” Moon observers
have reported odd lights and hazes on the floor of the crater for ages. I’ve
never seen anything like that in all my years of lunar observing, but I still
hope to see something strange here or somewhere else on the Moon someday. I
tend to doubt the reality of TLP, but I also doubted of the reality of Venus’
Ashen Light—till I saw it for myself.
The Alpine
Valley is another of the Moon’s true wonders. It is a wide—10 km at its widest
point—lunar valley, “Valles,” that extends for over 160 km. What caused it?
Probably crust slumping along a fracture line. One look at its floor and it is
easy to see it was also heavily modified by the lava that flooded it.
Valles Alpes
is visible in the tiny scopes; that’s not the challenge. The challenge is the
narrow rille that extends for almost its entire length. I’ve been after the rille
for years, but have never really seen
it visually. I’ve “suspected” it at best. It’s not that easy with a camera,
either. The rille is visible in the shot I did of the Alpine Valley on this
night, but is not prominent unless I ramp up the contrast enough to make the
picture ugly. Probably need to come back to it with the C11 and more focal
length some night, I reckon.
At the
opposite end of the Alpine Valley from Plato, we run across a couple of nice
craters, Archytas (30 km) and Protagoras (22 km). Also in the region
is an interesting semi-“ghost” crater, Egede (36 km), that was almost erased by
lava. That floor is covered with numerous craterlets, making it even more cool
looking. Unfortunately, it was not on my “300 list” so I moved on.
Tycho
Where did I
move to? I didn’t stay in the Alpine Valley area. There were clouds gathering
and I wanted to get as many more important features as I could before they
moved in. What’s the most prominent crater on the Moon at First Quarter after
Copernicus? Tycho, of course.
Even when
Tycho’s enormous ray system is subdued by a low Sun angle, the crater, which
nestles in the jumbled terrain of the southern highlands not far from Clavius,
stands out. Why? Because it is sharp and bright compared to the terrain it is
set in. It is barely 100 million years old and couldn’t be more distinct from
the worn-looking craters around it. It is 86 km in size, and features both
terraced walls and a complex central peak.
My sweet little
ZWO did a nice job on both Tycho and the nearby list craters Pictet (63 km),
Saussure (55 km), Orontius (123 km), and Sassides (91 km) as well. The secret
to getting a good portrait of Tycho and company is, as always, a low Sun angle,
but not too low. At mid-morning, the
whole region is just freaking awesome.
Longomontanus
This great
crater is only about 90 km from Clavius, but nobody talks about it much. I
don’t know why. It is magnificent. Sharply defined, it is 146 km in size and
has a fascinating floor that’s pitted with numerous craters and craterlets.
Most of the craters around Longomontanus are interesting, but are “anonymous,”
having letters instead of names, and were not on my list. Wilhelm was the exception. It is old, pre-Nectarian, around 4
billion years old, but it has stood up fairly well. About half its walls are
badly eroded, but mostly it is still well-separated from the surrounding
terrain and attractive.
Longomontanus
and Wilhelm captured, those dadburned clouds moved in with a vengeance. It
looked like they might eventually move off, but I wasn’t in the mood to wait
‘em out. The humidity had spiked up, the bugs had come in a second wave that
required me to replace the Thermacell’s repellent pad with a fresh one, and I
was on the verge of “hot and tired.”
Back when I
was a sprout, I had to wait days or weeks to see my Moon Pictures, till daddy
could be persuaded to drag out his developing tank, enlarger, and all those
wonderfully stinky chemicals. That wait is one thing I do not miss about film astrophotography.
As soon as I got back to the Old Manse, was able to take quick looks at my
image files and begin processing the 50 gigabytes of images. OK, I’ll admit
it: I had one eye on the computer and
one eye on Svengoolie, who was
showing (the color) Phantom of the Opera.
How did the
few shots I processed that evening and the rest, which I did Sunday morning,
turn out? Purty good. Actually, they would have knocked me slap out even fifteen years ago, but I reckon I have
been spoiled by the new way of Lunar imaging and what its top practitioners are
accomplishing, and I was already plotting how to do just a wee bit better. I will get that stinking Alpine Valley rille yet,
muchachos.
Next Time:
Pore Old Blue
Sunday, September 15, 2013
AHSP 2013: The Prodigal Returns
I like star
parties, muchachos. All star parties.
Y’all know that. Yet, I must admit I’ve got my favorites. The Deep South
Regional Star Gaze takes it for sentimental reasons. That was Miss Dorothy’s
first star party less than two months after we married. The Texas Star Party is
a winner for dark skies and accomplished observers. Chiefland has good skies
and crazy good facilities.
For me,
though, the Almost Heaven Star Party (AHSP) hits
a home run in all the categories: dark skies, friendly folks, great facilities,
and both guests and speakers who will teach you a thing or two about amateur
astronomy no matter how much of a veteran you are.
The AHSP is
held at a site on Spruce Knob Mountain in West Virginia, which is a fur piece
from the good old Swamp. Nevertheless, your old Uncle has been able to attend
for years thanks to the kindness of the organizers at NOVAC, the Northern
Virginia Astronomy Club, down in DC, who’ve flown me up to be a speaker a bunch
of times. I’ve liked the sky, the people, and the place so fraking much I’ve only
missed one edition since I started going back in 2007.
Why did I
miss out in 2012? It wasn’t my choice. I was still playing the engineering
game, and since I was the only available engineer on the coast knowledgeable
about ships’ navigation systems, I had to spend the star party out in the Gulf
of Mexico onboard a San Antonio Class
amphibious assault ship. That wasn’t near as much fun as AHSP woulda been, and
now that I’ve retired I’ve sworn to do my best never to miss another long
weekend up on Spruce Knob.
As I’d hoped
he would, some months ago AHSP organizer Bob Parks contacted me wondering if
I’d be available to speak at the 2013 event. After I said, “hail yeah,” the
next question was “How long can you stay, Unk?” The star party runs from Friday
till Tuesday, but I’ve always had to limit that to Saturday – Sunday or Friday
– Sunday at best. Not anymore. I told Bob I’d stay as long as the logistics of
getting me to and from the airport in DC made possible and practical.
Since Sky and Telescope Editor in Chief Robert
Naeye would also be a speaker at AHSP 2013, it made sense to fly us both into
DC at the same time and for us to drive up to the site in a shared rent-a-car.
Mr. Bob and I would meet at Reagan National on Friday, 6 September, be at AHSP
late that afternoon if there were no airline craziness, and would return to
Reagan on following Monday morning.
Everything
appeared to be set, and the only question was “What will Unk bring with him?”
as in “Scope or binoculars?” I originally
planned to pack my li’l C90, Stella. She has
almost as much light gathering power as my not very airline friendly 100mm
binoculars, doesn’t require near as much tripod, and her ability to change
eyepieces and magnifications means she can go deeper than even the big glasses.
I was dissuaded, though, by the thought of having to tote an extra carry-on and
weigh down my suitcase further with even a lightweight tripod.
I eventually
settled on my old reliable binoculars, my 15x70 Burgesses. I’ve have ‘em since
I bought ‘em from Bill Burgess at the 2003 ALCON
for a song. As powerful as Stella? No, but they can show a hell of a lot under
a dark sky and I figgered that suitably padded they’d be safe enough in my
checked bag. If not? I would hate to lose the Bugesses, but they did only cost me
50 bucks.
As the date
for the event got close, there were a few travel-related hiccups, but
everything resolved itself in quick order, and Unk was up at oh-dark-thirty on
Friday September 6 to catch a U.S. Airways flight out of Possum Swamp Regional.
The lack of flights from The Swamp to DC meant I had to take the 6 a.m. early-early,
but that was OK. While I’ve got used to often sleeping till 7 – 8 ever’ morning
now, I have not completely got out of the habit of early get-ups after only six
months of retirement.
How was the
flight? In the past, I’ve called my carrier, U.S. Airways, “the legitimate heir
of Aeroflot.” In truth, however, they are not much, if any, worse than the other
U.S. airlines. What was the most irritating thing about them? Their use of the cabin
P.A. system to make long, LONG commercial announcements in an attempt to
torture you into applying for their dadgum credit card. I was able to ignore
that foolishness with the aid of a good SF novel, Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet: Valiant.
After a
plane change in Charlotte, where for once I actually had plenty of time to catch
my connecting flight, I was off on the short hop to Reagan (Washington)
National. I’d just been there a few weeks back
with Miss D., so I purty much knew the lay of the land and wasn’t stressed. I
was to meet Bob at the Dollar Rent-a-car counter, and as I was waiting for the
shuttle to take me to their off-airport site, I got a call from Mr. B. He’d
arrived early, had our car all checked out, and we could be off as soon as I
got there.
I am luckier
than most writers are in that I get to spend some one-on-one time with the editor of the magazine I do most of my writing for. Even if I didn’t write for Sky and Telescope, I’d enjoy shooting
the breeze with Bob Naeye. Despite his status as a Dadgum Yankee, we agree on almost all subjects (albeit with a little disagreement about Pluto). We
grabbed lunch at a local burger joint out in Virginia, Fosters, which was some
kinda good, and after what seemed like a not overlong journey out of the DC
metro area, through northern Virginia, and into West Virginia, were turning off
on the road that winds up to the Spruce Knob site of AHSP.
Where
exactly is the site? It’s near Circleville, West Virginia at a Mountain Institute facility that’s not quite at
the top of Spruce Knob, but which is high enough nevertheless, 4300’, to be out
of the muck and haze of the lowlands. When it’s unusually humid at the site,
you can see a light-dome to the east, but that is mostly blocked by the
mountain. Frankly, the location boasts the best skies I have seen east of the
Mississip. On one very dark night one year, dim M101 was incredibly prominent
in 50mm binoculars.
After a few
winding miles of access road, we were pulling up to the registration tent. We
got our badges, info packets, and were delivered into the care of AHSP
organizer Kathryn Scott, who rode up to dorm area with us to help get us
settled. As I’ve mentioned before, all the buildings at Spruce Knob are done in
faux Mongolian Yurt style (yep). The dorm where we’d be staying echoed that a
little bit, but was a more modern take on that trope and was nicer than the
“real” (wooden) yurts. Bob and I both had rooms of our own, so Unk had plenty
of space to spread out all the JUNK he’d packed in his enormous suitcase.
After that?
Down to the main yurt, the Big Yurt, which is where everything happens but the
observing, to see what was what and wait for supper. While I was hanging out, I
got the distressing news that long-time AHSP chief Phil Wherry would not be
present this year due to a serious health issue. The good news is that Phil is
doing well and we all hope he’ll be back for 2014. In the meantime, NOVACer
Chris Lee assumed Phil’s duties and did a bang-up job. As did the entire staff.
As always, they are ALL to be commended for putting on the best organized, best
run star party—no bull—I have ever seen.
When late
afternoon came, it was time for Bob’s talk. Mr. Naeye is an experienced and
talented speaker and it shows. His presentation, “Amateur Exoplanet
Achievements,” was well-received by a gratifyingly large and interested
audience. We could probably have kept him onstage for at least another hour
with questions, but it wouldn’t be long before folks would be queuing up for
supper, with the line extending through the Yurt and the presentation area.
The talks
and the star party itself seemed to be off a damned good start. ‘Course, the
true measure of success for any event is the skies. While there had been a few
passing clouds in the afternoon, and there was obviously a little haze, it
looked to me like all systems were go for a good, long night of deep sky
voyaging.
After Mr.
Naeye’s presentation, I spent a little time wandering the Big Yurt area
reacquainting myself with the facilities. I also spent quite a while browsing
the wares of the single vendor onsite this year, Hands
On Optics (Astrogizmos was a no-show). Gary Hand’s outfit has always
been one of my faves, but, alas, at this stage of the game I have just about
everything I need. That doesn’t mean HOO didn’t have plenty of stuff I wanted, however. I managed to restrain
myself somehow.
Then came
supper. What can I say about the AHSP food? ‘Bout the same as the last time I
was up: it is good. It ain’t the best
star party food I have ever had; that’s a tossup between TSP and DSRSG, but it
is more than edible and certainly above average. It has also improved
substantially over the years. In the beginning, the Mountain Institute folks
were heavy on the vegetarian/brown rice stuff. That was OK, if not exactly to
this old hillbilly’s taste. Over the six years I’ve been attending, the menu
has become a little less radical, and
they now actually serve beef (burgers), pork, and chicken. On this particular evening,
we had stir-fry chicken and it was right tasty. Sure was plenty of it, and I
took advantage of that fact.
After
supper, it was time for the main event, the great celestial show, to begin. I
retrieved my 15x70s as darkness came on and Bob and I hoofed it for the field.
I don’t know if it’s the altitude or the site’s position in its time zone, but
darkness came on in an awful hurry. Before we knew it, we were seeing the Milky
Way appear and then begin to burn.
What did I
look at with the Burgesses? Plenty, starting down in Sagittarius with M22, M28,
M8, and M20. Then over to the big ol’ Scorpion for M4 and M7. I then toured the
spine of the Milky Way in Cygnus hitting M27, M71, and a bunch of open clusters.
Over to the north I spied M51. M81 and M82 popped out pretty as you please and
appeared distinctly different even at “just” 15X. These wonders and the many
more I essayed all looked great, but maybe not quite as great as they can from this site. That was brought home
when I went to M101. Both Bob and I were able to see it, but with difficulty.
It was more than just a case of averted
imagination, but not much more.
Nevertheless,
we saw a lot and so did the many happy observers on the expansive field. There
was no denying, though, that Spruce Knob was a click down from what it can deliver
on its best nights. Higher than normal humidity and haze made the light dome
over the mountain to the east more prominent than normal. A patch of clouds obscured
M31, M32, M110, and M33 for a while, though I did eventually bag them and
plenty more “new” stuff rising in the east.
The
observing was fun, but what was even more funner for your old Uncle was sitting
in what we began to call the “hospitality” area with the staff and many guests,
shooting the bull about everything from the NFL to SETI and drinking many and
various hot and cold libations. Oh, the INFAMOUS Little Debbie – Dolly Madison
War was finally brought to a victorious conclusion by my girl Debbie. Cosmic
Brownies rule! Sorry y’all, you’d
have to have been there.
And so it
went till the time began to creep on till midnight and it began to get ever
damper and, yes, colder. Down in the Swamp, it is still in the mid-70s at
midnight. On Spruce Knob Mountain, summer was dying and the temperature was
dipping down into the lower forties and even the upper thirties. I was chilled
and tired from the trip, decided enough was too much, said my thanks and
goodbyes, and headed for the dorm.
There, I was
definitely ready for some shuteye. I had a laptop, a case of DVD movies, and a
flask of Yell (I never travel without it), but I didn’t bother with any of
that, collapsing into my reasonably comfortable bunk. Wouldn’t you know it,
though? Maybe it was because I was so tired, but I tossed and turned for a
spell time before drifting off. When I did get to sleep, I slept well, though I
did have to get up once to grab an extra blanket off one of the other bunks. It
had gone from, being cool, crisp, and good sleeping weather to being downright cold.
Saturday
morning brought a right good breakfast of tasty biscuits, gravy, and some real
nice sausage. And the morning and afternoon brought good talks. You can’t do
everything at a star party, unfortunately, and this year I chose to go on Lyle
Mars’ famous Geology Hike rather than listen to the presentations. Unfortunately
that meant I missed Katy Nagy of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on
Sunspots and NASA Goddard’s Andrea Jones on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Both their talks were outstanding, I was told.
Lyle, a PhD
geologist with the USGS, led us all over the mountain—that’s the way if felt,
anyway—teaching us about the rocks and the geological history of the site and
the surrounding area. The Academy lost a man who would have been a great
teacher when Lyle went to the government, that’s for sure. After the hike, I
was plain tuckered and had to recharge for a while back at the yurt.
After
reading a few pages of my book, I drifted off for a couple of hours, but was up
in plenty of time to get ready for supper and, most of all, my presentation,
which was scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. following the evening meal. On the
way back down to the Yurt, I realized I was identifying every dang rock I saw.
That pea-picking Lyle did a dern good job.
Before
supper, there was that feature of every star party large and small, the prize
giveaway. The AHSP raffle is probably one of the biggest outside the Texas Star
Party. Dozens of prizes mean that even a perennial loser like your old Unk has
a chance. One special feature of the AHSP raffle I’ve never seen anyplace else?
Instead of just putting your tickets in a big pot, there are bags labeled with
the names of the prizes. Really want to win that Plössl? Put your tickets in
that bag only. This is an idea I like very much and one I wish more star
parties would emulate.
Anyhoo,
there were lots of prizes, including a spiffy pair of Canon 10x50 stabilized
binoculars. I didn’t win those, natch, but, believe it or not, I did win something: a cable (from Orion) to allow
me to control my go-to scopes with my iPhone. Looks like ol’ Unk will be experiencing
21st Century amateur astronomy shortly.
Supper,
burgers and dogs, ran a little late. We are without doubt the largest group the
Mountain Institute has at Spruce Knob over the course of the year and they got
a little behind on the burgers. They finally got them out (they were pretty good,
too), but that meant my presentation had to be delayed about half an hour. That
was OK. It wouldn’t put me so late that I’d be pushing much past sundown, and
since most everybody set up the previous night, nobody really needed to get to
the field much before dark, anyway.
Not long
after seven, your old Uncle went on with his latest presentation, “Expanding Your Final Frontier with Deep
Space Video.” This was a brand new show, and I fumbled now and then, but
the audience was enthusiastic. Maybe because deep sky video cameras are now on
the verge of breaking big, and plenty of amateurs are anxious to learn more
about this “new” way of observing. Anyhoo, the folks seemed to have a good time
despite my occasional rambling and usual corny jokes.
Saturday’s
observing run was another corker. Few clouds/haze once in a while, but mostly a
Milky Way that resembled a great burning rainbow. Unk’s stay in the hospitality
area was enlivened by hot cider kicked up a notch with generous alky-hol.
Believe you me, the colder it got, the better the cider tasted, and the jollier
and more garrulous your silly old Uncle became. In addition to talking
foolishness, I was pleased to be able to answer quite a few attendees’ video
astronomy related questions.
Breakfast Sunday
was just right: eggs, sausage, salsa, and tortillas so you could make yourself
a breakfast burrito if’n you wanted. Again,
the day’s presentations were both interesting and professionally done. The
standout for me was Dr. David Devorkin’s “History of the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory under Fred Whipple.” The history of astronomy in the
U.S. is a long-standing passion of mine, and Dr. Devorkin spent quite some time
on the 1950s and the Moonwatch/satellite tracking program, a time I find
particularly interesting.
Sunday night
started out considerably cloudier than the previous evenings. The weather
forecasts were not encouraging, either. Still, there were plenty of clear
stretches. The night began with an absolutely lovely Crescent Moon - Venus pairing.
They were barely a degree and a half apart, and I was tempted to run back up to
the dorm and fetch my camera. Unfortunately, just as I was fixing to do that, the
pair disappeared into a cloudbank. That was OK; a hot, spiced rum took my
disappointment away. I was in a particularly good mood because of the news the
Saints had won one, and couldn’t resist letting out a WHO DAT after the first rum went down the hatch.
Despite all
the fun on the field, which even included some binocular observing, it had to
be an early evening for this old hillbilly. Bob and I planned to head back to
DC right after breakfast, and it would be an awfully long day. Again, took me a
while to get to sleep. I had a hard time
staying asleep, too, awakening once and poking my head outside to see what the
sky was up to. There was a beautiful expanse
of winter and fall constellations, and whoever was still hitting it at 2 a.m. out
on the field must have been getting their jollies bigtime.
Come morning,
neither Bob nor I was that hungry, and on a travel day both of us were a little
wary of consuming the good and greasy bacon that the smells coming out of the
Yurt indicated was being cooked. We also wanted to allow plenty of time to get
to Reagan in case we got stuck in traffic—the last time we rode back together,
we were stopped for well over an hour. We lit out slightly before 8 o’clock in
the a.m.
It turned
out that for once there were no bad traffic snarls. We ran well ahead of time
and were able to do lunch in Tyson, Virginia. I don’t care what you fraking connoisseurs say, the NEVER-ENDING PASTA
BOWL at Olive Garden rocks. It was a
pleasant ride back to the big city with Bob and Unk having plenty of time to
talk over and solve all the world’s problems.
The
denouement? The only slight snag was that my flight to Charlotte was delayed
for over half hour. Typically, the crew was close-mouthed about the reason, but
I assume it had something to do with security, since it was a just few days
before 9/11. I managed to catch my connection for the Swamp in Charlotte, but
just barely. Nevertheless, I didn’t get all upset. There was nowhere I had to
be on Monday.
Back at at good,
old Chaos Manor South, it was Taco Bell Tacos, Kolorado Kool Aids, and The Big Bang Theory. It was great to be
back home with Miss Dorothy, but what fun
I had had, muchachos. I am counting down the days to AHSP 2014, that’s for dagnabbed
sure.
Nota Bene: As always, you can see lots and lots more pictures on Unk's Facebook page, in the photos/albums section.
Next Time: Destination Moon...
