Monday, March 31, 2025
Issue #614: Uncle Rod, Armchair Astronomer?!
I know, Muchachos, I know, thisun was ostensibly going to be about me getting my 6-inch refractor, Big Ethel, and my Losmandy GEM into the backyard. My intentions were good, but between stormy late-winter weather and your dilapidated old Uncle being under the weather for a while, that didn’t happen. I still intend to get Ethel and the mount back up and running, and I definitely want to try the SeeStar smartscopes’ new equatorial mode, but that will wait for clear skies—whenever we get those. I am feeling much better this week, though, so that is something, I reckon.
Anyhow, what’s that title about, you ask? “Armchair
astronomer”?! Ol’ Unk’ was once purty hardcore observing-wise. His
observing runs, particularly during the vaunted Herschel Project,
routinely went on till three or four in the a.m. or not infrequently till dawn
itself. He was often known to snicker, “Astro-wimps!” at the sight of observers leaving
the field at midnight or one. Has that changed?
You betcha. I won’t bother you with my litany of
aches and pains, nor more complaining about growing older, nor (again) recounting
the close-to-fatal accident I had in ’19. I’ll just say, I’m in my 70s now,
and have had to slow down in a lot of areas not just to include astronomy.
Why? Well, I have a more difficult—much more difficult—time hauling gear
around, even into the backyard. I have a lingering (and mostly irrational) fear
of falling in the dark. And a late night for me is now ten or eleven.
That don’t mean I don’t get out with telescopes, though.
The coming of the smartscope is, as you know if you’re a regular reader, been a
boon for your aged hillbilly of a correspondent. I still do visual observing, too, usually
with modest telescopes like Miss Tanya or one of
my smaller refractors. I did get the 10-inch, Zelda, out over the summer,
however, and, as above, I’ll have the 6-inch refractor up and running again soon
(I hope).
Almost all my observing is from the backyard now, yes,
though I did get to the Deep South Star Gaze autumn before last and
would like to go back again. I still teach astronomy, and helping my students do their
outdoor labs with telescopes ensures I’m under the evening sky once in a while. I
continue to write for Sky & Telescope, mostly Test Reports,
which also requires my little self to be under a starry sky.
Night by night and day by day, though? I won’t lie to
y’all. I am purty much that astronomer we Active Amateurs laughed about
through our 30s and 40 and 50s and even into our 60s: THE ARMCHAIR
ASTRONOMER. That is, much of my contact with the Great Out There day by day and even night by night is now in
the form of books. I snuggle down on the couch, open a tome about my
astronomical obsession and let my mind wander the Universe. What are the ones I
most often turn to when I go voyaging?
Galaxies, Timothy Ferris (1982)
This large-format coffee table book from 1982 has been very
important to me. What is it? Oh, there’s some text on the subject of galaxies, natch,
but mostly it’s just big—BIG—13” x 14” color photos of island universes. I still
like to look at it, but in the early 90s, it was a lifeline. I was in
the midst of the dissolution of a truly misbegotten marriage, and Galaxies
allowed me to fly free for a while.
How does it stand up today? It holds up well. Sure, the images from top ground-based observatories of the day began to look a little second-class with the coming of the HST, and amateur imagers have now exceeded some of what’s in the book. However, many of the astrophotos here are still amazing, and the large format makes the best breathtaking. I don’t think Galaxies is still in print, but it is readily available from Amazon.
Burnham’s Celestial Handbook: Robert Burnham Jr.
(1978)
Everybody who’s even begun to earn their stripes as a
deep sky observer knows about this one. There are “better” field guides to the
universe beyond the solar system today, like Night Sky Observer’s Guide.
But none are written in the thoughtful, poetic style of Bob Burnham. When
talking about a constellation—the book is arranged by constellations—we may, for
example, take a side-trip with Bob and
talk about ancient coins for a while. It worked all those decades ago when the book was
initially released in looseleaf installments, and it works today.
I don’t go to Burnham’s for eye candy. There is none in its
pulp pages. When I snuggle down in that armchair and read this now, it’s for
Bob’s writing. And for the nostalgia. All those long-ago days when I sat with
these three volumes and a steno pad and made lists of “need-to-sees” for the
coming of night.
Skywatching: David Levy (1994)
You’d a-thought that by the time we got to the freaking
1990s, your old Uncle Rod would have been way past a beginner’s book on astronomy/amateur
astronomy like Skywatching. Nope. Mainly because this one, published by
The Nature Company (who’ve been gone for nearly three decades now), is
profusely illustrated as were most of their books. It’s just fun to look at
those pictures of everything from telescopes to deep sky objects. That’s not
the only reason, though. The authoritative text by David is to be relied upon.
When my increasingly forgetful self can’t remember some astronomy something, I
can turn to Sky Watching.
What really draws me back to this one on evenings when it’s
cold or cloudy or I just don’t feel like even dragging a small telescope into
the yard, though? Dorothy and I received this as a wedding gift upon our
marriage in 1994. Looking through it takes me back to the wonderful times when
the amazing Miss D. and I were newlyweds.
All about Telescopes/How to Use Your Telescope: Sam
Brown (1967)
Yeah, I probably know a fair amount about telescopes this
far down the line, but I still like to browse Sam Brown’s magnum opus published
by the old Edmund Scientific Company (still around, but nothing like
they were in the glory years). Why? While Sam knows his stuff, it’s those
wonderful old 60s-style illustrations. They are nostalgia itself.
Yes, All About Telescopes is now available as a free
pdf download from archive.org thanks to the people who now own Edmund. But you
can still get a print version, and that is just what you should do. As for me?
The thunder is booming; think I’ll take a stroll through this wonderful book—or
maybe just the excerpt How to Use Your Telescope that was included with
my Palomar Junior.
Norton’s Star Atlas: Arthur P. Norton (15th
Edition, 1964)
While wonderful for cloudy night browsing, you probably
wouldn’t want to use this as an accompaniment to even binocular observing. It’s
just not deep enough. It has stars down to magnitude 6, the Messiers, and a
selection of deep sky objects from the NGC (but with Herschel numbers!), 500 deep sky objects in all. Course, when I was a little nipper with a little telescope this took me—I
thought—way deep into the Universe. The nostalgia factor? I still cringe at how
many lawns I had to mow to pay for this one in 1966. Yeah, I cringe, but it’s a good
cringe.
Norton’s was updated some years ago for the current epoch,
the charts redrawn, and the text rewritten. Not surprisingly, it’s just not the
same and I ain’t interested in it.
Stars: Herbert Zim (1965)
You can read all about this here,
so suffice to say this book by Herbert Zim, a “Little Golden Guide,” is what
made me an amateur astronomer, game over, end of story, zip up your fly. What
draws me back is the nostalgia brought on most of all by Jame’s Gordon’s
wonderful little illustrations (up above).
And that’s kinda it for a rainy Monday when I have to make
my way to the university to teach astronomy to the next generation. I hope the storms rolling over us aren’t a foretaste of what April is to
be in Possum Swamp. I really do want to get that big glass into the night,
and I am a-gonna do that—scout’s honor!
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Issue 613: How about a Challenge?
Project Burnham, wherein I plan to visit all the deep sky objects highlighted by Robert Burnham in his famous handbook, will continue, muchachos. But I thought you might like something new; that you might like to hear about a fun challenge NASA is running this year, “Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge.” Wut’s they-at? NASA says:
Do you have a telescope? Would you like to see some of
the same night sky objects from the ground that Hubble has from space? We
invite you to commemorate Hubble’s 35th anniversary by accepting our year-long
stargazing challenge. On a clear night, find a safe location with a dark sky
away from bright lights, point your telescope skyward, and with the help of
star and finder charts, gaze upon some of the same iconic nebulae and galaxies
Hubble has observed. How many of them can you find?
They go on to explain NASA is working with the Astronomical
League (yes, it’s still around, apparently) who will handle issuing certificates of achievement for those who successfully sketch or
photograph the objects.
I’m not very interested in certificates these days (though I
admit I did my happy dance when I realized I finally had enough countries to
qualify for the ARRL’s DXCC CW). Certificates or no, it looked to me
like it would be mucho fun to get out and observe/image as many of these
nice DSOs as possible. If you are interested in certificates, you can
read all about ‘em on the Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge page.
There’ll be a list of deep sky targets for each month of
2025 with the selected objects, naturally, being those Hubble has imaged over its
long career. The targets thus far have been a nice mix of five or six objects
ranging from the easy to the slightly more difficult. For example, January’s challenge
included M42 on the easy end and NGC 2261, Hubble’s Variable Nebula, on the
more difficult.
My only complaint? Other than the Messiers, the
objects are identified with their “Caldwell” numbers. If you’ve forgotten about
the Caldwell, it was the “best of the NGC” list composed by the late Sir Patrick Moore
and widely published way back in the 1990s. Hey, I’m as big a Moore fan as
anybody—I likely wouldn’t have taken up amateur astronomy without his wonderful
books—but his Caldwell list never caught on with me or most other deep sky
observers. Not that it was bad…it was quite good, but had been done as well
or better before. NGC 2419
Few of us know the C numbers. I don’t recall ever
hearing anybody talking about getting out in the back forty and observing “C7,”
for example. So, when perusing the Hubble’s Challenge lists, you'll have refer to
a cross reference to the Caldwells’ NGC numbers, which is slightly annoying. Also,
I recall some of our colleagues were slightly annoyed with the list itself,
which they thought was overreach and self-promotion on the part of Patrick
(though he didn’t call it the “Moore List;” Caldwell was his mum’s maiden
name). I didn’t care about that. Patrick Moore was an icon, and if he’d
called it the “Moore List,” I’d have been fine and dandy with that. In
terms of Hubble’s Challenge, it is not a huge deal, since each month’s list
only includes a handful of C objects.
So…anyhow…I don’t know if I’ll bring Hubble’s Challenge
to you every month, but I will for sure bring some of them to you,
and I believe you’ll have as much fun with it as I have so far. This time of year, it’s nice to have a simple little
project to tone up the deep sky observing muscles many of us (including your cold-averse
old Uncle) allowed to atrophy this stormy winter.
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M46 |
Hokay, let’s go… ‘Twas a pair of quite acceptable late
winter nights when I set up each smartscope in succession. It was damp, but not
unacceptably so; at the end of the evening Evie and Suzie had fine patinas of dew, just a hint of what we can expect when spring comes.
This was only my second night out with the Unistellar, and I
still felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants when it came to her iPhone
app. Luckily, I had a set of simplified (always a good thing for
your simple, old Uncle) instructions from my Smartscope mentor, Jack Estes.
Mostly it went smoothly, and I think Evie did a good job despite my fumbling.
When I first connected Evie to the phone, I was prompted to
do an update. I’m not quite sure what that accomplished, but it was my
impression the wi-fi connection was more robust. I had the phone in the Sunroom
and Evie out in the backyard, and, unlike first light night, didn’t have a
single disconnect. Main takeaways? I think I dialed in focus fairly well, but
believe I can do a little better. It also appears to me that some collimating may
be required. Verdict, though? No fuss, no muss, though not as much no fuss no
muss as Suzie.
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NGC 2403 |
All pictures here are the simple .jpgs that came out
of the scopes with only the most minimal processing…
NGC 2419
Ah, yes, the famous Intergalactic Tramp in Lynx. Or
famous when your Uncle was a young man, anyhow. This 9th magnitude,
4’36” diameter fuzzball discovered by Sir William Herschel is a distant globular
cluster now known to lie a staggering (for a glob) 275,000 light years
from our little rock. It has long been known to be a far-far-away cluster, and in
the 1920s legendary astronomer Harlow Shapley speculated it was not bound to
the Milky Way and sailing through the night on its own. Which led to the “Intergalactic
Tramp/Wanderer” appellation. In the 1990s, however, it was determined it does indeed orbit
the Milky way despite its distance. Which killed some, but not all, the romance
of this distant ball of suns.
What was it like for the smartscopes? Suze had no trouble
at all finding and centering the fuzzball, but, alas, given her wide-field
nature, was unable to resolve more than a few of the cluster’s halo stars. Would
it have been different from a dark site? Maybe, but a dark site isn’t often
on your old uncle’s agenda in these latter days. Evie? She made this
globular look like a globular, her image showing off plenty of resolution.
Messier 46
Puppis’ bright, magnitude 6.0, 20'00" across cluster
is known and loved by even novice observers. It’s not so much that it’s an
outstanding open cluster in a telescope…it’s kind of large, is set in a rich
field, and doesn’t pop out from the background as much as the best-of-the-best open clusters do. Its
popularity with observers is because it holds a hidden gem, a small planetary nebula, the tiny ring of
magnitude 10.8, 1’10” diameter NGC 2438. Even small scopes will show this
ghostly little thing, which, incidentally, is thought to be a foreground object
not associated with the star cluster.
Caroline's Cluster |
NGC 2403
There is no doubt this big (21’00”) bright (magnitude
8.9) spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis is one of the wonders of the northern sky.
The true wonder of the thing, though? How Charles Messier missed putting this
one on his list. Be that as it may, it was finally observed and cataloged by William
and Caroline Herschel in the 18th Century. Yes, it lies in a subdued
and often bypassed constellation, the camel-leopard, but you owe it to yourself
to give it a visit.
How did the girls do on this one? It was pretty much
a tossup. Suzie’s image is maybe a little smoother…but I prefer the color in
Evie’s portrait of the galaxy. Also, it was verging on the hazy on Suzie’s
night, giving Evie further advantage.
NGC 2360
William Herschel’s sister and fellow observer, Caroline,
doesn’t have many objects attributed to her alone, but there are a few,
including this outstanding open cluster. Lina found this one—maybe during one
of her comet “sweeps”—on the evening of February 26th 1783, and it
became the second object in her personal list. As y’all know, Unk goes ga-ga
over most anything having to do with Willie and Lina, but Caroline’s Cluster is
a purty outstanding galactic cluster (in Canis Major) on its own. This magnitude 6.2, 14’00”
across clump of stars is just about perfect for small-medium size scopes.
Well, finally…a win for Miss Suzie. While Caroline’s Cluster
isn’t too large, it’s set in the richness of the Milky Way, and the SeeStar S50’s
extra field made it just look better. But it was good in Evie as well,
no doubt about that.
NGC 2392
And, yet another Willie Herschel discovery, the famous
Eskimo or Clown Face magnitude 9.6 planetary nebula in Gemini. It is another
object well-known and beloved of deep sky observers old and new. Small scopes
show a greenish puffball with a brighter center/central star, while medium-large
instruments begin to unlock details, like the ruff of the Eskimo’s parka.
The Eskimo |
And that was that. Easy-peasy. Both smartscopes knocked
off every challenge object. In fact, they laughed at the idea these were
“challenges.” That said, I believe as I gain more experience with both
telescopes, I will improve on what they can deliver.
As for NASA’s Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge? I had fun. I was
afraid the rather well-known nature of the objects would make for a ho-hummer
of an experience…but no. In fact, I had a terrific time. So
terrific that maybe I’ll continue next month after all…
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Issue 612: Where are the Smartscopes?
![]() |
M3 with Intelligent Denoise and cropping... |
Oh, before I forget—easy for me to do these days—happy
new year, y’all! I decided to forego the summing-up of last year I’ve been
accustomed to doing as a January AstroBlog entry these many years. Doesn’t seem
to be much point to it anymore. If you are curious as to
what your Old Uncle was up to in ’24 (for some unfathomable reason), just
cruise through 12 monthly installments. Easy enough to do. Ain’t like the
olden days when there was a new article here every fricking week.
Anyhoo, this will be a fairly short one…maybe…y’all
know how Unk do run on. Mainly because a lot went on at Chaos Manor South the
previous week. Beginning with Winter Storm Enzo, which brought
Possum Swamp more snow than we’ve seen since that hallowed, long-ago year of 1973.
Then there was (amateur radio) Winter Field Day, which I was determined
to participate in (and not from home) despite the cold. Finally, I had assignments
from two astronomy magazines to get out the door. Be that as it may
be… following the little old AstroBlog’s renaissance, I swore to get an article
up every month, so here one is…
Unk
![]() |
M33 stacked and processed manually. |
What else was notable about my time testing the S30? It
showed me this scope (and the S50) are capable of a bit more than I thought
they were. I am lazy these latter days, but I thought I should at least take a
shot at downloading the fits subframes from the telescope and stacking and
processing them manually with Siril (the free image stacking/processing
program). That process will be the subject of a future blog post but let me say
even for your bumbling old Uncle it wasn’t that difficult and hinted at
what the S50 and S30 are capable of in skilled hands.
What didn’t I have time to do? Between the need to
get those articles done, and the storm, I haven’t been able to get my
“new” Unistellar Equinox back under the stars. Believe you me, that is
Unk’s number one (astronomy) priority for the coming month.
ZWO
Is ZWO the king of smartscopes? Well, maybe in a way.
Their two units, the S50 and S30, are inexpensive and are in the hands
of a lot of amateur astronomers, old and new. Their app is also full featured
and capable. Frankly, the company had a leg up thanks to years of work on their
ASIAIR, which is a Wi-Fi-enabled widget that can turn your conventional
telescope and goto mount and camera into something like a smartscope.
Applying this technology to the SeeStars has made the little smartscopes nearly
impossible to beat for their prices and ensures they really punch above
their weight class. The company also continues to update their app/features
at a nearly dizzying rate.
So, what’s the latest with the ZWO? A lot of folks are
speculating about a “better” SeeStar. Maybe one with more aperture, say 80mm,
yeah, an S80. Bigger chip. Built-in wedge for equatorial mode. I
wouldn’t be too surprised to see some/all of that happen. But… Size doesn’t
scale linearly with aperture, alas, as somebody who’s only gone up a mere 2
inches of aperture from 10-inches to 12-inches sure can tell you. And
neither does price, my friends.
20mm more aperture makes the S50 considerably larger and
heavier than the S30. Goin’ another 30mm larger than the S50 will do the same—on
steroids. The result will be noticeably less portable and quite a bit more
expensive. I would be surprised if ZWO could bring in an 80mm f/5 for 1000 US$
and keep the quality comparable to the 30/50. Going to a good 80mm APO objective
will eat a lot of money all by its little self. Still, could happen. Probably
will. However, the S30 is still new, and I don’t think ZWO will want to
rain on its parade too soon.
What has the company done in addition to releasing Little Sister, the S30? Hoo-boy! They’ve added a feature to their app (same app works with both scopes) some thought was pie-in-the-sky: Mosaic (“Framing”) Mode. The SeeStars can now assemble multiple images into larger ones. The feature is easy to use; you just stretch and rotate the image “frame” in the star atlas.
And ZWO ain't done yet updating their app yet. Not hardly. Next up according to the company is Equatorial Mode, which will make it possible to tilt the scope over to polar align it. That done, pictures will not suffer from the problems of field rotation inherent in altazimuth scope mounts. Some users have already been able to use EQ mode by tilting the scope over to point at the Celestial Pole and “fooling” the app. An official equatorial mode will make workarounds unnecessary and will also add polar alignment tools. ZWO says this will be in the app’s next update.
Unistellar
![]() |
Equinox 2 |
The latest? The Equinox 2, which improves on the original
with a more advanced, higher resolution imaging chip and improved optics.
My take from what little I’ve been able to do with my Equinox 1 so far? They
are well-made telescopes, and it’s nice to have more aperture and focal length.
The app that controls them is fine. I do wish it featured a Station Mode ala’ ZWO
that would allow you to connect the Equinox to your network rather than to your
smart device directly. But all in all, works well. Stay tuned for more
on Unistellar when I gain more experience with this impressive instrument.
Dwarf Labs
All I know about the Dwarf II and III is what I’ve read
on the Internet and seen on YouTube. I’ve yet to get my paws on one of
these odd-looking little Smartscopes. That said, I haven’t been overly
impressed by what I’ve seen of the Dwarf II’s output. The Dwarf III? That may
be a different story. The new scope (Dwarf Labs is taking pre-orders now) appears
to produce impressive wide-field images with its 35mm f/4.2 optics. One big plus is it is EQ Mode ready
and includes polar alignment software in its app. The app seems a lot more like
ZWO’s take than Unistellar’s, containing a star atlas and other things
comparable to what ZWO offers.
Caveats? If you
can believe what you read on the Cloudy Nights BBS, Dwarf Labs has had
significant problems producing the Dwarf 3. Including QA problems. At
any rate, when I last checked, there’s a 4 – 5 month waiting list.
Vaonis
The latest from Vaonis, the Hestia, is an inexpensive ($300) smartscope. Or maybe it's not a smartscope or a telescope of any kind. It's a device that attaches to your smartphone and allows limited imaging of the sky. Maybe "advanced telephoto adapter that runs from an app on your phone" is a better description than "telescope." At this time, it is capable of producing decent solar and lunar images. It can image deep sky objects, too, but due to the Hestia's lack of tracking, they are mostly in the "I'm surprised you got anything at all" category. Vaonis says they intend to introduce a tracking mount for the widget in the future. We'll see.
Celestron
I’ve still haven't used heavy-hitter Celestron’s Origin
smartscope. Well, that ain’t quite right. I’ve used pieces and
parts. Celestron, you see, was able to put a smartscope together from
off-the-shelf/near off-the-shelf components. The mount is based on their time-tested
Evolution Wi-Fi enabled mount. The tube is a downsized model of the Rowe-Ackerman
astrograph— this model is 6-inches. The camera mounts to the scope via Celestron’s
good, old Faststar corrector mounting. The app is based on SkySafari—Celestron
has had a long working relationship with the SkySafari folks.
![]() |
Celestron's Origin. |
Might Celestron fix some or all of this? Maybe. I haven't heard new smartscope news from them lately. The possibilities are there, however. There’s no reason to think the mount couldn’t be used in equatorial mode with an updated app. The Faststar camera mounting means a more advanced camera could replace the current one or be offered as an option. And the price might be brought down some after Celestron (Synta) earns back development costs.
Me? I am impressed by the Origin’s images…but… Remember,
all I’ve seen is pictures of the scope. But… it looks to me as if
we are getting into the realm of too-big telescopes, telescopes I am too
lazy to use or literally unable to use anymore.
STOP THE PRESSES! The word on the street, the rumor, the scuttlebutt is the next release of the Origin app/firmware will provide support for equatorial mode and the StarSense autoguider.
On the Horizon at Chaos Manor South…
As above, my next goal astro-wise is to get friendly with
the Unistellar Evolution. When? When it ain’t so freaking cold. Oh, its
warmed up compared to our frigid conditions last week, but—wouldn’t you know
it?—the warming trend has brought clouds with it.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Issue 611: Yet Another Christmas Eve at Chaos Manor South
Last season's SeeStar shot... |
This little ritual of mine has been going on for almost as
long as I’ve been an amateur astronomer, getting started one Christmas in the 1960s when everything was on
the cusp of great change. As it always seems to be when you are young. I kept
it up over the years, but if not as an afterthought, not as something of great import
either. It seems to have reassumed some of its old significance in these latter
days, though. Maybe because I am old now, and the days when my friends, Jitter
and Wayne Lee, and I admired the Hunter with new eyes seem strangely close.
Not to sound overly melancholy or sumpin’; it’s been a bright and calm Christmas, mostly, for me and Miss Dorothy. And, not completely ho-hum, either. There was the slightly raucous W4IAX (Mobile Amateur Radio Club) Christmas Party at Heroes Sports Bar and Grill. Your ol’ Unk had “some” cold 807s and a couple of shots of the Cuervo Gold but nevertheless managed not to run amok or even make a scene!
Other than that, though, ain’t no denying it was a quiet Christmas. That’s just the way it’s been with the kids grown and far away as the years of this strange new century have rolled on. Those enormous, storied Christmases at yore at old Chaos Manor South in the Garden District are but shadows of the past. Which is fine, since your curmudgeonly Uncle now much prefers, “Quiet, no rows, no thank you; I believe I shall just stay home.”
Enough of that malarkey and down to brass tacks. The
scope I’d use if it cleared would be little Tanya,
the rescue scope. Oh, my old Palomar Junior sits next to Tanya in my radio
shack/workshop here, The Batcave, and that telescope would be nostalgia itself.
Or I could go whole-hog with Zelda, the 10-inch Dob, and really see
Orion. But you know what? I’ve had more
fun with minimalist Tanya than I have had with any visual instrument in many a
long year. More yearning for the simple
astronomy of my youth? Yeah, prob’ly, and for my youth itself, I guess.
Christmas Eve dawned, and after I’d served the
felines their breakfast, I took a critical look at the sky. What did I see? CLEAR
AS A BELL! Why, it was a blue-eyed Christmas miracle! Maybe. While the
dadgum weather channel admitted there’d be “abundant sunshine” during the day, they
were standing pat with “partly cloudy” after sundown. It looked like this year might
be a win visually. But I began to back off my idea of also imaging Orion with a
smartscope.
That was a mite disappointing, since those CRAZY, new robo-scopes
have been a big part of Unk’s amateur astronomy this past year. However,
whether I’m using a SeeStar or big sis Unistellar, nothing is more aggravating
or conducive to indigestion, actual or metaphorical, than drifting clouds. Why
it’s worse than an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of
cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. Oh, well. There’ll be plenty of
chances to snap Orion with the smarties in the coming weeks.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Issue #610: Ch-ch-ch-changes!
We preempt your regularly scheduled program… Originally, thisun was gonna be about me, your Old Uncle, turning my SeeStar S50, Suzie, and 10-inch Dob, Zelda, loose on the fall globulars chapter in UAG (“The Urban Astronomer’s Guide,” for the uninitiated). Then, as it sometimes does, everything—well, a couple of things—changed.
Thanks to the kindness of a friend of mine, Jack Estes,
who is also a longtime friend of this here AstroBlog, and an amateur
astronomer/imager extraordinaire, I was able to level up in the
smartscope world. To the tune of Unistellar’s Equinox (the first
iteration as opposed to the new Equinox 2).
“What in pea-turkey is they-at, Unk?” It’s a
smartscope, Skeeter, you might say the smartscope that set the pattern for
what these instruments would be like. Specifically, it is a 4-inch (114mm)
reflector with its secondary replaced by an image sensor. It is made by a
French company, Unistellar, which now offers several rather advanced
smartscopes.
Other specifics? The Unistellar is as above a 114mm
reflecting telescope, one with a focal ratio of f/4, meaning its focal
length comes in at 456mm. Like almost all other smartscopes, it rides on a
one-arm goto fork mount. Other than that? It features a Sony Exmor IMX224
imaging sensor with a field of about ½ degree. Also like her sisters, the
Equinox is powered by a USB-C rechargeable battery and operated via wi-fi with
an app on your smartphone.
That was what I had gleaned from talking to Jack, reading
the manual, and watching cotton-pickin’ YouTube videos. That reading and
watching (and downloading of the iOS app) done, I began anxiously
awaiting the scope’s arrival at Chaos Manor South…
Your impatient old Uncle didn’t have long to wait. In
just a few days, a largish box was on the doorstep of Chaos Manor South, and
your decrepit correspondent had somehow manhandled it into the Sunroom,
traditional staging area for new (or at least new-to-me) telescopes. I went to
work, aided by Wilbur Wright, second in command of our feline detachment.
Being President of the MARC, it was incumbent upon Unk to be
there, natcherly. I told Miss Dorothy, “Guess I’ll try the new telescope when
we get home.” She just laughed.
Indeed, upon our return I was way too tuckered to do anything other than
imbibe a few cold 807s in the company of the cats as we watched silly YouTube
videos. “Tomorrow night, for sure!”
Strangely, the arrival of the Unistellar Equinox had
coincided with a short span of cool and clear evenings. Only downer? There
would be a fat Full Moon on the rise. I hoped to get in a few minutes
with the Unistellar before Luna got too high. While Jack had provided me with
some instructions to get me started beyond what was in the manual (typical of
today’s manuals) and on the Unistellar website, I still felt like I was flying
by the seat of my pants when I headed for the backyard with this sizable smartscope
(still very manageable for Unk, nevertheless, at about 20 pounds).
Out in the back forty in my customary spot adjacent to the
deck, I got the scope mounted on the tripod—by means of lowering its base into
the custom-style head and fastening a couple of retaining bolts. Now to wait
for darkness, which, thankfully, is arriving at a decent hour now that that
dadgum DST has been turned off. Standing there in the gloaming, I had to admit
the Equinox looked impressive—and a lot more “telescopey” than the oddly shaped
(sorry, girl) Suzie.
When darkness fell, I finally got started. First step was powering up the Equinox via a pushbutton switch not unlike that on the SeeStar. Scope on and button illuminated a purplish hue, I connected to the scope with the Unistellar app for the first time. Now, I relied on what Jack told me to do in his quick start instructions, beginning with leveling the tripod, which I did in rather hurried fashion. Your jaded old Uncle had to admit he was now right excited about this 4-inch telescope.
Hokay, the app said I was connected to the scope, so this
was rubber-hits-road. Next step would be moving the OTA to an altitude of about
45 degrees. After a bit of fumbling around to figure out Unistellar’s onscreen
joystick trope, I got the tube pointed at said 45 degrees. Hell, y’all, I even
remembered to remove the aperture cover! I gotta tell you I was heartened by
the sounds the Equinox made as I slewed her. None of that old-timey Meade-style
weasels with tuberculosis noise. The sound emitted by her altitude motor
was sure and steady.
Next up? Time to do what Unistellar calls “orientation.”
What I call it is a “plate solve.” Mash the appropriate button on the app, and
the Equinox takes pictures and figures out where it is from the star field. It
seemed to me this worked—near as I could tell from what the app said. Before trying
a goto, however, I would need to take a manual dark frame, which Unistellar
refers to as a “sensor calibration.” I might have figured that out on my own eventually,
I reckon, but thank goodness I had Jack’s quick-start instructions.
The Equinox does not have automatic focus, so you focus
manually by turning the large knob at the rear end of the tube, which I assume
moves the primary mirror forward and back leaving the secondary (the camera)
undisturbed. While the quick-start instructions Unistellar furnishes advise you
just to focus on a starfield by eye, Jack told me to go whole hog in Bahtinov
mask function.
With only a mite of fumbling, I found Altair in the app’s
object list (the Unistellar app works with lists rather than a star atlas) and
sent the scope there. The Equinox hummed reassuringly, headed in the proper
direction, and soon had Altair in the frame. I centered up a little bit and
installed the Bahtinov mask—a plastic one that is normally stowed attached to
the aperture cover. As Jack had instructed, I used the onscreen live-view
controls to make Altair pretty dim, and focused till the star spikes were
properly spaced. Focus wasn’t far off to begin with, testament to the scope’s
mechanical quality, but I could have done better. I should have zoomed in on
the star a bit, but, yeah, I was excited. I got OK focus.
Now came proof in the pudding time. First light object? I figgered M57 would be it. Nice an’ bright, but also small. I wanted to see what a smartscope with more focal length would do for me. So, having found that magic Ring in the apps list, I sent the Equinox that-a-way, and held my breath…
When the Equinox stopped, there was that glorious ring.
Was it huge on the phone? No. But it was considerably more than the wee spot it
is with the SeeStar. While Suzie’s ring is identifiable, good luck being able
to make out the central star no matter how much you zoom. With the Unistellar,
even unzoomed on the phone screen, I could see the center of the Ring wasn’t dark
and make out there was something else there. Just a bit of zooming/cropping, as
you can see here, delivers that central star detail on the Ring itself. Was I
happy? You betcha.
Alas, wouldn’t you know it? By now the clouds was rolling
in. I did do two other objects in quick succession, M2 and M56. One thing I
noted on both objects? The exposures went quickly with no frames dropped. It’s
normal for the SeeStar to reject a sizable number of due to star trailing. The
Equinox’s tracking was better. In part, that’s attributable to the shorter
4-second exposures, but I suspect the gears are a lot more refined than those
in li’l Suze.
Shorter exposures were not a problem, by the way, thanks to
the Equinox’s sensitive camera. Almost too sensitive if’n you ask me. My
single problem at first light was blowing out the cores of globs (as you can
see, M57 is also somewhat overexposed. I didn’t have a clue about settings for
exposures on this first night. Ah, well, NEXT TIME. And rest assured, you will learn a lot more about this amazing telescope in the future. And with that, Evie’s first
light night with me had come and gone.
Evie? As you well know, all my scopes tell me
their names. For some reason, I thought that would take a while with this one.
Nope. As we were headed back to Chaos Manor South’s den for cold 807s and TV
with the felines, the girl said,
“Hey, y’all! I’m Evie! Unk, are we gonna be friends?”
“We sure are Evie, we sure are!”
But I said changes, and I meant more than one.
The arrival of Evie was just the first change at smartscope-crazy Chaos Manor
South! I soon learned I’d got the assignment for the Sky & Telescope
Test Report on ZWO’s new smartscope, the S30. You’ll learn all
about it in a coming issue of S&T. Stay tuned…Note that the Equinox saves photos both in this format and standard presentation.
Next Time: As
has long been the tradition ‘round Chaos Manor South and the Little Old
AstroBlog, next month’s entry will appear on Christmas Eve and will maybe
be a mite more sentimental and briefer (well, maybe) than usual. See
y’all then.
Nota Bene Department:
I had a request for the observing list from The Urban Astronomer’s
Guide in computer form the other day. I rummaged around and found that despite
the shutdown of the Yahoogroup that supported UAG with observing planner files,
I’ve still got one. Specifically, it’s in SkyTools 3 format
(which some other planning programs will be able to import). If you’d like a
copy, shoot me an email at rodmollise@southalabama.edu
and I’ll get the file on its way to ya.
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Issue #609: HOP, HOP, Astro-Hop!
Well, well, well, muchachos… November is almost here, and it looks as if we in Possum Swamp may have dodged a bullet hurricane-wise this season. The skies had been improving since the thunderstorms of summer diminished, and that had got me to thinking it might be time to do some visual deep sky observing in the ol’ backyard. Maybe even with my “big” telescope in these latter days, Zelda, a Zhumell (GSO) 10-inch Dobsonian.
Maybe.
While clearer and drier as September came in, the sky could still be hazy, and
there is considerable light pollution here at the suburban Chaos Manor South.
Not horrible like downtown, no, but enough to make locating objects with
a finder scope, much less a zero-power red-dot finder, a right good pain in the
rear. I got to thinking I might want to put digital setting circles on
Zelda.
If you’re a
long-time fan of the Little Ol’ AstroBlog from Possum Swamp, you know I had
DSCs on my long-gone truss tube Dob, Old Betsy. Sky Commanders they was, and
they worked a treat. I think I saw more with Bets in the first year or
two I had the ‘Commanders than I’d seen with her the previous decade. So,
I started shopping. But it turned out ordering circles for the Dob wouldn't be so easy this time.
The problem, it
appeared, would be mounting the encoders, the widgets that tell
the DSC computer where the scope is pointed, to Zelda’s somewhat different
altitude and azimuth axes. She is nicely equipped with smooth bearings and large
tension knobs for altitude and a lazy-Susan-style azimuth bearing system, but
those things make encoder mounting more complicated than with a simpler “Teflon
on Ebony Star” Dobbie.
I did find a set
of DSCs available with an encoder hardware kit for my GSO, but it was
expensive, would have to be ordered from overseas, and it appeared I’d have to
ship them one of the mount’s altitude trunnions for modification. All the way
to Australia. That seemed like a deal-breaker to moi. I kept looking and
found a digital circle vendor stateside who could provide encoders and encoder
mountings for Z, but still…more than I was comfortable paying given—to be
honest—the limited number of nights I observe with the Z-girl. If only
there were another way…
Then, I ran
across a YouTube video about that “another way.” It seemed there was a (free) program
for smartphones, both iOS and Android smartphones, AstroHopper,
that used a phone to replace digital setting circles. Unk was mighty skeptical,
however.
Folks tried that
years ago when smartphone astronomy apps that could find sky objects with the
aid of a phone’s compass became popular. Oh, they worked well enough to point
the way to naked eye objects but weren’t nearly accurate enough for use
with a telescope. I didn’t imagine anything had changed, but I watched some more
YouTube videos on AstroHopper anyhow.
Surprisingly, the
consensus seemed to be AstroHopper does work with a telescope and
delivers accuracy similar to DSCs. I did
note video posters seemed to have a range of results from “works great” to
“well, sorta works.” Sounded to me like I should at least have a look-see
at AstroHopper’s website, which I did: AstroHopper - Web Application for Sky
Navigation Manual.
AstroHopper
(formerly known as SkyHopper) is a free and open-source web application
developed by Artyom Beilis that helps to find objects across the night sky. It
does this by allowing an accurate hop from a well-known and easily identifiable
star to other fainter stars or DSO by measuring changes in pointing angles of
the cell phone using built in gyroscope and gravity sensors. It is similar to
Digital Setting Circles implemented in a smart phone.
Then came
the hard part, figuring out how to mount the phone on the telescope’s tube. It needs to be secure and needs to be
pointing along the scope’s optical axis. I had a couple of ideas how I might do
that if ‘Hopper worked, but I certainly wasn’t going to go drillin’ holes in
poor Zelda’s OTA without being convinced this was for real. The
solution, then?
What came to
mind was a smartphone camera mount for telescopes I’d bought some time back to
take afocal Moon pictures for an S&T Test Report. Maybe I could use the
phone-holder part of it to affix Siri to Zelda’s tube temporarily? I taped the holder to Z with blue painters’
tape (to avoid damaging Zelda’s finish) using enough tape to ensure the iPhone
would be held as securely as possible. I inserted my iPhone 14 Pro Max into the
taped-down camera mount and called that “good enough.”
It looked
wacky and Rube Goldberg-ish,
and as a mild September evening came in, I didn’t have much hope. Hell, I felt
a little silly, y’all. Nevertheless, I got Miss Z into the
backyard, inserted a reasonably low power (50x), reasonably wide-field (70⁰)
Bresser 25mm ocular into Zelda’s focuser, and got started.
I hadn’t
installed the app on the phone yet. You don’t have to; you can just run
it as a web page. Obviously, you have to have an internet connection, though,
so if you plan to go to a dark site somewheres without a cell tower signal, you
need to install AstroHopper on the phone (full instructions are on the
‘Hopper website). Anyhoo, with the web page up (it was in red-screen mode from
the get-go), I set out to put it to the acid test.
When you have
the app onscreen, you’ll get step by step instructions as to how to align AstroHopper,
but in truth there ain’t much to it. Find a bright star near the object of your
desire, center it in the eyepiece, tap “align” on the app, and touch the alignment
star (or planet) on the displayed star chart.
Once ‘Hopper says it is aligned, enter your target's designation in a search box and you
will be given onscreen directions—a line pointing the way and azimuth and
altitude distance figures—to your object. Then, yep, just move the scope to the
indicated spot and there you are. That’s what the app said, but, yeah, your
skeptical old Uncle was skeptical.
Hokay, alignment star… I was after M13 as a first object, and while Herc was purty high on the September evening when I first gave AstroHopper a go, we were still experiencing some of the humidity and haze of summer, and I thought a brighter star than one of Hercules’ suns would be easier. Alkaid in Ursa Major, the end star of the dipper’s handle, was still well above the horizon. A bit far from the Great Globular, but, well, I was after an acid test. If (more like “when,” I thought) it didn’t work, I’d find a star closer to M13.
Alkaid in the
center of the 25mm Bresser’s field (could have rounded up a crosshair eyepiece,
but didn’t), I clicked “align,” and chose Alkaid on the map. StarHopper
claimed it was aligned, so I typed M13 in the little box and followed the app’s directions to the
Great Glob. When it indicated we was there, I put my eye to the eyepiece,
expecting absolutely nothing…
Damn! There
was M13! Not
centered, no, but not on the field edge, either. Howsabout M92? Boom! M57?
There was the little smoke ring. M56? Looked better than I thought it would. I
was frankly amazed. I can only suppose cell phone compasses and accelerometers
have improved a lot over the years. And obviously Mr. Beilis is a talented
programmer.
Takeaways?
Having an alignment star reasonably close to the target object helps, but it
doesn’t have to be right next door. As with many alt-az DSC and goto systems,
avoid alignment stars that are near zenith. Also, if you let your phone go to
sleep, you will have to realign. It will claim to still be
aligned, but it won’t be. Finally, yes, AstroHopper worked. It
worked as well as many DSCs and better than some I’ve used. Only aligning on
one star and using a compass and accelerometers rather than inherently more
accurate encoders means it doesn’t yield the horizon-to-horizon alignment of
the Sky Commanders, but for my purposes it is good enough.
Convinced
AstroHopper at least worked, the next step for your old Uncle was
ginning up some kind o’ more elegant mounting for the iPhone than fricking
masking tape. That was easy enough to
do. The camera mount came with a knob-headed bolt that screws into the back of
the phone-holder portion. I hated to take an electric drill to Zelda’s
beautiful black steel tube, but if AstroHopper worked consistently, I judged doing
surgery on the girl would be worth it as it might impel me to get Z under the
stars more frequently.
I drilled an
appropriate hole in Zeldas’s tube, and after I was done spent a little time
cleaning up that hole with a file. Done, I inserted that knob-head bolt through
the hole and fastened the phone-holder down. The result looked purty darned
good, I must say. Now to see if my original success had been a fluke. Why not
undertake “A Trio of Fall Globulars” from The Urban Astronomer’s
Guide? The sky was clear, and all were riding high…
To cut to the chase? AstroHopper’s performance the first time out was not a fluke; it did every bit as well on this evening. Casually aligning on a star (no high-power crosshair eyepiece) again yielded good accuracy. I didn’t try to quantify it, but it appeared I could hit targets at least 20⁰ from alignment stars. Most objects were near the center of the field, some were centered, and none was “out.” I was happy with my phone mount, and had remembered to set “lock screen” to “never” so the iPhone didn’t go to sleep and ruin my alignment, so this run went considerably more smoothly than the first one.
So, me and
Zelda hopped from globular to globular under (once again) humid and hazy October skies. How
did those globs look in the 10-inch? That, muchachos, is a story for
next time. While it seemed I’d only been out under the stars a few minutes, the
falling dew and the wheeling vault of heaven that had sent old Hercules into
the horizon told me Z and I had been voyaging the sky for hours, not minutes. I
reluctantly covered the girl and headed inside for TV and Yell with the felines
(well, catnip for them). Need I say it? It was a good night, y’all.
The
Comet…
Of course, your lazy old Unk saw the comet, but being
lazy, waited till Tsuchinshan-ATLAS had rounded the Sun and got into the
evening sky before hunting her up. A good buddy of mine and a longtime friend
of this here blog, astrophotographer Max Harrell, got some lovely
pictures from our local dark site. Alas, the evening he and some other fellers
headed out there was my teaching day (and night) at the University. So, I had
to be content with the front yard of Chaos Manor South, which offers a view low
enough in the west to allow me to spot the visitor.
And spot her visually
was about all I did. I scanned around in the correct area with my
much-loved Burgess 15x70 binoculars, and finally saw…well…a slightly
fuzzy star. My SeeStar, Suzie, laughed at me and told me to go back in
the house and have some Rebel Yell while she fetched the comet. Which
she did in rather impressive fashion (above) given the sky quality and the
comet’s low altitude.
Next
Time: A Trio of Fall Globulars with
Zelda and Suzie…
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Issue 608: Project BCH Lives
What’s up this month, muchachos? What’s goin’ down at Chaos Manor South? Well, I thought I’d get out and “do” one of the late-summer chapters from The Urban Astronomer’s Guide, maybe one of my favorites, “The Friendly Stars.” Yeah…no. I’ve revisited that one more than once in the years since the book was published. What then? Howsabout a chapter from somebody else’s observing book? One far more famous than my scribblings?
Set the WABAC machine for a decade ago. In 2014, your
just-retired Uncle had finally wrapped up the vaunted Herschel Project and
was looking for something to replace it. I thought that might be what I initially
called “The Burnham Project,” and later “The BCH Project.” What I planned to do
was observe all the objects in Robert Burnham Junior’s justly famous Burnham’s Celestial Handbook.
Well, not quite all of them. There are thousands of
bright stars, variable stars, and double and multiple stars in the Handbook if
you include the object lists that accompany each constellation’s chapter. A
huge number of mostly pedestrian-looking stars would be a bit much, I reckoned,
and pared things down, but even the resulting 800 objects began to seem to be
that daunting “too much.” So, I thought I’d confine myself to the DSOs Burnham
details in the body of each chapter in his “Descriptive Notes.”
That’s what I thought I was gonna do, anyway.
Unfortunately, The BCH Project died on the vine. Why? The reasons I gave myself, including that I didn’t feel a “connection” with
Burnham, weren’t really the problem. The problem was after three years of observing
the Herschel objects like a madman, everything else seemed like small potatoes.
Or, maybe even moreso, that I wasn’t quite ready to let the Herschel Project go.
What I really wanted was to relive the years of the Herschel
Project. In 2014, my life was changing, and I sure did miss the go-go days of The
Project—jumping in the 4Runner and heading for the Chiefland Astronomy Village (and
Cedar Key) at the drop of a hat.
So, the BCH Project never did get off the ground.
I did some preliminary observing for it and dropped it. I tried again, but
no-go. I started looking for something else, some other big project. That
failed miserably, as well. The truth, Unk eventually admitted? The Herschel
Project was the big observing project of a lifetime, and there was
no replacing it.
Today, my perspective is decidedly different. I don’t like
to drive the Interstates anymore, and even if I did, there’s no bringing back the
Chiefland of a decade or two ago. Latter-day Unk likes relaxed observing, both
with telescopes and cameras, in the comforting surroundings of the backyard of
the (new) Chaos Manor South. So, as I was wondering what to write about, I got
to thinking about the BCH Project again…
The more I thunk, the more fun it sounded, and the more I came
to believe I was awful misguided saying I felt no connection to Burnham and his
Handbook. Just looking at the covers of the three volumes took me back to the early
1980s when I got my first copies from the old Astronomy Book Club.
Between their covers were countless marvels and mysteries I had yet to visit.
The deep sky was still relatively new to me, and I turned to its depths with a
will. Now, the Handbook is delicious nostalgia, but not just that. Every time I
read one of Bob’s DSO descriptions, he teaches me something.
So, the plan was… the plan was… The BCH Project will be back—in the
informal style that suits your now-aged Uncle. No time limits, no object quotas,
no rules. It will be simple: When I want to, I will visit one of
Burnham’s constellations. I’ll observe his objects visually with one of my instruments
and image the wonders in my simple fashion.
Other than “informal,” what’s different from my initial go
at Burnham? My decision the first time out to limit myself to just the Descriptive
Notes objects won’t do. Some constellations, like Hercules, only describe one
or two objects. So, in addition to the Descriptive Notes fuzzies, I’d also
observe the choicer deep sky objects in each constellation’s accompanying
list.
Simple. Neat. No trouble at all (I hope). If there are
objects in the list I don’t think will look worth a flip (like teeny-tiny
planetary nebulae), I’ll skip ‘em: NO
RULES. I am now calling this series “Project BCH,” to distinguish it
from the earlier attempts. I swear I will actually DO IT this time,
y’all!
Up first? Everybody’s favorite hero and demigod, great
Hercules. The night I took the images (with my SeeStar, Suzie) was relatively
good. Hazy, sure, but mostly clear. Then came an intermission due to clouds
while we waited for Hurricane Helene to pass by well to our East. That brought
a spell of clear weather. Even one night (barely) good enough to impel your lazy old Unk to get his 10-inch Dobsonian, Zelda, into the backyard.
What was notable about that night? Other than the heavy
dew? For one thing, I found I can still wrassle the Zhumell Dob into the back
forty without much trouble. Oh, it’s not something I’d want to do every day,
but I can still do it. What’s really notable is how I sent Miss Z to her
targets: with a cell phone app called
“AstroHopper.” More about that next month (maybe); for now, all I'll say is it
worked amazingly well, placing anything I asked for in the field of a 70-degree
25mm eyepiece.
Anyhoo, here we go (as above, I skipped the teeny tiny objects in Burnham's’ list) ...
M13What could I possibly say about this globular star cluster that Bob
Burnham didn’t say eloquently in the 15 pages he devoted to the Great Glob? Not much, muchachos, not much. While much of
the science (though not all) Bob gives us is now badly dated, that is OK. The historical
background makes reading Burnham’s Descriptive Notes more than worthwhile; it
is a joy.
Unk? I did not take a separate image of Messier 13 on this night.
After all, I devoted a blog entry to “My Yearly M13”
not long back. Old Globbie did photobomb my shot of NGC 6207 and I figgered
that was enough. He was looking good, though, showing colors in his stars and
considerable resolution in a mere 15 minutes of exposure.
In the eyepiece? Well, it was what it was. Obviously, the 10-inch showed considerable resolution even at 50x. The sky background with the humidity spiking ever higher was gray, however, even at higher magnifications and didn’t make for an overly satisfying view. Yeah, it was what it was, but I have seen far worse.
NGC 6207
In the 10-inch, even on what was turning into what Unk calls "a pretty punk night," the Great Globular
wasn't a problem. But NGC 6207 was—a little bit, anyhow. Ain’t run this one down, yet? It’s a little
magnitude 11.65 SA galaxy less than half a degree from M13. Ain’t much to
it: bright core and a little elongated
fuzz around that core. The main/only attraction is that it’s close to M13 and
in the field with it in a wide field eyepiece under good conditions in a
medium-sized scope. The saving grace here is the galaxy is small enough—2’30”—that
its light is not badly spread out and it’s fairly “bright” visually.
Well, these weren’t good conditions by any stretch of the
imagination. It took about 190x with an 8mm TeleVue Ethos to convince me I was even
seeing 6207 on a worsening night (I was now having the fogged eyepiece blues).
I saw it, though, if not quite in the field with the Great One. Suze had no trouble with it whatsoever, even
lending the little sprite some form and substance.
What did Burnham say about it? Nuttin’ Honey. NGC
6207 only appears in Hercules' “List of Star Clusters, Nebulae, and Galaxies.” As
above, only two deep sky objects, M13 and M92, get Descriptive Notes. And
yet, he goes on for 18 pages about what most of us modern observers would deem
nondescript stars. That is not so
much a failing as it is just witness to the fact that Burnham’s book is from the amateur astronomy of another age.
M92
As I have often said, M92 ain’t, as some claim, a rival
for M13. Even if it were in a constellation where the spotlight wasn’t stolen
by an M13, it wouldn’t be top of the pops glob-wise. Let’s face it. It is
more like an M30 than an M2, much less an M5. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t
good. As Burnham notes, it shows resolution in fairly small telescopes—I’ve
seen stars in it with fair ease with my 3-inch APO refractor at high power. It’s
considerably looser in structure than brighter M13, making it easier to break into teeny-weeny stars.
Which Miss Zelda did this evening without complaint (I'd imaged M92 with Suzie not long ago, so we skipped this one). Not
that it looked that great visually. As did M13, it appeared badly washed out
in the eyepiece. But you take what you can get, campers. I was shocked—shocked,
I tell you—to see how low ol’ Herc has gotten by mid-evening. By 9:30 local,
M13 was barely 30 degrees above the horizon. If you want a last look at the
Hero’s wonders, best get on it.
NGC 6229
Did you know there’s another fairly easy globular star
cluster in Hercules? There is, little (2.0’) NGC 6229, one of the objects
discovered by the sainted Sir William Herschel. This magnitude 9.86 star-clump
lies about 11 degrees north of M13. I said “fairly easy,” and the emphasis is definitely
on the “fairly.”
The small size of the cluster is both a blessing and a
curse. As with NGC 6207, it does keep it reasonably bright, but it’s small
enough and still dim enough to be passed over if you don’t really pay attention
to what’s in your field. 150x is probably the magnification to begin with. As
many observers have noted, what this glob looks like visually is a small,
round planetary nebula.
Visually for me on this night? I was purty happy just to see
it as that “planetary nebula.” I have achieved resolution of 6229 from
good sites under steady seeing, but there wasn’t a prayer of that on this
evening. The Suze? As usual, she impressed, not only resolving some of the
little guy’s stars, but even showin’ some color in them.
Hercules Galaxy Cluster Abell 2151 and NGC 6045A
I reluctantly passed NGC 6210 by. This wasn’t the night for
the tiny Turtle Nebula. Suze doesn’t have enough focal length to show
much there other than a fuzz-spot. Oh, I could have applied high magnification
to the reptile with Zelda, but, strangely, on this very humid evening the
seeing was poor; usually it’s the opposite. Onward to one last object,
then. One I considered impossible all the way up until the 1990s, the distant
Hercules Galaxy Cluster, which lies some 500 million light years from the Third
Stone from the Sun.
The word on this object for amateur astronomers in the 60s –
70s? Burnham does a good job of summing it up with his caption for a 200-inch
Hale Reflector picture of the (unnamed) cluster in the book: “DISTANT FIELD
OF GALAXIES in HERCULES. A very remote group of galaxies, showing a variety of
types in a single photograph.”
Certainly, by the 1990s, I’d seen members of Abell 2151
visually with modern telescopes and eyepieces, and I’d imaged many, many of its
members with my old C11, Big Bertha, and my Mallincam Xtreme. But bring home
the Hercules Cluster with a 2-inch f/5 telescope? Nah. “That’s just too much
for you, ain’t it, Suzie?” She laughed.
You’ll find The Hercules Cluster to the west of the main part of the constellation and the stick figure. It’s near the border with Serpens Caput. I wasn’t sure the SeeStar Atlas includes the Abell clusters, so I searched on the most prominent member, NGC 6045A. Suze slewed that-a-way and began taking her 10-second integrations. Amazingly, 6045 was visible almost immediately, and more members began to pop in as the exposure progressed. Alas, by the time I’d got 21 minutes, the cluster was low and in the limbs of a neighbor’s tree.
That final result? It won’t put your eyes out, but if you zoom in a bit, Suzie’s frame shows a crazy number of wee galaxies. 6045A's wide open barred-spiral shape is even evident. Staring at the unprocessed jpg that Suze sent to my phone, it’s fair to say this old hillbilly’s jaw dropped, nearly to the floor. The freaking Hercules Cluster? With this tiny scope? Man the times they are a-changin’.And that was it, muchachos. It was miserably damp by this time. Luckily, my phone had been showing Zelda the way to targets because the Rigel Quickfinder and the 50mm RACI finder were completely dewed over (and I wasn’t in the mood to hunt up a dew-zapper gun and a battery). It was time for cold 807s and TV with the felines. Wisely, I didn’t even try to get Zelda back inside; that would wait for the morning…I was pretty sure disaster would have resulted if I’d try to get that big OTA into the sunroom in the middle of the night (well 10pm, anyhow). I covered Z, and I called it a night.
Next Time: AstroHopper.