Uncle Rod's Astro Blog

Where it all began...

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

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

Act I:  The Dipping of the Toe…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plenty of clouds down Chiefland way...

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

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

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

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

A rainy night in...Florida.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

66mm William Optics SD patriot refractor.

80mm WO fluorite APO.

80mm SkyWatcher f/11 achromat.

90mm Orange Tube Celestron C90.          

100mm f/5.6 Explore Scientific achromat.

100mm Celestron f/10 achromat.

120mm SkyWatcher f/7 ED APO.

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

150mm Zhumell f/8 achromat.

200mm Edge SCT, Mrs. Peel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still as pretty as the day I met her.

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

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

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

A 16-year-old Autostar cable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before we get to that, however, I know y’all wanna know WHAT SANTA BRUNG Unk. Well, not any new telescopes; that’s fer sure. If you follow this here blog even intermittently, you know Unk has been engaged in thinning the scope herd over the last several years. Oh, I’ve still got telescopes and eyepieces aplenty. But I’m down to one SCT, a few nice refractors, and a 10-inch Dobbie.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything that was kinda-sorta astro-related, however. Something I like to do every week when I can is check into the Amateur Astronomy Digital (radio) Voice Net. A weekly meeting of amateur radio operators who are also amateur astronomers. This very fine net, hosted by NCS Jason Hissong, NX8E, a great ham and a great observer, can accommodate both DMR and D-Star users. The net meets every Wednesday night at 9 pm EST.  It’s a good net, but I wasn’t checking in very often. Why? Because the only D-Star radio I owned was a HT (handie-talkie, that is). Unk has never been a big fan of HTs, you see.

Anyhoo…the little VHF rig in the shack here, a Yaesu FT-1900, was about a dozen years old, so I figured it was time to upgrade. What did I ask Santa for? I thought about the Icom ID 5100—I love its big display—but it really seems more suited to mobile use, so I went with the ID 4100. And, after wrestling with the RT Systems programming software on Christmas afternoon, I got it set up for both analog and digital operations, and hope to become a regular on NX8E’s net henceforth. You can too if you hold at least a Technician license. If you’d like to join the net, see the Amateur Astronomy Digital Voice Net page on Facebook for details.

Anyhow, now for the annual wrap up…

January

January brought an article on poor, old Meade, which was in the midst of yet another bankruptcy. The long and short of it was the company that bought Meade after their last crash some years ago, Ningbo Sunny, lost an anti-trust suit, declared bankruptcy, and was looking for a buyer. Where are they now? I haven’t heard much news about ‘em lately. They are apparently still getting some product to dealers, however. The website comes and goes and products, even bread and butter ones like the LX90, are frequently shown as “out of stock.” The irony? As that bad news came out, I’d just completed a review of their LX85 and was quite impressed. “Meade is back,” I thought.

In a good sign for the revival of the Blog, January 2020 featured not one but two entries. The second being an account of my yearly ritual of photographing M13. This edition concerned me doing that with the above mentioned LX85 the previous fall. As above, I was quite impressed by the optics of the 8-inch Coma-Free SCT that came with the LX85 GEM package, and also by the quality of the AVX-like mount. Actually, I thought the Meade LX85, which features ball bearings on the declination axis as well as the RA axis, unlike the Advanced VX, tracked better and was easier to guide.

April

April? How about February and March? There wasn’t any February and March. Unk wasn’t quite ready to get the Blog back on the rails till April, but when I did, I swore I would get at least one and sometimes two new articles out the door every stinkin’ month. The first of these was a real blast from the past, since it found me in the backyard with my Mallincam deep sky video camera I hadn’t used in years.

I was curious to see how it would work—or if it would work at all—since I had not applied power to it in at least five annums. But the Mallincam Xtreme fired right up and worked just as well as it ever had. So did everything else. Yes, your silly Unk did fumble around a bit with the Mallincam software, but he finally got back in the groove.

May

As with the Mallincam, I was hoping all would be well after going on two years of disuse. And it was save for one thing:  the mount’s internal battery, a button cell. After getting over the shock of what one little battery can cost on fricking Amazon, Unk installed it in the Gemini II, got the mount into the backyard, and got it going again. “Going” meaning this wonderful mount performed just as well as ever.

Confronted with a downright strange stretch of clear spring weather, your uncle was able to get another Blog entry into virtual print in May. I realized that if I were to get outside with a telescope more regularly again, I needed a project. That project, I decided, would be The New Herschel Project.

Which would be decidedly more modest than the original Herschel (2500) Project documented in this blog. That project, a.k.a. “The Big Enchilada,” involved me observing all 2500 Herschel deep sky objects in less than three years. This time? Fewer objects, but more challenging in its own way:  I would observe the original Herschel 400 objects from my average suburban backyard. I would use the Mallincam when necessary, but the largest aperture telescope would be the largest left in my inventory. My sweet 10-inch Dobbie, Zelda.

June

The month’s first entry was about the first evening of the New Herschel Project. And, more prominently, the telescope I used to essay that:  Charity Hope Valentine, my Meade ETX 125. Like everything else the little scope had lain dormant for years.

Before I could think of getting her into the backyard, I knew I’d want to replace the battery in Charity’s LNT finder (she is a PE style ETX). That battery, like the Gemini II’s cell, keeps the scope’s clock running. I ordered one for Charity, and ordered one for the Celestron AVX as well, since I reckoned it would be good and dead too. Replacing Charity’s battery was a pain as always, but I got ‘er done and got the little scope into the backyard.

Alas, clouds scuttled our mission after we’d seen but one object. I was glad I’d got the little scope outside, though. For one thing, I found that the hand control cable was going bad. The insulation was gone in places. I’ll replace that “soon.” Another reason? She is a good little telescope and I still and always will love her.

There was a third entry in June, believe it or not. But it recounted a rather bitter affair. I’d found my Celestron Edge 800 had a severe problem. After seven years, the paint on the interior of her tube was failing. That necessitated carefully removing as much of the old paint (which had quite obviously been applied to an improperly prepared surface) as possible and repainting the interior.  

July

July’s second article took Unk from the high-tech to the very lowest tech. Wherein your correspondent went hunting for the amazing Comet Neowise with binoculars. I began with my 100mm giants, but when it became obvious I’d have to hunt up the parts and pieces of their mount, I backed off to my Burgess 15x70s. The comet looked amazing nevertheless.

August

August recounted Unk’s adventures with hand-held astronomy software from the Palm Pilot days onward. This was spurred on in part by a Sky & Telescope assignment I was working on, a Test Report on the new version of SkySafari. Needless to say, I was impressed by the new ‘Safari. I’d skipped a version, and was amazed how far the software had come in a short while. I don’t hesitate to say it is now fully the equal of most PC and Mac astronomy programs.

September

Well, Muchachos…September was not exactly an astronomy-friendly month down here in Possum Swamp. We were hit by a pretty serious hurricane, Sally. This installment was about the passage of the big storm. While it caused a lot of damage to our east, the sum total of her depredations here was a downed 6-meter antenna and a few limbs in the yard. We were on the standby generator for less than an hour.

October

The year began with my M13 tradition and it was ending with the same. I knew I had to get out right away, as soon as the Gulf calmed down, or there would be no yearly M13. To be honest with y’all, it had been about three years since I’d done any astrophotography, and I was a mite nervous about whether I’d remember what to do and how to do it.

To make things easy on myself, I employed my beloved William Optics Megrez II Fluorite, an 80mm f/7, Veronica Lodge. She makes astrophotography as easy as that difficult art ever can be with her excellent wide-field optics. My results were nothing special, but got me back into the groove of polar alignment, guiding, and image processing.

November

November brought another Herschel evening, and a pretty good haul of objects. The ostensible goal was getting CPWI working in wireless fashion with the AVX mount, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that was a no-go. My first generation Celestron wireless dongle just wouldn’t stay connected for long. I went back to “wired” and had mucho fun doing Herschels visually.

December

The final post of the year was about—what else could it have been about?—The Christmas Star, the grand conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. The article also comprised my annual Christmas card to you, my dear readers, but the focus was on the opposition. For once the weather cooperated, and I was able to see the spectacle and show it off to Miss Dorothy and a few neighbors with my 80mm f/11 achromat, Midge.

2021? Who knows what this year will hold? It is starting off in genuinely crazy fashion. Unk? I have two hopes:  that me and Miss D. get the vaccine soon and that I get up the gumption to get a scope outside and really start knocking off some Herschels. Which I promise to do just as soon as it gets a little warmer, muchachos.

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 2:38 PM 4 comments

That’s a problem for your correspondent of late, since, for some reason, I seem to feel the cold more acutely after my accident last year. Much as I might want to do some observing, the idea of shivering in the dark sometimes keeps me inside. Be that as it may, I did get out one recent chilly evening. How could I not? It was the GRAND CONJUNCTION.

Like everybody else, your old uncle was very much looking forward to the once in a lifetime experience of seeing Jupiter and Saturn in one eyepiece field. Howsomeever, as the 21^st of December approached I sensed not all was sweetness and light with my fellow astronomers. What was raising some of you folks’ hackles, oddly enough, seemed to be the public’s excitement about the event.

Yeah, that did seem a mite strange. Most of us want mom and pop to look up and see the stars. Alas, some of us also insist that has to be done our way, with respect and no appropriation of our turf. What I’m referring to is irritation over the conjunction being touted in the media and by the man-on-the-street as “the Christmas star.”

Why did that bother anybody? Well, some of us said it was merely because they wanted the facts clear in the minds of the public. This wasn’t any star. It was merely an effect of perspective. The two planets only appeared to be close to each other in the sky from our vantage point. There was no magic or miracles to it. “Why can’t we just stick to the cold, hard, immutable laws of physics?”

“Now, now. Calm down, y’all” was my advice. I suspected most of the general public actually knew the conjunction wasn’t a star, but the planets Jupiter and Saturn. The reports I saw on CNN and MSNBC certainly emphasized that.

Anyhoo, I believe the problem for some of us wasn’t so much  our fear the public would confuse planets for a star as it was the religion angle. But you know what? For many people, including people in the sciences, even in these latter days,  faith is important. Very important indeed. And if this conjunction reaffirmed that faith and brought a little hope at the end of a dark year, so what? Is that such a bad thing? What’s also worth noting? A conjunction very much like this one did take place in 3 BC.

Another irritant for not a few sky watchers? That darned public was poaching in our private preserve. Trying to filch OUR conjunction. We’ve seen this before with Blue Moons and Super Moons. I admit the latter used to drive me bananas, too. Until the night I was strolling Selma Street back in the heyday of Chaos Manor South on the evening of one such Super Moon... 

I was all primed to tell any of my neighbors who inquired, “Sorry, the difference in the size of the Moon is undiscernible by the human eye. There is nothing ‘super’ about it.” That’s what I was gonna say until I noticed all the little families gathered on their front porches gazing at Luna in wonder. Instead, I bit my tongue and let them marvel at a glorious sight.

Which is what I advised folks in our community to do when the subject of the Christmas Star came up. I took some heat for that. But I didn’t care. I took quite a lot of heat for a Focal Point (editorial) I wrote for Sky & Telescope many years ago wherein I opined the (now bygone, I guess) practice of buying and selling stars was maybe not the bad thing some of us made it out to be. I didn’t care then, either. If “buying” a star or gazing at a Christmas one causes someone to wonder, I am happy.

Anyhow. Enough editorializing. I wanted to see that Christmas Star with my own eyes. The question was how. It didn’t take long for me to decide I’d do it simply. No fancy cameras or tracking mounts. Just my 80mm f/11 SkyWatcher refractor, Midge, on her AZ-4 alt-azimuth mount.

There were several reasons for that. Given our weather of late, it wouldn’t be unlikely we’d be clouded out at the last minute and I’d be setting up a big scope just to tear it down and carry it back inside a few minutes later. Also, the planets would be awfully low by the time darkness came on December 21^st. I suspected I’d have to move the scope around to avoid trees. Finally, I just wanted to enjoy the event and maybe show it to a neighbor or two, not worry over cameras and computers.

Pretty Moon.

Almost ready, I had a quick look at the fattening Moon so I could precisely align the red-dot bb gun finder on the scope—Selene was beautiful, natch. But I didn't linger, quickly moving over to the pair of planets—who were now, indeed, a single point to my eyes. In went a 13mm Plössl, and to that went my eye.

To say the sight was a beautiful one would be an understatement. It wasn’t just that the planets looked good in the (relatively) long refractor. It was the idea of the thing. Those two enormous gas giants in one rather small eyepiece field. Furthermore, it was the realization that Jupiter was a much closer foreground object than the ringed wonder, who was about twice as distant as Jove. Pondering on that and looking and looking almost made it feel as if I were seeing the depth of a 3D image…and I almost thunk myself into a mild case of vertigo!

While it was the juxtaposition of the two that was so striking, there was no denying my inexpensive refractor was delivering the goods. At 68x, there was plenty of banding detail and color on Jupiter. Saturn was a deep yellow, showing off Cassini’s Division and a little disk detail. Upped the magnification to 150x and they still looked great despite the fact the Christmas Star was getting lower and lower and the seeing was naturally becoming lousier and lousier.

The SkyWatcher, Midge, came to me quite a few years ago and for only one reason:  I fancied her mount. I had originally intended to buy the alt-az rig from Orion, where it was badged “Orion Versago.” Luckily, I announced that intention on a Cloudy Nights forum, and a kind person clued me in to the fact I could get the same mount for less money from B&H Photo, where it was being sold as the SkyWatcher AZ-4. And not only that, the SkyWatcher package included an 80mm f/11 achromatic refractor.

Naturally, I went for the SkyWatcher and immediately recognized Midge was a fine little telescope. Beautifully finished tube, good focuser (though only a 1.25-incher), and surprisingly good optics. I will admit the scope was little used for the longest time. But a decade later she is out in the backyard a lot. She is trivial for your now somewhat feeble old uncle to set up—if I am just going to be giving something a quick look, I leave the eyepiece tray off the tripod, and am able to quickly collapse the legs to maneuver through doorways.

My souvenir of the evening...

Eventually, of course, the Star really got down into the mess at the horizon. Before winding things up, I held my iPhone up to the eyepiece and shot a few pictures. Not because I expected much of an image, but just so I'd have a "souvenir" of the evening. I went back to the pretty Moon and shot a few of her as well. Soon thereafter, your uncle retreated to his den for a warming potation and a second viewing of the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian. 

I am always a little stressed out over big astro-events that capture the public's attention. There have been a lot of Kahouteks over the years, afterall. But this was one astronomy Special Event that really worked out; not just for me and my fellow astronomers, but for everybody, and for that I am glad.

Christmas Eve…

These latter-day Christmas Eves are nothing like those huge Christmas Eves of yore at old Chaos Manor South with a giant tree and little kids, eyes full of wonder, running everywhere. And no trips to old El Giro's for margaritas like we used to do each Yule eve, either. This Christmas in the Year of the Plague was an even more quiet one than those of late. Just me and Miss Dorothy. On the morrow, I’ll fix a nice Christmas repast for two (I’m doing a ham this year) and see what the Jolly Old Elf brought me. 

Whether I get out with a telescope or not between now and New Year’s, I’ll be back before long with an article to, if nothing else, tell you WHAT I GOT! Have a beautiful holiday, muchachos. 

"Wait just one cotton pickin' minute, Unk! Ain't you forgettin' something?!" Almost did:  My traditional Christmas Eve viewing of that greatest and most numinous of ornaments, M42, The Great Orion Nebula. It hadn't looked good when I had arisen at my accustomed 07:30 on Christmas Eve morning. Windy, thunderstorms, generally yucky. Looking at Accuweather on my phone (I got tired of the Weather Channel's pop-over ads), and the Clear Sky Clock (I will never call it "Chart"), however, showed maybe there was some hope.

Following my normal Thursday night routine, checking into the Lockdown Fun Net on 28.420Mhz, I peeped out the radio shack door. And there was Rigel shining on like some crazy diamond. I hurried into the house, fetched Midge, and inserted the 17mm Koenig eyepiece I'd purchased at the 1993 Deep South Regional Star Gaze into her diagonal. Best view of M42 I've ever had? No. This was a 3-inch telescope under suburban skies with a waxing Moon nearby. But beautiful? Yes. I looked upon it as a good omen.

# posted by Rod Mollise @ 8:30 PM 8 comments