Mingo Creek Star Party, Aug 22

What a great night, even if the sky didn't always cooperate! My friend Michelle and her husband Glenn came down to the park with their telescope, and the three of us did our best to see some of the sights through the mostly hazy sky. They were relative newcomers to the hobby, and I sure hope I didn't scare them off with my constant babbling about the sky :)

I didn't use my 6" SCT at all, other than to take a peek at Jupiter. I spent the night using my new Canon XT and driving the 24" RC telescope in the observatory. Since the sky was so iffy, I took requests for a while :)

We looked at the Ring Nebula, Albireo, Gamma Delphini, M13, M22 and the Wild Duck Cluster. All were only so-so views (except Albireo, which was very nice), but I was happy to show them to the small yet eager crowd. Had the skies been better, we would have had many more guests, I'm sure.

After my friends and the public left, I tried my hand at some tripod shots with the XT. Since I don't have a driven mount, I stayed with 15 second exposures at 1600 ISO, ranging from 55mm at f4 to 250mm at f5.6. I got a couple of sunset shots using the default camera settings for landscapes.

Of course, since the public was gone, the skies got better :) We ended the night on the 24", testing out a new 13mm Ethos eyepiece. Though I'll likely never spend the cash on one of these, the view was simply mind-blowing. A 100 degree field of view is like nothing I've ever experienced - I felt like I was suspended over M13!

Pictures below - overall a very fun night.

July 25th Star Party at Mingo Observatory

The AAAP hosted another popular star party at the Mingo Creek observatory this past Friday, and I was very excited to finally take the 6SE out this darker site. I had been assembling several new accessories as well – more on those in a minute. Over the course of the night, we hosted over 100 visitors, and it was one of the best nights of conversation that I’ve had at Mingo since joining the club 2 years ago.

I set up near the reflector room, which featured the 24” Ritchey-Chrétien reflector on the new mount. The mount is amazing – solid and accurate – a true work of art. I wanted to stay close to the building so that I could work the reflector or answer questions as needed, and I wanted to be close to a power outlet :)

I set up the scope (see the photo at the right), doing a finder scope alignment and visually testing the overall collimation. I had just added some Bob’s Knobs to help me easily collimate the scope, and it appeared as though it was decently collimated at first glace. I had also purchased a new Astrozap dew shield, and added that to the front of the scope. The sun was still setting, and I had a bit of a wait before two decent alignment stars appeared. I also found some small blinking red LEDs at Radio Shack that I used to mark the tripod legs and power supply. I found that these worked really well – people saw the lights and knew to walk carefully around them. They can be purchased in most stores, or online here.

I walked around to speak to some members, and had some great conversations about equipment, accessories, books, and the club. There were some new members, and we had a lot of fun looking at and discussing the new reflector mount.
As the night progressed, I had some great conversations with the guests, and really appreciated how friendly and interested the crowds of people were. We discussed equipment, various Messier objects and nebulae, and other fun geek stuff :)
I found that my scope performed better than ever, keeping objects centered in the eyepiece for as long as I wanted. I spent some time with Jupiter at over 350x, and even with the less-than-optimal seeing it was a fun view, allowing me to see more cloud bands than I’ve ever seen.

I observed a bunch of objects over the course of the night, including: the Ring Nebula, the Dumbbell Nebula, M13 (Hercules Cluster), the Wild Duck Cluster, the Swan Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, the Trifid Nebula, the Eagle Nebula, and many others. I was impressed with the new nebula filter that I had just received that week. Based on several recommendations, I decided to buy the NPB filter from Omega Filters (available here). It really helped to make the various nebulae “pop” from the eyepiece. The Trifid was tough to spot, though I had heard from others that night that they had similar problems seeing it well. Not sure why.

I really enjoyed the southern views of Mingo, and spent most of my time observing that part of the sky. The Milky way did become visible as the night went on, but the overall brightness was not as high as other nights that I’ve spent on the hill. In fact, after midnight, the conditions began to get worse. Clouds began to form towards the horizon and haze ruined the south.

I spent the last part of the night with a few members and guests running the reflector. Having a true computer-controlled telescope is really a blast – just find an item on the screen (the computer uses The Sky software), click it, click “slew”, and sit back and watch the enormous 24” scope track in just seconds. It was fast, accurate, and whisper quiet. The mount makers should really be commended on their work, as well as the members that spent so much time and effort getting the new mount installed and configured.

Another great night out! Hope to see even more people for the next one!

Special Thanks to AAAP member and professional photographer Dave Smith for allowing me to repost a few of the images that he took at the party. For the entire set of images, please visit this site.

Todd

The New Telescope - The Good, The Bad, and the Depressing

As my last post described, I had a few issues setting the scope up for the first time. I was excited, and rushed a few things, and so the results were less than "stellar" (har har). My second and third attempts were also disappointing, and the following details the trials of getting this scope back to tip-top shape.

Part 1: Nags Head Glitch
My family spent a week in Nags Head, NC over the week of July 4th. Being a fairly dark observing site, I brought the scope along to show my family - some of whom are also into astronomy - some of the sights. I had purchased a new battery pack for powering the scope, and was anxious to try that out as well. Luckily, it came charged from the factory - nice :)

I placed the scope on the concrete pool deck in the back of the house, and the sky was perfectly dark and clear. An amazing night to observe. I set about aligning the scope, and it was very easy this time around (read the manual, Todd, it helps). I slewed the scope to M4, a globular cluster in Scorpius. Gorgeous. So much more detail than the smaller reflector I had been using. My brother had trouble seeing it (I guess his eyes aren't that good?) so I decided to move to Jupiter, which had just risen in the south. And then it happened...the scope went NUTS. It began spinning freely on the alt axis, and the hand controller said "No Connection - Error 17". I tried restarting the scope, and then another alignment. This time, even that didn't work, and the scope went haywire again.

Thinking it was the battery, I decided to wait until the next clear night and drag a long extension cord out to the pool deck. I didn't get another chance for several days, due to clouds.

Part 2: Total Failure
Same setup as before, but the sky wasn't as nice. There was a bit of haze due to some swamp fires in the area, but it was still clear enough to try the scope again. I used the extension cord and the AC adapter, hoping for better results. No dice. In all attempts, the scope kept losing connection to the motor, and the error never went away. Thoroughly depressed, I packed the scope up for the remainder of the vacation and decided to hit the message boards for help. I also put in a trouble ticket with Celestron, hoping they could help.

Turns out this is a fairly common issue, but is usually caused by a bad connection between the hand controller and the mount. I read a LOT of helpful information on Cloudy Nights (thanks guys!) and was directed to view the Nexstar website (www.nexstarsite.com).

Part 3: MacGuyver at Work
After trying the hand control in the AUX port of the mount (rather than the typical hand controller port), I still had errors. I was not sure what the next steps would be, since I had done nearly everything recommended by the boards and the Nexstar site. I even updated the hand controller and motor control firmware (via an old Windows 98 laptop that I had in storage, gathering dust - come on, make a Mac version!!!). The only other thing to do, before sending it in to Celestron, was to take the entire mount apart. So I did :)

To be honest, there are not a lot of parts to this mount. I removed the OTA tube from the mount, then removed a few screws on the inside face. I then removed a few more under the battery door, pulled off all of the plastic casing, and the innards were exposed. Just a bunch of ribbon cables and 2 tiny circuit boards, stacked on top of one another. And then I saw it - a connector on the bottom board was slightly loose, and it felt wobbly when I tried to reseat it. I plugged the scope in, powered it up, and went through the actions of aligning it to the moon (totally fake, as this was indoors - I just wanted to give it a place to start from, to give it a realistic test). Trying to slew to M4 caused the error again, until I touched the loose connector, after which it worked perfectly. Voila! I tested this over and over, and this was definitely the issue. I reseated the connector and went about putting the plastic casing back on. It wasn't easy - nor was it easy to remove. I should have come right off, and gone right back on, but it was stuck. I then realized that the board assembly was crooked - and that this was the reason the connector was coming loose. I bent the boards forward a bit, and the cover went right on. I tested the scope again, and all went well. Finally :)

Part 4: An Actual Observing Night
With the scope back together, I marched it out to the driveway for a real test. It aligned perfectly using an auto 2-star method, and hit M13 dead on. Amazing!!! Everyone at my house was in bed, and I wanted to wake them up to see M13 - a true dazzler of a star cluster, and this view was nothing like my old scope. This was in my light polluted driveway as well! Then I slewed to M57, the Ring Nebula. Dead center in the eyepiece, and brighter than I had expected. I spent the next hour slewing all over the place - to asterisms like the mini coathanger, double stars in Lyra, more clusters like M3 - what a night. Dew prevented me from staying out past midnight (which was probably a good thing!), so I packed it in. I could barely get to sleep afterwards, as it had been SO nice to finally have the scope working.

The next star party at the Mingo observatory is July 25, with another on July 26. I can't wait to use the scope in darker skies with better views (my driveway is blocked by trees in many directions).

Thanks again to everyone that helped me with ideas, links, and good wishes!

The NexStar Arrives - and I'm an idiot

I finally received the new Celstron NexStar 6SE telescope - it had been delayed for almost a week due to the floods out west. Thankfully, UPS was able to deliver it without incident, and even brought the 50lb box into the house (I wasn't home, and I'm fairly sure my wife didn't want to kill herself dragging a telescope into the house).

It looked PERFECT. I can't believe the deal I was able to get, considering the overall condition of the scope and accessories. They didn't appear to have been used at all! The seller delivered it in original boxes, and even the "warning" tags were still attached.

I was able to assemble the unit in about 5 minutes - it really is simple. I picked up a large plastic tub at K-Mart that fits the packing material for the main unit perfectly. The tripod and my accessories case fit inside as well, making this the perfect all-in-one travel case for trips to Mingo (and other dark sites). Unfortunately, in my haste to pack the unit back up, I never aligned the red dot finder. Mistake #1.

I wasn't anticipating using the scope immediately - it had been raining all day. To my surprise, the sky became clear at around 9PM, and I hurried outside to set everything up. I didn't realize until the next day that I had attached the finder incorrectly (hey, it was dark!). Mistake #2. I went about trying to do an auto align, but after 3 failed attempts I knew I was doing something wrong. Even when doing a single star alignment, it just was WAY off - 15 to 20 degrees off. I looked at the scope in daylight the next day, and realized the finder was mounted cockeyed. I'm fairly certain I had entered the time incorrectly as well. I'm an idiot. I'll try again tonight, with any luck.

Even so, I know a few things about the sky, so I checked out M13 manually (a very easy find). Larger and more detailed than my previous scope, for sure. I sensed something was up, though, when I had trouble getting tight focus. Sure enough, my corrector was covered in dew. Grrrrrr.

I'm leaving for vacation in two days, so there isn't time to order a dew shield and have it arrive in time. I may make one out of craft foam as a temporary fix - here's hoping there is less dew in Nags Head (not likely!)

Overall, a great scope. Really solid on the mount, excellent tripod, easy to use computer (when I know the time!). I also have my exact longitude/latitude (thank you Google Earth), so hopefully that will help as well.

Todd

A new GoTo telescope = Happy Todd

Yes, I finally decided that manual tracking with a 3" Newtonian was no longer allowing me the time to enjoy my observing (OK, I was still enjoying it, but I wasn't seeing as many things due to the amount of time it took to find them!)

After much research, freelance (to save up) and debating, I was able to find a SWEET deal on a barely used 6" Celestron SCT (Schmidt-Cassegrain, for those of you not familiar with this stuff). Sure, I wanted an 8" (or a 9.25!), but budget and portability - and sanity - won out, and I chose the 6". SCT's are good general purpose telescopes for almost all subjects. The folded optics (see image inset below) make them particularly good for grab-and-go scopes (in smaller sizes), since they give the focal length of a very long scope in a very compact package. This allows for larger magnifications that simply aren't available in a refractor or Newtonian at this size. Since aperture (size) rules, I wanted to go as big as I could on a budget, and this one did the trick.

The picture (upper left) shows the scope: the main optical tube is mounted on a single fork mount (yes, single fork...I know that makes no sense, but they make double fork mounts, too). The on-board computer not only allows for tracking of objects - no more repeated nudging the scope to keep things in view - but it also has a built in database of objects that it automatically slews to. Called "Go-To" scopes, these telescopes can make a night of observing much more exciting for novices (raises hand) and those with children (raises hand again), since the hunt for Deep Space Objects (DSOs) becomes much easier. Besides, try telling a 4 year old that Saturn can be bigger in the eyepiece, but that it moves so fast at that size that you can't keep the scope on it. No, they don't like that. They want Saturn as BIG as possible, and don't want it to move out of their field of view.

Are there any downsides? A few. SCT's can be more susceptible to dew, since the front corrector plate is glass. There are dew shields and heating devices to help with this, but I'll worry about that after some actual field usage. Also, since there is a secondary mirror in the front corrector plate (the round circle) that causes a slight obstruction, the contrast of images is slightly reduced. I'll live :)

So, I should be telling you that Go-To is evil, right? That true amateur astronomers should learn the night sky using star charts, and learn to star hop the old fashioned way, right? Sorry, I'm too much of a tech geek to NOT have a computerized scope. I haven't even told you that you can hook up a laptop and actually aim the scope using on-screen star charts...oh, baby! So while yes, I think that star hopping and overall night sky familiarity are absolutely important, so is being able to enjoy your hobby the way you want to enjoy it. For me, that's with a helpful little thing called a motor.

The scope arrives next week, and I'll have new pictures posted ASAP. I cannot wait for first light with it - so many things to look at, now with more aperture!

Until then,
Todd