I had some gift cards to spend from Christmas so I got the Pro version.  After the gift cards, it cost me about $5.00!  (as of this writing, they have it on sale for $39.99 on the App Store).  I played with it and I was amazed at everything that is included in this application.  It had all the stars from the Hubble Guide Star catalog.  I would zoom in to various areas of the sky and it was showing galaxies down to 18th magnitude.  I set it up to be in “equatorial” mode because I wanted it for portable sky charts, not a planetarium.  When you zoomed in to some objects, it would show you a picture of that object which is really nice.  You can make impromptu observing lists too.

On the day I downloaded the app, the club was having an impromptu observing night down at the Hocking Hills so brought the iPad with me.  I did not have time to come up with an observing list, but that was ok.  I was experimenting.  After getting set up, I started using it to look for my first object.

One of the things that is annoying with any type of back-lit display is that gives off white light.  Even when you have it in “red light” mode, the backlight is still white.  I dimmed it as far as I could go and put it in red light mode.  It worked ok for me.  I think I will use some Rubylith in the future to truly dim it down.  (In fact, the author of Sky Safari describes a great way to do this).

So I decided to go to M77.  Using the star charts, I easily found it.  I selected the “Info” button about it.  I read through the information and discovered something new (to me that is).  Did you know that M77 is a Seyfert galaxy?  How cool is this?  Here I am, looking at an object, and then I learn something more about it.  Using the star charts, I went to more galaxies surrounding the area.  Each one letting me know things like how far away it is, the magnitude, etc.  I opened the showcase object list that the app creates for you based on the current time. On that list was Hubble’s Variable Nebula.  I read the description of it.  I discovered that it was the first object photographed with the 200-inch Hale telescope at Mt. Palomar.  Very neat.

I eventually want to get some Optical Encoders for my scope so that I can interface the telescope to the iPad to give me a truly interactive experience.

I plan to use the iPad every time I observe.  It adds a nice new dimension to my observing.  And I plan to leave the bulky books and charts at home.

Criterion RV-6 Dynascope

Back in September, I picked up a Criterion RV-6 Dynascope that someone brought to the CAS Astronomy Fair to sell.  I payed $250.00 for it.  It was in great condition!  I have been wanting to pick up an old scope like this.  Bill Burton recommended a Dynascope as a good first classic telescope.

I have since used it several times.  The clock drive works wonderfully, the optics are great, and I have been using it regularly.  It came with the original 3 Ramsden Achromatic eyepieces.

This has been a great find!!

View of the valley.

I had a great time at the star party despite the weather. I almost didn’t go because of the ominous prospect of bad weather, but I am glad I went. I now know that it is not just about the observing, but meeting like-minded folks from all over and getting to know your fellow club members better.

Mountain Fog

The scenery was stunningly beautiful even when the clouds socked us in. We were surrounded by lush green mountains covered with Red Spruce trees. They reminded me of Christmas Trees. Jim and I went on the summit hike and saw a rare blue crayfish in the rocks. Being at the summit, it was fun to be at the base of the clouds as they formed right above us. The wind was pretty strong there too. We looked at the valley below us bathed in sunlight. Hurricane Irene did visit us Saturday night with 60MPH wind gusts and horizontal rain but most of us were able to keep dry. I almost lost my pop-up canopy.

Camp CAS

We did get a beautiful sky Monday night and I had the best views of the Veil Nebula I ever had. In fact, I probably spent about 30 minutes looking at it through various eyepieces. I did get a chance to look through a 28″ Webster telescope.  I thought the view was pretty good of M51 (with the supernova still visible) and M13 had many more stars than what I am used to seeing.

Jim relaxing before the night falls.

One of the interesting things I saw was how the clouds are black there and not lit up from the ground. This is actually an eerie thing to see. There is no definition to the cloud bottoms, just black emptiness in the sky. It reminded me of dark nebula in space.

Les and his son Collin see something off in the distance.

My expectation on a really dark sky was seeing black skies with lots of stars. This is not the case (many have said this before to me). The sky is more like a dark blue. At first glance, the sky did not seem that much better than Grieser Field. But I soon discovered that contrast in the eyepiece is much better and you see more. However, the jump from a suburban sky to GF is a lot larger than the jump from GF to Spruce Knob. Granted, I would much rather be under a dark sky like at Spruce Knob, but you get into diminishing returns considering the time and cost to get there. We have some nice locations closer to home we can enjoy.

Mike waiting for dark skies.

It was fun hanging around Mike, Jim, Les (and his son Collin), Gerry (and his son Kevin) and Marshall. We also won several prizes too. Gerry’s son won a 3″ First Scope Reflector, Marshall won a nice set of Meade 5000 Plossls, Les’ son won the Meade DSI 2 CCD Camera (I think Les will be using it.. heheheh), and I won a $30.00 gift certificate for Astrosystems.  I plan to use this for a new spider for the rebuild of my 12.5″ scope’s secondary cage.

Gerry and his son Kevin doing some solar observing.

The staff at TMI were wonderful and wow can they cook! The NOVAC club members who were running the event were awesome. They really know how to put on a nice event. We got to know some of them pretty well.

Marshall is excited for the prospect of clear skies.

Star Parties are not about the observing, although that is nice, but are about the people you meet and get to know. I plan on going back next year.

Nightfall.

One of the things I enjoy with my amateur radio hobby is pursing awards for certain accomplishments. The award criteria can include working 100 different countries, all 50 states, or all continents. And they can subdivided further based on mode, power level, or band. It is a fun pursuit that helps you improve as a radio operator. I have long known of a similar activity with amateur astronomy but for some reason never really looked into it until recently.

The Astronomical League provides a program similar to the awards program in amateur radio. I went to their website and found many different “observing clubs” ranging from observing star clusters to lunar features and everything in between. There is a Messier Club, Edge On Galaxy Club, Binocular Observing Club, Caldwell Club, the list goes on. There are some that are geared towards those who are just beginning to observers who are very advanced. Some awards focus on outreach opportunities. With a total of over 30 different observing clubs, there is bound to be something interesting to almost any observer. Upon completion, you get a certificate and a nice pin.

I know to some form their own observing lists and enjoy following them. But for someone like me, I need something structured and something shiny at the end of the endevour to keep me going.  I went ahead and signed up as a “member-at-large” with the Astronomical League. I hope to write about my experiences in the coming years as I earn some of these pins.

Marilyn's new Secondary Ring

This past week, I redid Marilyn’s secondary ring to bring it up to speed with the rest of her.  The original ring was from when she was a ballscope and was painted black.  Marilyn now has a new finish (and a new configuration) so it was time to redo the secondary ring to match the rest of her.  I had some scrap 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood laying around and I reused components from my 16″ scope secondary ring (that was recently made a classic two ring design).  This included the focuser board that Dennis Steele from Dobstuff.com made for me.

It works great and Marilyn seems to like it.

I just registered for the Almost Heaven Star Party that will be held at the end of August.  This is my first major star party so I am pretty excited about it.  It looks like we are going to have a contingent of CAS members attending too in the red field.

Should be fun!!

Finished Secondary Assembly

I finished the secondary cage this evening.  Only thing remaining is to attach the dovetail for the finderscope and cut the struts to the appropriate length.  I used Protostar’s Flockboard for the walls.  This stuff works great!  It cuts and drills cleanly.  I used scissors to cut it.  I used contact cement to attach it to the rings and double-sided tape to attach it to the focuser board.

As you can see above, I did a test fit with the existing struts.  This is about 4 inches too long, but it gave me an idea on how it will look.  The secondary cage is slightly smaller than the original secondary ring.

Close up of the focuser board.

Here is a closeup of the focuser board.  I used 1/4″ birch plywood I had laying around.  I added a 1″ strip of 1/2″ baltic birch plywood to the top and bottom of the board to add some reinforcement.  It also gave me a place to mount the focuser board to the rings.  Eventually, I want to  install a filter slide so this is a place that the slide rails can also mount.  I used staples to mount the focuser and finderscope boards to the rings.  This has been successful for me in the past.

I used the same glossy polyurethane that I used for the rest of the scope.

In regards to the weight, this secondary cage came to just about 6 lbs.  The original secondary ring that I had was 5lbs, 13 oz.  So I am not gaining much weight here!!

I ordered a Telrad finder from Meridian Telescopes that will attach to one of the cage struts (like what Obsession does).  And tomorrow I will cut the tubes to the right length.