tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54582642008-10-19T06:14:01.513Z<i>"But having dismissed earthly things, I applied myself to explorations of the heavens."</i> - GalileoPaulnoreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-89994474277101579602008-10-19T05:30:00.003Z2008-10-19T06:14:01.551Z

Imagine fancying yourself a music lover who has been listening to Mozart, Coltrane and Deep Purple for years on a cheap monophonic cassette player. Then one day, you find yourself with a top-notch stereo and a whole new world unfolds. That's how I feel after spending an hour or so tonight under some unbelievably dark skies out at Linda's folks' place. We pulled in just after dusk and it was

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-72516337670647285452008-10-11T07:25:00.002Z2008-10-11T07:47:29.770Z

Checked the 40D + MaxView DSLR rig on the Antares 127mm again, this time with the TV32mm Plossl just to see if my focusing problem is caused by the Celestron eyepiece. It isn't - the same deal. I'm wondering if it isn't as simple as a field-flatness issue with the Antares that might be corrected with a add-on field flattener. Next time: TV85. I packed in the 40D and broke out the DSI for the

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-51523913503564644652008-10-09T03:40:00.005Z2008-10-09T23:24:59.609Z

First time out with the Antares 127mm since I upgraded the focuser to the GSO Crayford. A 9-day old waxing gibbous Moon was the target, and the scope did a fine job with the Minus-V filter in place. So nice, in fact, that I decided to grab the camera and see whether the new focuser helped with the focusing problem I had last time I tried to do some imaging. Alas, it did not - once again every

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-36756794142850535742008-10-08T20:36:00.004Z2008-10-08T21:09:12.751Z

Just after I purchased the Sirius mount, Orion upgraded the SynScan hand controller. Among other things, the new HC allows firmware updates via the net, and has improved tracking and fine-tuning of Go-To objects. Sounds like a worthwhile upgrade, so I emailed Orion customer service a few days ago to find out what the upgrade path is for an existing Sirius owner. Their response: There is no

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-71861660289316696682008-10-05T05:09:00.002Z2008-10-05T05:47:13.954Z

Time to see how the Sirius does now that I can actually see Polaris to do a proper polar alignment. Been a while since I used this mount but it went pretty easily without me having to dig out the manual - good thing, too, because I have no idea where that is. At around 9pm it was just dark enough to see Polaris through the polar alignment scope. As we've learned, this must be done with the power

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-40147204077012821172008-10-04T01:45:00.006Z2008-10-04T04:01:00.477Z

Robinson, TX is located south of the Waco border in Central Texas, about halfway between Dallas/Ft. Worth to the north and Austin to the south. My house is in a fairly new development of duplexes and town houses (so new that in Google Maps, it's shown as an empty field). According to the Light Pollution Map, we're a solid 5 on the Bortle Scale: "Milkyway washed out at zenith and invisible at

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-71337806599454844712008-10-02T05:20:00.006Z2008-10-04T01:34:29.853Z

After a month in Texas I got around to unpacking some of the astro gear and decided to have a quick peek from the backyard. The new abode is just south of Waco and barely 1/2-mile off I-35 so the sky is fairly soupy. Still, at zenith it is just a bit worse than Lake Wallkill - I can see Milky Way through Cygnus and M31 is faint naked-eye. The big trade-off is the trees: there ain't none here! So

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-85553682170256941112008-10-01T14:54:00.004Z2008-10-08T20:11:52.329Z

Wow, has it really been a year since my last post? Lost time is a popular topic in science fiction and UFOlogy, but my lost year is much easier to explain: damn near all of my free time for the past year (longer, actually) was spent renovating a house in Closter, NJ that, in the end, I never moved into. After all our work, Linda and I ended up moving to the great Republic of Texas, where the

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-20675070904750928932007-11-04T13:40:00.000Z2007-11-04T13:46:59.034Z

Well, I'll be damned! There it was: Comet Holmes, bright and big in the binoculars last night. With naked eye, it looks like a star with no fuzzy coma - at least not to my eyes. Will keep an eye (or two) on this one over the next few weeks...

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-24206689356652222562007-09-07T18:20:00.000Z2007-09-07T21:37:01.323Z

Took a drive up to High Point Scientific today and came home with a DSI - at the $99 blowout price I couldn't pass it up. Stark Labs has Mac OS X software that will work with the DSI - Nebulosity for imaging, and PHD for guiding - so this should prove interesting. PHD will work with the NexImage as well, I think. Also picked up a pair of slo-mo extension knobs for the Porta because I'm tired of

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-36199742350961114482007-08-28T02:44:00.000Z2007-08-28T03:40:32.296Z

An unseasonably clear night afforded me an opportunity to observe the full moon with the TV85, LVW13 and Powermate 2.5 (with lunar filter, o'course) for 115x magnification. Once again I was awed by the TV85; not a hint of color at the edge where the bright moon met black space. There was little turbulence and the scope just snapped into focus, even at 115x with all the touchy-shakies. The scope

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-46813161331806179712007-08-17T18:51:00.000Z2007-08-23T01:44:16.861Z

This thing's been sitting around for months. Finally, I broke out the drill...

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-61656748923204867902007-08-13T23:30:00.000Z2007-08-14T13:56:27.744Z

Sirius Mount + TV85 tonight. Tried something different this time: I chose 3-star alignment, then tweaked the mount's RA & dec to center on the first star (Altair), then completed alignment with Vega and Arcturus. Not perfect, but it it puts M29, M27 and M57 in the FOV of my LVW13! Beats the hell out of the so-called polar alignment scope which is a joke. I think this is the first time I've ever

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-81707361026962951642007-08-12T13:31:00.000Z2007-08-12T13:31:54.599Z

First night out with a scope since last September, using the TV85 + Porta for a brief viewing session. I'm happy to report that M29 is still there. I didn't stay out long, conditions weren't that great and humidity was getting bad. I had all of the gear in storage at the Closter house, brought it all back to Lake Wallkill today with the intention of finally equipping the Antares 127 with the

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-20354456529329060962007-04-15T15:13:00.000Z2007-04-15T15:22:25.447Z

This is amazing. From Joel Hartman (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics): "RR Lyrae often have amplitudes of variation as high as 1 magnitude in V, and even higher in B. The RRab stars (fundamental mode pulsators) are the most numerous and have periods of roughly half a day. The RRc stars (first overtone pulsators) have periods of roughly a third of a day. What's more, because they are

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-52078826269124375682007-02-11T21:08:00.000Z2007-02-12T17:09:50.703Z

Sun Pillar - (meteorology) A luminous streak of light, white or slightly reddened, extending above and below the sun, most frequently observed near sunrise or sunset; it may extend to about 20° above the sun, and generally ends in a point. A visual phenomenon created by the reflection of light from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces. I photographed this sun pillar this

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-45321533920903756442007-01-08T17:57:00.000Z2007-01-13T01:51:35.688Z

The holidays came and went, and despite relatively mild weather I've pretty much wussed out when it comes to observing with the hardware. However I have been stepping outside for short bursts to gaze upon the winter constellations (Orion, Auriga, Gemini) naked-eye from the deck. Model trains have been a distraction from astronomy lately, as I have built up a small collection of N-scale

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1165440329846386802006-12-03T21:23:00.000Z2006-12-07T19:23:12.603Z

Saw one of these in early November, and again tonight. Moon rings are caused by moonlight being refracted by ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Photo taken handheld, Canon Digital Rebel (300D), ISO 1600, 1/2-sec exposure, 18-55mm EFS lens (@ 18mm, barely wide enough to capture the entire ring!). Had to Photoshop the hell out of the image in order to bring out the ring, thus the grainy,

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1159278398171672072006-09-25T22:27:00.000Z2006-09-26T13:46:38.183Z

It's been a good month since my defective Sirius mount was swapped out for a replacement, and it wasn't until tonight that I finally got a chance to use it. I'm not too pleased, frankly. There are paint chips all over it and a good sized gash on one of the panels; it looks as though it is a repacked factory second unit. And the polar alignment scope is so over-illuminated that it is impossible to

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1158977787071956592006-09-23T01:47:00.000Z2006-09-24T15:30:18.796Z

The biggest shortcoming of the stock Antares refractor is the rack and pinion focuser - very stiff, an unacceptable amount of play in the drawtube, and a visual back which uses metal set screws instead of a compression ring. To remedy this weak link, I ordered a new FRM2 dual-speed Crayford focuser from ScopeStuff for $149.00; mounting it to the Antares required the FRC7 5" adapter ring, an

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1158932500624178502006-09-21T22:30:00.000Z2006-09-24T14:58:41.276Z

New moon Thursday night, cool and clear. It's TV85 time, because I don't feel like doing the big-scope setup and breakdown thing on a weeknight. It was dark already by 8:30pm, temp 51 deg, humidity 91% with dewpoint at 48 deg, so I thought it prudent to break out the dew zapper for the objective - I never got the heating element for eypieces but it seems to be OK as long as I keep the lens capped

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1157233917585522212006-09-02T21:33:00.000Z2006-09-03T00:13:03.203Z

I received my Version 6 upgrade to Starry Night this week - spent the extra dough to move up from Pro to Pro Plus, which includes the AllSky images. Installation took up about 11gb of hard drive. First run showed that it did not save any of my preferecences such as rquipment, log entries, favorites, location. I managed to find some of the files in my user library prefs folder, but was only able

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1157074620531168282006-09-01T00:59:00.000Z2006-09-01T01:37:00.540Z

No, not really. But if Leo Fender ever did design a case just for binoculars, it would have looked just like this! It's actually a case for harmonicas which had been kicking around the store for a while. I asked Joe what the deal was, he told me that it was locked and no key could open it, and that if I could open it I could have it. Five minutes and one bent paper clip later, it was mine.

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1156468290413663232006-08-27T00:59:00.000Z2006-09-02T17:56:06.130Z

The vote is in, and I demand a recount: Capping years of intense debate, astronomers resolved today to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. But already the decision is being hotly debated. Officially, Pluto is no longer a planet.I fart in their general direction. Here's my take on

Paulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5458264.post-1156633650376105252006-08-26T22:23:00.000Z2006-08-26T23:07:31.093Z

As mentioned previously, my Sirius mount exhibited a significant amount of play in the RA axis, enough to cause objects centered in my LVW13 eyepiece to shift 2/3 of the way to the edge whenever I touched the focuser. I reported this problem to Orion who agreed that this was not normal. They said, "Return it to us for repair, or bring it back to High Point Scientific for exchange." Hmm. Tough

Paulnoreply@blogger.com