June 4-5 Under the Stars

The evening started with a plan: Set up The Beast and Excalibur. Make detailed sketches of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn using Excalibur at high magnifications. Do a bit of informal sight-seeing. Try for Pluto with both scopes.

Unfortunately Jupiter's boiling image - which refused to settle down even after the passage of a couple of hours - convinced me to change plans. I brought Excalibur back inside, inserted a 2-inch, 32mm, wide-field eyepiece into The Beast's dielectric diagonal and suddenly remembered one of my reasons for purchasing The Beast - low-power, wide-field, sky-sweeping! The Milky Way was awesome! Stars everywhere! Some views were so densely packed by stars that it was almost like viewing the daytime sky!

Some random sky-scanning was combined with targeting a few of the 'oldies but goodies'. I even put in an O-III filter (which I've not used in quite some time) to enhance the views of the Veil and North America nebulae. But despite the considerable improvement in contrast, I found that I preferred the more natural looking unfiltered views.

At 5:42 UT I was fortunate enough to be *not* looking through the eyepiece. A bright (in the neighborhood of -1 magnitude) yellow-white, slow-moving (taking perhaps 3-5 seconds to complete its journey) meteor was seen traveling northwestward from below Bootes to the neighborhood of Ursa Major's front paws - disappearing while behind the only pine tree near enough to block a significant amount of sky. Besides being slower than most meteors, this one remained at a constant brightness and remained intact with no noticeable breakup. It was a smooth sailing, uneventful guest. Particularly memorable was the very long (smooth) bluish train that only persisted long enough to appear 'very long'. In other words, the train vanished from sight within seconds of the head's disappearance.

Then it was back to more sight-seeing until I judged Pluto to be in a position worth trying for. Seeing conditions had apparently improved. I found it easy to zero in on Pluto's location, but it was far more difficult to actually find the large dwarf planet - so difficult that this attempt failed.

Checking my notes, etc. today I concluded that I was seeing down quite close to Pluto's apparent magnitude - close enough that I won't rule out catching it on a future attempt. I refuse (at this point) to give in and make use of the Iron SnowFlake's 12-inch aperture. I much prefer using my refractors!

Meanwhile, I *might* have clear skies on the next couple of nights. . .

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Sunday, 5 June 2016 23:54:00 UTC+2, Sketcher wrote:
The evening started with a plan: Set up The Beast and Excalibur. Make detailed sketches of Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn using Excalibur at high magnifications. Do a bit of informal sight-seeing. Try for Pluto with both scopes.

Unfortunately Jupiter's boiling image - which refused to settle down even after the passage of a couple of hours - convinced me to change plans. I brought Excalibur back inside, inserted a 2-inch, 32mm, wide-field eyepiece into The Beast's dielectric diagonal and suddenly remembered one of my reasons for purchasing The Beast - low-power, wide-field, sky-sweeping! The Milky Way was awesome! Stars everywhere! Some views were so densely packed by stars that it was almost like viewing the daytime sky!

Some random sky-scanning was combined with targeting a few of the 'oldies but goodies'. I even put in an O-III filter (which I've not used in quite some time) to enhance the views of the Veil and North America nebulae. But despite the considerable improvement in contrast, I found that I preferred the more natural looking unfiltered views.

At 5:42 UT I was fortunate enough to be *not* looking through the eyepiece. A bright (in the neighborhood of -1 magnitude) yellow-white, slow-moving (taking perhaps 3-5 seconds to complete its journey) meteor was seen traveling northwestward from below Bootes to the neighborhood of Ursa Major's front paws - disappearing while behind the only pine tree near enough to block a significant amount of sky. Besides being slower than most meteors, this one remained at a constant brightness and remained intact with no noticeable breakup. It was a smooth sailing, uneventful guest. Particularly memorable was the very long (smooth) bluish train that only persisted long enough to appear 'very long'. In other words, the train vanished from sight within seconds of the head's disappearance.

Then it was back to more sight-seeing until I judged Pluto to be in a position worth trying for. Seeing conditions had apparently improved. I found it easy to zero in on Pluto's location, but it was far more difficult to actually find the large dwarf planet - so difficult that this attempt failed.

Checking my notes, etc. today I concluded that I was seeing down quite close to Pluto's apparent magnitude - close enough that I won't rule out catching it on a future attempt. I refuse (at this point) to give in and make use of the Iron SnowFlake's 12-inch aperture. I much prefer using my refractors!

Meanwhile, I *might* have clear skies on the next couple of nights. . .

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

Thank you. Always a pleasure to read your thoughtful posts.

How much does bad seeing affect a target like Pluto? Does the thermal 'shaking' of the image increase visibility? Or merely obscure it by smearing the few available photons around? Any image de-focusing due to poor seeing is likely to be slight in modest instruments. Some ascribe to the image drift across the field of a Dobsonian/altaz as advantageous. While others demand an equatorial to maximize the chance of a sighting on the threshold of visibility due to the greater steadiness afforded. Do you have an opinion?

Hi Chris, In my opinion (and experience) poor seeing adversely affects the visibility of faint stars (and Pluto) due to spreading the available light over a larger area. Sharper, pinpoint stars allows one to reach fainter limiting magnitudes. This spreading out of light has a greater adverse effect than the positive gains from motion due to atmospheric turbulence - in my opinion.

As for the difference between using a Dobsonian (or alt-az) mount vs. an equatorial, in my opinion the differences are washed out by the observer's experience in using whichever mount. I see no inherent superiority of one over the other for pushing the limits of the telescope and observer. More important is how smoothly the mount moves and how precisely it holds its position when the motion is stopped.

I've been using equatorials lately - without goto - and (usually) without the use of an RA drive, but I've also used Dobsonian and alt-az mounts extensively. I don't have and have never owned a go-to mount. I (usually) have no use for that technology, though at times it would have made things easier (but not as much fun:-). Even for daytime observations of Mercury, Venus, Polaris and Regulus, and even a couple of daytime comets; I've managed without go-to. I like the old ways;-)

My personal record for observing Pluto was a successful sighting (back when Pluto was a planet, closer, brighter, and higher in my sky) with a 10-inch (Dobsonian) reflector stopped down to a 4-inch clear aperture. On several past occasions I've observed Pluto using my 130mm "Excalibur" apochromat. I'm not yet convinced that The Beast can do any better than Excalibur on Pluto. If I get enough opportunities this season I'll find out.

Last night I was able to try again for Pluto using The Beast. This time I got a "maybe". Pluto was about 28" south of a 13.5 magnitude star. I could get frequent enough glimpses of the star - glimpses that sometimes included a fainter 'companion' in the right place. I should be able to solidify that sighting tonight - with Pluto being more distant from faint stars.

I had occasional clouds last night. Sometimes they even passed through my Pluto FOV. The clouds were *still* considerably darker than the background sky, indicating that light pollution of my sky is still pretty much non-existent. Seeing conditions could have been better though. It doesn't help having Pluto so far south. An auroral glow was evident throughout the night, but that was pretty much limited to my northern sky.

While waiting for Pluto to get up a bit higher I trained The Beast on Epsilon, Lyra's famous double-double. It proved no problem for the fast achromat to cleanly split. Despite its 'short'-comings, The Beast is capable of doing a bit of everything.

I used magnifications of 166x and 207x for my Pluto attempts. The mount was used without an RA drive. Once I get over my obsession with testing out The Beast, it will eventually settle down to a (mostly) low-powered, wide-field scope - with perhaps a bit of public service tossed in. Meanwhile it's been an enjoyable journey in seeing just what The Beast can and can not do.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

On Monday, June 6, 2016 at 9:15:49 AM UTC-6, Chris.B wrote:

Thank you. Always a pleasure to read your thoughtful posts.

How much does bad seeing affect a target like Pluto? Does the thermal 'shaking' of the image increase visibility? Or merely obscure it by smearing the few available photons around? Any image de-focusing due to poor seeing is likely to be slight in modest instruments. Some ascribe to the image drift across the field of a Dobsonian/altaz as advantageous. While others demand an equatorial to maximize the chance of a sighting on the threshold of visibility due to the greater steadiness afforded. Do you have an opinion?

On Monday, 6 June 2016 22:17:06 UTC+2, Sketcher wrote:
Hi Chris, In my opinion (and experience) poor seeing adversely affects the visibility of faint stars (and Pluto) due to spreading the available light over a larger area. Sharper, pinpoint stars allows one to reach fainter limiting magnitudes. This spreading out of light has a greater adverse effect than the positive gains from motion due to atmospheric turbulence - in my opinion.

As for the difference between using a Dobsonian (or alt-az) mount vs. an equatorial, in my opinion the differences are washed out by the observer's experience in using whichever mount. I see no inherent superiority of one over the other for pushing the limits of the telescope and observer. More important is how smoothly the mount moves and how precisely it holds its position when the motion is stopped.

I've been using equatorials lately - without goto - and (usually) without the use of an RA drive, but I've also used Dobsonian and alt-az mounts extensively. I don't have and have never owned a go-to mount. I (usually) have no use for that technology, though at times it would have made things easier (but not as much fun:-). Even for daytime observations of Mercury, Venus, Polaris and Regulus, and even a couple of daytime comets; I've managed without go-to. I like the old ways;-)

My personal record for observing Pluto was a successful sighting (back when Pluto was a planet, closer, brighter, and higher in my sky) with a 10-inch (Dobsonian) reflector stopped down to a 4-inch clear aperture. On several past occasions I've observed Pluto using my 130mm "Excalibur" apochromat.. I'm not yet convinced that The Beast can do any better than Excalibur on Pluto. If I get enough opportunities this season I'll find out.

Last night I was able to try again for Pluto using The Beast. This time I got a "maybe". Pluto was about 28" south of a 13.5 magnitude star. I could get frequent enough glimpses of the star - glimpses that sometimes included a fainter 'companion' in the right place. I should be able to solidify that sighting tonight - with Pluto being more distant from faint stars.

I had occasional clouds last night. Sometimes they even passed through my Pluto FOV. The clouds were *still* considerably darker than the background sky, indicating that light pollution of my sky is still pretty much non-existent. Seeing conditions could have been better though. It doesn't help having Pluto so far south. An auroral glow was evident throughout the night, but that was pretty much limited to my northern sky.

While waiting for Pluto to get up a bit higher I trained The Beast on Epsilon, Lyra's famous double-double. It proved no problem for the fast achromat to cleanly split. Despite its 'short'-comings, The Beast is capable of doing a bit of everything.

I used magnifications of 166x and 207x for my Pluto attempts. The mount was used without an RA drive. Once I get over my obsession with testing out The Beast, it will eventually settle down to a (mostly) low-powered, wide-field scope - with perhaps a bit of public service tossed in. Meanwhile it's been an enjoyable journey in seeing just what The Beast can and can not do.

Sketcher,
To sketch is to see.

Many thanks. Your knowledge of the sky and skill at observing are outstanding! Thank you for continuing to share your observations. A breath of fresh air in this heavily polluted neighborhood.

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 2:15:22 AM UTC-4, critter wrote:


snip

A breath of fresh air in this heavily polluted neighborhood.

You should know...YOU polluted it.

On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 14:57:27 UTC+2, wrote:

You should know...YOU polluted it.

Au contraire, my little old ray of Sunshine.
[Just keeping it on topic.]

I saw Professor Kelleher's classes in Basic Idiocy as an open license to express myself at similar length. Why should anyone else here restrict themselves to the purported topic while a complete dunce performs his slapstick routine up at the board?

Dy'all feel obliged to stick to ammaturr 'stronomie whilst debating the infidel dimmokrats and kommmy lubburell doobrywotsits? Thought not.

Y'all have a nice day dya'hear? spit___ting!

Peace, love and kisses, Man.
Critter.b critter Jr. Esq.

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 9:21:52 AM UTC-4, critter wrote:
On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 14:57:27 UTC+2, wsne... wrote:

You should know...YOU polluted it.

Au contraire, my little old ray of Sunshine.
[Just keeping it on topic.]

I saw Professor Kelleher's classes in Basic Idiocy as an open license to express myself at similar length. Why should anyone else here restrict themselves to the purported topic while a complete dunce performs his slapstick routine up at the board?

Dy'all feel obliged to stick to ammaturr 'stronomie whilst debating the infidel dimmokrats and kommmy lubburell doobrywotsits? Thought not.

Y'all have a nice day dya'hear? spit___ting!

Peace, love and kisses, Man.
Critter.b critter Jr. Esq.

You just proved my point.

On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 15:27:09 UTC+2, wrote:

You just proved my point.

What point? Who pays attention in Kelleher's class?

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 9:34:59 AM UTC-4, critter wrote:
On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 15:27:09 UTC+2, wsne... wrote:

You just proved my point.

What point? Who pays attention in Kelleher's class?

And you just proved my point some more, critter.

On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 16:22:26 UTC+2, wrote:
On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 9:34:59 AM UTC-4, critter wrote:
On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 15:27:09 UTC+2, wsne... wrote:

You just proved my point.

What point? Who pays attention in Kelleher's class?

And you just proved my point some more, critter.

Whoah! Sorry! Wrong class!
Kelleher is Infant School Astrophysics room 1461.
Now I've missed it by 3 minutes and 56 seconds! Dogh!