Venus

Ahhh, the joys of cell phone astrophotography. Cropped and brightness / contrast adjusted, that's all.

Saturn in the morning

After last night's test I left the entire scope setup. The forecast was clear for the next two days so I wasn't worried at all about rain. I put the eyepieces away, took the diagonal off, covered the objective and went to bed, setting the alarm for 5:20AM, which was just went Saturn should be up above the horizon. I hoped it would be up above the trees!

I woke up several hours later with the idea that something was wrong. The sprinkers! I hadn't turned them off. I jumped out of bed and ran outside in barefeet and a robe. My eyes were fully dark adapted and I expected the wonders of the heavens. Uh oh, a thin haze had come in. This is not at all uncommon where I live, surrounded by the sea. So I went back to bed and waited for the alarm.

When it went off I dressed quickly and was outside. I knew I had very little time before the sun rose. Indeed, the sky was light already. I had hibernated the scope the night before so I didn't need to re-align. A slew to Saturn put it in the trees. Drat. But still, I could look between the leaves but still, nothing. I couldn't even focus, there was nothing to focus on. So I manually slewed to Procyon (I could see that star along with Sirius, all of the main Orion stars, and many whose names I didn't know) focused and aligned.

I then slewed back to Saturn. Got her!

I took the 30mm Paragon out and put the 9mm Planetary in. Nothing. Drat, she wasn't centered. I looked around but couldn't find her. So I put the 30mm back in, centered and aligned on Saturn. Then the 9mm was back in.

Trees.

She had risen from the branches into the full leaves. It looked like I had about 15 minutes before she would clear the tree tops. Well, I guess I'd gave a full daylight Saturn test then. I went in to make some tea and wait it out.

When the eyepiece show blue again, well, the trees were gone but so was Saturn.

(I later learned in a Cloudy Nights forum that daytime Saturn sights are difficult and were not favored right now.)

A few hours later during a diet coke break from work I went out and slewed to Sirius, just so say I could. She pointed to the ground. I tried M42, same thing.

There was either a power glitch or the heat of the sun had warmed the electronics enough to cause the GoTo to fail. This was a work day so I couldn't play anymore. I put the Burgess in its case, put the eye pieces away, and left it all outside for that night's observing.

30mm TMB/Burgess Paragon

I just recieved my 30mm TMB Paragon from Burgess Optical and I was anxious to give it a try. I didn't need to buy it. I've been very happy, quite happy, with my Siebert Optical 34mm Observatory, but a poster in the Burgess Yahoo groups said, and I quote:

I'm not going to bore everyone with excrusiating details about what I saw, how many I saw and all that jazz. I'm going to cut right to the chase: I brought my very recently purchased $99 30MM Paragon along with me. I used it as my primary wide field EP, either specificly to look at an object, or to locate an object for closer viewing. To say that it delivered would be a gross understatement; indeed, an insult to the eyepiece! The beauty of this EP was that it was THE PERFECT MATCH for the 1278! It delivered on almost every object and brought out the very best of this scope. While it was out- standing on virtually every object viewed, it it was devastating on the larger objects in the sky, like The Double Cluster, M31, The Plieades and M8.

But it saved the best for last, so to speak. It presented the most spectacular views of M42 that I believe an achromat could produce. It had admirers of scope costing several thousand more than the humble 1278. The M42 almost matched the routinely "perfect" views produced by a TV 101 three tents down. An owner of a 12" Meade dob (with the OLD premium mirror) couldn't believe a 5 inch refractor matched his view of it. But the most amazing compliment it recieved was from the owner of a 14" Celestron CGE SCT next to me:

The owner was SOOOOO impressed with MY views, especially of M42, the next afternoon, he went and bought a..., get this, Bill,...a TV 41MM Panoptic, just to match the view HE saw in MY scope! Retail value of his purchase? Beyond $600!!! Now THAT'S got to be the ultimate compliment! It doesn't get any better n' that!!! Wow! pparently, the secret seems to be that the Paragon's FOV, coupled with the almost-by-accident 5" size, the right magnification, and perhaps the multi-coatings, produces an absolutely PERFECT picture view, framing those larger objects as "not-too-big, not-too-small" in the EP. "Perfect fits", that most sought-after of viewing experiences. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time, with other eyepieces in supporting roles, viewing as many objects as I could find, staying up 'till dawn three nights consectutively....

The upshot of all this, and the reason for writing here, is to urge all the 1278 owners who haven't done so, to BUY YOUR PARAGON BEFORE THEY RUN OUT!!!!! IT IS THE PERFECT EYEPIECE FOR THIS SCOPE!

IT'S ONLY $99! DO IT NOW. YOU WON'T REGRET IT!!!

Now, that was kinda hard to ignore, so I called up Bill and yakked for awhile then Tammy took my order. It arrived a few days later.

Well, the eyepiece was everything that the quoted poster made it out to be. Except, it wasn't filling a hole in my eyepiece case. My much loved Siebert was there also, perfectly matched with the 22.5mm Siebert.

So I started the night on my usual favorite, the Double Cluster. Then went to M31, the North America Nebula and then over to M8 before it set. I then went back to the Double Cluster for the bulk of the testing.

Based on the published specifications, the Siebert should have given a slightly larger field of view, but really, 2.1 vs 2.4 degrees? That's pretty close. 29x vs 33x. Again, very close. So it would come down to contrast and sharpness plus other ease of use factors.

Sharpness was a toss up. Both were as perfect as I can tell in the center (I have some uncorrected astigmatism in my eyes, so far I live with it.) and both seemed to soften up a bit at the edges. At times I thought that the Paragon had blacker backgrounds, I guess this is to be expected since the magnification is higher. But at other times I wasn't so sure. I didn't detect any color difference between the eyepices at all.

The Siebert are famous for having no pincushion and I'm sad to say I forgot to compare the two eyepieces!

Now onto comfort. Well, the two eyepieces are about as different as I can imagine in that area, but there isn't a winner! The Siebert is great when I wear my eyeglasses. I was able to find the sweet spot with ease with only the slightess bit of blackouts. I normally prefer viewing with my eyeglasses so I've never actually looked through the Siebert without them.

The Paragon, on the other hand, has a wonderful, absolutely wonderful eyecup. (This is just like the wonderful eyecup on my 9mm TMB/Burgess Planetary.) It is comfortable and holds the eye exactly where it needs to be. Blackouts? Impossible since the eye is correctly position at all times. However, when I folded it down, and tried to use the lens without my eyeglasses, twice I had it pop back up, once striking me around the eyes! I'm not sure what I did wrong, but this is an eyepiece that wants to be used with the eyecup up. And guess what, I didn't mind at all! (This might be an issue if my glasses actually did a good job of correcting my astigmatism since I would need to wear them.) Could I learn to fold the eyecup down correctly? I'll bet I could.

The observing session was cut short. It was the first cold evening of the fall and I really hadn't prepared for it. I had a hat and gloves but I was still chilled to the bone and had to go in. I declared the Paragon the winner but it wasn't a landslide at all, it could certainly have gone to the Siebert and I would not unhappy with that. Indeed, 4 days later when I'm writing up this blog entry I'm now second guessing my decision. I'll have to head out again, or maybe wait for M42 to get high in the sky. Oh, I'll sell one of them, I just don't know which one right now.

But, chilled to the bone I screwed a Lumicon UHC into the Paragon and slewed to the Veil. Ah, just beautiful. I couldn't stay long but I knew I'd be back on this object. And actually, I'm now convinced that earlier this month, with my binoculars, that I had grabbed the Veil. What I was seeing through the refractor exactly matched in shape what I had seen in the Canons. I can only guess that I had read the star charts wrong. Well, there's another observation to repeat then.

Things that make you go "Oh!"

Remember when you first saw the rings of Saturn or the Orion Nebula, how stunning they were to you. Did you gasp or say something, or maybe you just held your breath. Those times are rare because with experience, the things we look for are not as impressive. Sure, search for that dim DSO might give you more satisfaction now than those object do now, but that satisfaction lies from the challenge, not the beauty. I got to say "Oh" tonight when I wasn't expecting it, and that was wonderful.

But let me set the stage.

I've been enjoying my binoculars so much recently I went on a book buying spree. I happily picked up Philip Harrington's Star Watch. This is a great book that gives the usual overview of things in the sky, then breaks into seasonal sections, covering 125 objects.

What makes the book special is the organization and detail. I love the seasonal layout. (I've also picked up his Touring the Universe through Binoculars which, uhhh, divides the sky alphabetically! Yuk.) And I love the detail that he goes into. For the most part, each object gets an entire page. There is a star chart every couple of pages, making it easy, in the dark, to cross reference the text and the chart. There are photos and sketches of many objects. The sketches are particularly useful since, unlike modern photos, they show you what you can actually see. Each object is also rated on a Wow factor and more importanly, you are given a separate Wow for binocuars, small telescopes, and large telescopes.

One of my favorite binocular objects in the sky is M7.

(M7 image courtesy seds.org)

I don't know why I like this open cluster so much, perhaps because it was one of the first objects, if not the first object, that I found without using the GoTo feature of my telescope. I found this a week or two after getting my Canon 15x50IS binoculars.

M7 is in Scoprius and this summer has been rough for me for the Scorpius/Sagitarius section of the sky. I'm not sure why, I've had time to look elsewhere but not here. So after avidly reading the section containing M7, I anxiously awaited the time when I could head out.

I also decided to go out to Pilgrim Heights. I've used this dark site before, but as I noted in an earlier blog entry, I'm not at all fond of going here alone, coyotes you know. But, I wanted to see if I could do it so I headed out.

The good news is that I was able to spend an hour and a half there. The bad news is that I was never comfortable. Oh well, perhaps with exposure I'll get used to it.

I got to the site after dark, but not completely dark. The western sky was still a nice Maxfield Parish blue, beautiful, but not great for dim DSOs low on the horizon. You see, I'd waited until late September and these objects are very low on the horizon.

My first attempt was for M4, a globular that I've found before from light polluted Manchester, but at only 15 degrees above the horizon, I needed more dark.

So I went over to M7 and M6, I didn't even need the charts for those friends. They were nice, but I'd seen better M7s before. I guess I waited too late in the year. I bounced back and forth between them and where M4 should have been, waiting for more dark. Of course I looked at the Double Cluster and M31 since I was just killing time.

Eventually I grabbed M4, it was around 7:30 and Stellarium tells me it was only 12 degrees above the horizon then! It was quite dim and I don't think I would have seen it without knowing that it was there. I then looked for M80, couldn't find it. (I would try several times again that evening but I never nabbed it.)

NGC6231 was on the chart but in the trees for me so I went up to find M19 and M62. Both were a bit of a challenge. Harrington says that M19 should appear noticably oval. It was dim enough for me that I could not observe that. And he goes on to say that M62 lies in an "absolutely stunning star field." Well, that wasn't the case for me. (Memo to myself, look again at these objects when they are higher in the sky.)

So now I'm feeling a bit disappointed. I waited so long that everything was in the murk. I should have regrouped at this point and started looking at things higher in the sky but I guess I'm too stubborn to do that.

So next on the list was M8, the Lagoon Nebula. I've seen it before but it never fails to disappoint and indeed, even under these conditions I could see the central dark rift between the two nebulous sections. Not that my binoculars are 15 power, which is high for binoculars, it may not be as impressive in yours.

Close by is M20, the Triffid Nebula. If M8 weren't next door this would be considered a impressive object, but M8's glory overshadows it.

I know I saw M21 but I wasn't able to pick it out from the copius background stars. I probably should have tried harder but I still wasn't entirely comfortable with the location. I just knew their beady eyes were peering at me from the trees.

So then, I head up north a bit more and...

"Oh!"

I'd actually looked at this object a few weeks ago at this site through my Burgess but I didn't even know what I was looking for. It just looked like a lot of stars. But that's because M24, the Small Sagitarius Star Cloud is just too big to really be appreciated in a telescope. Oh sure, your short focal length APO refractor will give great views but I loved my view, sliding the binoculars north from M20/21 and there it was. More stars than I could fathom, wonderfully framed by dark spots. This made the whole evening worth it.

I lingered some then headed north again, to M18, which I could spot even though it seemed so small. Then M17, the Swan Nebula. I was very glad that Harrington included a sketch of M17. I spent a lot of time looking at, trying to see the neck, and you know, several times I caught elusive glimpses of it with averted vision, but never with direct. I need to revisit this one.

Next was M16 and I was able to easily see it but alas, there was motion in the woods. Probably a cute little bunny but it sounded like a Coyote to me. I packed up my gear and headed home.

I will certainly revisit this section of the sky, maybe in 9 or 10 months when things are higher in the sky!

Poking around Cygnus with Binoculars

Last night, after the Red Sox game, I headed out around 11pm to poke around in the sky some with my trusty Canon 15x50is binoculars. The Moon was about half full but the sky was very dark and clear.

I warmed up on some of my favorites, the Double Cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy. But they weren't why I was here tonight. I had my new Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas and I wanted to explore Cygnus, in particular, some of the bigger items in there.

First stop was the North America Nebula. I tried for quite some time. Arms aching, consulting the atlas and then the stars, back and forth. I could follow the star patterns to it, but I wasn't certain of what I was seeing. Oh, I could make out the "Gulf of Mexico" allright, but the rest seemed a bit indistinct. And to the north of it, it seem just as bright, grainy, but bright, and then a falloff. The nebula area was grainy, but the neigboring region was. This was why I was pretty sure I had seen the nebula.

But I was puzzled by seeing the object I was looking for right next to another object that wasn't on the charts. I wondered if it was a denser part of the Milky Way. (I was sort of right, see below.)

So I moved on, trying to see the Pelican Nebula, right next to it. Try as I might I couldn't see anything at all.

I then reached for the gold, the Veil Nebula. I meticulously followed the pointers to it. I find this difficult because the binoculars show more stars than the atlas does. But by going back and forth, again, from the atlas to the sky I could find the right patterns. There! I got it. Well, actually no. I was seeing something that was round like the Veil, but it was fuller, and althought large, it was too small. It would fit entirely inside the Veil. I was looking primarily for the 6992 and 6995 parts. The bright star in the 6960 part seem to dazzle me a bit so I didn't look there too much. I kept on finding that round thing, but it wasn't right. I can only think that it was the brain playing a trick on me, seeing sometihng it wanted to see.

Not wanting to go inside, I found and split Albireo, then slid down to Stock 1, a nice open cluster.

The next day, while googling what I had been looking for, I came across this great web site, Showcase of Digital Astrophotography by Jerry Lodriguss. I don't know if that URL will always be good, so I grabbe the photo and I'll reproduce it here. (Jerry, if you don't want this, just tell me and I'll take it down.)



You can see the North America Nebula as a red blob just above bright blue Deneb in the lower left. To its right you can see a defined bright area, marked by a dark area.

This dark area was marked on my atlas but I ignored it, it is a dark nebula known as Le Gentil 3. So the border of Le Gentil 3 was making me see that part of the Milky Way as distinct object.

So after tonight's Red Sox game, I went out again. The sky wasn't nearly as nice. It was about an hour earlier and Deneb was certainly at the zenith, so I fully reclined my lawn chair. Ahhh, that was a lot better. I wanted a bit, just poking about, looking around while my eyes dark adapted. And then I looked. The North American nebula was much harder to see, but the dark nebulas! Oh my, they are pretty interesting. There are many in that area. The Atlas marks them but I didn't go hunting for numbers, I just moved the binoculars around enjoying the abscence of light.

I had accomplished what I wanted to, but you know how it is, I didn't want to go back inside. So I figured I'd find M29, since it was right there next to Sadr. It was an easy find. The area is full of stars but the patterns are easy to follow, shoot, you just keep Sadr in the field of view and you're all set. The challenge is making sure you see M29, not something else.

Moon and Masts

Two schooners in town for the Provincetown Schooner Regatta. Sorry for the poor quality, this is a cell phone photo.

Blinking Cassiopeia

Three times this evening I went outside very briefly, and all three time I saw a meteor shoot across the sky. How pretty and what a nice coincidence. I know there are lots of not very famous meteor showers but I really couldn't say that there was a radiant to these three.

Anyhow, after the Red Sox game I went out again just to look up.  So I wasn't dark adapted at all and Cassiopeia was gone. Drat, clouds I guess. So I looked away and she blinked back on with averted vision. I could stare at her and she'd disappear, and then I'd look away and I could see all five stars. What fun!

The explanation? The sky condition and my tiny pupils combined to make an interesting sweet spot, just enough light to see with averted vision, not enough light to see direct.

And yes, a few minutes later I could look directly at her ad there it was.

And the curious part, I never saw the Milky Way disappear. Oh. clearly it must have been gone in the spots I was looking directly at, but since I was focused on the stars, not the background glow, it seemed as if the Milky Way was a constant brightness.