I found this scale for transparency and seeing on Deep Sky Observing conditions page. I have not been recording the transparency, seeing, or limiting magnitude with my observation logs, but it is something that I should be doing.
The scales below for transparency and seeing are the ones I will be using for my logs. I am posting the scale here just to make it easy for me to reference, I am also going to include a print out of the scales in each of my log books.
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Seeing (atmospheric stability) and transparency (atmospheric clarity or clearness)
are rated subjectively on 1-10 scales that are based on the guidelines provided by the American Association of Amateur Astronomers.
Seeing is primarily influenced by atmospheric turbulence. The following scale
is used to rate conditions:
1 :: Chaotic: lowest power stellar images unsteady
2-3 :: Severely disturbed: low power planetary/nebulae images unsteady
4-5 :: Poor: medium powers unsteady
6-7 :: Good: only high powers unsteady
8-9 :: Excellent: only highest powers soft
10 :: Superb: all powers steady
Transparency is influenced by cloud cover, relative humidity, and light conditions
which illuminate airborne particulates, including light pollution, moonglow, and
residual sunlight. The following scale is used to rate conditions:
1 :: Mostly Cloudy
2-3 :: Hazy; 1 or 2 Little Dipper stars visible
4 :: 3-4 Little Dipper stars; Milky Way not visible
5 :: 4 Little Dipper stars; Bright parts of Milky Way visible (Scutum starcloud)
6 :: 5 Little Dipper stars; Milky Way visible with averted vision
7 :: 6 Little Dipper stars; Milky Way visible
8-9 :: Excellent: 7 Little Dipper stars; M-31 visible
10 :: Superb: M-33 and/or M-81 visible
A quick thunder storm moved through southern Suffolk just a few minutes ago. It pretty much looks like it just grazed us with most of the storm to the south and east. The bright sun in the west mixed with the rain to the east produced a nice rainbow. Here are a couple quick pictures I snapped.
Check this out, if you look close you can see the sun light reflecting off the rain drops.
This rain is suppose to bring us some cooler temperatures and lower humidity for the next several days. Look likes this weekend is going to be a good one for observing and imaging.
Friday night Sandy and I headed to Northwest River Park in southern Chesapeake for the Back Bay Amateur Astronomers (BBAA) Skywatch and it was a really good time. The sky was nice and dark with a few passing clouds. At times the clouds did get in the way but there was still a lot of cool stuff to see.
I think there were probably about 15 scopes out there – from a 6″ reflector to an 18″ Dob and everything in between. Sandy and I really enjoyed looking through Kent’s new Orion 14″ Dob. He took us on a tour of the sky to include M13, the Sombrero Galaxy, M65, M66, M82, and several other deep sky objects. The views of Saturn through the 8″ Dob were also very impressive.
Seeing these objects from a nice dark location is making me reevaluate the mobility of my set up. I may look into some ways to transport and power my gear outside of my backyard. I have a good soft case for my tripod already and a hard case for my AT66, but I think I will look into some cases to transport my 8″ SCT and the CG5 equatorial mount.
The BBAA holds the Northwest River Park Skywatch every month. Skywatch is free and open to the public. Check out the BBAA events page for more of the clubs events. Also check out the BBAA Facebook group. Sandy and I will definitely be making plans to attend a few of their events.
This past weekend my son had a cub scout camping trip at Chippokes state park. I took my AT66 and my small equatorial mount along with us. We were able to watch the ISS flyover on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night was pretty neat since the fly over was at just after 8:00 AM, well before dark, and we were still able to see the bright reflection of the station as it crossed almost directly overhead.
The boys were able to view Saturn and Mars on Friday night. After a long day of camping stuff I did not set the scope up on Saturday night – we were all worn out and in the tents sleeping by just after 9. I’ll post some pictures from the camp out on my Facebook page later this week.
One thing I learned was that I rely to much on the GOTO scope, I need some more practice star hopping to locate objects. Planets are pretty easy, but it was taking me too long to locate any other objects (clusters and such) that the boys lost interest. I am going to need a bit of practice locating objects without the GOTO.
The mail man left me a present on Saturday. My C6 SCT OTA that I had bought from a member of Astromart Classifieds.
I’ll have some pictures of my set up with C6 and the AT66 in a few days.
While surfing around checking out astrophotography sites I happened across a great article on building a guide scope from a inexpensive finder scope and decided I would give it a try. I picked up an inexpensive 10x50mm finder scope from an eBay store – Telescope Warehouse – for just over $50 delivered and I picked up another used Celestron 9×50 from Astromart Classifieds. Why two? Cause I know me and I figured I would screw one of them up (surprisingly I didn’t).
Anyway the instructions found here are pretty straight forward and I spent about $10 at Lowe’s for the PVC spacer, set screws, and tap kit. I ended up using 8-32 set screws and thumbscrew since Lowe’s did not have any 6-32s – this worked out just fine.
Here are some pics of the finished product.
Inexpensive 10x50mm Finderscope
The PVC Spacer secured in the finderscope tube.
With the Starshooter Autoguide camera attached.
I powered up the laptop, connected the camera, and I was able to get good focus on a tree off in the distance. So I am pretty confident that I am going to be able to obtain quick focus when I use it as a guide scope. I am able to loosen the thumbscrew and move the camera in and out to help if I am not able to get focus by adjusting the front lens.
So for just over $60 (not counting the quick release bracket) I have a nice (and light) guide scope.
The reason this I titled this post Part 1 is that I have not yet mounted the scope to my C8 or AT66, this is because I am not able to get the dovetail and mount to match up right with either scope. I have ordered a Celestron quick release finder scope bracket and should have it any day. Once I get it mounted and get a chance to try it out I will post a follow up.
A few weeks ago Johnathan had a sleep over at the Virginia Air and Space Museum with his Cub Scout pack. One of the activities they had was to build a model rocket and launch it the next morning. Johnathan really enjoyed it so I figured it would be something that me and him could do together.
Over the last couple weekends we assembled the rockets and today we got to go out and launch them. We went over to my brother’s house since he has a pretty good size piece of property with plenty of room in the backyard and Johnathan, Sandy, Mary Shannon, Carlie, Little Christopher, and Colin launched the 2 rockets a total of 11 times.
Here are quick videos I took of two of the launches with my iPhone.
The Amazon rocket is huge and was the easiest to assemble.
The Crossfire rocket is small and fast. Just watch both the videos and you can see the difference. This rocket also flew at least twice as high as the Amazon.
Both rockets flew great. After about 4 launches the Crossfire’s parachute was taking a pretty good beating, and the last launch it did not fully deploy. It took a good hard landing but survived fine. The Amazon’s parachute deployed perfectly every time.
We were having way to much fun to worry about taking pictures or videos of every launch. I still have thirteen engines left and we will definitely get out and do this again another day.
Recently Sandy and I took our annual trip to Florida for Biketoberfest. During our visit the Space Shuttle Atlantis was moved from the vehicle assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center to launch pad 39A.
We did not find out about the problem and the canceled launch until we had already arrived at Space View Park in Titusville, FL at around 3:00 AM the morning of June 13th. So here are a few shots I took of the view across the river to launch pad that was all lit up.
Space Shuttle Endeavour on the Launch Pad June 13, 2009 approx 4:00 am from Space View Park Titusville, FL
Shuttle Endeavour - STS127 - June 13, 2009 - approx 4:00 AM
Suttle Endeavour on the Launch Pad at Kennedy Space Center
Space Shuttle Endeavour - STS127
The bright “star” in the upper left of this image is the planet Venus
Venus and the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the Launch Pad at the Kennedy Space Center
Shuttle Endeavour - STS-127 - June 13, 2009
Kind of a bummed about the launch being scrubbed, still a good trip and it was neat to see the launch pad all lit up. I hope that we can make it back down there for another launch.
