The supernova is tagged on the Flickr page which can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/herseyc/5797898286/.
M51- Whirlpool Galaxy with Supernova
06/03/2011 – Suffolk, VA
Camera: Orion Star Shoot DSI II
Scope: Astro-Tech 66 ED
Focal Length: 400mm
Mount: Celestron AS-CG5 GOTO
Exposures: 30 x 2 minute
Guided: Yes – Celestron C6-SGT/Orion Starshoot Autoguider/PHD
Stacked with DeepSky Stacker 3.3.2
The first attempt to launch Discovery on November 1 was scrubbed due to a leak in the liquid hydrogen fueling system, the same issue that had resulted in a scrubbed launch of Endeavor STS-127 over a year earlier. Launch attempts on November 2, 3, 4, and 5th were also scrubbed for various reasons. We had made the trip down to Florida to view the launch and made plans to get to Space View Park early on each day of the attempt. We headed back home a bit disappointed, but planned to return to see Discovery fly.
This picture was taken of Discovery on Pad 39A back in October 2010. The Rotating Service Structure (RSS) is in place protecting the Shuttle while payload is being loaded.
New launch dates were set in December but after cracks were discovered in the external tank these dates also passed and Shuttle Discovery was moved back into the Vehicle Assembly Building on Kennedy Space Center.
Repairs were made to the external tank and a new launch date was set for February 24, 2011. On January 31, 2011 Space Shuttle Discovery was again rolled out to launch pad 39A to be prepared for the historic final launch.
Sandy and I decided to make plans to drive down to view the February 24 launch. We took Thursday and Friday off work and planned to drive down at least most of the way on Wednesday night. We followed the mission status updates closely and it looked like all was going well for a launch on the 24th. We made plans to hang out a couple of days in the event Discovery did not fly on the 24th.
On the trip down a twitter update from NASA saying that Discovery was “Go” for launch and a 90% chance of favorable weather got us excited about the launch and I was checking #sts133 on twitter and the SpaceFlightNow mission status center regularly for updates. We drove well into the night and stopped for a rest in St. Augustine, FL.
Thursday morning we were up early, had a quick breakfast in the hotel, and then we were back on the road to Titusville. We arrived in Titusville just after 9:00 AM and there were already a lot of people in town, many had camped over night and we heard that some had even been there for several days. The main part of Space View Park was already packed with people but we found a nice spot in the shade on the south side of the park near the water. We did not know it at the time but we were in a prime spot to view the launch from the park.
The launch was scheduled for 4:50 PM EST and it was just a wait till then. A nap or two, an occasional walk to stretch out, chatting with some of the folks around us, and a 30 minute or so wait in the bathroom line to pass the time. There were people from all over, a group from Washington state behind us, a couple from Michigan beside us, some other folks from West Virginia, just people from everywhere there to see this historic launch. Some of them had witnessed past launches, others had not, and others, like us, had been there for the past scrubbed attempts and hoping that this time Discovery would fly.
A family in front of us had been there over night and had a large tent set up. They broke camp at about 3:00 PM and in an instant the empty area where the tent had been filled in with people. A few minutes later a couple in front of us would move to try and get just a couple feet closer and because of this we ended up with an incredible unobstructed view of the launch pad.
At around 4:30 PM you could feel the energy in the crowd as the time for launch neared. A speaker system was set up in the main area of the park and we were just in ear shot of it. Just before launch there was some talk on an issue with range safety, turns out this was a problem with a computer system used by the range safety officer. There was a count down of the time remaining in the launch window before the launch would have to be scrubbed for another day.
Then at 4:53 PM, just minutes before the launch window closed, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from launch pad 39A on it’s final mission. Cheers and applause from the crowd gave way to the clicks of camera shutters and then more cheers.
About a minute into the flight you could hear the rumble of the engines and you could feel the ground vibrate. At about 2 minutes into the flight the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) separated from the main fuel tank as the shuttle continued on. In the light sky it was hard to see this but the camera picked up the two boosters moving away and the bright light from the shuttles main engines. In just over 3 minutes the shuttle and the 6 astronauts within it are beyond Earth’s atmosphere and in SPACE, in just over 8 minutes Discovery is in orbit on the way to rendezvous with the International Space Station. That is absolutely AMAZING!!!
To be there to see this was just incredible. Being there turned out to be both an inspiring and an emotional experience. The best I can come up with to describe it is WOW! The launch brought back memories of watching the launch of Columbia on STS-1, memories of the teachers bringing the TVs into class to watch launches during the early years of the Shuttle program when I was in middle school, memories of the tragic Challenger accident and the loss of Columbia, memories of each launch that I have watched on my computer in my office. It made me think of the courage of the crews that pilot the shuttle and all of the people that support the mission on the ground. I really cannot find the words needed to describe the feeling I felt watching Discovery lift off, I wish I could but I just keep coming back to WOW!
God speed to Discovery and crew. Have a safe and successful mission.
Seeing the launch was worth the missed attempts, the drive, the crowds, and the wait. If you have even a small chance of getting to see one of the final launches you should take it and experience a launch for yourself.
I am going to miss the shuttle program. I am glad Sandy and I were there to witness this historic final flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. I am already making plans to try to catch at least one of the two final launches of Endeavor and Atlantis.
The Lunar Eclipse on December 21, 2010 was one of those once in a lifetime events that if you had the opportunity you should have taken it in order to see a total lunar eclipse on the day that is also the solstice. The eclipse was visible to pretty much all of North America (as long as your sky was clear).
It was cold, just over freezing, and dry in Suffolk. I set up my Stellarvue SV80BV to do some prime focus photos of the event. The full set of photos can be found here.
I took my first images around 1:30 AM and even though you could not see a shadow on the moon with the unaided eye the camera did pick up a bit of shadow starting to creep over the surface.
Around 2:10 AM or so some pretty heavy clouds started to move through, the moon was bright enough to be seen even through the clouds, but there was a period of time around 2:20 AM that the moon was completely blocked out and I thought that we may miss seeing totality.
Luckily the clouds moved off about as quickly as they moved in and by 2:30 or so the sky was crystal clear. Still a few thin clouds for the first photo below.
But then things started to clear up nicely.
During totality the moon was a nice red color and it was amazing how as the moon darkened the stars brightened. It was really cool to look through the eye piece and see a field of stars behind the moon, these stars are usually washed out during a full moon.
At around 4:00 AM I decided to call it a night and try to get a few hours sleep. It was great to see the eclipse and I am glad my picture came out as well as they did. The full set can be found in my Flickr Lunar Eclipse December 21, 2010 Set.
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.
