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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 9, 2016 - 09:42am PT
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There have been numerous threads involving astronomy and stargazing in the past, but I just want to alert all interested in the hobby of the unusual opportunity to view 3 of the major planets these early summer evenings.
Jupiter is still high in the western skies these early evenings, and is easily identified as the brightest "star" visible in that direction. Even with a small telescope, it provides the amusement of the Galiliean satellites doing a daily (indeed, hourly) ballet around the planet. With a bit more aperture and magnification, some details of the north and south equatorial bands can be observed, as well as the "Great Red Spot."
Sliding eastward, the next extremely bright object glows brightly as a reddish object, easily identifiable as Mars. Mars is jus past opposition and it's closest approach to the Earth in 11 years.. A decent small telescope at about 100x magnification and with a green filter, should allow sighting of the polar icecaps.
A bit lower in the sky is a bright star-like object--the Queen of the Solar System, Saturn. The rings are at the maximum opening this approach, and we just passed opposition a few days past. Almost any telescope with magnification of ~ 20x will reveal the rings. Indeed, I've detected them in my Pentax 15x50 IS binoculars.
I've been out with my telescope almost every clear night, recently. A lot to see out there, and free for the taking.
What have YOU seen lately?
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Most people aren't fortunate enough to have a proper night sky.
Mind sharing your setup?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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I have noticed the Martian brightness, since you mention it, for the past month, especially.
It is one of the brightest objects in the SJ Valley night, as obscured as it is here by haze.
I'm in the center of downtown, so it's remarkably bright, considering the light distortion.
Out of town, it's really red and seems larger.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2016 - 10:37am PT
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drljefe-
OK, here are a few snapshots of my 'scope.
Technical details: Mirror; 14.5" diameter R.F Royce premium mirror, Strehl .945. f/5
Eyepieces available: 28mm William Otics UWAN; 17mm Nagler 17 mm T4; 10 mm SMC Pentax XW; 7mm SMC Pentax XW; 4mm William Optics UWAN. I also have a TMB 25mm Aspheric orrthoscopic, and 13mm Vixen Lanthanum Superwide.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Most people aren't fortunate enough to have a proper night sky.
Sadly true, but even at my site in northeast Clovis, with all the lights of the Fresno/Clovis metro area to my south, the planets show brightly. I havent taken my scope out of storage yet this year (a modest, 95mm Meade refractor on an unpowered equatorial mount), but Mars, in particular, made itself prominent for the last month at least.
John
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2016 - 02:35pm PT
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Yeah, the observatory has a motorized roll-off roof. My skies are darker than those at Joshua Tree and Chaco Canyon. As determined by a dark sky meter.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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That's really neat, bdc.
So if our sun were moved away, how far away could you see it with your tele?
Can your tele see 15th magnitude?
If so, if memory serves, it could see our sun equivalent at 3500 light years.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2016 - 02:53pm PT
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HFCS-
I've done 15th magnitude with my old 12.5" Dobsonian; with my eyesight and using averted vision, I'm pushing 16th magnitude. With my really good Dobsonian, I've logged 7 different Globular Clusters within the Andromeda Galaxy, and all are fainter than 15th magnitude.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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dark sky meter.
1 - are those accurate?
2 - cost?
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2016 - 04:05pm PT
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I've used one for a long time. Yes, they're accurate and are under $200.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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That's great, bdc.
I had an 8" bitd and was lucky enough to see Saturn as well at its max ring angle from earth. If memory serves it cycles through this max every 13 years or so.
haha, google makes it easy...
"Saturn's rings contribute a great deal to its brightness, and in fact, from the vantage point of the Earth, they are not always fully on view. About every 13 to 16 years, the rings are edgewise-on to the Earth's line-of-sight, when they are only seen as a thin line in telescopes - or sometimes not at all - and the planet appears much dimmer in the sky."
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 9, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
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HFCS-
This is my biggest and baddest scope ever, although I had one I liked even more: TMB 203 f/7 Triplet lens Apochromatic. I had to sell it to raise funds for my ex to go into a nursing home with Huntington's Disease. With that scope, I became one of the very few to see the Globular Cluster Palomar 12 with only 8" of aperture.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jefe, show us some big glass to drool over!
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Not really at liberty to share pics of current projects.
Right now I'm working on parts of what will be the biggest digital camera ever made, to be integrated into a very large land based observatory in South America.
Another proj is 2x meter-class extreme aspheres that will piggyback onto the Mayall on Kitt Peak to research Dark Energy.
The last large primary I worked on but did not see through to completion, was the 4.24m off axis parabola for what will be the largest solar telescope in existence.
My old team with the primary pictured below.
Cool setup there Brokedownclimber!
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Nice scope Brokedown.
I used to sky hop like a boss with my Meade 12.5 f4.5 Dobs.
Now I have a sweet Meade 10" f6 with great resolution. Unfortunately the motor drive is discouraging and time consuming to set up. I was faster than the motor with a Dobs.
We will get out there. Thanks for pushing.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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The most amazing telescope I've ever toured-
The Large Binocular Telescope, Mt Graham Az
That's a 40' bearing!
One of two 8.4m f/1.14 parabolas.
I'd love to get into amateur astronomy.
Too busy working.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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From David Cortner's site, link above....awesome, thanks PSP!!!
!
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2016 - 07:23am PT
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I'm always appreciative of those in the hobby doing photography, but I am also one of those who likes to be challenged by seeing things with my Mark I Eyeball. This means I continually am seeking out those "faint fuzzies," right at the limits of visual detection with the equipment at hand.
Since I'd been out of operation for about 6 years due to personal circumstances, I'm simply repeating the pathway I took several years back, by doing the entire list of Deep Sky Objects in Phil Harrington's great observing book, Star Watch. This is a season-by-season guide to observing some of the most intriguing objects visible through amateur scopes. There's even an online awarded certificate for completing the challenge, but since 2003, there have been only 19 individuals complete the list. Here's a link to the website:
http://www.philharrington.net
My favorite class of object for observation are Globular Clusters, and I've made significant inroads on observing all the Messier, NGC, and Palomar Sky Survey clusters visible from the Northern hemisphere.
I've begun working on extragalactic globulars, as well, which is the reason for such a large scope, one capable of viewing the 16th magnitude.
My goals for this year: Palomar 4 (the most distant object visible from the northern hemisphere that's still part of the Milky Way galaxy); the Terzan clusters in the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy; the Dwarf Galaxy WLM (Wolf-Lundmark- Melotte) and it's sole globular cluster, WLM-1.
I choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are HARD.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jun 10, 2016 - 07:31am PT
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So, Broke, channeling my inner Hailey I would assume your best viewing is on a cold winter
night, rather than a nice summer night, which means up your way you could lose skin to
your eyepiece.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 10, 2016 - 07:36am PT
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I choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are HARD.
lol
I wish I could get full value from your technica but I just don't have the background. Good luck with your pursuits. I'm envious.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2016 - 08:18am PT
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Reilly-
I choose to observe when the skies are clear--and without regard to the thermometer. I do become somewhat of a weenie when the temps get significantly below zero, Farenheit. At one point back in the early part of this century (2003, and before), the skies here competed for those darkest in the U.S. Unfortunately, there are growing light domes as more and more development takes place.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 11, 2016 - 08:03am PT
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bdc, thought you might enjoy...
Phoebe, 2004, Cassini Saturn flyby
Look at that detail.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 11, 2016 - 08:28am PT
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I have a short list of books for all those seriously interested in backyard astronomy and/or space exploration:
(1) Entering Space; Creating a Spacefaring Civilization. Robert Zubrin (1999); Tarcher-Putnam.
(2) Star Watch;The Amateur Astronomer's Guide to Finding, Observing, and Learning about Over 125 Celestial Objects. Philip S. Harrington (2003); Wiley & Sons, N.Y.
(3) Deep Sky Wonders. Walter Scott Houston (1999); Sky Publishing Corporation. Classic!
(4) The Case for Mars. Robert Zubrin (1996, 2011); Free Press, Simon & Schuster.
(5) Cosmic Challenge; The Ultimate Observing List for Amateurs. Philip S. Harrington (2011); Cambridge University Press.
Naturally there are many others worthy of similar recommendation, but this is the best group I can assemble on short notice.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Jun 11, 2016 - 10:03am PT
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Last Night First Night
Late last night
I was out on my deck
Looking out there beyond
And craning my neck
I looked up at the Moon
At Jupiter then Mars
With Saturn there trailing
With millions of stars
Though my mind and thoughts
Could 'nought but believe
All the images and data
My eyes did perceive
My dreams were way out there
Universes away
With fantastic adventures
In galactic arrays
But deep in my heart
Was the sorrowful note
That my visions of stardust
Were merely a mote
That would flicker and die
With barely a sound
Evanescent as the cosmos
The sheltering surround
Always at home
With the stars and the night
A human's perspective
Of the darkness and light
Are there beings out there
In that far away place
Who might think different thoughts
About existence and space?
These things I'll not know
Though I look at the stars
And wish I could travel
Out to Saturn and Mars
But resolving in place
To find beauty and grace
In the wonder that abounds
In the mysteries of space
-bushman
06/11/2016
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 12, 2016 - 08:14am PT
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Hey, I love that name!
This thread sure is a breath of fresh air.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Jun 12, 2016 - 08:37am PT
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Hope Stinks Eternal
Mars gave me hope
Whenever I'd go
Back to that place
That I once used to know
Before tourists and movie stars
F*#ked it all up
Now it smells like a diaper
And looks like a dump
With Starbucks and palm trees
Randomly strewn
No I couldn't go back
When it looks like the moon
I don't speak Chinese
And I'm partial to forks
So I'll stay here on earth
With the rest of you dorks
And will think of it fondly
How back in the day
We had to breathe co2
Now what can I say
So you can have Mars
And I'll stay here on earth
Something to be said
For the place of my birth
And the coffee's much better
Down here anyway
And the smog's not too bad
On any given day
-bushmanaut
06/12/2116
PS
I really do prefer sticks to forks.
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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Jun 12, 2016 - 08:45am PT
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Been thinking of selling my telescope; Celestron 2000 Ultima, perfect shape, including sun filter. Any interest out there?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 12, 2016 - 09:42am PT
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in this age of digital cameras, one wonders why you all aren't posting images of your views!
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Jun 12, 2016 - 11:46am PT
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What are their names and to which planets do these bodies belong?
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Jun 12, 2016 - 10:19pm PT
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Light pollution prevents 1/3 of us from seeing the Milky Way (stupidest name ever?).
Works better in the original
Via Galatea.
Good name for a galaxy.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 13, 2016 - 06:13am PT
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Ed-I am planning on purchasing a CCD camera later this year, but not as much for imaging as for yet another challenge: detection and measurement of transiting exoplanets by photometric occultation techniques. There is an active collaboration between advanced amateur astronomers and the professionals in this area of study. Telescope time on major instruments at the big observatories is carefully rationed out to researchers, making it impossible for detailed confirmation of some of these so-called "Hot Jupiters." Lists of candidate stars have been made available to amateurs with large but available optics coupled to high quality CCD cameras. I don't have the details at my fingertips, but most of the early detected transiting objects have had their transit times exactly measured using scopes as small as Celestron or Meade 12" Schmidt-Cassegran telescopes. My equatorially mounted 14.5: aperture advanced Newtonian telescope should be able to cope with the task with ease. The skies at both Lick, Mt. Wilson, and Palomar have been degraded by light pollution, making this amateur-professional collaboration scientifically very valuable.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 13, 2016 - 08:55am PT
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I know a lot of this sort of astronomy is limited by telescope time, and while the costs of equipment are coming down (and/or the resources available to "amateurs" have gone up) the dominant costs at telescope facilities are in overhead (as they are in most large science facilities) making these types of observations difficult.
One could ask if these large labs should be involved in the actual observing when this activity is available to very small operations, including "amateurs."
What is needed, then, is a way to provide an open data-base for the observations, and the conditions of the observations, to be entered and an agreement to share the data with the astronomical community (including the proper citations for data use).
It's an interesting possibility, crowd sourcing astronomical observations.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Jun 13, 2016 - 09:11am PT
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http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/MLO/tour/Tour.html
We were at Mt. Laguna last weekend. Camped at Burnt Rancheria and did the night time tour and viewing. If you are in the area it is really cool. They had several portables and and they had the 21" and 24" open for public viewing. The students and professors were great.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 13, 2016 - 01:23pm PT
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Ed-
There is some sort of organization to this activity, but I've been away from participating for a while. I believe there's a joint data base being established for worldwide observers for tracking exoplanet transits. It really needs to be a worldwide effort, as many of the transits start in a time zone and do not terminate until after daylight, but it's still dark in the next time zones. I need to go through my library of old Sky & Telescope magazines from maybe 6-8 years ago when a lot of this was getting started. Thanks to Internet availability, much tracking can be coordinated online, with multiple simultaneous observations of a given transit. Science in general, should make full use of dedicated and properly equipped amateurs. Many "amateurs" are in reality, unpaid professionals.
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DM88T
climber
San Dimas CA
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Jun 14, 2016 - 09:03pm PT
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a rose is a rose...
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Jun 15, 2016 - 08:17am PT
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I built an 18" Astrosystems Telekit in 2008/2009 with a very good 1/8 wave Pegasus mirror. Great light bucket Dobsonian telescope, but my circadian rhythm as distinctly swung to the early to bed, early to rise with a job I have to commute to 1:40 each way every day. I don't use it as often as I'd like.
Telescope build presentation
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 15, 2016 - 08:35am PT
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For all ST amateur astronomers who can climb this.[Click to View YouTube Video]
Carry on, cadets.
I am enjoying this, Rodger. Good thread.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Jun 15, 2016 - 12:35pm PT
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My colleague Greg Laughlin started a program to crowdsource transiting planet observations:
http://www.transitsearch.org
However, it has not been active for quite a while.
Bruce Gary put together a pretty 200-page .pdf book about the basics of doing transit photometry with a small telescope + CCD camera at the required 10 milli-magnitude precision.
http://brucegary.net/book_EOA/x.htm
It is not trivial to work at this level. Having a sufficient field of view to have some comparison stars available that are within a factor of 2 or 3 in brightness compared to the target star is very handy. You can then independently monitor a slew of systematic effects.
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nathanael
climber
CA
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Jun 15, 2016 - 03:35pm PT
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If I remember correctly the three bright yellowish "stars" forming a triangle at the bottom right were Saturn top left, Mars lower right, and Antares lower left. This was in Idyllwild this May.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Dec 22, 2016 - 01:59pm PT
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 24, 2016 - 07:46pm PT
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Mike-
You must be with the Lick Observatory at UCSC? I did a Post Doc at UCSC half a lifetime ago--Natural Sciences 2, on the 3rd floor (Chem Department).
I am also interested in doing some transiting exoplanet work and have the book you mentioned. I need to spend some serious $$$ on a decent CCD camera, however.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Dec 24, 2016 - 08:14pm PT
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Hi Brokedown. Yup, at UCSC Astronomy and Astrophysics. I had an office in Nat Sci 2 in the early 1990s...
There are some excellent public deep imaging databases available these days:
http://panstarrs.stsci.edu/
http://www.darkenergysurvey.org/
and of course the Sloan Surveys:
http://www.sdss.org/
You can download beautiful images taken through different filters in FITS format or as jpgs. Not as fun as taking your own images, but some amazing stuff is available.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2016 - 04:47pm PT
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The weather has sucked pretty bad for almost the entire past 6 weeks! :>((
Very discouraging for a deep sky observer.
Mike-I left Santa Cruz for Colorado in 1976. My Postdoctoral Advisor left not too long after that and moved to Montana State University in Bozeman. My observatory is on my ranch near Douglas, Wyoming. The observatory was built in 2006.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jupiter's so close right now you an see two of its moons with the naked eye.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Maybe with your eye, Chaz. A small set of binoculars can help the rest of us.
Yeah, Jupiter is bright and huge.
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looks easy from here
climber
Ben Lomond, CA
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A small set of binoculars can help the rest of us.
I'd need something a little more powerful than binoculars to see through these clouds. :(
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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BDC I had an old climbing partner who was working on the large binocular scope- guys name was Shawn Callahan--good climber too. Did you ever meet him down in Tuscon? I think he's at Cal Tech now.
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HansK
Sport climber
Germany
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Here near from a big town (and central europe) you have to drive 100 mls for "dark" sky :(
I have 1x 10cm Apochromat and 1x 20 cm Dobson Telescop most of the time watching saturn and jupiter and other planets.
But deep sky objects like other galaxies are nearly impossible.
Also most of abservatorien near from cities are worthless. Here in germany are a lot of old "sternwarten".
Clean skies are words from the past.
Do you know this?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor
sadly most people are stupid and so the understand nothing!
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/.a/6a00d8341bf7f753ef01b7c813522f970b-pi
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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HansK,
If you're ever near the southwest part of the U.S., you could find much to look at. Where I live, even lights on flagpoles must be pointed down. It's very dark down south of Tucson.
You could even consider moving to this little village completely devoted to sky gazing about 2 hours southwest of here. (Big time devotees.)
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12352-arizona-sky-village-a-town-built-for-astronomy-lovers/
P.S. I forgot to say that folks I've known who have spent time in the Navy say the night sky in the middle of the ocean is what they miss most about their military experiences.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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can anyone suggest a good contemporary astronomy textbook at the advanced undergraduate level? I took astronomy as freshman political science major, 20 years ago. We had an observatory and I was blown away to see Venus through the telescope at high noon.
I have a really good astronomy book for kids that I read when I was 8 years old. Looking for something that might be a bit more technical.
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