Hi All,

Just a quick note to let you know that I decided to start the New Year with a new blog, which I have just finished setting up.  You can find it at http://astronomymike.wordpress.com.

I've just finished setting up some image galleries there too, so feel free to drop by and pay me a visit .

Happy New Year to you all, and wishing everyone clear skies for 2010!

Cheers, Mike

It's been a long time since my last post as I've busy with my business and things have only just started settling down.  I thought I'd just share this little nightmare I recently had with my primary mirror and hope that it may help other "noobs" falling into the same trap!

I recently purchased a new astronomy camera - an Imaging Source DMK41AF02.AS.  Nice camera and much higher resolution than my old Philips SPC900NC (ToUcam III).  First light for the new camera was not in ideal conditions (poor seeing and windy), but I was determined to try it out as we've had a long period of bad weather (which is still continuing!).  The first images out of it showed a number of quite large dark spots, which I eventually narrowed down to being on either the primary or secondary mirror of the telescope.  On inspection, with the mirrors still in place, I could see a few bits of black crud stuck to the primary. 

Now, I've never had a primary mirror out before, and all the reading I've done on the subject suggests that this is not a good thing to do unless absolutely necessary!  Gulp!  Nervously, following the manufacturers instructions line by line, I removed the mirror.  With the warning voices of those who have gone before me ringing in my ears, I soak the mirror in lukewarm water and detergent and proceed to VERY carefully clean it, rinse it and allow it to dry off.

Let the nightmares begin...

OK, so the mirror is now dry and I place it back in its cell and tighten down the rubber mounts that hold it in place.  The cell is then placed back in the tube and secured.  Collimation is done and all looks good.  Whew!  Job done, and no breakages!    We're good to go, right?  Not quite - I have to wait for a couple of days before we get any clear sky.  Finally I get a break and take the scope, camera and laptop out to image Jupiter - hang on a minute, why can't I focus on Jupiter???  Must be "bad seeing".  Let's try the Moon...OMG!  Why does the Moon look like a big hairy white lemon?!!!  There is a distinct "sinking" feeling in the pit of my stomach as thoughts of scratching the primary mirror surface during cleaning come to mind.  Rechecked the collimation and it's still good.  Spent the next half hour trying (unsuccessfully) to get good focus on the Moon.  Oh dear...grasping at straws I think, "maybe the detergent left a streaky film on the mirror?".

...the nightmares continue...

The next day, the primary comes out again and, on close inspection, there are indeed streaks on the mirror (and the black spots of crud are still attached!).  Yes!  So, the mirror gets an even longer soak before cleaning again and this time is VERY thoroughly rinsed before drying off.  Feeling somewhat relieved that I have "found the problem",  the mirror is once again set into its cell and rubber mounts tightened down.  The cell is placed back into the tube and recollimated and the weather waiting game starts again - this time I am even more anxious to see the result!  A couple of days later I get a very small window of opportunity - it's still very overcast but the high wind is creating very brief glimpses of the Moon.  It takes me several attempts between clouds to get as good a focus as I can.  What the...?!!!  Houston, we still have a problem!  The Moon is still a big hairy white lemon!!!  My heart is really racing now, and that sinking feeling in my stomach just dropped out of my trouser leg. 

...waking from the nightmare...

The following day, I emailed a few people for advice, and one of them sends me a document on "optical aberrations" and suggests I compare what I'm seeing with some of the photos in the document.  Unfortunately, all of the photos are based on images of stars and I've only been looking at the Moon so far, so nothing seems to match up.  I wait for another few days for a break in the clouds so I can get the scope out again and look at a star.  Finally a small hole opens up and I can see a handfull of stars and quickly get the scope out to have a look.  What I see doesn't match anything exactly, but has similarites to the "coma" and "astigmatism" images in the document.  Progressively eliminating the potential causes that they list, I come to the conclusion that the mirror may be "pinched" - this apparently occurs when the mirror is too tight in its cell and causes the shape of the mirror to become distorted.  Given that the mirror is about 1.5 inches thick, I doubt that this is the cause but proceed to remove the mirror from the tube (again!) and loosen off the rubber mounts and check that they are still tight enough to hold the mirror in place before placing it back in the tube and recollimating.  It's several days again before the sky clears enough to check it out, and I'm a nervous wreck by the time it does finally clear.  The Moon is up too, so I grab the scope and focus in...........

...the nightmare is over!!!

There it is!  The Moon is back in all its big, bold and beautiful glory!  Sharp as a tack!  Jupiter and the Galilean moons look great too, and stars are once again pinpoint!  It's late and my wife has gone to bed, but I whoop it up and dance a jig anyway!  I'm exhausted from all the stress and worry that I've caused myself, and the cloud is returning anyway, so I pack up and head off to bed (I slept VERY well that night ). 

That was about a week ago and I haven't been able to get the scope out since and do some imaging.  The only clear night we've had since then was the night I had to give a presentation on Jupiter to the local astronomical society that I joined recently.  They had some viewing afterwards and we had a good look at Jupiter.  By the time I got home it had clouded up again and it has remained that way ever since .  Never mind, my time will come, and when it finally does it'll probably be an all-nighter!

The moral of the story?  Well, I guess one moral could be "don't panic!".  Another could be, if you're not confident in removing, cleaning and replacing a primary mirror - ASK FOR HELP from someone who knows!  And if things start to go wrong, ask for advice sooner rather than later - you could save yourself a lot of stress!

Clear skies to all!

Mike

Well, it's been a while since I contributed here but this will be a short post.  I just had to share the fact that our little astronomy club (Levin StarGazers) just won a global award for our participation in the 100 Hours of Astronomy event held in April!!!  We won the Award Three section for Community Outreach, which is simply awesome, particularly when you consider there were something like 2370 registered events worldwide.  The award will be recognised at the IAU General Assembly in Brazil in August.

A big thanks to Celestron too for the Sky Scout that we will be receiving as a prize.  This will be extremely useful in our public outreach and educating both members of our club as well as members of the public.

In my last blog I told you about my new scope (10" dob) and my plans for astrophotography via webcam.  Well the webcam finally arrived (along with a 2" adapter) about a week ago and we finally got some clear weather last night to try it out. 

Between the webcam, capture software (KCCDTools), stacking software (Registax), and image processing software (Gimp), it was a real steep learning curve last night!  But I captured a few avi's of Saturn and the Moon, and finally got one of the Moon ones stacked and processed today (I did process a Saturn one, but wasn't pleased with it, so I'm not going to show you that one yet!).  This was the result of stacking several hundred frames of the Moon avi:-

Not bad for a first attempt I thought, but I'm sure with a few pointers from some of the experts here I could improve on it!  I'll try and process some more (including Saturn) and see what I can come up with.

Until then, Clear Skies to all!

Regards, Mike

It's here!  It's here!!  It's here!!!

Well, it's been a LONG time coming, but my XT10 Intelliscope (10" dob with computerized hand controller), the maker of which shall remain nameless here for fear of offending someone, has finally arrived!  I ordered this back at the end of January 2009 to replace my PowerSeeker 127EQ after I attended my first ever star party and seeing what a huge difference aperture can make.  Unfortunately I had to wait for the local dealer to amass a number of other orders so that they could ship them all at once, so the order wasn't actually placed to the US until March.  Then, of course, they shipped them all by sea to save on shipping costs!  I think I have driven my wife and kids loony while I've been waiting for it.

I've had to keep myself busy while I've been waiting, so I've made a Hartmann mask for it out of thin ply and a Denver Observers Chair as well, both from some DIY instructions I found on the 'net at http://www.iceinspace.com.au/projects.html.  Here's a photo of the finished chair...

 Folds up into a nice flat package for transporting too!

Anyways, back to the scope!  It got its first light on Friday night after the kids helped me assemble the dob base (there was NO WAY I was letting them even touch the alt/az encoders though!).  Unfortunately it was dark when we finished assembling and I had no idea how to align the finderscope with the telescope in the dark so decided to leave it until the next day to do that (I must be a bit of a sado-masochist to make myself wait another day with it all assembled and sitting in my lounge!).  However, watching the weather report on TV at 10:30pm that night and seeing heavy rain warnings for about the next week soon changed my perspective and I dragged it outside to attempt the finderscope alignment in the dark!  It took me about an hour and a half, but I finally got it aligned, only to find that the collimation was quite off as I couldn't achieve pinpoint focus on anything!

Grabbed the laser collimator (another new toy, which arrived with the scope) and the scope manual and set about doing the collimation...now let's see, the secondary mirror is not aligned properly and the manual says "Using a 2mm hex key", not "Using the supplied 2mm hex key"...aaarrrggghhh!  A quick search of the supplied accessories reveals that the wording of the manual is correct - no hex key supplied!  At this point I decide that Murphy's Law has been applied and grab a quick but slightly blurry view of Saturn and then the Tarantula Nebula before packing it up again and heading off to bed in disgust.

A clear head the next morning allows me to recall the el-cheapo toolkit locked up in the back shed that I bought about 20 years ago.  A bit of searching resulted in me emerging from the depths of the shed with a whole bunch of different sized hex keys - one of which was a 2mm as required!  Laser collimation was duly completed and now I just have to wait for the damn rain and thick cloud cover to GO AWAY!!!

But wait, there's more...

I recently ordered and received a Philips SPC900NC (ToUcam III) webcam, as I'd really like to try my hand at some astrophotography  Obviously, with a non-motorized dob I never going to get images like John Buonomo, but at least I'll be able to hopefully take some halfway decent lunar and planetary images.  Now I'm just waiting on the T-Mount and 2" adapter to connect the webcam to the telescope and I should be away laughing.  Have also ordered the Celestron 2" eyepiece and filter kit too (not related to the desire to do astrophotography - they were just really nice eyepieces!).  Most of these "extras" have been purchased under the radar...so don't tell my wife...please!!!

Until next time - Clear Skies to all!

Regards, Mike

World largest?...nah!

Well, April 4th has been and gone, and the public turnout for our 100HA event in little old Levin, New Zealand totally exceeded our expectations!  A world record it was not, but given our meagre population of around 20,000 a turnout of over 500 people was a dream come true for our small astronomy club.  Before the event our club had a membership of 65, but by the end of the night we had added another 100 members to our group!

Leading up to the event we did quite a bit of promotion - handing out flyers at shopping malls and main streets, radio advertisements (free community event bulletins), library displays, etc.  My company also donated a NZ$500 6" dobsonian telescope as a prize to try and attract as many punters as possible.  I was lucky(?) enough to be sat at the registration desk on the night and taking entries for the telescope draw and signing up new members, and I was absolutely swamped!  They just kept coming and coming all night (well, OK, until about 10pm anyway).

The weather, which had been quite uncooperative for the previous couple of weeks, could not have been better on the night - crystal clear skies and relatively warm, which I think contributed significantly to getting people out and about for us.  Unfortunately, being stuck at the registration desk, I didn't get to see through a telescope all night!  Ah well, such is life.  At least I know that collectively we brought a lot of joy and amazement to a large number of people, and that, after all, is what it was all about.

We had 2 main telescopes set up and gave everyone the opportunity to see Saturn through them and then register for the prize draw.  After that they were free to wander amongst the 10 or so other telescopes that were viewing other interesting objects.  Lots of oohs and ahhs could be heard all night.  There was also an amateur astronomer giving talks indoors and an information table where the public could ask questions and access information on astronomy.

Since then, I have immensely enjoyed reading about and seeing photos/videos of all the events around New Zealand and the rest of the world.  It has been an amazing experience, and I congratulate all of you who participated in this truly global event.  For those who are interested, I have attached a short video of our event below.  My apologies for the quality - the intro was shot using a handheld camera (a bit shaky!) and the remainder was shot from a static tripod (I didn't have any free time to move the camera around!).  Unfortunately, I also forgot to switch the camera over to "night" mode, so the footage is rather dark, but you can see how many people were there by the shadows moving against the background!  Hope you enjoy.

Cheers,

Mike

Well, it's been a while since my last post but things have been rather busy, especially in regards to planning our main "100 Hours of Astronomy" event here in Levin, New Zealand.  If you haven't heard me say it before, Levin is a small town of around 20,000 people but the local astronomy club (Levin StarGazers) has had excellent results in attracting locals to our public star parties.

World Famous!

One of the public star parties that was held on Guy Fawkes last year was particularly successful and really helped put sleepy old Levin on the map.  The photo below was taken at this event (by Paul Moss - see www.astronomy.net.nz) and was picked up by Sky and Telescope magazine for their recent article on IYA2009 and 100HA events.  The photo has now been published in both the US and Australian editions of that magazine!  You can read the article here.  It is also being used as one of the 6 images for the official 100 Hours of Astronomy posters!

Worlds Largest Star Party!

Following on from our successes, the Levin StarGazers plan to hold the worlds largest star party on April 4th as part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy events that are happening worldwide!  Everybody in our district is being invited to come down and view Saturn through a telescope.  In addition to the main "Saturn-viewing" telescopes, there will be other group members showing other wonders in our skies, plus an information desk and a guest speaker giving presentations indoors.  My company is donating a $500 telescope to give away as a prize to some lucky member of the public too!  If the weather doesn't permit viewing, we have an inflatable cosmodome/planetarium that will be set up indoors for brief presentations to the public.

It should be a fantastic (and exhausting!) night.  Here's hoping the public come along in their hundreds!  The local newspapers and radio station have been very supportive in promoting the event, and the prize draw for the telescope will be done on live radio on the Monday following the event.

Wish us luck, and I hope that you are all planning wonderful events for the public too!

Regards, Mike

A couple of nights ago we finally got a break in the evening cloud cover that has been plaguing us for the last few weeks, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about Comet Lulin.  Quite exciting really, as I now have my first "real" scope and I have never actually seen an comet before.  So, armed with a map of where Lulin should be (courtesy of http://www.rasnz.org.nz/Comets/C2007N3.htm), and full of newbie enthusiasm, I headed out to look for my first ever comet.

Ummm...what does it look like?

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and my only encounter with the comet to date has been through John_Buonomo's blogs and animations (if you haven't seen his work yet, you really must do it now - in fact, leave my blog right now and pay him a visit!).  So, expecting to see the same thing as John (on my 127EQ - what an idiot I am!), I start searching around Spica low on the eastern horizon (again I say "idiot"!) with the binoc's.  Nothing!  After about half an hour of fruitless searching I just happened to catch a glimpse of a very faint, light-grey, round "smudge" close to a faint star not far from Spica.  To me, it looks a lot like the globular cluster 47 Tucanae (sorry guys, you can't see that from the northern hemisphere) through binoculars, so I head inside to the PC and have a look on Celestrons' "The Sky" software...ummm, the faint star must be Theta-Virginis and there's Spica, but no cluster or any other object it could be.  Wow!  I must've found a cluster not listed in the software (how do you spell "I-D-I-O-T"?)!  So, back out I go and line up the telescope with my "new cluster", expecting that, like 47 Tucanae, the stars in the cluster will just magically "pop out" at me.  Hmm,...it's now just a larger light-grey smudge - hey Mike, you don't think that this could be <gasp>...LULIN...do you?  Nah...it's not greenish and doesn't seem to have a bright core.  Oh well, I give up - I'm off to bed.

The next day...

I'm still puzzled about the "new cluster" I found last night and have another look at "The Sky" software.  No, I didn't miss anything - there's definitely nothing there.  Maybe I should ask the guys on CelestronLife what it is?  (In hindsight, I'm sure glad I didn't ask !).  Also still puzzled as to the whereabouts of the missing Comet Lulin, I pay another visit to the Lulin map website.  Now let's see - there's Spica, there's Theta-Viriginis (oh, so that's what the Greek letter for theta looks like!), and there's the path of Comet Lulin running right between the two of them!!!  Many expletives bounce around my head and for the rest of the day I continue to kick myself in the arse with my imaginary foot whilst praying for another clear night tonight.

That evening...

Cloud rolled in late afternoon and I just know that I'm never going to see Lulin again <sob>.  About 10pm I step out the door and find that the cloud has disappeared!  Yes, yes, yes!  Grabbed the scope, polar-aligned, and pointed east looking for Spica and my friend Theta-Virginis, knowing that the comet was still close by the latter.  Oh, but wait, they haven't risen yet (spell it with me folks - "I-D-I-O-T").  Ahh, but look, Saturn has!  And the seeing was fabulous!  I have never seen Saturn so crisp and clear - not only that, I actually could make out at least 2 of its moons (I think that I occasionaly caught a glimpse of a 3rd every now and then too).  In fact, the image in my 20mm eyepiece was so clear that I didn't want to go and spoil it by adding the 3x barlow and having to refocus.  So, I tracked Saturn for a bit, had a look at some of the bigger Milky Way objects, and finally Spica rose.  Located Theta-Virginis and quickly found my "new cluster" (aka Comet Lulin) through the binocs again, lined up the scope and hey-presto!  There she was - still a round smudge, but tonight I could easily make out a brighter core.  I tracked Lulin for about an hour and, the further it rose off the horizon, the better I could see the core.  Sadly, the cloud cover started rolling back over then and I had to wait for glimpses of the comet until finally the cloud blanketed the sky for the evening.

Still, at least I can say "found it, seen it, loved it", and next time I'm looking for a comet, I'll know what I should be looking for!

Until next time, take care and clear skies to all!

-Mike

Where did our summer go?

Unbelievable!  Ever since I bought my 127EQ early in the New Year, I seem to have been battling the weather for supreme control of the skies.  Don't get me wrong, we have had lovely warm days, but by early evening high cloud starts rolling in and destroys any chance of a decent nights' viewing.  Still, I'm sure that you northern hemisphere folk are having similar weather problems over the winter and probably having to contend with cold, rain and snow to boot, so I guess I shouldn't moan.

Anyway, for about 2 weeks straight we've had the type of weather above, with the last week being almost solid rain.  However, last night the weather finally cleared!  So I quickly grabbed the 'scope, made a quick list of things I wanted to see (thanks Celestron "The Sky"!) and headed outside.  I certainly wasn't disappointed - the recent rain and cold air flow above combined to make some great seeing conditions.  Here's a quick list of things I managed to view last night:-

• Clouds of Magellan - in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) I viewed NGC 2032 (Seagull Nebula) and NGC 2070 (Tarantula Nebula).  At least I think that's what I viewed!  There's so much to see in the LMC, and I'm still finding my way around, but even if it wasn't those nebulae, whatever I saw in there looked great!
• Just off the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is 47 Tucanae - a globular cluster of several million stars.  Only visible from the southern hemisphere, and I have to say, very, very impressive!
• Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) - a globular cluster, visible by the naked eye, but again very impressive through a telescope.
• Orion Nebula (M42 & M43) - impressive as ever!  I can't help myself - every time I get the telescope out, I have to look at this!
• The Pleiades (M45) - I have to time my viewing of this, as it is in the northern sky and I have to wait until it is between two large (about 30 metres high) trees on our property to view it.  I keep threatening to cut down all the tall the trees around our section, but my wife just let me near the chainsaw!
• Saturn - finally!  After several nights spent figuring out that over-magnifying was NOT the way to go (750x mag on a 'scope with a "useful" mag of 300x acheives nothing!) and that viewing low on the horizon was not a "good thing", I finally got a decent view of Saturn!  Although the rings are edge-on to us at present, it was still a great sight to see, and I even managed to resolve one of its' moons.
• Comet Lulin - I wish!!!  Alas, Comet Lulin should be close to Spica at present, so I patiently waited for Spica to rise, only to find that the Moon (about 3/4) also rose at the same time!  After several attempts to locate the comet through binoculars, I came to the realization that it just wasn't gong to happen, and decided to do a spot of moon-viewing instead.  I have to say that even though I was disappointed about not getting to see Lulin, the Moon was pretty spectacular viewing last night.

That pretty much wrapped up the evening, and I toddled off to bed a happy man.  I awoke to beautiful blue skies and they remained so for the rest of the day, luring me into a false sense of security that I was going to get another "fix" tonight.  Unfortunately the high cloud again started rolling in at about 8pm (it gets dark here about 9pm) and, as I write this, we are completely overcast again.

Ah well, such is life.  Until next time folks - clear skies!  And thanks for joining me.

Mike

Greetings from New Zealand!

As I mentioned in my first blog (ever!), I recently joined our local astronomy group known as the Levin StarGazers.  This is a group of amateur astronomers who get together once a month with their telescopes and share their knowledge. 

To kick off the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), the group recently held a "telescope amnesty", where they invited the public to bring along their telescopes that had been gathering dust because they didn't know how to use them.  What a resounding success it was, even though the weather didn't cooperate for any decent viewing afterwards.  Around 100 people came (in a town with a population of less than 20,000, that was pretty darn good) and listened to a guest astronomer explain the pros and cons of many of the different types of telescopes (refractors, newtonians, dobsonians, and so on).  Following that presentation, the children in the audience were challenged to take part in a quiz on astronomy, with prizes of course being chocolate treats (actually "Mars Bars" - a type of chewy chocolate bar here in NZ).

After the quiz, everyone went outside with their telescopes, old and new, and those who wanted advice were teamed up with amateur astronomers.  Even as a relative newbie, I was able to help a young boy who had the same equatorial mount as my own telescope.  It was great to be able to pass on even that little amount of knowledge. 

Unfortunately the weather was completely overcast and the moon at perigee and close to being full, and we all thought that we were not going to see anything - until...

The power of prayer...

One of the visiting astronomers is of Maori descent, and he recited a karakia (Maori prayer) to Marama (the moon) and Matariki (the Pleiades).  Honest to goodness, within 2 minutes the moon began peeking in and out of the clouds and a clear patch of sky appeared around Orion!  So some of the local kids managed to get some pretty neat views after all, despite the weather.

Just to top the evening off, the event made front page news in the local newspaper, and many more people joined our little StarGazers group, which is an absolutely fabulous start to IYA2009!