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--- In OAFs@y..., "Mike Wirths" <mwirths@s...> wrote:

P.S I'm thinking of trying some sidewalk at the Perth mall tonight
(even though It'll be fairly quiet) around 7:30 any takers ?

Hi Mike!

Roland & I would be happy to join you tonight for some sidewalk astro
in Perth. Is it a GO for sure, or will you be posting a GO/NOGO later
in the day??

Sounds like you & Attilla had a great time on Friday night -- chalk
one more up for the die-hard optimists! (Perhaps the timbits are the
key -- I have tried sacrificing many other desserts to the sky
dieties, with little meteorological effect.)

Janice

Whoopps sorry scratch the Sat night title! Make that Fri night Also the box Hickson was H 61

-Mike

Hi all!

Well remember sat night I posted that it was very windy out here? At around 9:30 Attilla arrived and we stood around inside the observatory listening to the roof creak and groan with 50-60 km/h gusts hhhmmmm just a little dangerous to even consider opening the roof let alone observe! So we decided to go to the house sacrifice a few timbits to appease whatever wind deities may exist just to see if it would die down. After about a hour of chatting we went out around 11:00ish to find that it HAD indeed died down a lot! So we collimated the scope opened the roof and started looking at some bright objects like globulars while we waited for the moon to dip below the treeline it was still breezy at this point. Transparency was quite high and it looked promising views of the planetary neb Ngc 40 in Cepheus, and the Cats-eye in Draco (Ngc6543) were superb seeing was in the 1-2 arcsecond range!
When the moon finally disappeared I estimate the LM was around 6.5-6.6! Given the 25% humidity this was a good night, also by this time the wind had practically gone away completly!
So we moved on to view some galaxies such as M51 ---was awesome! almost as good as the famed night of fri the 13th The counter-plume opposite the smaller interacting galay was visible and much dark lane detail was visible.
Tonight we decided to continue trying for some of the better Hickson compact galaxy group clusters using a printout form Ray Cashes super website:
We had done Hick 44 (in neck of Leo-- the brightest hickson), H56 in Uma, so next on the list was Copelands septet (hickson 57) in Leo-- this was easy in the 18" seen as two lines of 3 even brightness galaxies separated by a field star, the 7th detached member was visible in the 25" at higher power. All members were in the 14-15 mag range. Very pretty grouping!
Next was a group in Coma centered around the brightest member -ngc 4169 this was a very cool grouping of galaxies in a box arrangement with two parallel edge on galaxies on one side and another running perpendicular on the other side with a bright face on spiral forming the 4th side of the box. One of the edge-ons had an appearence of a faint M82 while the other was like a faint version of ngc4565 sans dark lane.
the last and 3rd hickson of the night was very difficult the "bust apart" even at high power (over400X) but it was relatively easy to see.
this group was Seyferts Sextet or Hickson 79 in the extreme Northern portion of Serpens near CrB. This group is centered around the brightest member Ngc 6027 (mag 13.8) The 3 brightest members form a kind of backwards "L" but the other members were not resolved although we suspect that we saw an extension of one of the ends of the L which could have been one other member-- I think this group needed a night of excellent seeing to be resolved.
So after these faint fuzzies we rewarded ourselves with some bright stuff like M5 in Serpens,,... WOW!!! this was an awesome globular with many bright stars from the resolved core right out to the periphery definitly one of the 3 or 4 nicest globs visible in our latitudes!
At this point we were getting tired so we got a glimpse of Mars as it rose over the obsevatory wall in the 18' but it was still too low to show anything more than a ochre gibbous disc-- oh well give it time! I may try to get up early tommorrow mornig to catch it!
So all in all a great night in spite of looking hopeless earlier, so next time don't listen to me just come anyway-- HINT Richard ;>)

P.S I'm thinking of trying some sidewalk at the Perth mall tonight (even though It'll be fairly quiet) around 7:30 any takers ?

-clear skies

Mike W

Just spent a few minutes looking at the format for the new improved
maps you posted on the HOME page for OAFs, comparing them to other
maps and data available at this point in time. This is a much better
system than before. The dark areas seem to show the clear skies well,
and I like the EX arrows indicating wind direction.

Thanks Attilla!

Rol

Sess#296 8:15-11:15 b.y. lm=5.0 s=ranged 7-9! Clear Cool

Janice and I had an observing session in the b.y., for her to try out
the new tripod she purchased for the Short Tube Scope while I took in
a few veiws with the SCT8". It's nice to be working in tandem with
both scopes. As a bonus, the wind calmed down after 9pm.

Moon - was fantastic. People looking through scopes at various public
star parties held by Ottawa region groups must have had great views.
Since the scope got a finer collimation on the previous night, I could
see all kinds of great detail. There was even the "String of Pearls"
effect near the tip of the Moon's crescent. Janice could make out
quite a few lunar details in her small scope.

In Short Tube ( f/5 80mm ) scope:

Jupiter - showed 4 moons & 2 stripes, and a bit of the polar caps.

Saturn - was really low ( ALT 5 degrees? ), so showed the rings but
not Cassinni div or moons on this occasion.

Epsilon Lyr - the double double was split in the small scope after
using ridiculous magnification. Two Barlows plus a 7.4mm ep for a
magnification of 213X ( way beyond this 80mm refractor, but the stars
split cleanly into pairs of small points with darkness in between.
Closest was 2.3".

Castor - split cleanly and easily.

Gamma Leo - also split cleanly.

M3 - looked like a tiny fuzzy ball with very few of the stars
resolved on the outer periphery. Very different than an 8" view on
this one.

Quiet relaxing session.

Hey Attilla!!
Great modifications to the satelite photos!! I think a pining
Norwegian blue could be in your future as the prize for OAF of the
year!!
Richard

The satellite picture on the OAFS homepage was showing
lots of white, cloud-like pixels when it's been clear. Annoying.
So, I've made a couple of changes to the code that generates it.

I've futzed around with the image processing of the raw goes8
images until I've got something that seems to match clear skies at
night.

This is how to read the image:

The darker a patch is on the image, the clearer the sky should be.
Black means clear.

White and gray patches are clouds or fog. This image is mostly
sensitive to low clouds. I'm not yet sure it detects cirrus properly.
Please let me know how well you think it matches the real sky.

Puke green areas are clouds too. They are thick enough to make
me want to pu... (actually, my contrast stretch algorithm
just runs out of brightness bits).

Usually, a line of yellow arrows will appear pointing towards
ottawa. These represent the path that clouds approaching ottawa are
moving in. I hope to use the arrows to tell if those juicy sucker
holes are really comming our way.

If you see the arrows running
amok, or no arrows at all, it just means that the cloud-movement
agorithim is too dumb to figure out the cloud movement for
that image. In that case, I suggest a using weather report to
find the direction of the prevaling wind. The cloud-movement
algorithm usually screws up only when its clear over a very large
area -- when we are least likely to be indoors
looking at silly satellite pictures.

I hope you guys find the images useful. Feel free to let me know
when your observations of the sky dont match the image. I might
be able to tweak it further.

-ad

ps. Three shall be the Hicksons. And the Hicksons shall be thee.
Hey Mike, thanks for great observing friday night.
Care to post a report?

Anybody have astro plans for tonight??
Richard

Darkbeing wrote:

question how many parts ? could we possible get al the parts and put them
together our self's to create one for our self's
like from radio shack and just solder it all together I would think it could
not be that hard to make the board for it all we kneed is a part list and a
scymatick of the board and poof a little solder and it all be together if
there selling it of 29 bucks it probly cost 5 $ in parts I do not know just
a question and a idea

How many parts -

Well it has a small printed circuit about 1 inch square, on which there
is an 8 pin IC (haven't checked the part number against catalogs to see
what it is), a capacitor, a variable resistor, a double pole - centre
off toggle switch, two wires ending in a 9 volt battery connector, and
two wires with bare ends. It is a very simple thing obviously, and
you could no doubt buy the parts for less than $29 (but it will likely
be more than $5 for parts). Also, there is no schematic.

From my point of view, it is worth the price to have it already
assembled and ready to install. And that installation (if you do it
right the first time) should take less than 30 minutes. In brief -
cut off the old battery holder. Drill one hole in the side of the Telrad
for the switch, mount the switch in the hole (that supports the whole
unit), connect the two bare wires to the former battery wires using
the twist on connectors supplied, add a 9 volt battery, and voila.

Hope that answers the question.

Cheers - Al

question how many parts ? could we possible get al the parts and put them
together our self's to create one for our self's
like from radio shack and just solder it all together I would think it could
not be that hard to make the board for it all we kneed is a part list and a
scymatick of the board and poof a little solder and it all be together if
there selling it of 29 bucks it probly cost 5 $ in parts I do not know just
a question and a idea

I took myself out to Armstrong Rd. last night to view the Eta Gem.
occultation, thinking I might want to view some other objects while
waiting. Arrived about 9:30 and realized the strong and constant
wind would make that difficult. Transparency was great, but there was
very high atmospheric turbulence. No one else showed up there.

Was surprised on looking at the moon by the brightness of the
earthshine. It was possible to see several craters, the maria, even
hints of rays. Spent somne time observing features on the lit surface
and identifying them. I too noted at least three other occultations
while waiting for the main event. The wind never died down, but there
was no difficulty obsderving the moment of occultation. Eta Gem. is
a very close double (nice orange colour) and I had thought it might
wink out in stages, but, as best I could tell, it went out like a
candle flame being snuffed.

I packed up right afterwards (glad I had dressed for winter!) and
realized when I got home that I could have seen the whole thing from
in front of my house, had I known that was all I would look for.

Happy astronomy day to all!
Frank

Sess#295 9-12pm lm=5.1 s= ranged 4-8 clear fairly windy

Tired from teaching, I decided to observe from the back yard this
evening. Wind gusts did not prevent me from doing a decent polar
alignment (using a kind of mini drift method - 10 minutes) - stars at
a magnification of 534X stayed close to the centre of F.O.V. for 20
minutes while I prepared other equipment.

Later, when the winds would calm for a few seconds, I managed to touch
up the collimation at that high magnification.

Eta Bootis - Binary. Sep=2.9". One brighter yellow primary and a
much fainter blue/green secondary star. More challenging than stars
of even brightness.

M3 - Seeing temporarily got quite good ( 8/10 )at about 10pm, so
observed M3 using 3x barlow and 18mm ep for magnification of 333X.
Many stars resolved - more than I could count. The very central core
is still a jumble of light with tiny pinpoints coming in and out of
focus.

Occultations - 4 stars observed getting occulted by the moon's
earthshine illuminated limb between 10:17pm and 10:32pm. Propus got
occulted at 9:32pm DST.

Winds calmed down a bit after 10:30pm.

Iota Leonis - Binary. Sep=1.7" Nearly three magnitudes difference
between this close pair. Whitish primary and blueish secondary
located close and easy to miss. Required 333X to confirm.

M13 - Good to see it from b.y. again this year. Spend a while
admiring. Looked in vain for nearby small galaxy from my mag 5.1 light
polluted yard.

M92 - An easy find using the combination of Telrad and finderscope. I
did not realize how easily you could see this in the finder, even
under less than ideal skies. If not for M13 this would be a very
popular object. The shape of this one is what I like.

Epsilon Lyr - The double-double, at 11:45pm was just high enough from
the horizon, given the now deteriorated seeing, to be able to split
both pairs. Usually a very easy split when much higher up.


PhotonMan

Observed the Moon's occultation of the star Eta Geminorum last night.
Based on my SkyMap Pro software, I noted that this would occur around
10:30pm DST.

At about 9:17pm I used an 18mm ep for a magnification of 111X and
placed only the area of the moon illuminated by earthshine in my field
of view. It was easy to see faint outlines of the Plato and Kepler
craters, as well as Mares.

I had just finished a fine tuning on my collimation, so the Moon's
outline and the stars were very sharp. That's when I noted a few more
stars about to be occulted by the Moon before the target star. In
the 20 minutes I observed, I noted four occultations. Here are the
data on these stars and the times (rounded off to the nearest minute)
of these occultations.

Star Magnitude R.A. Dec Occultation

GSC-1326-0951 mag=9.77 06h 14m 20.54s +22° 14' 25.2" 10:20pm
GSC-1326-0667 mag=9.22 06h 14m 40.71s +22° 21' 00.4" 10:22pm
GSC-1326-0577 mag=9.94 06h 14m 50.42s +22° 28' 58.3" 10:28pm
Propus EtaGem mag=3.28 06h 14m 55.36s +22° 30' 21.5" 10:32pm

Just to say that I really enjoyed the view and that observing stars
coming in on the non-illuminated limb permits much fainter stars to be
seen, since the Moon's glare does not interfere. Fun!


PhotonMan

Hi all,

For those that may be indecisive at this point, here on my end we still have (its 9:30) 40km/h gusts which is on the high side for opening up the roof let alone using a dob/sail, its frustrating given the nice clear conditions but the usual pattern of wind dying down in the evening just is'nt happening tonight! I'm heading out right now in the hopes it may yet die down but if all else fails there always binoculars!

--clear (calm) skies!

Mike W

Hi Mike,

Sorry about your Dog. I hope Sasha recovers.

Sure, I'll be out at 21:30. I'll bring a binoviewer as a small
condolence.

I've copied John. John, join us at Mikes, if you feel like it.

clear skies.

-ad

.ps I never thought that Marvin was really paranoid. More like
obsessively depressed. But I guess douglas adams couldnt think
of a firstname that rhymed with obsessivly.

Boy, you guys are grumps!

Richard: I'm planning to head out to FLO tonight to watch the Eta Geminorum
occultation, among other things. I'll probably get there between 20:30 and
21:00. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome, grumpy or not.

Bruce McGlashan

Whimps eh????!!!

Damnit Rob I'm grumpy too!!! My poor dog got badly kicked today by a bloody
horse (luckily she escaped with only major bruises she could have been
killed!) and to add to an otherwise crappy day my binoviewers have been
stuck with F!!^#$^^$#^ customs in To for over a week!! They assure me they
are not lost....we'll see!
So yeah I could use some umwinding ala photon therepy but the moon won't
set till after 11:30 I think, besides we have lessons at the barn till 9:00.
If people would like come on out to my place but I won't be at the
observatory till after 9:30 or so....
Drop me a line if you're coming, bring a friend (Attilla you mentioned John
Thompson let him know if you like).


---life don't talk to me about life! (Marvin the paranoid android)

--Mike W

Don't give me any grief you! The gas sensor on my home alarm started
going off around 10:00 pm last night and it was after midnight before
the fire department and the gas company had been through to verify that
it was bogus and the alarm company told me how to stop the thing from
wailing. Really pretty obvious - unplug the d**n thing and disconnect
the battery.

And the kids didn't wake up, which is good, until you get to their time
to wake up which is no later than usual.

So I'm grumpy! But I'd like to observe tonight...

Rob

Richard Harding wrote:

So no one seems to be going viewing tonight!! Well I am sitting here
fabricating solar filters for my 9x63 Orion binos with some Bader
film that I picked up today. They should be ready just in time to
watch the sun sink below the horizon....as usual. Always going down
on the upramp of life!!
Richard
ps. Mike W. Hint, hint!!