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Sess.#278 7:30-11:00pm LimMag= 6.3 Seeing = 6-8 (range) Clear! A Monday night session at Mike Wirths' Equuleus Observatory near Perth Ontario. In addition to our host, Mike Zeidler, Attilla Danko and myself ( Roland ) were there. Thanks to the goTo capabilities of the 18" truss tube, we were able to view quite a variety of targets. The 25" was also put to excellent use on quite a few targets as well. The seeing started out being fairly good at about 8/10, but gradually deteriorated as the evening progressed down to perhaps 6/10. We all did some comparative observing of views with and without the binoviewer to see what ifferences we might notice. Transparency was good as well, with MikeW reporting approx. Mag 6.4 overhead. This also showed in the amount of fine detail we could see in nebulas and galaxies. Here were our targets -- in no particular order... Jupiter: Red Spot coming into view, barge in equatorial band. Saturn was viewed as well, by others before I arrived. Ghost of Jupiter: Blue-Green with structure visible inside. Eskimo Nebula: Classic structure with bright central star. Copland's Septet: Seven distant galaxies. We saw 6 & imagined 1. Perhaps we need to make a list of AVIM ( Averted Imagination ) objects. That way we'll look real good when the next generations of overwhelmingly large (OWL) scopes discover faint fuzzies where nobody suspected there'd be anything. Hickson 44: Distant Galaxy cluster. Just to be able to see it is cool. Brightest member is ngc3753. See MikeW's previous report for more details. Hickson 57: Another interesting distant Galaxy cluster. Faint but pleasing. The Spindle Galaxy: A thin bright galaxy with a bright core. MGC4565: One of the classics with it's very prominent dark lane. Attilla and I thought we saw a second hairline dark lane below the main one. Perhaps we need to generate an AVIM number for that one as well? ;-) Owl Nebula: In 18" scope, the eyes of the owl were visible in binoviewer. Joke Owl and we were both using binoviewers. M51: Beauty Incarnate! ( that prosic enough for you, Attilla ? :) Spiral very evident and bright, as well as bridge to smaller galaxy. What can I say -- perhaps better exercise the right to remain silent on this one. M3: Very attractive in the binoviewers. Well resolved, bright, crisp. Everyone generated equivalent-valued expletives on that one. We sounded much like sidewalk astronomy first-lookers. 42 & 43: Very very attractive tonight. Colours of red and yellow were noted. Much smoke-patterned nebulosity. Crisp stars. M101: Tightly wound. Looking fainter when we saw it due to th Aurora probably affecting the contrast. M104: Great view of the Sombrero Galaxy. Dark lane very evident. M65 & 66: Very bright after some of the fainter targets we saw earlier. Attractive field of view. M82: One of the best views ever. Almost like a photograph in the amount of curdled detail in that disturbed elongated galaxy. Zodiacal Light was very apparent after sunset. The Milky Way formed one swath of light while the Zodiacal Light formed another one at nearly 90 degrees to it. One of the most obvious times I have seen it. The Aurora was fairly bright, with tinges of red detected at the upper edges. 110 degrees wide and 70 degrees ( and more ) in altitude. Many interesting spikes forming in the northeast. At one point cascades of light engulfed Ursa Major specifically. Genral Conclusion: binoviewers help on bright and medium objects to see more comfortably and more details. However, on very faint objects, the light does get split in two and there's additional glass to content with, so very faint things seem dimmer. Much fun, especially if you consider the various references to MontyP during the session. Thanks for the kind invitation. PhotonMan

Greetings all, I am in need of serious help...and my scope could use some tweaking as well...:> Before the period of less snow starts (also known as summer), I'd like to make use of the expertise of those in the know and have you look at my scope, and once you're done staring at the tube, I'd like you all to more precisely look at the optics of the scope. (I know there;s a witty and Python-esque reply in the making somewhere) I'm still not sure if the scope is OK, so-so or total snafu....as I've only my experience to judge by. So, if a weekend afternoon/evening can be arranged, I'll make sure to be mobile and get to wherever I need to be to have you share the wealth of knowledge I know resides here in OAF Land! In advance of all your kind offers, I say thank you! Jean

I have found what could be the source of all the satellite pix you see on all those weather websites. The files at: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goese/autogvar/goes8/ get updated as often as once every 8 minutes and are unprocessed and do not have map overlays applied. To me, the "weather products" one sees on commerical weather sites look like processed version os these images. So, I thought "Hey, I could hack my own satellite images." (rubbing hands rapidly with glee). I wrote a script to combines the 3.9, 6.75, 10.7 and 12.0 micrometer infrared images of the south east ontario area. I am trying to create a near-realtime map of clouds around the ottawa area. The problem is dont understand the science that would allow one to derive total cloud cover from sat images. So I played around with a compositing algorithm. I'd say it so-so at the moment. When its clear in ottawa, the map shows reasonably dark. Cloudy shows up at grey or white. I think i'll need to keep tweaking it. You can see the results on the OAFs mainpage. The image is quite small to keep the processing times low. But I it gets updated as often as every 8 minutes (NASA willing). I think that is cool since the weather websites seem to do it only once per hour. If you have ideas on how to make that image more useful, please let me know. (I'd really like to know the algorithm for deriving total cloud cover from sat pix.) Clear skies, in near-realtime -ad "its wafer thin!"

Even though the text has obviously been translated from French, this particular site has been very useful for me in figuring out how to collimate my SCT 8". http://perso.club-internet.fr/legault/collim.html I liked the diagrams and charts explaining the effect of miscollimation on your view through a scope in terms of "equivalance in apeture loss". Jean, perhaps this might be useful or at least interesting for you... Rol

Opaque sky? Bored? Like mindless games? This may be for you: Help nasa by idenifying craters on mars orbiter images: http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/ I find it moderately addictive. The images are occaisonally interesting. (I chanced upon the false-face region of Cydonia. Yup, it lookes like a crudely molded face. Only one good crater in the image though.) This is a very interesting variation on the seti@home idea: get huge numbers of ordinary people to each contribute a tiny bit to science. until, its clear, -ad

Zads! I wuz fooled by your smooth & flawless delivery, Wirths. After many exhausting seconds of research on the Web, I managed to discover that the mysterious Mr. Gambolputty was indeed a fictitious character from a MontyP skit. Oh the shame! You can't trust anyone anymore. ;-) Monty Photons! Rol

I have a German friend who would like to join his name is: Johann Gambolputty... de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter- crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle- dongle-dungle-burstein-von- knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz- ticolensic-grander-knotty- spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer- spelterwasser-kurstlich- himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein- nurnburger-bratwustle- gernspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut- gumberaber-shonedanker- kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm, or as he likes to be called Johnny, is it OK if he joins us? Hes pretty finicky about getting his name right though...might take some practice! ;>)

A friend of mine, Peter Field, is in charge of a group of 10 young girls ( aged 6 & 7 -- very young ) and he's asked Janice and me to do an astronomy session for them on Saturday 31th for about 1.5 hours early in the evening. Around 7pm... I wanted to ask if any of you have ever seen or been at the Conroy Pit south of Hunt Club Rd., on the W. side of Conroy. He's suggested that perhaps we could do it there. Parents would be driving their kids in, and might also like to observe. They'll have a special Saturday meeting just so this can happen. I'd bring sketches, photos and star maps, etc... You know the drill! Moon would be near 1st quarter. Saturn & Jupiter still above 30 degrees at 7pm. If anyone's interested in partaking, let us know. Fee Fie Pho-ton! Rol

Hi Attilla & Richard, Janice and I drove out this morning to check out the so-called "Conroy Rd. Pit" ( on W side of Conroy Rd., 1000ft North of Hunt Club ) as a possible site for the Girl Guides session. There are a few problems with the place, as follows: 1- There is a nearby streetlamp located maybe 40 ft from the parking lot. No way to avoid it. Also, you see a bit of the end of the urban sprawl maybe 2000ft away. You're not actually in the pit, to observe. Kids that age might find that less scary though. 2- Obsering would have to happen in or near the parking lot. So we'd get headlights when people drive in and out. It'd be more like sidewalk astronomy than dark site observing, I think. 3- There are trees maybe 40 ft away stealing the last 15 degrees up from the horizon. However the moon will be at first quarter and the planets should be visible at dusk for about an hour. Since this is a session for 6-8 year old girls and their parents, and since the moon and planets are likely to be the main targets, perhaps this site could work out OK. At least here, there'd be a chance to look at a few more targets like globulars or doubles, as compared to a shopping mall. Also, this is a public area where people might drive in to go walk their dogs. Chances are they too might stop by to take a peek. So overall, I'd say it's worth a try, just to see how it turns out. I have yet to confirm the site with the organizer, so it's just a touch premature to post a map. Assuming it is a go, I will then make and post a map and text description, to help people find it. Remember that this will be a relatively small group of 10 kids and possibly their parents. It should be fun. We'll keep you posted. Thanks, Roland ( & Janice )

I have chanced across a monty python sketch that seems strangly familliar. Perhaps it fell through a wormhole from an alternate universe. Resemblences to persons or telescopes living or dead is purely coincidental. Names of the perpetrator has been changed to protect the guilty. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- The Four Observers Mike: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable. Richard:Nothing like a 18" goto Starmaster, eh? Roland:You're right there, Ricardo. Matt: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be observing with an binoviewered 18" computer controlled scope in a luxurious roll-off roof observatory big enough for a whole star party. Mike: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have a schmidt cassegrain. Richard:A Halley's-comet era Celestron Matt: Without a tripod. Roland:OR or a drive. Mike: 30mm finder, and all. Matt: We never had a finder. We used to sight along a seam in the tube. Richard:The best WE could manage was to sweep at random with 25mm Kellner. Roland:But you know, we were happy in those days, though we had crappy gear. Mike: Aye. BECAUSE we had crappy gear. My old Dad used to say to me, "Its not the scope, its the observer." Matt: 'E was right. I was happier then and I didnt have telrad. We had this tiny observatory with with greaaaaat big holes in the roof. Richard:Observatory? You were lucky to have an Observatory! We used to observe on the porch, all twenty-six of us, no dome slit. Half the sky was missing and we were all huddled together in one corner just to see down to 35 degrees! Roland: You were lucky to have a PORCH! We used to have to climb the fire escape to the roof. Mike: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of of fire escapes to the roof! Woulda' been a Kitt Peak to us!. We used to observe out the bathroom window of of a downtown apartment. In the winter, the escaping warm air would cause airy disks to bloat to 20 arcseconds. Observatory. Hmph. Matt: Well when I say "Observatory" it was only a garden shed with the door open, but it was an observatory to US. Richard:We were evicted from our garden shed; we had to go and observe in a sodium-vapor lit hocky rink. Roland:You were lucky to have a RINK! There were a hundred and fifty of us observing in a cardboard box in the middle of the 417. Mike: Cardboard box? Roland:Aye. Mike: You were lucky. We observed for thee months in the nude in a swamp. We used to have to setup at six in the morning, hack down the bullrushes, drain the swamp, sink the tripods four feet into the muck, collimate for 14 hours, just for a couple of hours of observing. And when we got home our SO would complain about how much we spent on telescopes. Richard:Luxury! We used to have to set up in the swamp at six in the morning, drain the swamp, cut down trees, scrape mosquitos off of our optical surfaces, sink the tripods 6 feet into the muck, collimate for 16 hours. And we we got home, our wives would sell our telescopes, if we were LUKCY! Roland:Well of course, we had it tough. We used to have to get set up the previous night, drain the swamp by bailing with our OTAs, re-aluminize our mirrors, and collimate 32 different optical surfaces for 20 hours. And when we got home our SO would accuse us of having sexual relations with a paracorr and divorce us. Matt: Right ... I had to walk to the swamp, which was uphill both ways, carrying 300 pounds of gear, set up at ten at night, half an hour before I packed up, sop up the swamp with my only copy of Uranometria, pay for parking!, melt sand into glass, sift more sand into abrasives, chew pine trees to make pitch, grind 12 mirrors, collimate for 36 hours, observe with a 1mm eyerelief tasco eyepiece for 3 minutes under a limiting magnitude of -26 in heavy snow showers, and when we got home our SO would spit on our Naglers and run off the editor of Sky&Tel. Mike: And you try and tell the young observers today that... and they won't believe ya'. All: They won't.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----

Error in my last message... I had said "North" but... I should have said 1000ft "South" of Hunt Club Rd., on Conroy Rd's West side. There is a very easy to see brown and beige NCC sign by the side of the Road saying "Conroy Rd. Pit". The parking lot by the road there is also very evident to see. A map will be prepared as soon as confirmation arrives... Thanks, Rol

In order to welcome you, proper like.... G'day Bruce! There are no newbies here....we're just a smidge off-center( or is that kilter....and just what IS a kilter????) and you'd best polish up on your Python....references are numerous and funny ( if you like that sort of thing...) Was anyone else out observing this evening or was I alone with all the Photons???? Seeing wasn't great, but then again, any seeing is better than no seeing. Still get goose bumps when I look up at Saturn or see the moons of Jupiter.... a few neighborhood kids came by and the "oohs and aahs" were many (with variations I won't reprint here...) and a lot of parents were brought back to see "what the old guy up the street" was showing...(everything being relative to a 14 yer old, I guess...) A lot of new faces in the area, all wanting to know how much I charged to look at the sky...and were very surprised to hear I did it for the fun of it and their reactions...they didn't quite get it until they started "oohing and aahing" and saw me smiling. I think I've made a ton of new observing buddies! So, welcome Bruce. Mike get the big fellas ready...I'll be planning a trip your way real soon. Roland, thanks for the link, and yes it was very interesting reading. Jean

I'm glad that link on SCT collimation basics was useful to you. Hopefully it'll all come together for you soon and you'll gain the control and confidence to do a good collimation job on your own scope. It's so cool the first time you do it yourself and it really works. Images get crisp and sharp, details come out of the haze... You'll get it soon, Jean. Photonman

Sess#279 2:30-3:15pm Driveway solar clear March 25th/01 A session with the full apeture solar filter on the SCT 8" this afternoon. Though we are past solar maximum, there's still quite a bit of sunspot activity. There was one particular complex that measured approx. 100 arc seconds across( as per reticle micrometer eyepiece ) - that's fairly large -- probably equal to Jupiter in actual size! And that's just a sunspot. Made three sketches. One of full solar disk ( 63X ), one of the large spot described above ( 222X ), and a third one of a semi-cicle comprising of perhaps a dozen small spots ( 111X ). The entire semi-circle measured approx. 80" across. Much of the very faint small whitish "ribbons" of slightly brighter solar surface, near the edges, were too difficult to render in a sketch. However, it's noted that there were 5 or 6 different such "ribbons observed." Next time, I should try the ALP, OIII, and other filters, just to see what happens. General notes: Magnifications past 111X seem useless since the seeing, by definition, is terrible when observing the sun. Roland

Mars will be one of the prime targets for many of us this year. It will be larger than it had been for a while, nearly 25% larger than 2 years ago. However, it will be sitting relatively low in the shouthern sky, this time around, so the seeing would have to be fairly still to get a great view. If you're new to observing the red planet, here's a suggestion. It takes a little while to actually learn to see the fine detail on Mars. The first two or three times I looked at the planet, it seemed to me all I could see was a washed out light pinkish disk. However, if you keep at it, you begin to see more and more of the fine detail. Many books on the topic of Mars Observing suggest that people "train" their eyes for mars by starting to observe it early, well before opposition. With repeated sessions, especially if you try your hand at sketching, you will eventually be able to notice many subtle details that were not at all apprarent when you got your first glance. At the end of the last opposition, two years ago, I managed to make the following sketch in my logbook: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OAFs/files/Astro%20SKETCHES/marsnotes.GI F There's no way in the world that I would have seen this the first or second time I looked. Training your eye for Mars will prepare you for those 2 or 3 very steady special evenings that make the whole thing so rewarding. Another hint. Red coloured filters really help with seeing some of the darker areas on the surface of Mars. However, if you wait too long to purchase a plain red filter, I'm pretty sure Focus Scientific and other suppliers will run out as they did last time. So... if you really want to observe Mars, you might consider making the purchase of a relatively inexpensive red filter soon, especially if you intend on sketching the planet. At a later time, I'll post a link to a site where you can download a Mars viewing program that allows you to see &/or print a view of Mars at a specific time. This really helps you to confirm or dispute your own sketches -- and to verify what structure is real and what might just be "averted imagination". Holy Pythonic Photons! Rol

Time: Wednesday, March 21 05:00 EST Location: Downtown Toronto Howard Johnson Hotel Balcony in my underwear Equipment: Orion 9 x 63 binoculars Conditions: Clearity - Duh...downtown Toronto Seeing 3.9 Blown away by the twins Mars and Antares!! With Arcturus lurking off to the side. All this with the music of background traffic!!! You really gotta miss it to do this!! I need to get out more.... At least it was warm!! Richard

Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the OAFs group. File : /Sillyfiles/philosop.wav Uploaded by : mwirths@... Description : You can access this file at the URL http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OAFs/files/Sillyfiles/philosop.wav To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, mwirths@...

A couple of people have told me about your little group, and I've been lurking here for the last couple of weeks now, so I guess it's time to fess up and make my participation more overt. From the looks of it, I guess I'll be the resident newbie, at least for the time being. I've got a huge number of questions I'd like to pass by you OAFs - I'll try not to make a pest of myself. BTW, if I start calling you all Bruce, you WILL understand, right? Uh, that is, apart from the Sheila's in the group. Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Bruce (my real, if not my first, name) McGlashan

Hi Jean, Anytime you're ready with the cadets let me know. You don't think more than 5-6 would come? I certainly have room for more than that, so even if its a whole busload, we can show them some awesome sights! Ni Mike

Dusk, From East Side of Prestwick avenue looking West, Orleans Using binoculars and a hand-held short tube 80mm Janice and I managed to observe Venus at 6:45pm. Very nice in that it definitely shows up as a very small thin crescent, even in the 7 X 50 binoculars. The short tube showed it only slighly larger at 12x. You were easily able to have the horizon and the planet in the same field of view. The Moon was a very slight and beautiful crescent tonight, set in a backfrop of the sunset's gold and red colours. Quite attractive. If any of you get to observe it at higher powers, maybe let us know. Even at 12x in the short tube 80mm it was looking fine. Catching the Photons Rol