ASV Messier 100 Party Observing Report

Welcome Back

After a very long hiatus, I finally had a chance to get back under the stars this past weekend.  I've been in Melbourne Australia for just about four months now, and I had not been observing for at least a month before I left California. All together it has been almost half a year.  Being under the stars, a new set of stars for sure, felt wonderfully familiar and exciting.

I'd been hoping to get out and do some observing for some time, but a variety of circumstances from work to brush fire warnings had kept me locked under the light dome of Melbourne.  Over the long labor day weekend my opportunity finally came in the form of the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV) Messier 100 Party. 

Welcome to the ASV Messier 100 Star Party

The Messier 100 party (I'm assuming only 100 are visible from in one night from this far south, but I'd like to check on this) is a yearly public event hosted by the ASV at their Leon Mow Dark Sky Site (LMDSS).  It's located roughly 150km (93m) north of Melbourne in some kind of natural preserve area, and is easily darker than my usual observing site in Joshua Tree 240km (150m) east of Los Angeles.  For me and my partner it was a short and scenic two hour drive in a rented car.  This was our first time driving in Australia, but after riding a bike here for several months it was not too unnerving to take to the (opposite side of the) road in a car.

Memorial / Dedication marker for the LMDSS

We arrived a bit before dusk and the camping area was already fairly full as the site was open to the public on this night.  It took a while to find a spot and setup camp, but it's a beautiful area that is pretty well laid out.  There is a clubhouse with some bunks and a kitchen along with toilets and showers.  I was itching to get out to the observing field and setup my kit before dark.  Sadly, I was in such a hurry to setup camp and get my gear unpacked that I forgot to get any pictures that evening.  Every picture in this post is from the following morning and things had already thinned out a bit.

180 Degree panorama of our campsite

When I went home for Christmas I brought back my C6 Travel Kit and this is what I packed with me for this outing.  It's a nice scope; In it's travel configuration it's a bit under mounted, but still rather functional.  I grabbed the bag and headed for the observing field. 

Road to the Visual Observing Field

There were already roughly 20 scopes on the field, with a large section in the center reserved for the club's 25" Obsession which had yet to be setup.  The horizon was not perfect, there are several large trees surrounding the site that are being preserved as part of a nature reserve, so I tried to pick my spot carefully.  If you are not at one side or another of the field visibility is good above 15 degrees, so all in all it's a nice spot.

360 Degree panorama of the Visual Observing Field

I picked what seemed like a good spot and setup my kit.  It went pretty quickly and the telescope was in reasonable shape for having travelled almost 13,000km in the belly of a plane.  The travel kit fits in a carry-on suitcase, and I've flown with it before, but there are weight restrictions for carry on bags that have never caught me before.  On my last flight they weighed all the carry-ons and I ended up needing to check my bag.  I was pretty happy when I retrieved it from the baggage carousel and it was all in one piece.

As you can see from the picture below it's mounted on a robust photo tripod, but it's still not the normal surveyors sticks I use at home.  I don't extend the legs to help with the shaking, but it makes for a very low setup.  The foldable stool works well for most angles, but observing near the zenith can be a real pain.  Once I was all setup I went back to camp to have some dinner and await the darkness.

My observing setup

Brand spanking new australia made camp chairs

The Sky at Night

Right as we were finishing dinner we could hear someone at the clubhouse announcing that the Sky At Night talk would being in a few minutes.  We walked over and gathered around a group of perhaps 50 people for a tour of the night sky.  The weather had been cloudy all day, and there were still patchy clouds around as the night darkened, but the presenter (Perry Vlahos, I believe)  managed to work around them and point out some of the key constellations of the southern sky.

After a few minutes my eyes adapted a bit and the dusk faded enough for me to get my first look at the large and small Magellanic clouds.  There were both obvious and easily visible with direct vision.  The large cloud is almost as bright as parts of the Northern Milky Way, and in binoculars it's easy to see some brighter and darker regions.  The small cloud seemed to me like an elongated spiral galaxy viewed through a telescope, but it was right there in the sky.  The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest object I can compare it with, but Andromeda is much smaller and dimmer in the sky.  I was really pleased to be out observing again.

Once Perry had oriented us, he pointed out a few nice binocular objects, mainly open clusters, but also one or two globulars thrown in.  They went fast, and I was more interested in looking than logging so I'm not entirely sure what I observed in that first hour or so.  One think I could see is that the Southern Milky Way is rich with wonder indeed!  I'm not sure if it's just that there is so many NEW things to see, or if there are just more of them, but scanning the plane of our galaxy with binoculars seemed to reveal a train of open clusters, rich star fields, and faint nebula.

As the tour was wrapping up the clouds cleared from the western horizon and Perry took the opportunity to point out Comet Lemmon low in the sky.  I could not find it with the naked eye, but it was easily visible in Binoculars.  It had a distinct and visible tail along with a tight nucleus and I tried to note it's location in the sky so I could return to it later with the telescope.

After the tour I returned to my scope and decided to run down a list I had hastily cribbed from the Astro League Southern Sky Binocular Program.  While cooking dinner I had scrawled down most of the globulars, galaxies and nebula on the list.  I was really not as prepared as I would have liked to be, particularly considering how little I knew of the sky, so this list seemed like a fair place to start.


My First Southern Observing Run

First on the list was 47 Tucanae (NGC 104), a big and bright globular cluster.  This one is nestled close to the SMC and is actually pretty easy with the naked eye.  It appears definitively non-stellar and I was surprised at how bright and obvious it was.  It gave a great view through the scope, with a nicely condensed core and good resolution of the edges with my 13.5mm.

I moved on next to Omega Centauri (NGC 5139), one of my favorite, but usually very elusive, globulars.  From just about everywhere I've observed, this one is low on the horizon in the murk, but still looks beautiful.  Even though it was early, and would climb much higher later in the evening, it was already close to 40 degrees above the horizon and very visible.  In the scope it resolved almost completely into a riot of stars.  It is pretty massive by globular standards, and is not strongly condensed so it gives a really nice view.  Seeing this somewhat familiar object in a whole new way really made me feel like I had a lot of wonderful experiences ahead of me observing from the southern hemisphere.

Clouds were starting to be a bit of a problem, and I had a hard time orienting myself under the unfamiliar sky with only partial views.  I decided to go grab a peek through the club's big gun, the 25" Obsession.  They had it pointed at the Orion Nebula and I thought it would be a kick to compare the view with my C6.  I climbed the ladder and looked through the eyepiece.  They had a good bit of magnification right on the Trapezium.  All five main stars were easily visible, and a nice bit of dark nebulosity carving out the edge of field.  My 7mm eyepiece was still back home, so I could not muster as much magnification on my C6, but it was still very nice view.  I actually enjoyed the extra context and the nebulosity is bright enough to be beautiful in any scope.

Since it seemed like an easy catch, I turned my attention to the Tarantula Nebula, an HII region in the LMC.  It's easily identifiable in either binoculars or a finder scope as a knot of increased brightness embedded in the diffuse glow.  Through the scope it showed a nice bright nebulosity that showed some nice variation and subtle detail with continued viewing.  I'm looking forward to visiting this again with a wider variety of eyepieces and maybe a filter.  Certainly I'd love to have a long look with a larger scope!

As the clouds continue to occlude various parts of the sky, I tracked down two more globular clusters, NGC 362 and 419 in Tucana.  I was searching for 362 specifically, but ran across 419 as a nice surprise.  They were both quite nice, with 419 much dimmer than 362 but still easily identifiable as a globular.

By this time most of the sky was clouded over, but through a small opening to the east I could see Saturn had risen, so I decided to end my night with my favorite planet.  The view was not fantastic, the combination of thin clouds and low altitude presented a low-contrast and roiling view, but it was still very satisfying.

The total tally was four globulars, two galaxies (LMC/SMC), two nebula one planet, seven meteors and one flyover of the ISS.  All in all a really wonderful first night and more than I hoped for considering the weather and my inexperience with this new starscape.


Packing Up

I decided to leave the scope on the field and pack it the next morning.  It's a little finicky to get everything back in the suitcase and I felt secure at the club site.  I walked back to bed and had a pretty good sleep in my new tent, with new sleeping bag, new pad... basically new everything as I did not bring any of my camp gear from the US.

The next morning I woke up pretty early and went out to retrieve my scope.  As I was so excited to get some observing in the previous night, I took this opportunity to grab some pictures and really get a good look around.  The LMDSS is a great site, and I'm really looking forward to getting my membership so I can use it on a regular basis.

The LMDSS is situated amongst some beautiful bushland

There are actually three fields, one for visual, one for astrophotography and there is an additional section for radio astronomy.  I did not have a chance to get a good look at the radio astronomy gear, but I wandered out to the photographic field to see how it differed from the visual field.

Wide view of the Photographic Field 

Four of the dozen or so piers in the Photographic Field

It's set further away from the clubhouse, to avoid any light contamination, and has a good number of piers for mounting rigs.  There is also a dome which houses the clubs permanent astro-imaging setup.  Next time I'm definitely bringing my DSLR for some wide field astrophotography.

I wandered around a bit more and finally decided it was time to pack up my kit.  It was quick work in the daylight but I was glad I did not attempt it at night.  I have to really take everything apart and its important to make sure everything is packed well to avoid any damage.  In the picture below you can see the scope with the mount below it in frame and the tripod above.  The blue bag is for my 8x50 finder and the green fingerless gloved to the lower-right hold and cushion the star diagonal.  The whole thing is topped off with some bubble wrap tucked between all the metal parts and it's zipped and strapped shut.

The C6 travel kit, all packed up

My C6 travel kit is airline carry-on friendly, except for the weight

Let's do it again

After such a long time it was so refreshing to be observing again.  It made me crave another outing as soon as I can muster it.  I've applied as a member to the ASV and I expect to get my membership approved shortly which will allow me access to the site almost any time.  If my work, finances, and the weather cooperate I could observe once or twice a month around the new moon and I'm really looking forward to it.

Anyone have any suggestions for what should be on my next observing list?  Here's hoping for clear skies for all the observers out there.

PATS 2012 - Good Products, Great Fun, and Sad Realizations

A Tale of Two Shows

Last Sunday I made some time to visit the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show in Pasadena.  It's a yearly exposition of astronomy related vendors and clubs which claims to be "the largest and most exciting astronomy show on the west coast".  This was the second time I've checked it out, and can't say that it's either the largest, or most exciting astronomy show on the west coast, but it's a nice way to spend and afternoon and maybe find a deal or two from one of the vendors.

The show runs Saturday and Sunday; tickets at the door are $20.  I think last year I purchased in advance and received some discount. There is an exhibit hall with booths setup and a series of presentations in adjacent rooms.  The Pasadena convention center is pretty sizable, and the PATS is not really large enough to fill the entire space.  This year it was sharing the main exhibition hall with the Bride World Bride Expo. 

As I was walking towards the hall after purchasing my ticket, it was pretty easy to guess who was attending which event.  The people walking around with the Sky and Telescope bags, or with arms full of astro gear were here for the PATS.  Everyone else had copies of Bridal World or flowers.  Lots of flowers.

PATS was sharing with the Bridal Expo... the line is for the Expo.  There was no line to enter the PATS exhibits.

The Exhibition Hall

Everybody attending the show got a free issue of Sky and Telescope and a program upon entry.  I briefly glanced at the program schedule and did not see anything to interest me, so I headed straight to the exhibits.  This was only my second year, and I remember it being pretty small, but this year seemed even smaller.  According to the program there were 44 vendors, and they were arranged in four rows.

I did an initial walk through of the exhibit in about 15 minutes or so and even though it was not a huge show, it was very nice to be surrounded by like minded folks.  The booths ranged from the large and professional, to the small and volunteer.  It was not very crowded, which meant the venders were available to chat and spend some actual time with the attendees.

There was not really any specific thing I was looking for.  I thought that it would be nice to see some of the newer gear, talk to some of the organizations and clubs, and maybe find something for my telescope project.  If nothing else I figured it was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.


The Big Names

As one would expect the three heavyweights in telescopes and accessories were on hand.  Meade had a large booth, spaciously appointed with selections of their current line.  They had mounts, SCT's and one 16" LightBridge to round things out.  This was the first time I had seen their convertible Alt-Az/GEM mount.  It seemed pretty solid and was presented in the Alt/Az dual scope configuration.  Pretty neat.

Meade Instruments

Right across the way was the smaller, but still impressive, Celestron booth.  They had a nice selection of their SCTs on GEMs, along with eyepieces and some educational items, such as microscopes and a very small/cheap newtonian.  You can see the little guy at the screen right end of the table in the pictures below.

Celestron.  Notice the little guy at the far end of the table.  A Newtonian Finder?

The FirstScope is a 76mm f4 reflector with a spherical mirror.  Immediately upon seeing it's diminutive size, I was launched into a several minute daydream of using it as a finder.  I suspect it would work, but it would be difficult to get the image into the 'correct' orientation.  Some people have no issue with the mental gymnastics required for non-correct image finders.  I, however, prefer to use finders that orient the sky the same as my un-aided eyes, so this dream was dashed.  

Around the corner, Tele Vue had a large, but sparse booth.  They only have so many telescopes in their line, and eyepieces don't take up much space.  It is pretty impressive to see a full set of Ethos, Nagler or Delos eyepieces though.  Speaking of which, there is still time to enter the the International Dark Skies Association Dark Sky Giveaway for a chance to win an entire set of Ethos eyepieces!

TeleVue - Home of the Eyepiece!

On the right side of the picture above you can see a gentleman pointing to a black case.  He's probably explaining to the other gentleman that you can use one telescope to collimate another!  This was the most interesting thing in the booth as far as I was concerned.  There was an artificial star stuck in the diagonal of one telescope, which was then pointed at and rigidly joined to a second you wanted to collimate.  The optics of the first scope made the star appear like it was very far away, far enough to use it to collimate or star test.  It was a clever idea and an interesting experiment in optics.


The Up and Comers

Aside from the bigger names, there were a few other telescope manufacturers.  PlaneWave and Williams Optics were there, showing two different approaches to astrophotography.  PlaneWave produces very well corrected, large aperture, exotic telescope designs mainly for non-visual use.

PlaneWave Instruments

Williams Optics sells smaller aperture refractors, also geared more towards astrophotography.  They produce very high-quality versions of a tried and true design with some higher tech innovations.  Both booths really showcased the quality of manufacturing from these smaller run shops.  Not to say that Meade or Celestron don't produce quality scopes, but the fit and finish from these two are difficult to beat.

Williams Optics

The REAL BIG Name

I spent a fair amount of time talking to the guy at the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) booth.  Observing is a part of the hobby I enjoy quite a bit, but I also have an interest in the science and technology of astronomy and this project has it all.  When complete, this will be the largest telescope ever produced.  Well, it might actually end up being the second largest, as the Europeans are working on a 39 meter scope.

The Thirty Meter Telescope Outreach Booth

It was fascinating to hear about the design of the scope, but also about some of the long term issues such a large telescope faces.  Many amateur astronomers are aware that the reflective coatings on mirrors degrade with time.  Often, mirrors are sent out for re-coating to restore their reflectivity.  To maintain the highest level of performance continuously, so that the massive investment can be best utilized, the TMT will be swapping out several mirror segments weekly for re-coating.  This will allow them to re-coat each of the 492 segments every two years.

After the first few minutes I was ready to donate to help the cause.  Turns out, they are not looking for donations, just doing general outreach.  Very cool.  If you love telescopes, the website is an interesting read.

The Vendors

Theoretically, all the booths were vendors, but there were only a few booths you could actually buy things from and take them home.  The two largest were Woodland Hills Camera & Telescope and Oceanside Photo & Telescope.  Both had nice booths with a wide selection of things to tempt the crowd.

Woodland Hills Camera & Telescope

OPT - Oceanside Photo & Telescope

Both offer special pricing, and no sales tax, at the show.  This makes almost everything at least 20% cheaper, so it's a nice time to buy.  If you don't feel comfortable deciding on your feet, they will honor the same deal if you call or visit their websites a few days after the show and mention PATS.  I found both crews to be very friendly and knowledgeable.

Among the vendors actually selling product was Howie Glatter.  He's an ex-hippie who now spends his time inventing and patenting useful things for telescopes, mainly in the area of collimation.  It was great fun to talk to him about his design and manufacturing process, and the merits of various types of collimation equipment and techniques.  He's very friendly and very knowledgable.  All his products were wonderfully machined, solid and well designed.

Howie Glatter, Inventor / Collimator

One of his products I had never seen before were nebula filters designed to fit over the eye lens of binoculars.  As soon as I saw this I was struck by the cleverness of the idea and his implementation.  Compared to the objective lens, the eye lens has much less area to cover, reducing price and weight.  To protect the delicate filter from eye gunk, he sandwiches it between two pieces of optical glass.  This allows you to clean them without worrying about scratching the coating.

Eye Lens Binocular Nebula Filters - Very cool idea

To affix the filters to the binoculars, he mounts them in a metal ring of various sizes.  By ordering a size the correct diameter for your binos, it can be held in place by the rubber eye guard.  You roll the cup down, place the filters over the eye lens and roll the eye guard back up holding the metal ring in place.  It's tricky to describe in words, but simple and easy when you see it in person.  If I were not planning on buying a new pair of binoculars in the semi-near future, I'd think about buying a set.

The Truth About 16" Scopes

As I was heading out, I saw that the Meade both was relatively empty and decided that I should really see what a 16" scope would be like to use.  I'm leaning towards this size, and I was hoping it would allow me to observe without a ladder or stool.  Sadly, I'm not so sure this would be the case.  

Me and a 16" LightBridge.  Notice they Eyepiece Height

One of the Meade reps was kind enough to take my photo next to the LightBridge pointed at Zenith.  I'm about 5' 6" tall, a bit under average for a male human, and there was a pretty wide gulf between my eye and the eyepiece.  There was another show attendee, slightly taller than average, who could walk right up to the scope and peer into the eyepiece... sigh.  I did not measure exactly, but I figure anything over 70 degrees would be a stretch for me on this 16" f4.5 scope.

So... what does this mean for my plans?  It means I have to think about them.  Observing at the zenith is uncomfortable anyway, so maybe it's not bad?  Perhaps a small box would not be too cumbersome?  Can I find an f4 mirror at a reasonable price?  Is a 15" a better size?  Would another structure offer a significantly lower eyepiece?  Are elevator shoes expensive?  There are a lot of questions to consider.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the questions above, or about aperture vs. eyepiece height, or any experiences you have had observing with feet on, or off, the ground.  

The PATS Bounty

So I left the show with a lot of questions about my telescope design, but I also carried out some other things.  Before leaving I gave into the tempting opportunity to purchase a new finder scope.  I knew I wanted something larger than 50mm for my new scope and I was leaning towards an Orion ST 80, then I saw this great StellarVue 80mm finder.  

The StellarVue is an 80mm f3.75 achromat that comes complete with an erecting prism, helical focuser, and 23mm eyepiece with reticle.  It's roughly the same price as the 80mm f5 Orion with an erect image prism and 32mm plossl, both of which would provide about the same 3.9 deg TFOV.  

After some quick cell phone research and a few calculations I choose the StellarVue for two reasons.  First, it's shorter focal length means I can get an even wider 5.2 deg field of view with a 32mm plossl if I decide to upgrade it.  Second, it's just a bit over 50% of the weight of the Orion, which will help with any potential balance issues.

My Haul from the Show

You can see the finder, with mounting rings, in the picture above.  I thought the 50mm finder was large when I first got it, the 80mm is more like a small scope than a large finder.  It looks almost comical on the Orion XT8, but I think it will be much more proportional on my new scope.  The comical nature won't stop me from using it in the meantime though.

The extra aperture will be nice to hunt down some of the NGC objects and dimmer Messiers as I progress onto dimmer and more difficult objects.  The scope/finder should also provide nice views of the wide field objects like the Double Cluster, or the Coathanger.  I'm looking forward to sweeping it over the Milky Way under a dark sky!  As soon as I have a chance to try it out, I'll write up a review here.  That new moon can't come soon enough.

If you are in the Los Angeles area next year in September, I would suggest checking out PATS.  At the very least it's something to do between observing sessions!

GSSP 2012 Observing Report

The Golden State Star Party is a yearly event held under very dark skies near Adin, in Northern California.  How dark?  Well, here it is on the fantastic Dark Sky Finder right on the edge of a black zone.  You can look all over California on the map and find only a handful of black sky sites, and most are tiny islands.  True, this is on the edge of a grey zone, but compared to my normal semi-dark observing location, Joshua Tree, CA, on a blue/green border it’s a wonderful sky.  Definitely worth the 11 hour drive from Los Angeles for four nights.

Heading Up
I split the trip into two parts, leaving Tuesday and staying overnight in Sacramento.  This was a nice opportunity for me to visit some friends and family, and it allowed me to get to the location fairly early on Wednesday without having to leave at some insane hour in the morning.  Arriving somewhat early is important since setup takes a while and, like most star parties, the use of white light after dark is prohibited.  

The drive is actually pretty beautiful after Reno, NV. The elevation starts to build and the landscape is rolling hills with light tree cover.  Not long after I crossed back into California I passed this tree, full of shoes. I'm not entirely sure what the story is here... actually I'm not even a little sure. I had to turn around and take some pictures.

The Shoe Tree.....

Forever a piece of me in California

The rest of the drive was uneventful.  The weather looked great as I was heading north and I stopped several times to take photos since I had plenty of time. 

The Road to Adin, CA

I arrived around 3:00pm after a leisurely drive through the very scenic countryside, giving me plenty of time to setup my camp and telescopes.


Wednesday

Unfortunately, my early setup did me no good.  By the time I arrived it was cloudy, and the weather reports indicated it would stay that way through the night.  As the afternoon progressed, more and more anxious astronomers arrived, unpacked, and watched the sky.  A few folks did not even bother to setup their scopes predicting the cloudy night to come.

There ended up being a few gaps in the clouds after dark, just enough to keep me awake and hopeful until almost midnight, but not enough to actually observe anything.  Total bust on that count, but I met some nice people camping around me and got a chance to check out some of the equipment being setup.

Thursday

I woke up late in the morning and the sky was still grey, if anything it looked even worse than the day before. My apprehension for the evening was building, but I had a whole day ahead of me to walk around and talk to some folks about their equipment. Attending a star party is a great way to learn about, and potentially try out, a host of equipment. I love walking around and seeing what people have brought. Since everyone is there for the same purpose, it's easy to strike up conversation. There is always something to talk about, even if it's just our common desire for clear skies.

As I started to walk and talk, one of the first camps I stopped at had two scopes built from DobStuff.com kits. I was already starting to think about my next telescope and building a kit scope like this was high on my list. I'm kicking myself for not getting any pictures, but the scopes were beautiful! They were 12" and 18" inches with similar caramel color stains. I've seen pictures on the website, but the scopes look even better in person. The two owners had nothing but good things to say about the kits and Dennis Steele who makes them. I had a chance to try moving them a bit, and the motion was smooth and the whole assembly seemed rock solid. Part of this was probably the skill of assembly, but it was very promising and really inspired me to get going on my new scope.

I spent several hours walking around until the rain started. There was rain off and on for the rest of the day, and I had to move my scopes under the pop-up shade structure I brought, but it was a nice time overall. By evening the rain had stopped, but it was still cloudy. I hoped for the best, but had a sinking feeling I would be turning in early again tonight.

Each night there is a speaker who gives a presentation. Thursday's speaker was Mel Bartels speaking about "The Nature of Telescope Design". It was a wonderful presentation covering some of his past and current telescope designs along with a bit of engineering and philosophy. When the talk was over everyone shuffled out of the tent into a cloudy night... but it did seem LESS cloudy than before the talk.

Almost magically over the next hour or so as the twilight turned to actual darkness the clouds completely disappeared! It was fantastic; by the time I would have started observing anyway the sky was clear and looked magnificent. Checking back in my log I gave it a 7 for seeing and an 8 for transparency (out of ten). For my highly objective rating system this is pretty darn good.

My plan for the night was to try for every Messier and bright NGC globular cluster I could in Sagittarius. I started with the humble globular cluster NGC 6440 and logged it at around 10:30pm

"Very small and dim. Took a lot of searching and high magnification to identify as G.C. Unresolved even at 200x. Round, with tight core and uniform gradation out to edges"

The night was very warm and I spent the next three hours making my way through Sagittarius logging 13 globulars and two bonus objects; NGC 6822 Barnards Galaxy and NGC 6818 the Little Gem planetary nebula:

"A mini ring nebular! Very small and beautiful. Non stellar circular glow in 13.5mm, shows dim center and ringlike appearance with 6mm. Seems to have blue-green coloring"

It was an incredible night.  Tracking down a lot of smaller, dimmer NGC globs was a real treat.  

Friday 

The day started out pretty warm and I was woken up early by the morning sun.  I decided to go out and explore the countryside and surrounding towns.  The closest is Adin, CA, and the GSSP is an event around those parts.

Adin is a very small town with a few shops and homes. It's got a nice general store where you can pickup any supplies you might need. There were signs in the window advertising the GSSP public night that very evening.

I returned to the star party and walked around a bit. The sky was cloudy, but I had hopes it would clear up. My intention was to do some wide angle astrophotography with my Canon T3i. Nothing fancy, just the camera on a non-tracking tripod with a 24mm lens. I had recently purchased an intervalometer (timed shutter release controller) and was hoping to use it for some time-lapse series. To test everything out I took this time lapse during the day. You can see the clouds drifting over the observing field.

Fortunately the sky cleared up before dark and it looked like another wonderful night. The Public Night started around 9:00 and lots of folks from the surrounding towns came to visit. After showing a few people Saturn through the scope, I started observing in earnest a bit after 10:00. I rated the seeing a 6 and the transparency an 8 again. Before I dove into my evenings observing plan, I setup the camera facing south to catch Sagittarius and the milky way passing by. I started the intervalometer and went to work.

My plan for the night was to get all the M objects in Scorpius, and a couple of NGC's that I thought I might be able to see with my scope, then move over to Ursa Major to view a few Messiers I have missed to date and revisit some old favorites. I ended up observing 25 objects in about 4 hours, which has to be some record for me. I'd never seen many of them before, and most I'd never seen so well. One of my favorite of the night was the Lagoon Nebula, which I was observing for the first time through a new OIII filter I picked up at one of the vendors just that day!

"OIII Makes a great contrast difference. Helps show full extent of nebulosity with dark lanes much more visible. Split easily into several lobes. Fills 3/4 of 13.5mm ( 0.9 deg) field"

I also checked out the Trifid and Veil nebula, both of which looked great with the OIII.  It made for a much nicer view than my narrowband nebula filter.  Before I packed it in, I retrieved the camera and took some images to stitch together a panorama of the milky way

Several images stiched together, ISO 3200 f/2.8 30seconds each

I got a little off center towards the north end of the milky way, but I think it's one of the best I've taken so far.  The time lapse turned out pretty nice as well.  You can see a few little clouds sneak in right towards the end, but I don't think they bothered anyone.  Just look at how dark they are, with no light from the ground to reflect back, they are like huge dark nebula.

Saturday

Saturday was very sunny and hot. It also featured two of my favorite parts of the GSSP; the Swap Meet and Telescope Walkabout. The swap meet is free for anyone to grab a table and display their wares. It ranged from people with one or two items, to folks who brought bin after bin of odds and ends. I was sorely tempted by several items, including a used Williams Optic refractor, but held off knowing that I had a bigger goal in mind; namely my new big dob.  

Anyone who has an interesting telescope and wants to share can sign up for the Walkabout. It's basically a bunch of folks walking from scope to scope on the list, hearing a brief speech by the owner, and then asking questions and discussing.... and it's great. There were home-made bino-scopes, ATM projects of all sorts, a few high-end commercial pieces and this interesting re-build of a Meade Lightbridge:

Rebuild of a Meade Lightbridge 16"... into a BBQ

Yes, that really is a 16" Lightbridge. Well, at least the primary, secondary and focuser from one! It features a 24" webber BBQ, bamboo truss poles, and a bike rim upper cage. It's dead simple, the whole thing sits in a milk crate and it actually has pretty good motion; sort of like an oversized Astroscan. The owner said it sets up really quick, although he admitted it does not hold collimation well. I'm not sure this is the way I want to go, but it did show how simple and inexpensive a telescope could be... minus the mirrors!


One of my favorite scopes I saw as I walked around was not on the tour, and there was nothing particularly innovative. It was just large. Very, Very Large. Sadly, I did not get to speak to the owner or catch a glimpse through it at night, but it was impressive to behold.

28" Ultralight Dob. Notice how it dwarfs the 10' shade structure

The ultralight, relatively small, mirror box made this seem much more reasonable than the 20"+ Obsession type scopes, but it's still probably more than I would want to handle on a regular basis. Besides, I'm completely decided that I want a flat foot scope. I've been up ladders in the dark, and the views are great, but I feel it would really interrupt my observing flow to climb up and down, reposition the ladder, and such. Besides, some computerization would be required to make the scope usable as you would not want to be actually looking for objects on a ladder, just observing objects.

It stayed clear all day and the night seemed even better than the one before. As the sun set I spent some time with Mars and Saturn waiting for the darkness to settle in. I was somewhat surprised by how steady the air seemed, and I judged the seeing a 7 tonight with 9 transparency... almost as good as this location can be!

Since I had a long drive the next day, I only spent about three hours observing and logged 12 objects. If the total seems low, it was. My targets were a little tougher and I did not find everything I was looking for.  My favorite observation of the night was also the last of my GSSP experience: NGC 6369 Little Ghost Nebula. This small planetary is magnitude 11 according to my list, and was tough to find low on the horizon. It was very satisfying to find, and created a yearning in me to go seek out other difficult planetary nebula.

"Not much more than a dim, bloated star. OIII helped in finding and identifying, but the view is better without. Need to try again when higher in the sky"

Sharing the View and the Impromptu Eyepiece Shootout

I also spent a fair amount of time that last night with some of my neighbors checking out the views through their scopes. One was a standard 15" Obsession, with servos and the whole kit. The view was great, and it was interesting to use a tracking dob. The second was a home built 16" newt on a split ring equatorial. It was a beast! 700 pounds! He transported it in a custom trailer and got it in and out with a winch system.

Towards the end of the evening we had a little eyepiece shootout. The representative from TeleVue was loaning out eyepieces and they had each checked one out during the day. There was a 17mm Ethos (~$800) vs. the 20mm Nagler (~$500) providing roughly the same true field of view (TFOV). Viewing the Veil Nebula both eyepieces gave fantastic views. To me, the higher magnification of the Ethos produced a slightly darker background, but it also had a strange sort of pincushion effect near the edges. It was not objectionable, but a few people commented on it. The Nagler produced a better corrected image as far as I could tell. For kicks we also compared my 32mm TeleView plossl. It has a slightly smaller TFOV and lower magnification. I really enjoy using that eyepiece, it's fantastic and not too expensive, but after the wider field Nagler and Ethos the 58 degree apparent field of view (AFOV) did seem a little tight.

The Nagler and Ethos were both fantastic, but for it's slightly cleaner view and the price difference, I think I'd choose the Nagler, hands down. Heck, you could almost get TWO Naglers for the price of the Ethos and an 82 degree apparent field is no slouch! Spending some time sharing the view through a telescope, and talking about the hobby we all love, is one of my favorite aspects of going to star parties. I'm glad I took it easy the last night and just took the time to enjoy the company, it was a great way to wind down.


Heading Home

I woke up early on Sunday to beat the heat tearing down my camp, but still I ended up sweating in the heat by the time I was done. It's always sad to say goodbye to people I got to know over a few days, and to leave the observing field. I stopped to snap this last picture as I drove out of the gate to head home.

The Entrance, or in this case, Exit, to the Golden State Star Party

If you've never been to any Star Party, I suggest you try to attend one locally. There are several near Southern California, check my yearly events links to the right, and if you feel like making the drive, I hope to see you at GSSP 2013.