2400 replies to this topic

[Sky Captain]

Hey All finally got a chance to up load the requested photo of the new toy...hope this works

That's one sweet ride Joan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the blue paint.

[Sky Captain]

But after that I'll head a little south and hopefully get to look through the Kitt Peak 0.9m scope if it's a clear night.

Have fun!

We did the tour of the complex and only viewed through the Meade 16" LX200...I say "only" loosely, it was a very impressive night for viewing. Great scope!

[Spaced]

Hi, All,

With a couple of clear nights coming up, here's a nifty viewing project -- check out 4 Vesta at its brightest, in Leo. See the S & T writeup:
http://www.skyandtel...e/80433142.html

I think I'll give it a shot.

[square_peg]

Thanks for the heads up on Vesta!

With the close proximity to Gamma Leonis tonight it should be relatively easy to confirm the sighting by motion on a single night.

[Spaced]

I think I'll give it a go tonight, even though I have plans until 9 or 9:30, and have to be sharp tomorrow morning. Ye olde planisphere shows Gamma Leonis rising around 5PM and transiting around 12:30. Around 10 it should be high enough for me to see it over the trees. Maybe I'll just set up Punk for a quick look. Now if the ground fog will just stay away . . .

[Myles]

A strange orb has appeared in the sky. It signals the need to goof of at work by looking at CN, iPhone skymap, CSC, and to leave early in prepartion for some rare time spent with beautiful glass or mirrors depending on your preference.




Myles

[StargazerJMK]

Hey All finally got a chance to up load the requested photo of the new toy...hope this works

That's one sweet ride Joan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the blue paint.

Thanks Kerry

It actually changes color depending on the light and the angle you're looking at it from. Goes from blue to teal to purple to black. Love this bike!

[rwiederrich]

Hey All finally got a chance to up load the requested photo of the new toy...hope this works

That's one sweet ride Joan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the blue paint.

Thanks Kerry

It actually changes color depending on the light and the angle you're looking at it from. Goes from blue to teal to purple to black. Love this bike!

HI Joan..very sweet ride.....My truck is painted in a similar paint.....*It's blue..no it's purple..no black.. *

Good to see ya.

Rob

[rwiederrich]

I think I'll give it a go tonight, even though I have plans until 9 or 9:30, and have to be sharp tomorrow morning. Ye olde planisphere shows Gamma Leonis rising around 5PM and transiting around 12:30. Around 10 it should be high enough for me to see it over the trees. Maybe I'll just set up Punk for a quick look. Now if the ground fog will just stay away . . .

OH MY GOODNESS!

Last night was totally awesome....

I was easily seeing naked eye 5th mag stars...

I broke out the binos and man oh man. Beutiful dark clear night here at GOMOC. The seeing was spot on. Mars was as clear and resolute as I have ever seen it...the crecent moon was fantastic off to the West. Andromeda was such a treat as well and of course Orion was the cats meow. My sweetheart and I enjoyed bino viewing for several hours.

No wind..no twinkle..

I pray this is just the beginning of the viewing for this year.

Man what a treat.

Rob

[Downward Bound]

Hey All finally got a chance to up load the requested photo of the new toy...hope this works

Very very nice Joan - thanks for posting (it was I who requested the pic). Looks g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s!! Bet it sounds as good as it looks too! Does she (he) have a name?

[Spaced]

While you were having fabulous skies last night, Rob, I kinda struck out. I made it home by 9, took a quick look (eastward, over Tacoma) through the binos at Gamma Leonis and decided the seeing was too poor to justify setting up . . . not to mention I was pretty beat.

But tonight was an excellent little session! I opened the garage door & turned on Sugaree's fan around 6, then set up and started viewing around 7:30, even squeezed in a little nappy nap after dinner. I could see E & F in the Trapezium with my first glance, and spent quite a bit of time studying the nebulosity with & without the UHC filter. I looked at a few doubles in Orion, looked for the nebula around Alnitak without success (maybe a tiny hint). I found M1; this was my first look at it from the 'burbs and it was verrrry faint. I took a peek at some clusters in Gemini, then turned to try to spot the Asteroid near Gamma Leonis. Success! It's actually pretty bright, even over LP Tacoma. I hope I can get out in the next night or two to confirm the i.d. by seeing a position change. Incidentally, Gamma Leonis is a stunning red-gold (to me) double star.

Finally I took a good, long look at Mars. This was really my first ever good look at the planet. The seeing would sometimes settle down for 30 sec. or so, for stark views of an ice cap (I'll have to look at a map to see if it was No. or So.), a barely visible ice cap on the other pole, a major dark area in the shape of an elongated triangle, with little up-swoops on two of the ends, and another area with less distinct shading, somewhat darker than the overall red. Pretty cool! One thing that amused me when I figured it out: I was disappointed at first that I couldn't see an ice cap. It finally hit me that it was on the *right* side of the planet in my view, not on top. Sheesh!

Edit: OK, after looking at S & T's Mars Profiler (see link through this:
http://www.skyandtel...s/3307831.html#
page) I think I know what I was looking at: The ice cap on my right was the north polar cap, the dark elongated triangle was Syrtis Major, and I recognize the extensions to triangle and the other somewhat darker area.

[buckaroo]

Mars was great last night from here. Here's to tonight :dob:

[Myles]

Ya I felt Wednesday night was poor seeing. I had my 115 on Mars , but the view was swimming.

Last night seemed alot better in terms of seeing, but I only had the 80 out for a low power short hour stand up session. Too bad, Mars would have been good in the 115.

Maybe I need to bring out the LB 10" tonight.

[Spaced]

Maybe I need to bring out the LB 10" tonight.

I'm expecting good skies again tonight, and there's no substitute for aperture. I'll be setting up, with Mars on my hit list.

Good luck, All!

[square_peg]

... and there's no substitute for aperture.

Except maybe seeing.

CSC indicates that seeing will be better Sunday night.

[Spaced]

Where I was, seeing was better Thurs. than Sat. night. It was still a pretty good night, though. A friend came over around 8, and we looked at Orion for a while, then clusters in Auriga, and finally Mars.

My neighbor and I looked at the moon for an hour or so around 4 to 5 Sat. afternoon. We tried to pinpoint Apollo 17's landing site. We I.D.'d the landscape in pretty close, but couldn't get that last bit.

Edit: One thing I did around 12-12:30 this morning was take some time in a recliner checking out the Cancer area, and it gave me an excellent NELM gauge. The central star in Cancer was on the ragged edge of visibility. With patience and averted vision I could see it about 1/2 of the time. It was in the darkest direction from my location, but only at maybe 35* declination. I checked a chart a bit ago, and saw that it is mag 3.9. That confirms my impression that transparency was a bit degraded, along with seeing. This will be a useful gauge for me in future sessions.

[BradleyB]

Raining in Phoenix... We did have a few clear days but no scope.

Supposed to be good for Tues night at Kitt Peak though, yea!

Brad

[Downward Bound]

I didn't get out earlier in the week. We were down at Crystal Mnt and the skies were incredible, but unfortunately I didn't take a scope.

I got set up last night hoping to get some good Mars views but the seeing was really crummy. Maybe tonight will be better.

Brad - Good luck with the weather at Kitt!

[StargazerJMK]

Hey All finally got a chance to up load the requested photo of the new toy...hope this works

Very very nice Joan - thanks for posting (it was I who requested the pic). Looks g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s!! Bet it sounds as good as it looks too! Does she (he) have a name?

No name yet. LOL I put new mufflers on it right away, so she sounds pretty good. Loud enough but not make your ears bleed loud.

[Sky Captain]

Raining in Phoenix... We did have a few clear days but no scope.

Supposed to be good for Tues night at Kitt Peak though, yea!

Brad

How did it go Brad???

[Sky Captain]

Cindy and I did some viewing for a few nights, mostly Mars, the Moon, and Orion with the Atlas using the TAL RS100 refractor. The best view of the Lunar surface was using the 22 Panoptic, the sharpest, most detail we have ever seen!
We stayed up till 10:30pm for Saturn to rise...that was well worth the wait.
Overall the 4" could only handle about 20x to 25x per inch.

[StargazerJMK]

Well all, I have to say that last weekend the viewing off my deck was pretty good. What a weekend riding all day, viewing most of the evening, who could ask for more? hehehe

[Sky Captain]

who could ask for more? hehehe

A large sack of tax free money comes to mind...

[BradleyB]

Well, the program for this time of year was only the first three days of this week, and I picked Tuesday and was one of the lucky ones, as Monday was canceled for snow and Wed was not very clear. So 20 of us got a van ride from Univ AZ in Tucson up to Kitt Peak, where we had great views of the region. We ate dinner in their cafeteria and then proceeded to the control room for the 0.9m telescope, the first one on Kitt Peak about 1958. The telescope is a f/10 cassegrain on a huge equatorial mount. It is 7000mm fl, for all except one object we used a Nagler 31 for 225x. One of our guides was Geronimo Cruz who posts here on CN. He said he really enjoys CN.

After it started to get dark, we looked at the moon, the seeing was only so-so, it was swimming, but even so I could easily make out a few craterlets in Plato. Next up was the Orion neb, or rather the area around the trapezium. All 6 stars were quite easy, but the nebulosity was not that great compared to what I've seen in my 12.5", I think because of the bright moon nearby. Then the mount motors acted up and we took a break while they fixed it. This is good because it was about 25F out and in. Fortunately the dome protected us from the wind mostly.

After they got things working again, we looked at Pollux, not an item that would have been my choice but most of the people there had not looked through many scopes so it was all good for them. Then Mars, which was larger than in my 80mm, but not much more detail, due to the seeing.

Next up was the highlight of the evening, the Eskimo nebula. We used a 13mm Ethos on it at about 538x. All of the rings were easily visible and a hint of the structure. It also had a bit of the light blue color.

Then M82, but since we were looking through a light cloud it was not very good. Then M37, or part of it, but the moon was so close that it was shining into the view. Lastly Iota Cancri, which was ok.

By this time we were getting pretty cold, and were happy (well not completely, I could have done more) to get back to a warm place. We went into the visitor center for a bit and then back down the hill, to get back to Tucson about midnight. One of the nicest part of using this scope is that it is completely rock solid on the mount, that is a pleasure.

I could probably have seen a lot more if I'd stayed in Olympia and used my scope, except for the Eskimo of course. It was a great experience though.

I'm sitting in the Phoenix airport and now I get to fly back to WA.

Brad



Supposed to be good for Tues night at Kitt Peak though, yea!

Brad [/quote]

How did it go Brad??? [/quote]

[StargazerJMK]

who could ask for more? hehehe

A large sack of tax free money comes to mind...

Oh Sure Dream the Impossible Dream

Isn't that a song????