COLD-CLEAR-DARK SKIES

All backyard astronomers feel like they are in hog heaven when the nights are crisp and clear. But there is a mile of difference between "crisp and clear" and "downright cold". The latter of those two terms seems to describe most of what I personally encountered during the two night visit LASS made to the Ft Griffin Historical Site.

For those that don't know, LASS decided to visit Ft Griffin and its rather dark sky environment during the weekend of Dec. 18/19 instead of meeting at the regular LASS site. Most of the gang arrived by dark on Friday and were set up and ready to observe when the sun ducked below the horizon. What we hadn't bargained for was the very high humidity and the high level clouds. Seeing varied all evening between nothing to marginally good and all points in between. We had expected cold weather and that part of the weather forecast held true to expectations. There was one guy from Abilene and one from Dallas that joined us for the evening.

As the time wore on there would be short expanses of time looking thru the scopes and times where there wasn't anything to do except talk about what we had seen or expected to see. Lucy had gone with me and we were going to meet our daughter around 10PM at the front gate so Lucy could go on to Lubbock with her. As it turned out, Lucy and I finally drove into Albany to get some hot coffee and we met them there. After the transfer I made it back to Ft G and got ready to do some serious observing. I had 20 targets that were all above 9.5 magnitude so I knew I had my work cut out for me. I had my Christmas present--a new Orion 12 inch Intelliscope, all ready for its initial exposure to the wonders of the night sky. But the weather wasn't cooperating and I was getting cold so after a few minor targets I crawled into my sleeping bed and tried to go to sleep. The body was willing but the temperature sensors on my skin just couldn't get it together so I finally got up about 4:30AM just to see what was going on. Everyone had given and gone to bed up but the sky was as clear as I have seen it in a few months. I stepped over to my planning table and when I touched anything the dew just pooled and ran off. I knew it was useless so I got back into my sleeping bag. I guess I catnapped until about 6:30 and finally got up. I made a lot of noise but I couldn't stir a single soul so I drove to Throckmorton for breakfast. Found a real good place ( I was the only one there that didn't have on hunters camouflage clothing so that should tell you something about the area).

By the time I arrive back at the site some of the guys were stirring and after a little small talk most of them scurried off to eat. We all spent a beautiful afternoon either planning for the evening or just visiting. I got what I thought was my evening act together and was ready to go when darkness arrived. But darkness wasn't the only thing that arrive that evening. If you thought it was cold the night before then you were really out in the cold so to speak. I know that our northern and Canadian friends would have been out in their shirtsleeves but I had on long johns, two coats, heavy gloves and headgear and I thought I was going to freeze. Maybe I was a little under the weather or something because most of the gang managed to handle the situation better that I did. With Ben's assistance I finally located the "blinking nebula" in the northern cross but then most of the other things I had lined up to observe next fell directly overhead and I just can't point my Dob straight up and do anything with it. It's kinda a physical thing with me---I just can't bend over, turn my head straight up and look thru the finders without a lot of discomfort. I put those targets aside and moved on toward some things in Celtus but I was having a hard time seeing the guide stars I needed. Ben and I did a little evaluation on star magnitudes using various stars in the great square. About the best I could manage was a 5 and possibly a 4.5 if I used averted vision. Losing the ability to see some of the reasonably dim stars sure is a blow to ones ability to find anything in the deep sky. I will be the first to admit that I am a little out of practice so maybe time will help me get back to where I was before.

By this time I was cold beyond comfort so I just bundled up and got into the bedroll again. Maybe I wasn't feeling so good---I don't really know--- even tho I felt warm, I shivered all night long and woke up every 15/20 minutes. When I finally rolled out at 7AM, the temp reading on Ben's table top thermometer was in the vicinity of 22 and the one in my truck showed 28. Frost was on everything as I loaded and by the time I got ready to go I couldn't feel the ends of my fingers. Strangely enough, 10 minutes down to road toward Albany the reading was 40 and it went upward from there.

I officially ended my two night stand with a hot breakfast at the L&L family restaurant in Breckenridge about 9AM. My fingers weren't completely back to normal and a hot coffee mug felt good to them. A warm bed at home was a great feeling too.

I think that from now on I will confine my all night outings to that time of the year when the temperature is reasonable and the sleeping conditions are better. Right now, nothing looks better than my own backyard.

SLEEP VS OBSERVING AND OTHER COMMENTS

Putting all your astronomy gear together and waiting for the sun to set to begin observing is one thing---getting up in the middle of the night to start observing is a totally different cat. Ask anyone that goes to a 3 or 4 night star party this question---"how many times did you decide to take a nap during a lull of the nights activity with the full intent of getting back up early in the morning to do a little more observing?" Then follow up with this question---"did you really get back up?" Mull that one over and make a personal application.

Last night was the peak observing night for the Gemini meteors. For me at least it meant going to bed and then getting up in the middle of the night to go out and look. I set the clock for 2 AM. When the appointed time came, I rolled out of bed and put on all my warm observing clothes and went out to begin the vigil. First of all, it wasn't near as cold as it had been a couple of nights before and the sky was mostly clear to partly cloudy. The stars were very bright and sharp and the first meteor was stunning. And it just got better and better for the next hour. Before I really got settled in, Lucy came out to join me. I had already seen 3 or maybe 4 meteors by that time. Not a continuous shower but at least one every minute or so. We set up our chairs facing each other so we could get more coverage of the sky. Although we concentrated on looking straight up, this orientation gave us a better chance of seeing anything that happened to flash across the sky.

Well, we were not disappointed. For the next 45/50 minutes probably saw 40 or so meteors. Most of them were the very bright and short duration kind. Maybe a second or less and then they would be gone. But they were there. Very much in contrast to my last outing to observe the Lenoids. I knew that the event would continue to be great the rest of the night but the old body was just not willing so we decided that the Gemini shower was for real again this year. We called it a night (or maybe I should say morning) and crawled back into our warm cozy bed. But I was glad this morning that we both made the effort and we were rewarded for it.

I can't help but think about what a lot of folks think about observing stars, galaxies, nebulas, meteor showers and all other sorts of night sky events. Their theory is "once you have seen them why look again? For the most part they don't change and they don't even look like the stuff you see in the fancy pictures." And that argument is hard to refute. There are the occasional comets or some other special once in a lifetime event but generally speaking, they are right. Why do we keep going out and looking into those telescopes?

That is a very easy question to ask but not quite so easily answered. And the answer that I might give might not seem very convincing or it might not even be the same answer you might give. I go out and look for a number of different reasons. Take the Gemini meteor shower for instance. I suppose the first thing I would say is " I now have seen it personally". But why go out next year and watch the same meteor shower? Maybe it's like looking at a photo of someone. You have seen it untold times before and you see that person on a daily basis so what does it do for you? Maybe bring back a special memory--maybe remind you of a special feeling you have for that person or maybe something else. The reasons are unlimited and different for every person.

Possibly another thing I would say is the feeling I get when I actually find something in the sky that is not seen with the unaided or untrained human eye. Anyone that has hunted deer or other such wild animals would understand. With training and persistence, you can learn to spot animals in hiding that someone who never hunts would ever see. Even after you point the target out to them, they can't see or recognize it. That doesn't make me better than them, it just gives me a satisfaction of knowing I have seen something that the average person has never, and probably will never see.

Maybe it is the awe of seeing and realizing how small and insignificant we as humans really are. Even if you constrain your thought to our Solar system, the earth and its inhabitants aren't very impressive. Don't misunderstand me here---those little things we call ANTS are probably very important to themselves---just as we humans are very important to ourselves---but in reality both of us are pretty small and not noticeable in the big picture of the universe.

I suppose I could go on for a long time trying to connivence someone who isn't particularly interested in astronomy that it is really a fascinating hobby but why do I waste my time? I like it and I enjoy it so what difference does it make to me if my friends or neighbors don't share my enthusiasm. After all, I don't share a lot of the things that are fun and important to them. If by chance they do develop and interest then good on them---if not---well I happen to think they are missing out on one of the great wonders of the universe. And I will probably go out and look at the Geminid meteor shower again next year if I am able.

DO TELESCOPE MIRRORS FREEZE?

As I sat watching the weather forecast for tonight the thought crossed my mind---do telescope mirrors freeze? Well, truthfully, I know that glass does not freeze and since telescope mirrors are glass (technically most are pyrex) I guess I have my answer before I get started. But there is one other thing I know for sure---my fingers get mighty cold on these winter nights as I am changing eyepieces and trying to manipulate the focuser. And there isn't much battery power used during those cold nights running those tiny mirror cooling fans. Can anyone explain to me why it is to hot in the summer and to cold in the winter to observe comfortably? Now I am not complaining, there are at least 8 out of the 12 months of the year that everything is just perfect. Even tho in the summer it doesn't get dark until it is almost time to get up and go to work---I'm not complaining. What does get under my collar a little is when six nights of the week are clear and beautiful and then on the one night I plan to get out, the clouds show up. Can anyone explain that one to me?

I know that there is at least one guy in LASS that goes out almost every night to check on the movement of everything in the sky. Now it stands to reason that one cloudy night out of the week wouldn't bother a fellow like that. That is unless the night you wanted to see a very good pass of the ISS or an especially bright Iridium satellite is the night that is cloudy. Explain that one to me. After the shuttle undocked from the ISS the last time, there were three passes that could be seen from the LASS viewing backyard. The first night, the sky was clear and the shuttle and ISS appeared right on schedule---they were visible for about a minute. The next night they were going to come almost directly overhead and be visible for about 5 minutes. I'll give you one guess what showed up about an hour before the scheduled flyover time--clouds!!! I was so ticked off that I forget what happened the next night but I do remember that I didn't get to see the ISS that night either. And I guess you are aware that all the shuttle flights to the ISS will be finished sometime late in 2010. And the ISS itself is scheduled to be terminated and abandoned in 2016. I hope it isn't cloudy every night that it is visible from my vantage point until then.

Thinking about the shuttle and the ISS brings me to my next topic. Those non governmental guys that are getting into the space flying business have rolled out their first commercial space ship which is christened "VSS Enterprise". Burt Rutan and Sir Richard Branson, who are partners in the huge space project, expect actual passenger flights into space sometime in 2011. Spaceport America, the first commercial airport built specifically for commercial space launches is currently under construction in New Mexico. According to Rutan, there are already 300 folks signed up for the pending flights to the tune of $200,000 per seat. The cost per seat is expected to come down rapidly as the organization builds 40 to 50 of the space craft that will take passengers into sub orbital space.

The reason I bring all this out is the recent Augustine Report that gives a detail evaluation of NASA's Human Spaceflight program. (see my Oct 29 article "Let the Arguments/Debates Begin") I don't know if Rutan and company are ready to start working on earth orbital flights or even possibly beginning a program to send humans to the moon but given the current state of budget crunches at NASA, it might just be the answer for some civilian agency to get into the space program. According to the Augustine report, it will be impossible for NASA to put humans on the moon by 2020 without a major increase in the current budget---a not to popular thought given todays governmental money crunch. The report suggest that NASA could get a lot more for the $$$ if they gave grants and "seed" money to civilian firms to provide near earth orbit vehicles to transport both cargo and astronauts into low earth orbit missions thereby saving billions to develop missions to Mars.

It is next to impossible for a agency like NASA to rethink and reorganize but in order to survive in the economy of today and the future that seems to be the only solution. Major decisions will be made with respect to budget priorities in the next couple of years and without major changes, NASA is likely to find itself, and all the scientific research it supports, left out in the cold.

Speaking of cold---are you really sure a telescope mirror would not freeze in the Arctic? I don't ever remembers seeing a picture of an Eskimo looking at himself in a mirror.

14 DAYS AND COUNTING

I know a one night stand isn't quite the same as a four night affair but I am really looking forward to my encounter with a few heavenly bodies in a couple of weeks. Now that I probably have your attention, lets talk about astronomy.

I hardly see how I could describe the second informal visit of the LASS gang to Ft Griffin as anything but a night of stargazing but it doesn't seem fair to put this night in the records as a regular observing session. Maybe we should formally designate it as our 2ND annual gathering at the park. Of course we would have to dismiss the fact that we didn't go as a group last year but who wants to stand on technicalities? And of course we would be putting ourselves in the position of observing such a gathering every year. No, let's not go there just yet but at least keep it in the back of your mind.

The last time we gathered there a couple of us were trying our hand at getting some night photos of the wildly exciting comet named Holmes 17 P. Remember that one? Nobody had any real capability to do night photography of the skies but we had one "barn door" mount and a couple of film cameras. We still may only have the barn door mount but a couple of us have some rather good digital SLR cameras. If only we had another Holmes to look for. There may not be anything special on the 19th but there will be plenty of objects for us to try our hand at. Not only in the photo arena but in visual observing as well. I plan on having a rather extensive target list with objects ranging from the easy to the unattainable. How's that for throwing out a challenge?

We will be getting our last good looks at Jupiter in December but since we will be there all night we will probably get the first look at Saturn that most of us have had in about 6 months. The rings will have progressed well beyond the "single black line" we observed the last time we really looked and with my 20 incher I expect to see some of the moons that I don't usually see. Of course when the rings were almost non existent it was easier to see the dimly lighted moons. Although Orion has been up at decent hours of the evening lately, I haven't had the opportunity to give it a good once over. One of my "unattainable " objects is going to be the Horsehead nebula. I have never see that thru any telescope. I know Ben will have a couple of asteroids for us to track and possibly a dim comet or two. If you are planning on being there why don't you select a couple of things that we don't usually look for.

There has been a lot of talk back and forth on the LASS Yahoo Group concerning cold weather gear for the feet. That's only half the problem as far as I am concerned. I need to keep my head warm too. With a warm toboggan for my head and some good warm socks for my feet, the rest of me will fair OK. Just remember---if it gets really cold our only resource is inside our vehicles with the heater running. Make sure you have plenty of gasoline. You also might think about what you might want to eat. At this outing it is everyone for themselves--no mooching allowed.

Since Saturday is the primary date, you can plan to arrive as early as you like and stake out your favorite setup site. There really isn't any sites, just an open area but you wouldn't want to get stuck behind the hay bales that are usually stored on the field . Ben has checked out the area and said that improvements have been made but I haven't see them for myself. Ben wouldn't fib tho----

If the weather is predicted to be good we can probably expect visitors from other clubs to be there. Most of these guys come quite a distance and are there for photography purposes so they don't always like a lot of mingling. However, you are on your own.

Like I said---I am ready and willing---hope you are too. See you at Ft Griffin on the 19th.

MY CHANGING THOUGHTS ON ASTRONOMY OBSERVING

Ever since I became interested in visual observing I had the "set in the wool" concept that a totally manual guided telescope was the only way to go---especially for beginners. Even more so if your budget was a consideration in purchasing your first telescope. A reflector scope on a Dobson mount would always buy more aperture for the buck than any other type telescope. In addition, there is only one good way to learn the sky and that is to acquaint yourself with charts that serve as roadmaps to the sky. I still believe in that theory---however, I have softened my position on the kind of scope a beginner should consider for their first telescope. In the past, I would always recommend a Dobson type reflector scope and the bigger the better---at least up to a 10 incher.

After I traded up to a 15 inch truss dob, I decided it was time for me to try out one of the various pointing devices. I finally settled on the Sky Commander system that could be added to my scope with very little modification or work. I found a supplier and immediately forked out about $400 and waited to get needed parts. First rattle out of the box I realized I needed one more part, namely a specialized bolt for the base plate that would accommodate the shaft of the azimuth encoder. A quick call to the supplier solved that problem. It didn't take long to make the modification and I was ready for a trial run. As it turned out, the most difficult part of the modification was learning all the buttons to push during the alignment and object selection process. Once I mastered this--I still have to refer to the manual because I use the system so infrequently I forget all the button pushing sequences--I have found that I use the system a lot less that I thought I would. I still like the hunt and seek method. But I digress---I was talking about what I would recommend to a beginner.

Recently a mother asked me what kind of scope she should get for her kids as a Christmas gift. Without hesitation I suggested a reflector type scope but then there was some additional information that I passed along for whatever it was worth. I handed her one of my Orion catalogs----Orion will send you free catalogs if you request them---and I had circled several scopes that had Orions "Intelliscope" system included. This system works almost exactly like the Sky Commander system I had purchased. After aligning the scope on two known stars all you need to do to get pointing directions is to enter the desired target in the hand controller and follow the arrows in azimuth and altitude until the numbers "zero out". If you have done the alignment correctly the desired target should be somewhere in the field of view.

About this time you might be asking why I have deviated from the "study the charts etc" method I was so dead set on earlier. Let's put it this way. I have seen three adult people who were interested enough in astronomy that they bought scopes---dobson types to be exact--on my recommendation. Within 6 months all three lost their zeal for astronomy. These were beginner folks who I thought would be willing to do the necessary homework that was required to develop the skills to find objects in the night sky. It just didn't happen. There were several reasons but the sum of all was--THEY JUST COULDN'T FIND ANYTHING IN THEIR SCOPES.

I'm not willing to accept all the blame because all three had opportunities at our monthly observing sessions to see, use, and evaluate various types of scopes. But when the time came for them to do the observing on their own, they were just not ready to do the things necessary to be effective using a totally manual scope. Would a computer assisted pointing system made any difference? I believe it would have. All three had the capability to identify any one of several alignment stars. If you can do this, you will be able to find things in the sky. These systems are not fail proof, but they can and do work.

What I am recommending to most new buyers, especially those who are buying for young beginners, is a reflector type scope, not necessarily on a dob mount, that has a computer assisted pointing system. NOT A COMPUTERIZED "GO TO" SYSTEM---that's a horse of a different color--but something that will allow even the most basic beginner to find targets that they can see in their scope. In the case of most Orion scopes that will add about $120/$200 to your initial purchase price depending on the size of the scope you are buying. I don't have estimates for other manufactures. In my mind that is a small price to pay to make the initial investment worth while. Not everyone that buys a scope will become an avid observer but I can almost guarantee you that if you can't find targets in your scope you will lose all interest in astronomy rather quickly.

As for me, I am getting a new Orion 12 inch dobson with the intelliscope system as a Christmas present from my wife. Not that I have given upon searching the sky for targets but it will serve me well as I recommend similar type scopes to others. There is nothing like having a demonstrator to show when you are trying to convince someone what they should buy.