Brian and I went out to the Shroom, got to see Colleen and Lucia as well as Mark Lucia’s husband again. Chatted about issues we all have with the opposite sex, and commitment. Then the brother and I went over to Fry’s and then just back home.

Drove over to the Hooters Lw and had some beers with LaurenShaf, then AmandaH until I needed to get home so I could do some astro-Photography with the brother. Yes, nerds are us, we be nerds!

It got a bit chilly by 3am when we finally packed up back into the house. The light out front still really sucks and your eyes never really get used to the dark. I’d had quite a few beers and I couldn’t really get the scope polar aligned since my polar scope has no illumination, I couldn’t see where the damn circle was. Had a bit of a time trying to get the scope two star aligned, trying to find stars I could align on. I had set up the scope closer to the south side of the driveway so I got to see Saturn a bit longer than Brian could and although I took some shots I mostly just looked at double stars. Mizar and such.

http://cometman.com/Mask.html

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/FOCUS/METHODS.HTM

It was a bit cooler today, got up to only the upper sixties. I went straight home after work and then took off with Brian to get some screws for the new focuser for the Vixen 100mm Telescope. I then had to set it up and get the spotting scope aligned. I then tried to align the polar scope, need to find a place that will allow a better alignment. By the house there are so many trees and you cannot find something to align with that is at least 1/4 mile away.

The focuser is nice but when I had the camera attached I had trouble with the tension and either it would slip down (the scope was pointed up) or it wouldn’t fine focus because the tension was too great. Also, It seemed that the tube would jiggle too much, I think it was due to having the focusing tube almost fully extended.

Looked at Saturn and my brother and I quized each other on some stars, I think I can now locate, about 12 stars:

Sirius, Arcturus, Pollux, Castor, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Betelgeuse, Polaris, Kochab, Dubhe, Mizar

need to find, Vega, Deneb, Altair, Aldebaran, Regulus, these are almost too south though: Antares, Fomalhaut, Canopus, Achernar

and 4 constellations : Ursa Major(Big Dipper), Ursa Minor (Little Dipper), Orion, Cassiopeia

Looked at the beehive Cluster, I’ll need to take a photo of it if it is clear on Wednesday or Thursday.

I almost decided to hit the Mellow Mushroom for a beer but instead just went on home and got ready to set up the Scope and take some pictures.

I messed around with some computer stuff first, then watched a little TV. Around 6:30 I started to setup the scope and stuff outside, it was already around 36 degrees (F) and dropping fast. First I pulled out an extension cord, plugged in the camera and mount AC adapters, brought out the metal table, and then setup and leveled the telescope mount. I then mounted the OTA (optical tube assembly or telescope), and added the T-adapter and camera T-ring to the focuser on the scope. My brother then helped me collimate the finder scope using one of his eyepieces and a flip mirror (later in the evening he gave me an extra (3rd) one he had, he’s really nice that way!). I’m going to have to do it again later since we only did it with an object less than 100 yards away (it should be more like a mile or so). By this time it was dark enough to see the north star (Polaris) so I polar aligned the CG-5 mount. Had a little trouble with this since there were a few clouds moving to the east right over the top of the celestial north.

I then began to align and calibrate the GoTo on the mount. Most of the stars I’m familiar with are in the Southern sky, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Sirius so I was just using them and Brian started his sarcastic way of saying I was doing it wrong, I knew that I wouldn’t get a really good calibration but exact GoTo was not something I was really worried about. I told him I knew that it wasn’t as good but I wasn’t worried about that and he took it as if I was telling him he didn’t know anything. Funny thing is I know and do ask him about almost everything I do for the first time or at least get his opinion, I may not use it but I think that is my choice.

Finally, with my hands nearly frozen I had the scope basically aligned and began to set up a picture taking sequence. I did a 6 photo run for 10 minute exposures with 5 minutes between them in order for the camera to do it’s noise reduction. It was too much and there was a lot of wiggle, and some drift. I hadn’t done any drift alignment so I expected this. I then did a six shot run with 60 second shots and only got two that were not streaked at least a tiny bit. This may be from the mount movement, improper alignment (drift) or maybe the mirror since I did do the exposure delay but not mirror lockup.

NEXT: Use the 2X converter with the camera to get a bit closer to the nebula, and then possibly try another nebula or star cluster. M17: the Omega Nebula, M31: Spiral Galaxy, M20: Trifid Nebula

The moon will be totally eclipsed from 10:00 to 10:52 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Start will be around an hour and a quarter before (and after) so the start will be around 8:43pm and should end around 12:09am, these times are from the article here from Sky & Telescope Magazine.

This will be the last total lunar eclipse for the Americas until Dec 2010.

Just as a note to myself, looking at other photos of a total lunar eclipse, try ISO 200 f/6 at 8 sec. and vary from there.

Moon rise is at 6:10pm EST. Sunset at 6:25pm EST. These times are from the USNO website.

So far the weather looks like it may be OK for the eclipse. So far.

I decided to head straight home since I had anticipated the arrival of my polar focusing scope via UPS today. Instead, I found out from my brother that UPS usually delivers after 4-5pm, today they got my package to me at 6:30pm. By six I was almost ready to head out for a beer and get to see Jaime again but instead I watched some TV and waited.

I then calibrated the scope, and then collimated it as well, twice. I had to remove the counter weights and the camera in order to do this and then after getting it all done, including aligning with Polaris (I think) I bumped the tripod and had to align all over again. By this time it is almost 8:30pm and I’m cold so I remount the weights and the camera and warm up while the camera acclimates to the cold.

I then fiddle around with the mount’s controller trying to get the thing to just do a quick alignment (I’m not at all worried about the GoTo on the mount just it’s tracking abilities. Finally, I figure out how to change the alignment after you have entered the time, date and GPS coordinates. The thing is tracking, I think. I then move the camera to point to Messier 42 in the constellation of Orion, it’s also called the Great Nebula in Orion or the Orion Nebula. The pictures all turned out blurry, I think I didn’t focus very well. Kind of hard to see through the camera while it is pointing up at the stars.