Category Archives: Equipment

Some observations from TSP

Here are some observations from TSP. Of course, I did sketches too, but these aren’t scanned in yet. The observations here were put together using the Deepsky software I bought at TSP. The software is good, once you have sussed out how to use it, and I like the Logbook feature (used to make the observation notes below).
You can upload your observations to a blog but this is the downside – you have to have an account with Astronomy Blogs. That’s no problem because it’s free and it doesn’t take long to sign up but I use Blogspot (Blogger) and want to continue to use Blogspot for my blog. So, a choice would be nice. Besides Astronomy Blogs has problems – missing pages, ‘funny’ dates (my uploaded observations came out dated 12/31/1969 which is a month before I was born – WTF??!) and doesn’t seem to be very active and I don’t see it lasting. Still, I can cut and paste my observations from there to here or my main site if I want to.

Object: NGC 6572 – Emerald Nebula, PK 34+11.1
Deepsky Catalog: NGC 2000
Date Observed: 13/06/2008 19:45:28
Object RA: 18h 12.10533m
Object Declination: 6d 51.2155′
Object Type: PlnNeb
Constellation: Oph
Magnitude: 9
Size: 0.1
Locate Method: Star Hopping
Observing Location: Prude Ranch, Fort Davis, TX, USA
Primary Equipment Used: 36″ Dobsonian
Power/Magnification Used: 232x
Transparency/Seeing: Deepsky Extremely Clear / Deepsky Mostly Stable
Detailed Observing Notes: Bright blue PN with a dense bright centre (central star?), surrounded by fainter halo. Beautiful object.

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Object: NGC 4216
Deepsky Catalog: NGC 2000
Date Observed: 13/06/2008 19:39:47
Object RA: 12h 15.90433m
Object Declination: 13d 8.985′
Object Type: Gx
Constellation: Vir
Magnitude: 10
Size: 8.3
Locate Method: Star Hopping
Observing Location: Prude Ranch, Fort Davis, TX, USA
Primary Equipment Used: 36″ Dobsonian
Power/Magnification Used: 232x
Transparency/Seeing: Deepsky Extremely Clear / Deepsky Mostly Stable
Detailed Observing Notes: A superb view with the 36″. 4216 is very large, very bright and elongated, with a bright compact core.
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Object: NGC 4206
Deepsky Catalog: NGC 2000
Date Observed: 13/06/2008 19:20:47
Time Observed: 23:00Local
Object RA: 12h 15.27917m Object Declination: 13d 1.438333′
Object Type: Gx
Constellation: Vir
Magnitude: 12.1
Size: 5.2
Locate Method: Star Hopping
Observing Location: Prude Ranch, Fort Davis, TX, USA
Primary Equipment Used: 36inch Dobsonian
Transparency/Seeing: Deepsky Extremely Clear / Deepsky Mostly Stable
Detailed Observing Notes: NGC 4206 is an elongated edge-on galaxy. It is in the same f.o.v. as NGC 4216 through the 36″ at 232x, but is smaller, fainter and lacks a bright core.
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Object: NGC 3190 group/Hickson 44
Deepsky Catalog: Hickson Catalog of Compact Groups of Galaxies
Date Observed: 03/06/2008 20:13:47
Locate Method: Star Hopping
Observing Location: Prude Ranch, Fort Davis, TX, USA
Primary Equipment Used: 36″ Dobsonian
Power/Magnification Used: 232x
Transparency/Seeing: Deepsky Extremely Clear/Deepsky Mostly Stable
Detailed Observing Notes: A nice group of galaxies. NGC 3190 is the brightest member with a prominent dust lane and its elongated.
NGC 3187 is faint, round and evenly bright
NGC 3185 has a slight brightening towards the centre.
NGC 3193 is round with a dense core and a fuzzy halo.


Collimation

During my last observing session with the 12-inch, the collimation was way off, so I was only able to use low powers which is a pain in the arse when you want a closer look at something. I couldn’t suss out the laser collimator I got (it came without instructions – how stupid is that?!) although centering the beam on the primary helped a bit (but do not look down the tube to see where it is before holding a piece of paper in front of the scope to see where the return beam falls if it misses the secondary- if the beam is off, you might get an eyefull of laser and you certainly don’t want that!).

However, after posting on Cloudy Nights I found out that centering the beam in the primary is not enough because that means that only the secondary is aligned. Once the beam is in the centre of the primary, you then have to adjust the screws on the primary so the laser return beam is centred on the hole in the centre of the view port on the laser – it will look like a tiny eclipse.
There is a super video on a website called Andy’s Shot Glass and this is the best, most instructive tutorial on collimation anywhere I think: collimation video

The laser is great because that eliminates the need for a second person to twiddle the knobs while you look down the eyepiece. If you keep the laser view port facing the back of the scope you can see where the collimation is at and twiddle the knobs. Afterwards you can see what the mirrors look like with a collimation eyepiece (I made one from an old film canister I found in a drawer).

I am hoping for a clear night tonight so I can try it out, so it’s full Moon, but that doesn’t matter.

‘Observing’ 13th May 2008

It was clear but the moon is on its way up, so I took the refractor out instead of the 12″. Sky conditions were dreadful to say the least – there was drifting cloud, a waxing gibbous moon and the high pressure haze was awful.
Not only that, my refractor’s red dot finder had stopped working, due to me leaving it switched on last time I used it, sometime back in March, so I used it as a rough guide but in all honesty a red dot finder with no working red dot is useless – naturally it doesn’t take sensible batteries such as AA or AAA ones, of which plenty are lying round the house, it takes a crappy little CR2032 flat thing which I had none of until a trip to Tesco this morning.

I did manage to look at a few bright deep sky objects and some double stars. I even looked at the moon (yes, you did read that right!) and that was impressive with my 8mm TeleVue Radian.
I didn’t stay out long as I hate observing in conditions like that – it was so bright I could have read a book out there and the haze was appalling. It was like observing from the middle of London (and I have observed from London – it’s crap!).

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Two and a half weeks to TSP (two weeks until I finish work, can’t wait, expecially as I’m planning on not going back to the job, too stressful!). I have been asked to do an afternoon talk on the Thursday, and my topic’s going to be Visual Deep Sky Observing (From a UK Perspective). My friend Robert Reeves is on before me, so between us we’ve practically taken over the Thursday PM session! I’m looking forward to getting there and seeing everyone again. Naturally I hope that we have clear skies both day and night, but the TSP being in June this year, I’m not sure what the local conditions are – more thundery, I think. Whatever the conditions are, I’m up for a good time.

Observing, 7th-8th May 2008

A much more transparent night due probably to a breeze that had been blowing during the day and into the evening. This died down when it got dark.

Set up the scope in twilight and wondered why, when I came to align the finder and check the collimation, I couldn’t see a damned thing. The secondary holder had become misaligned but a quick adjustment soon sorted that out. The nut holding it had worked its way loose so two seconds with a spanner tightened it up – I’ll have to keep an eye on that because the last thing I want is for the secondary to work loose and crash into the main mirror, which doesn’t bare thinking about!

Date: 7th-8th May 2008:
Conditions: Clear, slight breeze (this died down after dark), cooler than previous evening, more transparent (on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is cloudy and 5 is excellent, this was around 4).
Scope: 12″ f5 Dobsonian.
Place: near Sandown, Isle of Wight, UK.

As the conditions were more transparent than the previous night I looked for galaxies in Ursa Major – the ‘lollipops’ M81 and M82 were superb through the 12″ ( a real ‘wow’ factor with lots of detail) and other, small, galaxies in the vicinity were easy to see: NGC 3077, NGC 2976 and, further away, NGC 2787.
Hercules was rising, so I had the obligatory look at M13 – it was a fantastic sight in the 12″ with a dense core and arms of stars radiating out from it. I didn’t do a sketch, that can wait until later in the year. While in the area, I decided to have a look at the galaxy near M13, NGC 6207. At low power (37x) both M13 and NGC 6207 are in the same field of view. NGC 6207 is a slightly elongated oval smudge, evenly bright.
It was on to NGC 6229 a globular cluster in Hercules. At 37x, this was obvious, next to a couple of bright stars. It’s small, condensed, round and bright. Some stars resolved, but only just.
After this it was 1am and time to pack in.

The Herschel 400

I have never been one for doing systematic observing projects, always instead doing my own thing and either just choosing targets for any given session or just deciding what to observe ‘when I got there’, so to speak.
However, having just seen most (70) of the Messier Objects with a pair of 8×42 binoculars which was a project brought on by financially-induced scopelessness a few years ago, I have decided to have a bash at the Herschel 400. I have probably seen a lot of the Herschel 400 anyway (I’ll have to dig out old notes to be sure) but observing them with the 12″ will be a fun project. I want to re-observe previously seen stuff with the 12″ anyway and I daresay this’ll pick up quite a lot of Herschels.
I have the Astronomical League book ‘Observe the Herschel Objects’ (I also have their ‘Herschel II’ book) so, using that as a reference, this will be an ongoing project. It’s going to take me quite a long time to complete because of the UK’s crappy climate and also other commitments getting in the way of observing.

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The Telrad dew heater arrived this morning and I discovered a bit of a snag. I need to buy a dew controller to make it work. Bollocks!!! Oh well, I need one anyway for my refractor, so when I’m a bit more flush, I’ll get one (they’re around £45).

An hour of galaxies

I only had a short observing session last night due to having to be back at work today at 0730 (I am ditching this bloody job when I come back from Texas in June as the hours are crap) and I spent an hour poking around the galaxies of Virgo again. I didn’t make any sketches though, just looking and seeing what was there. So many galaxies, so little time! Like I said in the previous post my 12″ shows me so much more than the old 8″ ever did – small faint ones, large faint ones, large bright ones, small bright ones, edge-on spirals, face-on spirals, the lot. Wonderful!

I also added M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, in Virgo to my binocular Messier list – I have observed 70 Messiers with my 8x42s to date so I am going to send them off to the Astronomical League for a binocular Messier pin – you need to observe 50 or more to qualify for the pin – and I also attempted M68, a globular cluster in Hydra, but I totally failed to see it properly, probably due to haze and its low altitude. If it clears tonight I’ll give it another go.

Constantly wiping dew off the Telrad becomes tiresome very quickly and I spent a lot of time doing just that last night and the night before, so I decided to buy a dew heater off the net. Prices varied, from an outrageous £69 on one site to a more reasonable £9.99 from Telescope House, so I sent off for the latter and hopefully this should turn up by Tuesday (or Wednesday as there’s a bank holiday in the way). Buying new gear always guarantees clouds, but surely a tiny, ten quid dew heater shouldn’t attract the ‘new equipment curse’…?

Observing platform and second light

I built myself a little ‘observing platform’ in the garden, from old concrete blocks, yesterday. I dug a large square hole and laid the blocks in it, getting them as level as possible to provide a nice, stable platform for my Dob and it works well, getting its first use that evening.

The Dob got it’s second light (as it were) yesterday evening. I had the best views I have ever had of the Owl Nebula (M97) in Ursa Major; it had a definite greenish tinge to it and, for the first time, I saw the ‘eyes’ – two dark holes in the nebula – that give this interesting PN its nickname, although these were only really evident when I put an OIII filter into the eyepiece.
It wasn’t a deep sky night, due to the high cloud – there seemed to be a ‘cover’ of very high thin cloud – but the views were not too bad of the brightest objects although the scope needs collimating, as while low magnifications are ok, the view through higher mags is out of focus, with a kind of shift to one side (i.e. one side of a star or planet is good, the other awful). This is due purely to collimation issues, so once I have sorted that out, the views will improve. I have bought a laser collimator for this purpose. Collimation isn’t hard, just a bit of a pain in the arse to have to do.

Increasingly bad conditions and the need to have to get up early for work meant I had to pack up at around 9.30 pm. Nearly as irritating (although not a reason for packing up in itself) was a light aircraft that kept flying round in circles – funnily enough, and I have lived under Heathrow’s flight path in the past, I never find the noise of big jets anywhere near as annoying as the buzzing drone of a light propeller aircraft.

First light of 12-inch

The evening started off clear so I set the 12-inch up on the patio. After letting it cool down for a while, I aimed it at some bright stars in a rapidly-worsening sky (isn’t that just typical??) and M81/M82. The collimation could do with a bit of slight adjusting but the view, despite the crap sky, was pretty good and I tried out a selection of eyepieces on it. Sadly, I had to pack up after only half an hour because the sky was becoming increasingly opaque. Annoying, but hopefully we’ll get some nice clear nights soon, once Spring gets well underway, and I can test it properly. Anyway, I’m pleased with what I have seen so far.

I have sent off for a laser collimator from Telescope House, a cheapish one at £34.99, so hopefully that will make collimating the scope easier and quicker. This is the first large Dob I’ve owned so keeping the mirrors aligned properly will be more of an issue.

New 12" Dob

I went and collected the 12-inch Dob this afternoon and it’s just as well I didn’t get a 14″ or larger or a longer f-ratio mirror or it never would have fit into my car, and I wouldn’t have been able to carry it – the 12″ is quite heavy, but I can (fortunately) lift it comfortably. On getting it home, my aunt started fussing slightly over the size of the thing: ‘Big enough, innit?’ and ‘Where are you going to put that?’ (I don’t think she quite grasped the size of a 12″ Dob until she actually saw it!).

Here are a few photos:


It fits neatly into the corner of my room:

Looking down the tube:

It was made with a 2-inch focusser but this can be adapted for 1 1/4-inch eyepieces, such as all mine are until I replace one or two with 2-inch versions (2-inch is the upper picture, 1 1/4-inch is the lower pic):


I am hoping for a clear night tonight so I can see how well (or not!) it works. Richard said that it focusses, but a bit further along the focus (it racks almost right in) than he’d like, so if that is a problem with some eyepieces, the mirror would need to be raised.

It’s finished!

My 12-inch Dob is now finished and I should be able to collect it at the weekend. I now hoping the weather will co-operate and I do not get a case of the ‘new equipment = cloudy weather for weeks’ curse.