=================================================== RAW's Astro Report, Vol. 1, No. 1, 23 December 1999 =================================================== Hi folks! You're receiving this message because a) you might be interested in astronomy, or b) you might be interested in what I'm up to, or c) all of the above I thought I'd send out updates on my newly enhanced hobby. I'll try to separate out technical babble that some of you won't want to wade through like this: [TECH: ] If the prospect of receiving these messages doesn't appeal and stop the bus, you wanna get off, let me know immediately! This first message is chattier than what I expect to send in the future, but I thought a bit of introduction was in order. As some of you know, Kathleen got me a telescope for my birthday. [TECH: Meade ETX-90/EC, 1250mm x 90mm, resulting in 48x with standard 26mm eyepiece (ep), plus a Deluxe Field Tripod] What I got on my birthday, Saturday, was a printout from the internet. The Real Thing finally arrived on Tuesday night. In the interim I printed out and read literally a ream of pages from the 'net. We had already planned a Winter Solstice moon-viewing party on Wednesday with our across-the-street neighbors, the Tolmans, to inaugurate the Goat Hill Family Astronomical Society, so the timing was perfect. They, too, have an interest in astronomy, and even have a version of the same telescope. [TECH: the ETX-90 Astro, which doesn't have the electronic control ("EC") interface.] As a result, I was able to borrow some equipment to try on my 'scope [TECH: a Celestron 2x Barlow]. The observations: 0. Location and Conditions 22 December 1999 West Concord, MA, USA [~ 42N, 71W] Crystal clear skies, temps probably below freezing 1. Moon Yesterday was both winter solstice and full moon, so the moon was about as bright as it can be. It was incredibly bright when concentrated through the telescope. I could hardly see out of my right eye after staring at it for a while. Incredible detail, though. (I've read that looking at the moon on a quarter is actually *more* satisfying. We'll see.) [TECH: gotta get a moon filter!] 2. Betelgeuse [TECH: alpha Ori] We took a look at this big star in Orion, but it wasn't particularly noteworthy because it was so close to the terribly bright moon. 3. Jupiter When Gerry (Tolman) realized this was the first night out with the telescope he encouraged me to look at Jupiter next. Wow! At 48x, the default magnification of the telescope, Jupiter and at least 4 Galielean moons. We then upped the magnification to 96x [TECH: with the Barlow] and color bands on Jupiter became evident. At 96x at least one more moon was obvious. 4. Saturn We then slewed over to Saturn, whose rings were quite clear. We could not make out the Cassini Division (i.e. the gap between the main to sets of rings). But this telescope has a theoretical limit of 300x magnification, so in the future, with a higher-powered eyepiece, we should easily be able to see this. Also, both Kathleen and I could make out orange and white banding on Saturn. 5. Polaris I didn't really look at this for any reason other than to align the telescope. [TECH: I set up polar alignment by pointing the "North" leg of the tripod as directly towards Polaris as I could (i.e. North); levelling the tripod with its handy built in spirit level; setting the tripod's azimuth adjustment to roughly 42 degrees; slewing the telescope to its 90 degree point; then making slight adjustments to tripod rotation and tripod azimuth until I had Polaris in the eyepiece. (The viewfinder was almost useless in this situation, as on an ETX it is almost impossible to get your face at the viewfinder when the scope is in polar position.) Then I slewed back over to Saturn to test it out the sidereal tracking. The ETX has electronic controls for slewing *plus* the ability to do northern- or southern-hemisphere sidereal tracking. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the arcane interpretation of the mode lights as I stepped through the three possible modes (AltAzimuth, Northern or Southern). I picked what I *thought* was Northern, but apparently was not. On top of that, every time I got close to Saturn, the mount insisted on slewing back 15 degrees east. Finally I decided I had to "reboot" the mount (cycle the power). I did this a few times and finally picked the right mode. And then it tracked like a champ. Of course, Saturn would still drift because it's own orbital movement within the Sun's orbit affects the rate of motion we see, but I was satisfied. On to something further away that I could really track.] 6. Orion Nebula After taking stabs at the Andromeda Galaxy (tree in the way) and an open cluster in Cassiopeia (too bright with the full moon), I turned my eyes to Orion, because, even though it was bright out, with the naked I could still see the dots of Orion's sword. The middle one is, in fact, a set of nebulas, which revealed themselves through the telescope. In the bright light I couldn't make out any color, but the nebulosity was clearly visible and, due to the [TECH: polar-aligned, sidereal] tracking feature of the telescope, I could go indoors and get Kathleen and come back out and find the nebula still centered in the field of view. 7. The Pleiades This star cluster pointed at by Orion's belt was also visible to the naked eye and I decided to see how they looked through the telescope. At first I couldn't recognize them, until I realized that at 96x I didn't have a wide enough field of view and was only seeing a subset. I dropped back down to 48x and could *barely* fit the main 6 stars in the view [TECH: now I know why folks want SWA and UWA eps!]. But several smaller stars were visible. From reading and from pictures, I know there are *many* more to be seen here, plus perhaps some cloudiness, but, again, with the bright moon, that wasn't possible. =================================================== RAW's Astro Report, Vol. 1, No. 1, 22 December 1999 ===================================================