Orange Can Astronomy

Moving to Facebook...

2017-11-20T20:45:00.004-08:00

I'm finding that Facebook offers alot easier way to share stuff, so I'm going to be doing all of my updates from now on at:

https://www.facebook.com/orangecanastronomy/

Blogger served its purpose, and I'll be looking for a way to put the earlier posts in the Facebook page, but they'll remain here on Blogger until then.

Solar success with ZWO

2017-11-20T20:41:00.001-08:00

Success with the ZWO!

I took today off and had the morning to spend some time figuring out what settings are good for solar photography. The first picture shows my setup on a brisk 30F morning.

The rather dark photo above was taken around 12ms exposure, no gain, no gamma correction.

The brighter, grey photo was taken with about the same settings but with gamma set to 71. High clouds appeared and I compensated by turning up the exposure times...worked great.

The last picture is of a typical histogram for the grey photos...lookin pretty good!

New Astro Camera!

2017-08-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a birthday, and this year (March), Gretchen got me a new camera! This is a ZWO ASI120MC, which is a relatively inexpensive, but favorably reviewed color imaging camera. Its replacing my Orion StarShoot Solar System IV camera because Orion hasn't kept up with the software drivers for MacOSX. Oh well...the ZWO has higher resolution anyway.

Initial use simply reveals my level of incompetence, so I have no news about all of the cool pictures I took.

However, it's a nice package and comes with a fish-eye lens, and a thread on the backside so you can mount it to a normal camera tripod and take sky-wide photos. I *did* have some success with the camera with this fish-eye lens, so stay tuned...

The only imaging software I had was what came with the StarShoot (since it was the only imaging software that supported the silly thing), so I've tried out AstroImager by CloudMakers (out of Europe). It seems to do everything, so there are loads of options to fiddle with. I got the basics figured out, so I should be able to try out the whole-sky thing pretty easily. The only puzzling thing is that it spits out FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) images (.fits) which NASA and ESA use, so its popular with researchers, but not so popular with common applications. However, being a geek is handy...

Enter ImageMagick, which apparently does everything in nearly any format--over 200. The convert command is what does the magic, but in converting the .fips image, it splits the RGB pieces into separate files, which you can then use convert to reassemble them into a .jpg or whatever you like. Yes, its a command line program, so scripting will likely be enter in at some point. But here's the 2 commands to do the conversion:

convert LR_Original.fit LR001.jpg

convert -combine LR001-0.jpg LR001-1.jpg LR001-2.jpg -rotate 180 -flop LR_Original.jpg

and if you want a movie out of a bunch of them:

convert -quality 100 LR001-*.jpg LR_Movie.mpeg

Over the next few weeks, I'll be diving into this thing a bit more, so stay tuned!

UPDATE: Yesterday, I spent 4 hours watching the Sun trying to get the ZMO (aka "Zimo") working. Had some successes, but overall a failure. In the evening, I found out that my exposure times are still about 10x to 100x higher than they should be. The oaCapture program doesn't go down low enough, and I have to type in the values manually in AstroImager to get below 1ms exposure time. It looks like it's going to be .1ms or lower! I had no idea just how sensitive this camera is, nor how fast the exposure times can be (64 MICRO-seconds is minimum)!

Cassini, Curiosity and Golf Courses

2013-11-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

There's a link below to a Wired article about the Cassini and Curiosity missions and the budget woes they face. Its a good read.

Cassini is the space probe orbiting Saturn, and it has fuel to take it into 2017, but NASA's budget troubles might axe it and possibly the Curiosity Mars rover as well.

The cost to keep both running is about $110 million. This is what the Defense Department has spent researching 3D-printing, or, less than half of what DoD spends on maintaining its golf courses"!!! They've already spent billions getting Cassini and Curiosity into space and on-mission, but they're willing to throw it out for the cost of 3D printing and golf courses. Its insane.

The article outlines some of the really cool stuff that's going to be possible for Cassini to witness in the next few years that we won't be able to see for another 30 years.

I think DoD could cut a few bux here and there to pay to continue these 2 missions (or a little more and keep ALL of NASA on-track).

Its time to give Congress a collective dope-slap and tell them not to throw away the billions they've already wisely spent on these awe-inspiring missions.

Write, email or visit your representative or Senator and tell them to pick Science over Golf-courses and guns!

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/end-of-cassini-science/

Naked Eye Fun Tonight!

2013-05-26T20:38:00.001-07:00

If you haven't heard it at the office cooler yet, this weekend was one of 2013's assorted "Supermoons". The Moon is at perigee with Earth--the closest that it gets--and during a full moon, the sight is spectacular.

Earthsky.org has a wonderful chart that I've linked in below that compares what you'll see this weekend (and again on June 23) compared to this past March. The sight is just a tad larger than usual.

The whole Earthsky.org page on this topic is at:

http://earthsky.org/space/your-best-photos-may-2013-supermoon

I took some pictures with my iPhone, but frankly, the clouds made the Moon appear as a fuzzy dot--similar to some of the fuzzy-dot pictures at earthsky.org.

Apologies for not posting for 11 months...its been a roller coaster of life since September and only now is starting to level out at normal levels. The summer is still young...

Solar Flare from Region 1513

2012-07-02T07:25:00.003-07:00

I'm on the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center's Space Weather Outlook mailing list, and the following notice came down this morning (its a repeat, as it turns out), and I checked it out:

Official Space Weather Advisory issued by NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center

Boulder, Colorado, USA

SPACE WEATHER ADVISORY OUTLOOK #12-31

2012 July 2 at 7:30 a.m. MDT (2012 July 2 1330 UTC)

**** SPACE WEATHER OUTLOOK ****

Summary For June 25-July 1

Category R1 (minor) radio blackouts occurred from 28 June through 01 July due to flare activity from active sunspot Region 1513.

Outlook For July 2-8

Category R1 (minor) radio blackouts are expected through 08 July.

Data used to provide space weather services are contributed by NOAA,

USAF, NASA, NSF, USGS, the International Space Environment Services

and other observatories, universities, and institutions. More

information is available at SWPC's Web site http://swpc.noaa.gov

I looked around, and found where "Region 1513" was, and from this website,

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2012/06/30/sunspot-1513-generated-m1-0-solar-flare/

...I found that 1513 was one of the 2 sunspot regions I'd photographed this past weekend! Here's an annotated pic from my viewing session on Saturday, June 30, 2012. The photo was taken at 3:31pm in the afternoon:

Its been kinda cool this morning "connecting the dots", finding out that what I'd viewed was making the rounds at NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center!

What's even more fun is that on our Friday commute and on Saturday morning on our trip up north, we noticed that our favorite radio station was getting uncharacteristically bad reception...due to the advisories I'd gotten as far back as June 26! So, frankly, NOAA knew that we'd have bad reception as far back as last Thursday, around 6pm.

Pretty cool.

Stay tuned...I'll have more sunspot and moon pictures from this weekend as I sort through them...I spent from about 11am to midnight watching stuff through my scope, so I have about 80 images and video clips to get through.

Our Closest Star

2012-05-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

The Sun: Our Closest Star

All astronomy nuts like to look at the stars, planets and the plethora of visible (and barely visible!) objects in the sky. Usually, this is at night, because you can't see much during the day given the dimness of the objects the the poor contrast that daylight brings. But one of the joys of the hobby is looking in our own backyard at our star, the Sun! Lots of folks seem to forget about it, because it takes different techniques and equipment to see the sun (not alot, really).

The picture at the left is somewhat special and a little misleading. It is taken with a Hydrogen-Alpha (H-Alpha) filter that allows only a very narrow bandwidth of light (656.28 nm) through the telescope, that ordinarily hard for us to pick out due to the abundance of ordinary visible light. In a nutshell, it does allow us then to see the Sun as it really is, complete with all of the fiery-looking effects. H-Alpha filters tend to be expensive, but these days, for about $600 you can buy a small 60mm telescope (Meade's Coronado PST) that ONLY does H-alpha. Ok...I haven't gone there yet, but its on the list.

What you can get very inexpensively ($30-$50 depending on size), is a regular solar filter that lets alot more types of light through, but still allows you to see the Sun and its features, but none of the rumbly detail or the flares. What's left!? Sunspots!

1st Sunspot, taken on April 2

Sunspots are areas of the sun where there is heightened magnetic activity, which precludes the normal convection processes to occur, which produces a relative cool spot on the surface of the sun. "Cool" meaning 3000-4500 degrees as opposed to normal temps which are around 5780 degrees.

NexStar 8SE
with Baader Film solar filter

With my 8" scope with a Baader film solar filter ($30), the images of the Sun appear in "black and white", while some other filters yield a yellow or orange tint. Doesn't really matter, since its all basically 2 color anyway. The "black & white" images on this page were all taken with my scope and the $100 camera.

So what are we lookin' for in these things?

First, you have the dark center, which even in H-alpha filters will appear dark black. If viewing is clear (rare during the daytime, due to heat convection on Earth), you can see some rod-like structures that are all aligned spirally out from the black center. As you move out, the temps increase, giving you a very light colored boundary region around the black and grey spot. This boundary can often extend to smaller spots nearby, as in the photo above.

2nd Sunspot, taken April 3

Second, if you watch these things long enough, you'll notice that they move across the face of the Sun. I spent the afternoon watching one a couple of years ago, and it moved about 1/3 of the way across the face of the Sun...pretty cool! The Sun actually has a rotation period as well, so some of the movement was due to the Sun's rotation and some was due to the migration of the spot. The picture to the left is pretty clear and makes it easier to see these boundary areas.

The two pictures here were taken on the same weekend, but show two different spots, which you can make out pretty easily, since the first one has some secondary activity above the primary spot. These pictures were also a little trickier to capture, because the contrast is tough to get right. To get the details, I was messin' with exposure times and gamma correction. Still pics were producing the best results...stacking only fuzzed everything up.

Eventually, it'd be fun to pick up a Coronado or SolarMax telescope...H-alpha just looks too cool to ignore! But its got me more convinced than ever, that astronomy is a gadget-maker's dream...there's always something nifty to discover. Just look at NASA...even with a whiz-bang gadget like the Hubble Space Telescope, it still wasn't enough!

Hooked on Saturn

2012-04-24T07:16:00.003-07:00

The Ringed Beauty from almost 34 million miles away
(Courtesy of NASA Voyager 2, July 21, 1981)

I mentioned in my Telescopes, Part I post that Saturn was a "hook" that got me into the hobby. The images we started getting from Voyager 1 and 2 in the 1980's ensured that this ringed beauty has a special place in our hearts, and seeing it live took things to a whole new level. With the Cassini mission, we were again treated with even more detail and cool facts about the 2nd largest planet in our solar system. Hit the NASA Cassini site for lots of that stuff; its well worth your time. :)

And, no. I did NOT take the image on the left. Millions of NASA research, development and operational dollars went into that camera and its, uh, "portable" mount...a quirky gadget called Voyager 2.

With each telescope, one of my primary goals was to get better glimpses of my favorite object in the sky, and with the purchase of the Orion StarShoot Solar System IV camera (aka "StarShoot"), you better believe it was at the top of my list.

Saturn through an iPhone 4,
no mount

The attempts to capture Saturn through digi-scoping with my iPhone (even with a mount) produced only modest results, since an iPhone isn't really optimized for low-light photography. But, it was exciting to see what was possible with even a modest camera and a steady hand.

I just knew there were better images to be gotten...my eyeball was picking up pretty good detail; it was just a matter of convincing the cameras to see what I was seeing. As it turns out, they're rather stubborn, pesky devices that need a soft touch, and a bunch of post-processing.

Saturn with the
iPhone 4 with a mount

Mounting the iPhone 4 with Orion's SteadyPix mount helped alot, but it didn't entirely solve the problem, as you can see (left). After a positively maddening experience in aligning the thing, I can't especially recommend it, but it do the job. Things are still pretty fuzzy and difficult to make out any colors or ring detail, but at least there wasn't any more Jeff-jiggle in the photos. For an iPhone mount, I think the AstroClip looks much easier to use, but it didn't get funded. :(

First shot with the StarShoot

After getting the StarShoot first hooked up on the telescope, it was agonizing to have to wait for about an hour before Saturn was visible, but once it did, I was on it like bees on honey. The pic to the right is the first pic I got with the camera. This first still-shot of Saturn with the StarShoot left me completely jaw-dropped. As you can see, there was detail that I never imaged I could get with my modest telescope and camera setup. Not bad for a first shot!

You might notice that the images are tilted in different directions...this is mostly due to artificial flipping using software. Images in the eyepiece are already upside-down (all telescopes do this), but the StarShoot seems to invert them left-to-right as well. Astrophotographers don't give much thought about orientation, since the detail in the images is mostly what they're after. Gives me headaches to think about it, so I leave them.

Since my results were initially so good, and I knew that post-processing and stacking were bound to sharpen things up and bring out the subtle colors, I immediately (and I do mean immediately) took a couple of movie sequences of Saturn that night, one of which turned out to be suitable for processing.

First stacked image of Saturn
using 119 frames of video

This is the result of my first go at the stacking and processing software with my movie of Saturn. WOW! was the only thing that came to mind. As it turned out, because I was a bit reluctant to play around with the post-processing filters a whole lot, I don't think they actually did anything to the image. But, the process of stacking it and adjusting a few settings produced an image that was on the edge of seeing some decent detail. I was pleasantly surprised to see the cloud bands come through so nicely.

I also noticed a blue-ish hue that appeared during the stacking process. I found out that this is a common phenomenon with CCD cameras, that can be corrected by keeping the CCD chip very cold. A quick look at any telescope catalog at the high-end cameras and they all have coolers and heat sinks to keep that CCD extra cool. Astonishingly, the $100 StarShoot skipped this feature! ;)

Saturn after a few more hours of
post-processing on that original movie

I knew I was onto something, though, so over Easter weekend, when the clouds rolled in and cut me off from viewing, I took to the computer and messed a bit with that movie, chose only the best frames to use in my stack, and played with the post-processing sharpening filters a bit more, and came up with the image at the right. Quite a bit sharper, revealing better detail and even a bit of evidence of the Cassini division in the rings (the upper left corner of the image on the rings show this). I tinkered with it for quite a while and this is the best it got.

Moving Ahead... The blue was exaggerated by the filters, so my next step will be to mess with the last of the filtering techniques, but its going to take some reading-up on the topic to figure out what would do the job. My gut reaction would be to use some filters on the camera itself to not let those wavelengths onto the CCD chip in the first place...more reading, though, since I don't know which filters will be most effective at eliminating that blue. Gah!

One thing is for sure...that little $100 StarShoot camera has already been well worth the money I paid for it in the enjoyment its brought me, and hopefully to the growing cadre of Orange Can readers.

And on that note, Thank You for reading...the numbers increase every day, which is very gratifying to me.

The Glamorous Side of Astronomy

2012-04-18T06:55:00.002-07:00

Me and the Orange Can on April 6, Friday night,
just minutes after arriving!

There's a flip-side to all of the pretty pictures, viewing and awesome sights that you get to enjoy in this hobby. That flip-side is called "setup". This entails finding a good viewing site that has as few obstructions as possible, hauling all of your gear out to that little patch of nirvana, and then unpacking all of the tiny pieces. Usually, this is all in the dark, since you don't really know the sky and viewing conditions until you get some sky to judge.

These pictures are all of me just before I got everything setup and running on April 6...the Friday before Easter (2012). My gear: Scope, Tripod, battery pack, dew shield (the large black thing on the end of the scope), scope case, cool adjustable stool, computer, and small table to put computer on. Minus the computer and small table, this is my normal setup.

That night, we'd travelled about 2 hours to get to my father-in-law's place, and I still had some light to try to get some solar viewing worked in, so I unloaded the car and immediately got to work setting up. I found out the previous weekend, that the computer's battery life is cut significantly when its cold out and you're running a camera and taking pictures without interruption. So in addition to the rest, I ran an extension cord from the house to run the computer.

Just getting setup. There was plenty to do in short order to
get some solar viewing in before sunset (about 20 minutes earlier
due to the barn roof).

Getting the computer to remember it has a camera attached.
It doesn't seem to matter, Mac or Windows, USB hardware is
a little finicky, but once its setup, you're good to go!

Solar viewing has its advantages, as you get to setup while its light out, so that a red LED flashlight isn't your only source of light and you actually have a fighting chance of finding any pieces-parts you dropped.

Oh yeah, and if its not July, you're doing this with all of your cold-weather stuff on: prepare to sweat just before you go into the deep freeze. It was about 50F degrees outside when I was setting up--that is way too warm with the gear I had on. It only got down to about 45F that night, but when you spend 3-4 hours doing what I'm doing in the last picture, you lose alot of body heat. I have a Carhardt Black jacket, snow pants, Gortex-lined boots and my rabbit-fur dork-hat. Its not glamorous, so laugh if you must, but wearing a hat keeps alot of body heat right where it belongs. And remember, it only got down to about 45F...my father-in-law only made it about 20 minutes before he was frozen and headed inside.

That night I got some Moon shots since it was a full moon, some completely useless light-blobs called Mars and Jupiter, and some yellow-filtered movies of Venus, that with an optimistic eye you might see some clouds. I'm mostly finished processing these, so they'll appear soon.

New Toy: the SkyShoot Camera & the Moon

2012-04-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

First image with the SkyShoot IV: The Moon

I've been seein' all of this fantastic stuff over the years, and the only way to share it with others, is to bring my rig over (or have them come over when I'm viewing) and have them peer through the eyepiece. Wouldn't it be nice to take a few snapshots of what I'm seeing, just to give others a glimpse of what I've seen?

Turns out that "just a snapshot" in terms of astrophotography is a pricey proposition...cameras that'll capture bright and dark sky objects start at $500 for a cheap one and go up into the thousands, when you figure in the gear needed to do them justice. Luckily, I spotted at least a partial solution...

Just after Christmas, I used up a gift card and purchased an Orion SkyShoot Color Solar System IV camera. The "solar system" part is the key phrase here, as it implies that its good for bright images only. Did I mention that after the gift card, my cost was only $56? It was a total plus that this particular camera came with MacOSX drivers and software in addition to the usual Windows compliment of software.

On April 2, the moon was full and seriously bright, the skies were clear and pristinely not-turbulent, so it was nearly a perfect night to go trying out the new equipment. I'd spent some time earlier making sure the software and camera were going to work, so I didn't waste time outside in the cold.

The picture above is the very first astro-picture I've taken with the cam, and it turned out surprisingly clear and crisp--much more than I expected for a $100 camera. That picture was taken as a single frame; a "snapshot" if you will. Snapshots are alot easier if you're taking pictures of kids and birthdays...the focusing of the telescope alone will drive you batty. The telescope itself absolutely cannot be nudged, touched, blown or hardly breathed on to stay still, so focusing (i.e. touching and turning that little knob on the back of the scope) sends the camera into a convulsive jiggle that takes 5-10 seconds to go away.

Oh yeah...positioning...the high apparent magnification (more on that later) gives me the equivalent of a 7.5mm eyepiece view of what I'm looking at...very small, so when using the camera, the quality of your mount, tracking motor and I suppose even the software, really shine through. The NexStar line, as lovable as it is, is definitely on the low-end of the scale, and some of it shines through when doing photography--just like the experts all say.

"So what?!" you say...well, after taking about a dozen pictures after that one above, I'd say that I got lucky...I didn't even save the others. The solution to the wiggles and tracking problem is to take a video of the area I want to image.

Video?! I'm not making a motion picture, I just want to see the moon!??

The best way to get sharp pictures is to use a technique called stacking to lay "good" images on-top of each other, and let the computer align each image so that the details are enhanced and the bad stuff goes away. The camera came with a version of the Lynkeos package for MacOSX (free!) that does all of that stuff, and post-processing (sharpening, color editing, etc). Windows folks will be using RegiStax (also free).

The Moon after stacking and post-processing with Lynkeos

After taking a 30-second video, of about 120 frames, then tossing out bad images and stacking them together, I got the picture here at the right. Its my favorite to date, as its super-clear; much better than any of the original images that it was derived from. The software asks for a square area to use as a reference for detail alignment and I used the crater that was nearing the shadows.

After I got great images of the Moon, I was so pleased, I took some images of Mars and Saturn. Let's just skip the topic of Mars altogether right now...they looked like images of a bright blob. A later 2nd try haven't done justice yet. Saturn, however, is my "hook" into amateur astronomy, and the image blew me away--but mostly after processing. Its good enough, that I want to devote an entire posting to what I caught.

Next installment...SATURN!!!

First Light (August 18, 2010)

2012-04-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

Comments from August 19, 2010...

First, thanks to all of you for putting up with my endless repetitions about this telescope stuff...

Tonight was a beautiful night to take the new Celestron NexStar 8SE ("the 8") for its first night of viewing. I'd prepped by looking through this month's Sky & Telescope for all of the highlights, scoured the included star map for anything interesting, and included my old favorites, Saturn, Jupiter and the two elusives, Uranus & Neptune. I came up with a list of stuff I wanted to see about 20 items long. I didn't see all of them, mostly due to obstructions like trees and houses. Saturn dipped below the house lines before I could get to it. Tonight was a TOTAL success, seeing some stuff in Ypsi that I never thought I'd see here, all with the new scope. In short, it came through with flying colors, meeting or exceeding all of my expectations. The 8 delivers all of the seeing power I liked in my 8" Newtonian scope, but with all of the computerized tracking and GOTO capability of my NexStar 4, as well as being totally portable and MUCH lighter than the 12" Meade I sold. The one item that I still need is a dew shield that fits it, but Riders sounds like they're going to get me the right one for my scope.

In any case, I had a ball playing with my new toy and putting down 3 full pages in my astronomy logbook. Here's the list of stuff I saw (in order):

10pm - First Light 8/18/2010

M57 - The Ring Nebula (never before in Ypsi)

M56

M51 - blocked by trees

M81/M82 - too much light pollution in the northern sky

M57 - again, but with a Lumicon Deep Sky (LDS) filter

M13 - The Hercules Cluster - obscured by a tree

M92 - did not find (DNF)

M8 - the Lagoon Nebula - first time ever, better contrast with the LDS

M6/M7 - obscured by houses

M20 - Trifid Nebula - Did not find (DNF)

M17 - Omega Nebula - first time ever

M16 - Eagle Nebula - DNF

Jupiter

Uranus - first time ever

Neptune? - I had 2 possibles in my view, but I'm pretty sure (80%) that one of them was Neptune.

M31 - The Great Andromeda Galaxy

M32 - M31's companion, but this might also have been M110...I'm not real sure

M11 - star cluster (pretty!)

M16, M21, M23, M25 - loose clusters...very pretty

M17 - some kind of dim nebula...need to find out more about it. with LDS, was much clearer

Packup at 12:50am, 10 minutes total.

Now, it should be noted that this is nearly double of ALL of what I have written down [previously], so to say this was a productive night is a total understatement.

Anyway...I'm zonked and excited at the same time.

Thanks to my father in law, Tom, for pointing out the obvious with that 12" Meade and helping to set me on a path to the NexStar 8se...best trade-down I've ever done!

Night all!

Telescope History (Part 3)

2012-04-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

We left off previously with my outdoorsman father-in-law, Tom, giving some sage advice to sell both the NexStar 4 and the Beast and get a larger version of the NexStar.

The Orange Can

Chapter Five: The Orange Can

DING!! No truer words have been spoken. Tom's advice was spot-on, and after doing a bit of price checking for the NexStar 8SE, and the accessories needed for observing, as well as checking around for what used 12" Meade LX-200's were going for it looked like this would work out just fine. I did some posting to Astromart, an astronomy-specific web market, and eventually found a buyer who had owned a 10" version of the Beast and was looking for something a pinch bigger for his home observatory. The price was set to cover the cost of the new equipment and the rest is history.

In a nutshell, the NexStar 8SE is the scope I needed that fit my needs. It has a great mix of portability, aperture and ease of use. Just like the NexStar 4, I can have it unpacked, setup and ready to align in a

Celestron hard case

few minutes. The accessories I bought as "essential" were an Astrozap dew shield to keep the dew from landing on my objective lens (the big one out front), a Baader-film solar filter (lightweight and inexpensive at $30) and a hard case for the scope, so I could throw it into my car trunk without damage. The case was a super-nice Celestron-rebranded Pelican case, with rubber O-ring seals to keep it moisture-free, and pressure release valves for when you fly with it and cargo depressurization occurs.

The newer SE software has a number of ways to align the telescope for viewing (so did the NexStar 4) with 3 new options: "SkyAlign" which uses any 3 bright objects to align on, a two-star and a single-object alignment. Frankly, if you want accurate tracking the SkyAlign 3-object alignment is the only realistic option. Unlike the older software, which let you pick among a library of stars, the new SE software lets you pick the 3 brightest objects you can see from your site to align on. This was a key difference, because often, alignment was difficult on the 4 because one of the bright stars might be behind a house in our sub, or one of the trees, forcing you to pick another star. The SkyAlign alignment lets the scope deal with the realities of your environment.

First Light for the Orange Can was August 19, 2010 on my driveway apron in Ypsilanti, MI.

I keep a log book of all of the stuff I see in a viewing session, and to my surprise, I saw more stuff that first night--including dark-sky objects I didn't expect to see at all from my relatively bright site--than I'd seen in the past 2.5 years with the Beast! Later that Fall, I trained the Orange Can at Uranus and Neptune, 2 very distant, very dim planets that I've been looking to view for about 10 years. Found 'em and verified a month later!

I've had the 8SE for about 20 months now, and it is positively the best telescope for my situation I can select. I've learned since that it has limitations, but the overall package fits my needs very well. Its delivered on portability, ease of setup and ease of use as well as having the aperture I needed to see some of the stuff I want to see. Are the tracking motors as accurate or smooth as they could be? No. Would a 10" or 12" aperture get me clearer zoomed shots? Absolutely!

So yeah, Tom was spot-on.

Telescope History (Part 2)

2012-04-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

We left off previously with the Sewer Pipe, and not being any good at finding my way around the sky or collimating a Newtonian reflector telescope. And yes, the Sewer Pipe has some logistical challenges to overcome (its cumbersome to haul around).

Chapter Three: NexStar 4

Because I'm basically bad at memorizing stuff, and I'm a computer nerd in my professional life, it seemed to me that the new computerized "Goto" telescopes were something that I'd need to own. The Sewer Pipe was really good at collecting light, but in Ypsilanti, Michigan, its highly light-polluted, and I'd read that by downsizing to a smaller aperture, you could get better contrast (this theory is incorrect...more light is always going to yield better images). Portability was lacking in the Sewer Pipe as well, which was hampering my viewing. Around the year 2000 or so, there were basically 2 affordable Goto solutions: the Meade ETX-90 and the Celestron NexStar 4. The Celestron was the late-comer, as Meade had pioneered the Goto scope, but Celestron had engineered a single-arm design and had their own version of the handset software, and sweetened the deal by offering a 4" model (102mm), besting the aperture of the established Meade ETX-90 by 12mm. For $499 it was right for me. You can still get the latest version of this scope from Celestron, the NexStar 4SE.

The NexStar 4 was a wonderful combination of portability, ease of use, and aperture. The JMI case I bought for it was about the size of a small suitcase, and would fit in a corner of anyone's trunk. This was a great instrument, because I could throw it in my trunk when we went "up north" to my father-in-law's place, or just get it out on a whim. The Goto feature was fabulous: just punch a button and the little guy would find what you wanted to see and leave you alone to gawk at the wonders in the sky. When in darker skies, you really could pick up quite a bit, although the aperture limited how much magnification you could accomplish. This is where I learned that the contrast theory was wrong-wrong-wrong...as much as I wanted it to, the 4 just wasn't gathering enough light.

My little friend is now enjoying dark skies in rural central Florida.

Chapter Four: The Beast

When a friend is moving to Bristol in the UK and asks you "Hey, do you want my telescope?", who would say No? He was positive his scope wouldn't make the trip intact, so he wanted to find a good home for it. I knew something was up when he kept asking me about the size of my car (then, a 1990 Chevy Lumina sedan). When I arrived at his apartment, it was then clear why...

I was generously given a Meade LX-200 12" telescope, with a field tripod. Thank You, Trevor--it was a fabulous gift. The scope tube and fork assembly was a mere 75lbs. and the tripod, with legs about 3" wide, weighed just over 50lbs. This is without any accessories or battery packs. In a 2005 Chevy Impala, the gear fills the trunk--a trunk any Mafia hitman would find downright handy. The scope comes with Meade's computerized handset, and a micro-focuser for getting really fine control over the focus on the scope. With machined aluminum everywhere, it was a really fine instrument. If one were to buy a similar scope today, it would run around $4500. Wow. Thank You, Trevor.

The scope was devilishly complex to use, however. Each of the menus in the handset were seemingly designed by a different group, so that the end user of the handset (i.e. Me), found it inconsistent and difficult to get used to. I likened the Meade vs. Celestron software to the Windows-MacOSX comparison: they both get the job done, but the design and attention to detail differ dramatically.

The views, once I figured out how to use the Beast, were definitely a step up. Jupiter's cloud bands developed contrast and color that the NexStar 4 couldn't touch. I found nebulas and star clusters that I'd only dreamed of finding in the NexStar. The Ring Nebula nearly bonked me on the head one night!

However, one July 4 weekend a couple years ago, I'd struggled with the Beast for over 2 hours and accomplished little more than some blurry views of Jupiter. The following day, after considerable grumbling, I noticed that sunspots were back, so I jumped up and got the NexStar 4 up and gawkin' at the Sun (with a solar filter, of course!), in about 10 minutes. My outdoorsman father-in-law observed my routine and gave some pretty sage advice: "Jeff, you gotta sell both of those and get a bigger version of the little guy." He'd noticed that I knew the Celestron setup and software procedures cold, and was comfortable with it, while also recognizing I was struggling with the Beast, both physically and in using it.

The Beast now enjoys dark skies in Ottawa Lake, Michigan where he has a comfy astro-shed with a perch and a removable roof for nighttime adventures. He replaced a 10" Meade LX model.

Next... The Orange Can...

Telescope History (Part 1)

2012-04-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

To understand where I am now, its helpful to know where I've been...the long (and apparently, very verbose) path.

Chapter One: 60mm Hook

My first telescope was an anniversary present from my wife, Gretchen, a smallish 60mm "department store" refractor telescope with 0.96" eyepieces that were really only good for looking at bright stuff in the sky--the Moon, Jupiter and the "hook", Saturn. I figured out quickly enough, through magazines and my own eyeball, that upgrading to something bigger was in my future. Gretchen got me set down this path, though, so I do have to give credit to her for her support.

The Sewer Pipe

Chapter Two: The Sewer Pipe

Our plot thickens, after a couple of months of pricing, feature comparison and decisions on which way to go: aperture (the size of the main opening) or keeping the size to a minimum (I would have to haul this thing around after all!). Aperture won out, and given the Dobsonian mount (aka. human powered tracking), it gave me the most bang for the buck. Ryder's Hobby Shop in town has a policy of matching your best Internet price ($499 at the time), so I ordered a Celestron 8" StarHopper through them to keep some business local. It arrived, and it barely fit in my '94 Mercury Tracer...we had to unbox it in the parking lot to get it between the doors. Upon bringing it home and setting it down in the living room, Gretchen was astonished that'd I'd purchased "a piece of sewer pipe", and thus it became its name, The Sewer Pipe.

I might note that this particular implementation of an 8" Newtonian telescope was designed carefully to overcome 2 problems: 1) getting the mirror cooled to surrounding temps quickly and 2) "sticky" air that lingers on the insides of the tube and interferes with your viewing. Problem #1 was solved by mounting the mirror on a 3-vein cast-aluminum spider, so that lots of air flows around the mirror. Problem #2 was solved by using a 10" tube instead of an 8" tube so that 1" of free space exists around the tube--outside of the viewing area--so that sticky air won't interfere with your viewing. Celestron solved both of these problems brilliantly and effectively. So good in fact, that it was expensive to produce and they don't make this model any more. New "StarHopper" telescopes are basically Celestron-branded asian-made imports...I'm sure the views are about the same, but these new scopes don't have the old StarHopper's unique features. Yeah, I really love this telescope, and still own it.

This telescope was very well thought-out and produced some very good views--the Newtonian design is simple and interfere's the least with your viewing, so they're also very light-efficient, ensuring that as much light as possible is reaching your eyeball. Telescopes are essentially "light buckets", which is why aperture is so central: the bigger the bucket, the more light you collect. Because Newtonians are so simple, they need periodic re-alignment (called "collimation") to get you the best views. Some folks are good at this; I am not.

The Dobsonian mount is very simple, too, but requires you to really know your way around the sky. Some folks are good at this; I am not.

Next... the NexStar 4...

Welcome to the Orange Can Astronomy Blog!

2012-04-11T22:02:00.001-07:00

I'm your host, Jeff Kopmanis, and I'm the proud owner of the Celestron NexStar 8SE you see pictured here. Its an 8" Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope with motorized tracking and one of the new "Goto" computers in the handset. You can get one today for about $1200, about the same as I did a couple of years ago. All of Celestron's equipment has distinctive orange logos, paint or both, so it seemed reasonable to name this blog after my favorite Orange Can.

What for you dork!?

I'm glad you asked! I plan on sharing my adventures with this orange wonder, complete with as many pictures and insightful commentary as I can muster (or that you all will put up with without closing your browser window!). I started this adventure with a simple email list of a few friends and relatives that wanted to know what I was looking at during the nights (and days!) I have the scope setup. Well, today, the list is getting alot larger than it started out, and they've begun to take notice at work and feature me on the department web page, so it seems its time to start using something a little more sophisticated than an email list.

I'm going to start out by reposting some of the early emails (and pictures!), so stay tuned and enjoy the ride--I know I have!

-Jeff. :)