A New addition to the Family

This week saw a new addition to my family, ......my telescope family that is. After long deliberations and an approval from the family CFO, I placed an order for a Celestron CPC800.

I say, long deliberations because the decision to purchase a new observational instrument is never an easy one for me. For those that know me, they know that I do not like parting with my green backs very easily, and a scope like this requires more than a few green backs. By far this is the most that I have ever laid out for my "hobby."

So how did I arrive at the CPC800 you ask? Well, it has been a long journey, let me tell you about it. As you may know, my main observing instrument for the past year has been a 10" f4.9 reflector on a Dobson mount. This was a step up from my 8" dob reflector that I had used for many years.  The increase in aperture was fantastic and really allowed me to go deeper than I had ever done with the 8". However, along with the extra aperture comes additional weight. I hate to admit it, but the weight issue starts to become more important as one ages and especially when you have to transport and set up the scope at remote sites. My back just ain't as good as it once was, even then it wasn't that great.

The solid tube reflector tube had a weight of about 40 lbs. Anything more than this is really pushing it, especially when handing a precision instrument. It ain't no bag of cement, you know! So weight and portability were high on the list.

The second consideration was the GOTO capability. Now for a long time I have been a strong advocate  of star hopping. You know, using a star chart to "hop" your way from one object to another. Well, ever since fitting my 10" dob with manual degree circles and utilizing a real time planetarium program, I have felt the ever-increasing pull towards the GOTO revolution. I say revolution, but in reality, these computerized GOTO scopes have been available since the 80's, I am just a wee bit behind the times I guess.

GOTO does two things, first it allows the location of faint objects to be like falling off a log once the scope has been properly aligned. Secondly, it keeps the object in the field of view, allowing the possibility of astro-photography at some point down the road.

So, the criteria was a GOTO scope who's components individually weighed not much more than 40 lbs. There were a few candidates, but I settled on the Celestron CPC800. The 8" aperture was driven by the weight consideration as the next size up, the 9.25" weighed in at 64 lbs! The 8 inch was 42 lbs which I thought I could live with.

Reviews of the CPC family on Cloudy Nights forums were generally positive. This is a scope that has been around for a while and Celestron has hopefully had adequate time to work out any bugs in the mechanics and software that drives the scope. I am not one of those that goes out buys the latest and greatest of anything. I prefer to go to school on other's experiences.

The deal closer on the Celestron was finally the sale that the company was running. It was not a huge sale, but it was enough to make me pull the trigger sooner rather than later.

So, there you have it, my reasoning for the new family addition. The subject of my next blog will be the first light impressions of the new family member, until then...clear skies.

rw

ESP- Part 2

It has been a week since I have been back from the Eldorado Star Party and the rigors of the job and the demands of the family have tried to crowd out the memories of that week under the skies of West Texas. 

One of the ways to combat this is to review and process my sketches from the week. The word "process" is a little misleading. The technique that I have developed for digitizing my sketches is rather simple. First, I scan the sketch using my Canon MP240 printer/scanner and save it to a .jpg file. I then open the file using a freeware program, GIMP. Gimp is a a nice little program that has many of the features of the pricier programs like Photoshop. Using Gimp, I crop and then invert the image to make it a white on black image. I then zoom in on each star and using the paint brush make sure the stars are rounded. Once this is done, I adjust the brightness and contrast of the image to ensure that the detail comes out. Lastly, I add text to the image. 

Below are some of my sketches from the star party. You can double click on the image to enlarge it.

NGC 7331 is a fine edge on galaxy in Pegasus. It was discovered by William Herschel  in 1784. It is relatively bright at 10.2 mag.  It is also relative close to Stephen's Quintet and can be used as a way-point when star hopping to the galaxy group. NGC7331 is also the center member of a grouping of galaxies called the "Deer Lick" I was unaware of this at the time of the sketch and so I did not look for them. Another reminder to research your objects be fore you observe them!

Comet Garradd is bright comet that has been taking a leisurely tour of our solar system. Th comet is currently in Hercules and is well placed for observing in the early evening.  It appears a fuzzy ball through the eyepiece with just a very faint tail trailing off to the west.

The Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, is one of the brightest and largest planetary nebula in the northern sky. We find it in Aquarius at 6.3 magnitude and nearly 16 arc minutes in diameter.  There have been some incredible color images taken of this object. Look it up on your browser and you will be amazed at the beauty of this object.

Also in Aquarius is the 6.2 mag globular cluster M2. This is a relatively compact globular with a mottled looking core. Individual stars are visible across its diameter. 

NGC288 is another globular, this time in Sculptor. It is less concentrated than M2 and appeared to me as having a larger diameter. It is bright at mag 8.2 and is only about 1 degree away from the bright galaxy NGC 253.

Clear skies;

rw

Pushing the limits at ESP'11

This past week I attended the Eldorado Star Party, held at the X-Bar Ranch near Eldorado Texas. This is an annual star party hosted by the Austin and San Antonio astronomy clubs.  This is my second time attending this event and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite star parties.

There are two real positives that this star party has. First, and foremost, the weather is almost always very good. I was able to observe four of the five nights I was there and with near perfect seeing and transparency. Second, the skies are really dark. There is a small light dome from Sonora in the south and Eldorado in the North-East, but neither is more than 20 degrees above the horizon. So dark skies and great weather make a perfect combination for a star party.

The party was well attended this year. I arrived on Monday and found a spot on the West side of the field. I set up beside some folks from the Central Texas Astronomical Society. These folks proved to be real friendly and I enjoyed their company throughout the week.

By Friday, I estimated that there were 175 people on the field. While the field seemed "full" it was not overly crowded.

Monday through Wednesday proved to be pretty good skies allowing me to log in excess of 20 objects a night, peaking at 26 objects on Wednesday night. Clouds finally rolled in after midnight on Thursday morning and with the clouds came a cold front. Temperatures went from the 70's to the 40's and cold weather gear was the order for the day. Thursday was spent  at the Ranch House avoiding the cold and catching up on my observation logs. Thursday night looked to be a washout and so I joined the others at the Ranch house to watch the Rangers give away the World Series to the Cardinals in Game Six.  Friday night proved to be the best of the lot, The cold front had moved out any moisture in the air and the skies were clear and crisp.  I logged another twenty plus objects on my Herschel 400 list. This was my last night at the party. By 10AM Saturday morning I was packed up and heading East down I-10 towards home.

So, why the title "Pushing the Limits?" Well, this year's observation list was entitled, "Peeling the Onion." The idea was that there was a list of lesser well known objects within close proximity to a very well known object. For example, M31, the Andromeda Galaxy was on the list as well as its companion galaxies M32 and M110. Easy right? Anyone that has a half-way reasonable telescope has seen these. Well how about NGC 206 or some of M31's globular clusters? Not so easy now. Some of these objects are listed at magnitude 14. Until now, I had never even attempted something that faint. This was going to "push the limits" of my scope.
Last year at ESP'10, my Zhumell 10" was brand spanking new and I was content with seeing how it performed on some easy-to-find galaxies. While the dark skies of this year's Texas Star Party would have provided an excellent opportunity to "go deep" and see what the scope could really do, the weather did not cooperate. So, this week I had the weather and the dark skies in my favor. If the 10" water heater was going to prove its worth, it was going to be this week. It did not disappoint me. Armed with a good star map, courtesy of Sky Tools, I went in search of M31's globulars. Boy these guys are faint, but I did see them with averted vision. Equally as tough was some of the star clouds in the Pinwheel galaxy. I got so carried away with looking for these guys that I ended up observing two or three additional ones that were not even on the list!

So, I muddled my way through the list and achieve my pin before the clouds rolled in on the Wednesday night. Objective 1 out of the way, but there was still the H400 list that I was working on and a series of Galaxy Clusters that I wanted to observe as this is one of the few sites dark enough that I would have a chance at.


One of the clusters that I have been wanting to observe is a chain of five galaxies in Pegasus that are known as Stephen's Quintet. I notice as I was observing NGC 7331 off of my H400 list, according to my star chart, Stephen's Quintet was about a degree to the North-East of this galaxy. So, I gave it a try. The first thing you notice when you spot these guys are their stellar-like cores. As you stare into the eyepiece and concentrate more, slowly the ghost-like halos start to emerge. They are still very faint, but noticeable. The two galaxies in the center NGC 7318A and 7318B are so close together that they appear as one single object. The fainest of the five is NGC 7317 which comes in at 14.6 magnitude!

By far, Stephen's Quintet was the best site of the week. The 10" Zhumell, "Zoe" has once again impressed me. Aperture rules!

Clear skies
rw