We hadn’t expected to be able to observe during this part of the summer from Chuckwalla Bench in the High Colorado desert south of Joshua Tree, but this August night’s forecast at Desert Center [...]]]>

These cumulus clouds were nearly stationary all evening, making quite the light show with an electrical storm

Observing report, August 7, 2010

Chuckwalla, CA

We hadn’t expected to be able to observe during this part of the summer from Chuckwalla Bench in the High Colorado desert south of Joshua Tree, but this August night’s forecast at Desert Center looked very inviting. The forecast high there was 101°F with a low of 74°F. I believe our actual location is at a higher altitude; it always seems at least a couple of degrees cooler.

It was forecast to be breezy though, and that can make it uncomfortable to observe as well as blow telescopes and tripods around. We did have some periods when the wind was a nuisance, but for the most part it was pleasant t-shirt and shorts weather all night long.

I caught this great lightning bolt from the distant electrical storm, with the camera on a small tripod and the bulb left open for a while.

We had crystal clear transparent skies overhead all night, with a great sugary Cygnus Milky Way transiting high overhead mid-evening, but there was an interesting weather phenomenon happening some number of miles north-northeast of us.

As the sun was setting, we had this great view of some towering cumulus clouds catching the sunset glow to the northeast. Over dinner I thought I saw a lightning flash in the clouds. As it turned out, throughout the evening all the way to 2:00 a.m. we were entertained by a sometimes massive electrical storm that seemed to be nearly stationary. I caught this one good lightning strike off in the distance. The full-res version is a crop from the center of a very large picture.

It was also to be a fun evening to see a planet grouping in the west, following the sun to the horizon. I caught this great shot of bright Venus, with Saturn to the upper right, and Mars to the left. To the far left is the bright star Spica. Click to see the great full-resolution picture. In binoculars, Mercury was also visible, but deep in the red sunset glow well out of the field of this picture. In a few days the crescent moon will join the trio for another good picture.

Bright Venus grouped with Mars (left above) and Saturn. Click for the full 4MB experience.

I did take a couple of interesting piggyback Milky Way pictures. My focus wasn’t perfect, and the white balance doesn’t seem quite right. They are mostly untouched except for some slight darkening of the blacks. They are both five-minute exposures on my stock Canon 20D. I think if this camera were modified to remove the deep red filter, the red hydrogen-alpha glow of the North America nebula would show more.

Cygnus Milky Way, north with bright Deneb to the lower left from center.

And here is a late-night shot of Cassiopeia.

Cassiopeia reclines in the summer Milky Way. The "double cluster" is visible near bottom center.

And of course I did some exposures through the Astro-Physics Traveler as well. Here is the Swan Nebula, M17, four ten-minute exposures, ST-4000XCM one-shot color camera. Click on each for the full-resolution image.

M17 also known as the Swan Nebula or Omega Nebula.

I knew that the Ring Nebula, M57, would be an almost silly target for a telescope with this wide field of view. It would appear as a tiny donut swimming in a field of Milky Way stars, just as it often does visually in a telescope. Of course that made it irresistable. Here is the full field:

There's the Ring Nebula, M57, just right of center.

And now as you can see in a crop at full resolution, it’s not a bad image at all. This is three ten-minute sub-exposures (30 minutes total).

Full-resolution crop from the wide field above, M57 the Ring Nebula.

Finally I wanted to get one of Jane’s (and my) favorite Cassiopeia star clusters, one discovered by Caroline Herschel, and known as the Magnificent Cluster, NGC7789. This scaled down version is not terribly impressive, but the full-res image is a treat to swim around in.

The Magnificent Cluster, NGC7789, in Cassiopeia

On a techy note, for the first time I started to have some issues with haze forming on the chip. Given the presence of those nearby cumulus, I guess I can’t always count on the desert air to be completely water-free.

Besides the great deep sky and planets, of course we also had lots of meteors from the forward edge of the Perseid meteor shower. Jane did some great counts, and I enjoyed some bright meteors while the shutters were open.

‘Til next time …

It was about 8:00 p.m. Saturday night. Jane and I were driving home from having just seen Salt in Pasadena. This beautiful moon was rising above the Foothill Freeway, with dark blue earth shadow just below it.

I realized in this one picture was [...]]]>

Almost-full moon rising over I-210 in Pasadena at 8:00 p.m., July 24, 2010.

It was about 8:00 p.m. Saturday night. Jane and I were driving home from having just seen Salt in Pasadena. This beautiful moon was rising above the Foothill Freeway, with dark blue earth shadow just below it.

I realized in this one picture was a whole astronomy lesson.

The first thing I realized is that this moon had to be several hours away from exactly full.

How did I know that? Notice that the moon is a few degrees above the line of the earth’s shadow. If you were to see the rising full moon at exactly the moment when the moon is directly opposite the sun in the sky (full moon) it should be directly on that line.

Upon checking with an ephemeris, the moon seen is actually 22-1/2 hours away from full. It will travel about 22 diameters before reaching that moment of exactly “full.” It certainly appears closer than 22 diameters, but two things are in effect: one is the slight motion blur making the moon appear bigger, and two is that it will move in a line that’s quite a diagonal in this photo.

The next thing I realized is that about one-half orbit ago (about 15 days), this moon was eclipsing the sun in a total eclipse. That means that now this moon must again be within a few degrees of crossing the ecliptic.

That puts this moon as close to directly opposite the sun as it can be, short of actually passing through the shadow of the earth (a lunar eclipse).

At the time Jane snapped this picture, the freeway had just turned from due east to a few degrees toward the south. That would match nicely with the sun having just set a few degrees to the north. Not as far north as last month, since we’re now about one month into summer.

All fun realizations from a simple beautiful full moon rising. The geometry of the solar system is right there in the sky to see.

Update: Jane wound up using most of my astrophotos below in her July NASA What’s Up podcast. Check it out!

The forecast was for a very temperate desert evening, so six of the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers headed off to the Colorado Desert to play outside all night. Seeing was [...]]]>

Mojo, Caroline, Jane, Catherine, Gary, and Todd

Update: Jane wound up using most of my astrophotos below in her July NASA What’s Up podcast. Check it out!

The forecast was for a very temperate desert evening, so six of the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers headed off to the Colorado Desert to play outside all night. Seeing was forecast poor, but actual conditions seemed much better.

Jane packed her 17.5-inch dob, and I loaded the Astro-Physics Traveler 102mm f/6 refractor to do some astrophotography. The highlight of the evening promised to be comet McNaught 2009R1, but it wouldn’t be available until the pre-dawn hours. That left me with late spring galaxies and summer Milky Way targets. (Jane also had a great target which she’ll be writing about!)

I tried the M84-M86 region of Virgo last month with the AP180, but the field of view was too narrow. I knew it’d be a good warm-up for tonight. The grey scale version looks better to me than the color rendition.

M84-M86 region in Virgo, "the Nine Gals"

Jane and I both love piggyback pictures, taken at “naked eye” scale. This is one of “the teapot” and the Sagittarius Milky Way. The full-size image isn’t bad, but it looks better scaled back a bit. Click for the really big version. It’s fun looking through all the dark nebulae and bright clusters.

Looking towards the center of our galaxy.

Deep in the Milky Way just above the spout of the teapot is Barnard’s famous “Ink Spot” dark nebula, B86.

Barnard 86 "The Ink Spot"

I started out trying to fit M8 “The Lagoon Nebula” in the same field as the nearby Trifid Nebula, but they wouldn’t quite fit. So I did 15 minutes just on M8, and love the result.

M8 The Lagoon Nebula and cluster

I love hunting for the Pipe Nebula, a huge dark nebula best seen in binoculars. Seeing the Pipe is a portent of great transparency and dark skies. The detail photo here is centered on the Pipe, taken piggyback with the 20D. Click for the full field, see if you can find the Pipe there.

Do you see the pipe outlined here? Click for the full field.

Ever since I started doing astrophotography, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to shoot M16 The Eagle Nebula. This nebula is famous for its Hubble Space Telescope image showing the embedded dark nebulae as stellar nurseries, the “Pillars of Creation.”

I only did one fifteen minute exposure. By then it was getting quite late, and I need to catch a couple hours of sleep before getting up to catch comet McNaught. Naturally that means I had an airplane fly through the image! Should I wipe it out with Photoshop? Naaaah.

M16 The Eagle Nebula and cluster. Plus United flight 2037. (Just kidding!)

Jane and I napped for a couple of hours, with alarms set to catch comet McNaught in the early hours

This image of McNaught is made from ten one-minute exposures. They’re stacked with the comet centered, so the background stars are streaked. It looks out of focus, but it’s actually just the motion of the comet you see.

Comet 2009R1 McNaught, ten one-minute exposures stacked and centered on the comet.

I also took my ten comet pictures and made a little animation that shows the motion of the comet against the background stars over the course of 15 minutes or so.

Comet McNaught moves against background stars over fifteen minutes. The sky is also brightening with dawn towards the end.

I was also taking piggyback images of the sky where McNaught was lurking. Can you find the little green dot near the center?

This is the "naked eye" view of the sky where Comet McNaught can be found. The horizon is tilted as an artifact of the way the mount holds the telescope and camera mounted piggyback. Click for the full scale version.

Here’s a little close up of the beautiful binocular cluster Collinder 39 in Perseus with the green dot of McNaught just to the right. The color was evident in binoculars even.

This is somewhat the view in a pair of binoculars of large open cluster Collinder 39. See the green dot of comet McNaught slightly up and right of center.

What a fabulous night of astronomy! Shirt sleeves or light jacket all evening.

Mojo setting up his "desert office" for some astrophotography

Equipment notes: The telescope shots were taken with an SBIG ST-4000XCM one-shot color CCD camera, at prime focus of an Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm f/6 refractor. The mount is an AP Mach 1 GTO on a wooden tripod. The piggyback photos were taken with an unmodified Canon 20D digital SLR camera.

Update: Be sure to see Jane’s A Ten Planet Night report from the same evening!

They both like going out on new moon weekends: astronomers to find faint fuzzies, and herpetologists to find nocturnal reptiles.

Last year in October, Jane met herpetologist Hanna Strauss at an event in Mojave National Preserve, and the two of them resolved to get together again [...]]]> Photos and video found here

What do herpetologists and astronomers have in common?

They both like going out on new moon weekends: astronomers to find faint fuzzies, and herpetologists to find nocturnal reptiles.

Last year in October, Jane met herpetologist Hanna Strauss at an event in Mojave National Preserve, and the two of them resolved to get together again on a new moon weekend. We did that this past weekend, the new moon weekend of April 2009.

Windy Friday Night

"Telescope Pad" and our tent set up Friday evening at Black Canyon Group Camp.

Jane and I departed Monrovia on Friday, April 24, just before noon, and were the first to arrive at Black Canyon Group Camp at about 4:00 p.m. The astronomy forecast for Friday was pretty bad; there was a persistent thin layer of clouds that made the sky a little more like Los Angeles sky than desert. We were able to coax out some fair views of Saturn and some of the bright double stars.

Jane went out “herping” with Hanna and came back to report finding several varieties of snakes on Black Canyon Rd.

The worst part of the evening was the wind. We knew it was coming; it was all over the forecasts. I was first to climb into my tent with the wind not being too bad, but around midnight, it really turned into a gale. Jane and I were warm and comfortable in our sleeping bag, and the tent was firmly staked down, but there was little sleep to be had that night!

We could hear the gusts approaching, echoing off the smooth canyon walls, sounding a little like an approaching jet. It went on ’til almost sunrise. The tent managed to hold up, but our old tent already had a front door zipper that would not close well, and our front door was soon hanging by a couple of zipper pulls. Fortunately the door was facing away from the wind.

The stakes held all night. I kept half-expecting the tent to rip apart, but it held. The wind would blow it almost horizontal onto our heads. A few equipment boxes lost their lids. Amazingly everything was recovered, and nothing seriously damaged — though we heard the next morning that our telescopes were blowing around like weather vanes.

Saturday Exploring

Aligning finders using yucca plants on the distant mountain ridge.

Big groups are difficult to keep to an early schedule, and the lizards won’t wait. We got everyone together for a walk across the road to Hole-in-the-Wall. We found several small lizards, and had fun crawling over the interesting formations. Several of the group took off to explore Mitchell Caverns, and Jane and I joined another group to drive through the park.

We stopped along the way at a dense joshua tree forest, at the Kelso Depot, and walked the Kelso Dunes trail. After visiting Baker for ice cream and gas, we drove back on paved roads (94 miles) to the group campsite.

This evening was looking a lot better for astronomy. The sky was crystal clear. The seeing forecast was poor, but the actual seeing was good enough to see dust lanes in galaxies.

Everyone enjoyed seeing Saturn, of course. I really enjoyed seeing a strong zodiacal light in the dark transparent sky. The site is very dark, with a fairly strong light dome to the north from Primm. It’s galaxy season, and I enjoyed showing the big Ursa Major galaxies M81 and M82, the bright Leo pair M65 and M66, beautiful edge-on NGC4565, face-on spiral M51 the Whirlpool, M104 the Sombrero, and the Virgo galaxies near M64 and M66.

What About Tortoises?

Tortoise three has been chowing down, or likes green lipstick.

On Saturday evening, I didn’t go out herping. The group that did came back saying they’d been skunked.

“What, you found skunks?” I asked. No, they hadn’t found anything!

So we’d spent the whole weekend without seeing any of the desert tortoises Mojave National Preserve is famous for. It hardly mattered, as we’d had an adventurous and interesting weekend with great company.

On Sunday morning we were among the last to be packed and ready to go along with Gary and his daughter Catherine. Jane was driving, and we were heading out of the park down Black Canyon Rd. We both saw a tortoise naively sitting in the oncoming lane about four miles from Hole-in-the-Wall. Jane quickly stopped, as did Gary behind us.

We debated what to do with a tortoise not wanting to move, sitting right in the middle of a traffic lane. We vowed to see him safely off the road, and fortunately there was no traffic. Eventually Jane was able to help him off the road, and we left him in safety.

Two more times we stopped for tortoises on Black Canyon. These two were up and walking around, and out of harm’s way at least for the moment. Everyone got pictures, and Jane took some great video.

Once more we stopped for a tortoise shell on Essex Rd. before leaving the park. This one turned out to be a decoy, with a flier attached advising motorists to keep an eye out for tortoises on the road, and drive carefully and slowly through the park.

Photo and Video Album

Jane and I both shot a lot of pictures over the weekend. It’s not art-house photography by any means, but there are a lot of fun pictures. I enjoyed making a couple of panoramas: one of the group camp before anyone else arrived, and one of the Kelso Dunes from the dunes trail. With the laptop in the car, I was able to make panoramas and start the photo album. I uploaded a first draft from a Starbucks in Barstow.

On Sunday Jane shot some short videos of our three tortoises. The first tortoise wasn’t terribly interesting, just sitting in the middle of a traffic lane. The other two, included in the album, are quite animated and fun to watch.

One short epilogue about our Friday night gale. Our valiant tent kept us protected; it bent but never broke. It did have a funny shape on Saturday morning. When I took it down on Sunday, a couple of the metal sleeves that hold the support rods of the tent had deformed. It’s time for a new tent.