(Steve reporting on his 4 night astro-camp-out at Cherry Springs.)

I arrived one day late, as events in town delayed my departure until it was impractical on Wednesday night. That was my first mistake, as by all accounts Wednesday was every bit as good as Thursday.

I arrived on Thursday in time to see the sunset, and get all set up and collimated.

By then, the internet was working. Gone are the days of the $15 phone call to let folks at home know I made it safely. Hooray.

With Wifi, it truly is the ‘Ideal Astro Park’. There’s nothing like it within a thousand miles…

Star hopping at CS is, as Ann says, a cinch because there are so many stars visible, even without a finderscope.

By some stroke of bad luck, the CSC got reprogrammed to try for June 24 instead of May 24. We looked up a nearby clock for some consolation.

I made several excellent improvements to the GWS while there. I repositioned the finderscope onto the main barrel, so that the scope now does not need a counterweight, and it sits, without applying the brake, at any orientation, and does not even swing when tilted by the equatorial platform.

Josh has a LB 16 too, but he has worked wonders on it. Starting with new coatings for the mirrors, and continuing with special covers to protect it from dust, and finally, all of the metal has been powder-coated black or sparkle-red. It’s a beauty.

I had only one step up on him, the EQP, which allowed me to hold a magnified view without adjusting the scope.

Josh also lent me his laser collimator, and it showed that my laser is off kilter, explaining some issues focusing. Fortunately, I was able, after collimating with Josh’s, to get my laser to point in the right direction. Now I just have to keep it together.

Finally, he suspected correctly that some of the screws on the GWS have worked loose. He was right! Some were barely finger tight, causing the scope to shift when tilted to the zenith.

It was worth the drive just as a telescope clinic. Thank-you Josh!

I plotted the position of Pluto, and star hopped to it. Pluto was not found. (That was before re-alignment mentioned above)

It’s at 14th Magnitude, but the stars on the chart are only 12th Magnitude… I found 6 stars not on the chart, but none were pluto (this time).

I was hopeful to see all 9 planets in one night. Maybe next time. (For me, Pluto will always be a planet. I remember the mean distance from the sun, which I memorized when I was 7 years old… 3670000000 miles.)

The eastern horizon as viewed from CSSP has a lot of trees… I walked to the end of the airfield to see if the view opens up at all. Not much, really.

I continued my sequential Messier Marathon, picking up M69, M70, M71, M72, and M73.

I then tried the reverse SMM, starting with M109 and working backwards, to M101.
I developed effective geometric star-hops for them. (I have seen M110 dozens of times, so
i called the latest of those the de-facto first step in a reverse Sequential Messier Marathon)

M100 was a problem… there’s very little in terms of stars in the field near it, that are bright enough to be on star maps. Here’s where the Deep Sky Image Catalog comes in handy, showing the star fields and shapes of the Messier Objects and many others.
Subsequent nights were too soupy for easy galaxy-hopping.

Several people wondered how I fit the scope into the VW. A few were there to see the final result when I packed it back up again.

Sunday evening started out very hazy, and it was difficult for me to make out
more than 2 stars in Lyra. Eventually it cleared… in the meantime I tried out the newly-aligned optics on some favourites, including M13. It turned out the soupy skies made appreciation problematic.

We had some visitors who were camping across the road… university students who are studying ‘Observational Astronomy’. They learned some from us.

As the skies cleared the transparency remained bad, but improved.
I also tried going up again, from M3 onwards (M1 and M2 are too close to the sun these days). I got up to M20 in rapid succession. Nothing like the first time I tried them.
I have to admit I have learned a lot about star hopping in the meantime.
Later clouds started going by, and eventually the dawn caught up with me.

In the morning, everyone was packing up, and the CSC for a nearby community showed
wall to wall clouds expected on Monday night. I should have just put my feet up and waited for the computation due at noon, but decided to pack up and head for home.

Next time, the plan is, go 2 days sooner (ie, Tuesday night) and stay regardless of the CSC. Also, bring something to do if it rains, such as, some astrophotos to edit, or perhaps a guitar.

I imaged this on April 17th in Binbrook Conservation Area. I met up with the gang there for some casual observing. We all had a nice time and there was a pretty good turn out. FOr this image I was really hoping for still waters so that I could get a reflection of the stars but the wind started to pick up as the night wore on. Anyway, this comprises of two 20 second frames taken with the Canon 40D and Sigma 17-70mm lens (17mm@f2.8) on a tripod. The two frames were only used to give more vertical depth to the scene.

Larger version: http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=5146&g2_imageViewsIndex=2

I?m just back from Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania and I can?t say enough about the fabulous dark skies there!! I?ll blog my experiences and hope that others add to this post.

Jim, Jackie and I arrived on Wednesday under a clear, blue sky. Jim?s scope was acting up on him and he didn?t get to use it that night, so he made good use of his binocular mount. I had my homemade 8? dob and had no trouble at all star-hopping because there were so many stars visible. At midnight, I checked the SQM reading and it was 21.93!

The Milky Way swung overhead in the early morning hours and it drew us away from our telescopes. The dark lanes and star clouds were amazing. We spent a fair bit of time just sitting in our lawn chairs to soak in the view!

Steve arrived on Thursday evening ? another fabulous night (SQM at midnight: 21.84 – with the Milky Way overhead later on, the SQM dropped to 21.74) ? and he treated us to fantastic views through the GWS.
Jim found the problem with his scope (faulty batteries, I believe) and spent the night touring the sky. I tracked down Markarian?s Chain ? a line of galaxies in Virgo/Coma as well as the Bug Nebula, the Antennae galaxies and many other deep sky objects that just aren?t visible in an 8? scope here in the southern Ontario light pollution dome.

Thursday afternoon, the park finished up installing WIFI and we were able to access email and the internet from Jim?s laptop. With the installation of WIFI, I would have to say that Cherry Springs is now the perfect astronomy field!

We did some sightseeing on Friday morning. While Jim was navigating a narrow, winding road through the beautiful Pennsylvania forest, Jackie spotted a black bear and hollered for Jim to stop the van. It soon became apparent that it wasn?t a bear, just a big, black dog. As Jim said: Ursa Major turned into Canis Minor!

Jim, Jackie and I ended up leaving on Friday afternoon ? earlier than planned. Sunstroke, black flies and sleep deprivation had me fantasizing for home and a weather report of less than perfect skies for Friday night was all it took to set me packing. Jim agreed and he and Jackie decided to leave as well. Our fearless leader, Steve, had planned on a week?s stay and he remained along with Jackie?s campstove, whatever supplies we could offer and our promise to take the clouds back home with us!

Next month, there is a star party at Cherry Springs State Park. The Cherry Springs Star Party runs from June 18 ?21 and I hope you can join us there! Here is a link to their website: http://www.astrohbg.org/CSSP/Information.html

Ann T.

P.S. An extra big THANK YOU to Jim’s mom for supplying tons of yummy food for all of us to enjoy. Her butter tart squares gave us the energy to observe all night!

Recently the HAA started sending emails to notify the members when there will be observing at the Binbrook Conservation Area (an example was sent two nights ago, on May 12th). Although we had previously simply posted this information on the website blog (that you are reading now) this practice was discontinued to ensure the safety and protection of the park and our members.

It seems that not everyone is receiving the email notifications. We would like to work toward finding a solution the meets the needs of our members.

If you did not receive the email from May 12th, but would like to receive future email notifications, please contact the Observing Director at observing@amateurastronomy.org , with the subject heading “DID NOT RECEIVE”.

If you are receiving these emails but would rather not receive any future emails about observing opportunities, please contact the Observing Director at observing@amateurastronomy.org , with the subject heading “NO FUTURE EMAILS”

Thank you very much for your help with this matter. The nice weather is coming and I would like to see as many people as possible have the opportunity to get out and observe with the club. In the mean time, anyone is free to contact me (observing@amateurastronomy.org) if they would like to go observing and want to know if the park will be open, and of course the Alternate Site is always open to anyone who wishes to use it. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me, and lets get out and have some fun observing!

A clear night was too much of a temptation for myself and three fellow members, despite the fact that it was a weeknight. Ann, Jackie, Jim and I met at the hill in Binbrook for an evening with a little bit of everything for us.

Jim was eager to try his hand at astrophotography using his new digital camera, and immediately had it attached to his scope. Saturn proved an appropriate first target, and even on the little viewscreen on the camera we could see that several moons had been captured. I am looking forward to seeing the results of his efforts!

Ann was set up quickly with her 6″ dobsonian, and I was only able to find time for one view through it. Ann allowed me to have a peek at one of my favourite galaxies, NGC4565, and the view did not disappoint! Through her scope this edge-on galaxy appeared razor thin, and at times the seeing would give us a brief but startlingly clear view! I was sorry that I did not allow myself any more views through Ann’s fine scope.

I enjoyed taking a few pictures of the sunset over the lake and then set up my little scope. I think my favourite views though, were with the unaided eye, as we had two Iridium flares and a passage of the International Space Station. It’s always fascinationg to me when they appear right on schedule. The Iridium flares were listed as magnitude -4 an -5, and it’s amazing just how bright that looks in a dark part of the sky. A couple of us were able to follow the ISS through our scopes and it appears as a very distinct and odd shape.

For a good part of the evening we were joined by Jim Douglas, the park superintendant. Jim was a welcome addition to the group and gave us lots to talk about, from the results of clean-up day to plans for the upcoming 50th Anniversary Event on May 30th. I encourage you to attend and participate, as the HAA will have a presentation and there will be lots of other things going on that day. Most interesting of all were the little tidbits about the park that Jim described so enthusiastically, from wildlife signs to a honey tree. Thanks to Jim, I am now looking forward to more daytime visits to the park to see what I have been missing in the dark!

Keep an eye out for email notices of when the park will be open for another evening of observing, and join us if you can!

The International Space Station appears as a streak in the sky as it passes over a familiar tree in Binbrook.

This coming May 5, at McMaster, there’s a Free astronomy talk about Galaxy formation
and cool stuff.

8 PM for 1 hour.

Here’s the abstract…

Beyond the Visible Universe: Galaxy Collisions, Star Formation, and Galactic Evolution

McMaster University, Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Di ? Hamilton, ON

The astronomical research of the next decade will focus on understanding the origins of planets, stars, galaxies, and even the universe itself. Millimeter-wave radio astronomy is a novel and crucial tool in this quest for origins, because it allows us to probe into the cold, dark regions of space where many of these formation processes occur. This talk will illustrate the promise and potential of these techniques by examining spectacular galaxy collisions that have triggered intense bursts of star formation, as well as new results which shed light on the more quiescent star formation which is the norm in galaxies like our own Milky Way. In addition, the talk will describe how new facilities currently under construction, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), promise a revolution in our understanding of the origin of structure in the universe.

It’s got some overlap with our Speaker’s presentation on Feb 13, so if you missed that one, you might
catch up if you get to this talk.

Steve

What a successful International Astronomy Day!

Despite some clouds, we had pretty good weather for both the afternoon solar observing session, and for the evening Lunar/Saturn public events.

In our afternoon event down at Lakeland Community Centre, we had 5 scopes set up from a 40mm Coronado PST up to an 8″ Schmidt. This provided a great variety to see the Sun with different luminosity and spectral views. Regrettably the small sunspot from earlier in the week had gone around the edge of the Sun, so we couldn’t see it, but Joe had some videos and images he collected from the SOHO website to show our visitors. However a little later the Sun did put on a bit of a show with a few small but distinct flares which we saw in the PST.

Even the dogs enjoyed the views of the Sun. So much for Sirius being the “Dog” star.

We had about 30-40 people show up, mostly drop-ins from the walking path nearby. Few had seen any of our promotions, however some had. A breezy afternoon with lots of clouds, but enough breaks the wait wasn’t too bad and most everyone who stopped got to see the Sun. A little last minute email blast on Fri resulted in a videographer from CH News coming out and doing a small segment on us which appeared on the 6pm news.

CH News and others enjoying the show between the clouds breaks.

The evening session at Bayfront Park was very well received. We had more than a dozen scopes and when you add in the binos, we had about 2 dozen optical instruments trained at the Moon and Saturn. About 20 members of the HAA were on hand to share their love of astronomy with the public. I think each and everyone of them did our club proud. I saw so many smiling faces as people left.

Astronomy Day 2009

We guessed we had about 130-150 people show up to enjoy the show. Many had seen one of our promotions, but a fair number were just in the area and were curious about the hub-bub. However the actual number may have been higher. We were so busy answering questions from a very interested audience, that we didn’t often take the time to look up and “count” the crowd. I think everyone who had a scope or bino set up had some crowd at one time or another. People were really interested in the different views each of the instruments would provide.

Sometimes we had traffic jams at scopes to just get a view when the clouds parted.

We handed out HAA brochures, copies of the EH and thanks to the generosity of SkyNews, free copies of their magazine they had donated to us to the information hungry crowd.

Brenda giving her big binos a chance to cool off after collecting so many lunar photons.

Towards the end of the night, I noticed standing quietly off to the side was Steve Ruddick from CH News with his son. Steve had called me earlier in the day and had expressed a personal interest in astronomy and made a point of stopping by. We had a nice chat and I was quite pleased in his interest.

By 10:30, things were starting to wind down, so we gradually packed up and 6 or 7 of us reconvened at a near-by Tim’s to relax and reflect on a successful day and night.

Our thanks to everyone who came out made this a very worthwhile event. It was great to share with the Hamilton area once again.

This is from Mike Jefferson.

As part of the Origins Institute’s Public Lecture Series, Christine Wilson is going to be the speaker at The Origins Institute at McMaster University this Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 8:00pm. The talk will take place at the Michael DeGroote Building, right behind the McMaster Medical Centre. You can park on King Street for free.

Click here for more details and information.

When I arrived, Glenn had already set up a solar system walk that disappeared to the far corner of the open field behind the Centre. There were 11 TV tables, some with heavy weights on them to keep them from blowing away, and each having an appropriate write up and photograph of a planet firmly attached with duct-tape.

I set up my binocular parallelogram and pointed it towards Pluto. It was too windy to use Glenn and Gail’s 6″ Dob but it made a nice addition to the display.

At times, the wind was almost gale-force behind the building. I did not think a wind could blow that hard on such a nice day.

Joe McArdle set up his 4 inch reflector, with a Baader solar filter, for views of the sun, and it was interesting to compare the magnification and contrast of Joe’s neutral density filter to Glenn and Gail’s Coronado PST.

Joe’s telescope was able to track the Sun, while the Coronado had to be re-pointed from time to time.

I noticed that a part of my binoculars has snapped, making it difficult to retain focus on the left eyepiece. I guess this is my chance to adjust it so that the diopter setting on the right eye will allow travel through the range that works for me to use both eyes without the glasses, so it’s good news that it broke, in a way.

G&G also had a nice little Starblast which was pointed at the “planets” along the walk. Lots of the kids who looked through it were struck by the fact that “it’s upside-down”!

Everyone enjoyed a look at the Sun through the Coronado. I saw a couple of flares, and later in the afternoon one of them seemed to get a twin, nearby. My efforts to try afocal photography through the eyepiece were unsuccessful, although I did get a red circle.

There was some cake to share after everything was done.

I watched some of the raptor presentations. It was amazing to listen to the cameras click when the red-tailed hawk put out her wings to steady herself in the wind.

I learned how to pick up and carry a snapping turtle too.

On the astronomical side, about 100 people had a good look at the sun, and almost that many went for a solar-system hike, and had a look through the terrestrial telescopes.

All were advised what kind of scope not to buy, and many who already had telescopes mentioned they don’t use them much because they cannot get them to align.

Many HAA brochures were handed out, and we had a chance to remind people about Astronomy Day on May 2.

Channel 17, WNED in Buffalo is broadcasting “400 Years of the Telescope” at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 26.

For more information on this documentary, follow this link: http://www.pbs.org/soptv/400years/.

Ann T.