The HAA hard-core observers (Keeners) were out at Binbrook last night in full force in spite of the horrible seeing and the gibbous moon washing out all but the brightest of deep sky objects!

We had various kinds and sizes of telescopes trained on Saturn and the Moon. At one point, Jackie & John used Andrew?s 12? Lightbridge to project an image of the moon onto a sheet of white paper. I think that was the best view I had of the moon all night. Later, when Jupiter rose above the trees, everyone had a chance to view it through the 12? Lightbridge which was pointed at a very shallow angle to the ground and subject to many ?occultations? as Heather can attest to!

Jackie asked if anyone knew of any carbon stars and, by luck, I had a list I?d printed off a year ago. Kerry found Mu Cephei, Herschel?s Garnet Star, using the Muller?s 4? Starblast dob (borrowed for the night and a real fun scope to use). The star was a blazing orange beacon! Next, John located Y CVn, ?La Superba?, using his 80 mm refractor. This was followed by U Cyg which was very dim and not as colourful. The red star tour ended with T CrB. All of these stars are labelled with a (c) next to their names in the Pocket Sky Atlas which made it quite easy to locate them. I look forward to hunting down the remaining carbon stars from my list which I got from this website: http://www.bpccs.com/lcas/Articles/coolstar.htm

Jim Wamsley was tracking down double stars and shared zeta Lyrae with me. I had never viewed this star before and when I ?Googled? it on the web, I found this link which offers fascinating info on zeta Lyrae: http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/zetalyr.html

Meanwhile, Andrew was splitting epsilon Lyrae, the ?double-double? star in Lyra with his 12? Lightbridge.

Don Pullen was giving his camera and new Photosharp focussing device a workout with promising results. I hope he?ll be able to post a photo or two here. To check focus before photographing M13, he was using Vega which is so bright it appears almost bluish to me.

Kerry had the best idea of the night: sitting in a lawnchair and sweeping the sky with a pair of binoculars!

We finally packed up and left the Binbrook Conservation Area about 1:30 a.m. . Thanks, everyone, for an entertaining night!

Cheers,

Ann Tekatch

Ann working so fast at drawing the moon…. she’s just a blur…

Ok… the moon wasn’t really in this shot – but it is the moon taken last night with a digitally added darkside.

Hi All
A small band of the keener group traveled down to Cherry Springs P.A. for their Star Party. 9 intrepid star hoppers in all Steve G. and Kerry H. led off leaving on Wednesday to save camping spots for the rest and get an extra night. Thursday AM. they were followed by Ann T. Jackie F. John G. Ed S.and Jim W.,later that day we were joined by Glenn & Gail M. Shortly after arriving we made ourselves a light dinner of hot dogs and set up camp. We then eagerly awaited sunset. As the stars came out and the skies got darker, we were all “blown away” by the sheer number of stars in this pristine Dark Sky Preserve. I’m not going to go into the full description of all that we saw, I will leave that to more eloquent writers. Suffice it to say it was Magnificent!!!!!! The weather on the following days was not so co-operative, but we still had a wonderful time as we always do when we are together. This is just a lead-off blog to get things started. Others will post their comments and pictures shortly.

_______________________________________________________________________

From John

I put my little 80mm scope to good use and saw some wide field views of the North American Nebula, the Veil Nebula (all 3 parts at once!), the startling bright star clouds of the Milky Way and the nebulae of Sagittarius. Other scopes provided me with stunning views of the spiral arms of M51 and a view through a 32″ scope belonging to a good fellow from Long Island, New York gave a picture-like view of M13. Breathtaking all! The remote location and altitude of 2400 feet provided a spectacularly dark sky and binocular views were equally stunning. I ended my one clear night by just lying on the ground and soaking in the vista of the night sky, one of the best views of all.

During the day good conversation was to be found with many other visitors from New York City, Boston and the many small towns of America. One, now know as Cookie Sue, walked from site to site providing cookies for all those in attendance and was happy to count herself as an honourary HAA member. She left the star party proudly wearing a Canadian flag pin. Although not so openly displayed, many of us left with an equal sense cameraderie with the new friends we made. In the end though, the best of times was thanks to the company of the great group of people from the HAA. Some of them will have astrophotos from the beautiful skies of Cherry Springs, but here are a few daytime images.

Welcome to the Cherry Springs Star Party!

HAA members Steve, Jackie, Jim, Ed, Ann, Glenn, Gail and Kerry. Visitor Roger has joined the best group at the star party, and John can be seen behind the camera. Oh, wait…

We were treated to a beautiful solar halo on Friday morning.

The beautiful Alleghany mountains of Pennsylvania, home of the Cherry Springs Star Party.

______________________________________________________________________________

Update By KerryLH

What a wonderful opportunity to observe at this very dark sky site with some fantastic members of the HAA. I arrived early because I wanted to take advantage of the clear weather during the mid-week. I brought along my entire AP office, the 12in LB (FFI) and all my camping gear. I attached a few picks below of targets that I have really longed to image under really dark skies. With the help of my Astronomik CLS clip filter on my unmodded DSLR, I was able to bring out some really faint red Hydrogen Alpha.

Elephant trunk Nebula (IC 1396), Garnet Star Nebula: A large faint emission nebula in Cepheus imaged with the 80mm scope (425mm fl @f5)

…with a crop showing the elephant trunk

Rho Ophuchus: a large region of very colourful nebulosity around Antares and M4 in Scorpio. I imaged this on the second night with my 100mm lens.

Trifid Nebula (M20): only 4x5min taken with the c6 SCT.

Iris Nebula (NGC7023) : This one is very very faint. I will probably add more stacks to it over time so that I can show the very large and interesting dust cloud surrounding this star.

Link to higher resolution versions are in my latest image gallery
http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=101&g2_enterAlbum=1

Remember the big Grimsby Mars Event of 2005? HAA members returned to Murray Street Park Saturday night May 24th from as far away as Waterloo to share the celestial sights of Spring with residents of Grimsby.

As usual, the Club was well-represented with nearly 20 members and as many telescopes of all sorts and sizes on hand to entertain and educate visitors to the park. Attendance was not equal to Don’s publicity efforts – mostly due to lack of cooperation from the hometown papers but folks turned up from the local area as well as from out of town. The event began before dusk and lasted almost ’till midnight.

With a magnificent clear sky and calm, warm atmosphere, there was no lack of targets. Many observers kicked off the evening with wide-field views of Mars near the Beehive Cluster.

From Grimsby – Mars in the Beehive, 24 May

Then it was off to Saturn under high magnification with four moons easily visible. Titan 3′ E and Iapetus 7′ W of the planets disk; larger apertures showed tiny diamond chip-like Tethys, Dione and Rhea clustered just W of the rings.

Going “deep (sky)” gave marvelous views of globular clusters M3, M13, M92, colourful double stars and galaxies M51, M65-66, M81-82 and M104 in particular. Nebulae were also captured and presented. Refractors, reflectors, SCTs and binoculars all got a workout. The very bright ISS made a fly-by on schedule and there was even a meteor or two to round out the “astro-buffet”.

All in all, another fun great-weather get-together for the HAA and guests. Thanks to everyone who made it such a good night! HAA is dedicated to spreading the word about this wonderful hobby!

The Binbrook “alternate site” offered excellent views of Mars & M44 to me, Jackie, Steve and Brett tonight. We were joined by our good friend, Martin, too. While I took photos with my 80mm refractor, Brett shared the view through his new Televue85 (gorgeous scope, Brett!!!) while Steve had a pair of binoculars on a nice bino-mount and Jackie had her fine scope set up as well. Everyone agreed that low power gave the best views of Mars riding through M44.

As we were packing up, an OPP officer stopped by to make sure we weren’t up to no good. Jackie soon set him straight with an explanation of the evening’s main attraction: Mars in the beehive cluster! The good natured officer was not astronomically inclined but left us with his best wishes for a good night.

We all adjourned to Tim Horton’s. Here is a much better photo than the one I took last night! (Not in the same league as Kerry’s though!)If you compare this photo to the one Kerry took the night before, you can see how far Mars moved through the cluster in that span of time.

Mars in M44, The Beehive Cluster.

Seems like Ann and I were both on the same mission (night before last)… to capture the rare meeting of Mars and the beehive cluster. I had a bout of poor planning 🙂 because I set up in a location where by the time it got dark enough the pair started to set behind the trees. I managed to get a few 30sec to 1 minute unguided shots with the 80mm scope. This is also a first light with my Williams Optics type II field flattener. The flattener gives me sharper stars out to the edge of the frame and reduces my f ratio to f5 from f6.3.

uncropped image: http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1573&g2_imageViewsIndex=2

A few more images taken over the past month:

M106 spiral galaxy
http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1560&g2_imageViewsIndex=2

M92 globular cluster
http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1568&g2_imageViewsIndex=2

KerryLH

Conditions are favourable tonight and look good for tomorrow night for anyone wanting to watch Mars pass through the Beehive Cluster (M44)in the constellation, Cancer. Mars is fairly easy to spot even from the city – look in the western sky for its orangish glow. Use the sky map in the centre of this month’s Event Horizon to help you locate Mars and M44. (The May 2008 newsletter can be accessed from the main website page using the Newsletter button on the left side.)

Binoculars or a widefield, low-powered telescope are best for watching this event. Watch to see Mars pass in front of the cluster’s stars as it moves ever so slowly through M44.

Ann T.

Here’s a photo I took at about 9:55 this evening. Apologies for the bad focus. I had to compose and focus very quickly before Mars disappeared behind my neighbour’s tree! I’m sure others will add much better photos over the next day or two. This shot is with about 1600 mm of focal length at f/9, ISO set to 800, 20 second exposure.

Mars in M44

Sky & Telescope has a good article and star chart for finding Comet Boattini. The comet is faint and low in the southern sky from here. As the article explains, we’ll need a dark, moonless sky and a good southern horizon to see it.

Here is a link to the article and star chart: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/19012569.html

And here’s a link to a site with the comet’s co-ordinates: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/2007W1.html

Happy hunting!

Ann T.

While my success with observing may not have always been the best, I was very lucky to spend a good portion of Sat night with two of the club’s lovely and talented astro-dollies.

Seeing that the new Binbrook Conservation Area Clear Sky Chart was indicating some promising conditions, which I verified on the weather websites, I sought out some compatriots to join me at Binbrook for observing. While many were away for the long weekend or working, I was fortunate enough to get replies from Jackie and Ann.

I joined Jackie at the main gate about 8:20 as the clouds were just starting to clear as predicted. We headed over to the hill to set up and caught a very nice sunset with some interesting lavender colours.

A young couple enjoying the sunset.

Ann joined us by around 9 and we got busy setting up our gear. Ann had her new Orion EON 80ED and Jackie had her trusty SkyWatcher Celestron ED80. Both are excellent scopes with nice sharp views.

I’ve been trying to get set up to collimate my Mak since I’ve noticed that the focus hasn’t been as sharp as of late. If I succeeded with this, then I felt I’d have a better chance of nabbing Comet Boattini faint and low on the horizon. With the promise of clear skies, interspersed with the occasional cloud, I thought it would work out.

Alas the clouds were more prevalent than anticipated. Unfortunately the clear spots didn’t last long enough to finish the collimation. So I’m not sure if my efforts improved things, or we just got lucky we very good and steady seeing between the clouds. We did get some sucker holes and had a nice time looking at the moon and a brief glance at Saturn and 4(5?) moons in the Mak.

Ann managed to get some nice shots of the moon and hopefully she’ll post 1 of them.

Moon shot by Ann Tekatch

During one of the cloudy periods, waiting for them to pass (which they did move rather quickly considering the very light winds), we enjoyed watching some fireworks in the distance and hot chocolate.

Finally at around midnight, we decided to pack up, mostly due to frustration with the clouds. The seeing was quite good if one ignored the clouds (and we tried), the humidity was low and the temps were mild so otherwise it was a good observing night.

And sure enough as we were pulling away, the clouds finally seem to part completely and mocked us with clear skies for the 2 hours Jackie and I sat having coffee at a local coffee shop afterwards. But as I said, I had a very nice time with 2 great young ladies and that is always lucky in my books.

Tuesday night promised the last clear skies for a while, so Jim, Jackie, Ed, Ann and I met at the alternate site at Binbrook to try and find Comet C/2007 W1 Boattini. Low to the southern horizon in Hydra this 7th magnitude comet was going to require clear horizons and transparent skies. Sadly, the atmosphere didn’t cooperate, and despite Ann being well prepared with current coordinates, our attempts to find the comet failed. We did, however, get in some good star-hopping practice. But no comet. We have had to console ourselves by looking at Bob Christmas’s excellent photos.

We certainly did enjoy ourselves though, and had a nice tour of the solar system. Aside from the very identifiable red of Mars, there was also Saturn, that looked particularly good through Ed’s 12″. Perhaps the biggest treat of the night though, was Mercury. Following the Sun into the west, it showed a clear crescent phase through all the scopes that were pointed at it, including my little 80mm refractor. It had a nice warm brown colour, but I think that had more to do with the low altitude than the actual colour of Mercury.

After Mercury had set and we had abandoned all hope of finding the comet we turned out attention to the moon. High in the sky and showing a nice terminator, it pleased all who observed, in any instrument. Of particular note was the Straight Wall, that showed clearly at this phase.

A couple of weeks earlier I had tried to point my little point-and-shoot camera through the eyepiece of my scope, and had some surprising success. Here is a shot from that night.

A nearly full moon from the hill at Binbrook

At Bayfront on Saturday night I took the fuzzy shot (thanks to the clouds) that I posted on the blog’s entry for our public night. On Tuesday I thought that I would try again, and here are the results.

The southern highlands

Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel

I offer these shots not as the best you have seen on this blog (hi there, Kerry and Bob and Tim and…) but as an example of what we all could do, even if we aren’t the skilled and experienced astrophotographers we would like to be. My camera has a small zoom (the 35mm equivalent is 24-85mm) and is nothing fancy, and the scope was my small but mighty Orion ED80, an 80mm refractor. I simply hand held the camera in front of the eyepiece (a 10mm that shows the entire moon in the field of view). Yup, hand held. No attaching gizmos, no accessories of any kind. Others that have stronger zooms have had success just by using the telephoto function on their camera and no scope.

Try it out! There might be great lunar shots waiting for you in your future! Of course I would be happy to offer any tips, but our club is full of others that have much more skill than I. The HAA is a wonderful club indeed!

Click on the title of this blog to go to my HAA Gallery page, where the first 3 photos are of the Whale Galaxy, the Whirlpool Galaxy and Comet Boattini, which I took last week at Spectacle Lake Lodge, near Barry’s Bay, Ontario.

Cheers,

Bob Christmas

Below: The Whale and Hockey Stick Galaxies