By 8:30 the last stragglers were still packing up to leave the park.

I selected a location on the hill with a clear view to the south and west, and a good view to the east, and started unpacking. Having a proper wrench, i was able this time to deploy the equatorial platform. Lots of new gadgets to unpack and set up.

The GWS now has a shroud, expertly assembled by Ann. It’s so fine.

The scope was almost perfectly aligned from last time, and took only a minor touch
on the knobs. I aligned it with the shroud on, no problem. The fully assembled scope on the platform is tall enough to require a 3 step ladder for the zenith. There’s 3 little rubber feet under the base of the Lightbridge 16, and they sit on flat parts of the platform without extra work. I did not try the second axis this time. I might have to add another small pad under the base for it.

We had some new members observing, and they brought a fine refractor on a goto mount.
Even a few non-members brought their scopes and set up.

The equatorial platform is great. It makes finding objects so much easier, and they
just sit there. Since it’s for 43 degrees and the latitude of Binbrook is
43.1 degrees, i just basically leveled it on its 4 feet and pointed the finder at Polaris, and it was ready to go. With a little help from my friends, i had the scope up on the platform and ticking away.

I took the time to assemble and adjust the camera holder. My pocket camera
has auto-focus, and getting it to stop trying was not easy.
I snapped this photo of Jupiter and its moons… (upload will have to wait till i resize the photo)

A tour of the skies with the GWS was in order. I found the following: Jupiter, M57, M13, Mizar and Alcor.

Then on to fainter things…
M31, M92, M27, M70, M29, M54.

I tried the ring nebula with a 5mm lens and a Barlow, making it fill over half
the field of view in the eyepiece.
Th platform kept me on target, as i tried to focus it.

At that magnification, there was blurring of the stars to small blobs, and i think it’s because the focal length is short (and the eyepiece has to be very fancy to cope). I will continue to search for eyepieces up to the task. There was no problem with brightness though. The ring was plain as day even at 731 times magnification.

I tried a camera holder Mike lent me, but it causes the scope to tip forward,
even with the clutch tightened down. I finally need a counterweight.
Jackie sold me her 3 inch scope an diagonal to use as a finder-scope.
Attaching the rings is my next project.
I noticed there’s a place on it to put a smaller finder-scope.

The GWS is so big… 🙂

After about an hour, i noticed that objects were drifting out of the field of view. Strange, the platform had been working so well…
It had reached the end of its travel. 2 good things… it did not dump the scope,
and it took a few seconds to reset by simply grabbing the base of the scope,
lifting slightly and repositioning the platform at the other end of its travel
for another run.

The moon was big and red on the horizon. Smoke from Montana fires is adding to the redness. I pointed the scope at it. In spite of there being another scope, and my car,
in the light path, i still got the moon. It was bright enough once it cleared the car, to project an image onto a sheet of paper the size of a dinner plate. Bye bye night vision.

I bought a new stool to use, but spent very little time sitting.

I am now able to navigate the star charts much quicker, and brought in the dumbell nebula for the final item before packing up.

The dumbell nebula. My red dot is right on, and with a low power eyepiece i found it in seconds. I am so happy with my ability to find things in the sky.
The best part was that although everyone’s scope had dewed up, the shroud on the GWS
kept it nice and dry to the end.

So i am happy, anyway.

Although the sky condition Tuesday night was not top notch, we still managed to get a decent amount of observing in. Not only were there the odd patches of high cloud… but much overlooked was a very thin layer of smoke aloft (from the Montana forest fires) which I noticed on the satellite imagery during the day, but was hoping it would not make it out this far. As mentioned in Steve’s post I forgot my camera adapter so astrophotography was going to be out of the question. I ended up setting up my 80mm and 6in anyway but didn’t really make much use of them compared to normal nights. Instead I spent some time testing out my new binoculars and checking out the views from Steve’s 16in. I did make a few comparison views of m27 and m71 in my 6in and his 16in. Obviously it was not a contest 🙂 With the 16in, M71, a faint globular cluster, was easily seen with direct vision in Steve’s scope… and in my 6in, well lets just say it was barely detectable with averted vision. M27 was nice in both scopes. I’m sure in a darker sky with better conditions Steve’s scope will perform even more spectacularly on those Messiers. Mike challenged me to find a faint band of stars that go through m27 in my 6in but I couldn’t see anything until I took my cheap 1.25 diagonal off. It was a nice challenge… that also led me to realize how important a good quality diagonal is. Now turning my attention to the binoculars… They were a pair of Celestron 15×70 Sky Masters. I recently got them for my birthday and they are a replacement to my cheap and now broken 16x50s that I had since I was 11 years old. Anyway Jupiter and its moons were nice a sharp. The Milky Way was spectacular… I have to say this is where binoculars are a real treat to use. The tripod that Steve set up for me made viewing a little easier since they are a bit on the heavy side for the arms. With a little help from Mike I found a few Messiers including m27… which looked really nice, bright and condensed. It is pretty rewarding finding and seeing deep sky objects with out the use of a telescope.

Anyway that’s it for now, I thought this was only going to be quick report.

BTW Keep your eyes on the moon tonight!! If it is clear in the east when it rises, you will notice that it will appear really red and will stay orange for quite some time. This is from all the forest fire smoke that is still high up in the atmosphere. The smoke should clear out in time for tomorrow nights observing which Mike just posted about.

KerryLH

I arrived at Binbrook A to find Kerry, Tim, and Joe, several scopes, binoculars and computers all set up and ready to image. Unfortunately Kerry neglected to bring an important fitting and could not really image properly, so she decided to do some real time observing instead. The sun was just setting and it took a few minutes before Polaris could be seen.

I had my car fully packed with an EQ platform, and the GWS. I built a jig in the back seat so that the entire scope can now ride in the back leaving room for a passenger (or a tent) in the front, except for the EQ platform not quite fitting back there with the rest of it yet. (I plan to make some kind of wooden contraption to make it more compatible with the seat cushions)

Turns out for lack of a crescent wrench (the moon was near full, too) i could not test out my eq platform this time, but i did manage to unwrap it, power it up and align it and it did its job well, making almost no sound and moving ever so gradually. 4 knobs adjust the placement. I think the key is to use 3 of them to level and bring in the fourth for stability after it’s level.

It’s designed for 43 degrees north, which is about right on for Binbrook, so almost no shimming was needed. (I see that starfest is at about 44 degrees north). Alignment of the LB16 took only a few minutes, but i think some big knobs on the secondary adjustment screws would make things easier still. I also think i need to shim my laser aligner to get it perfectly centered. Another cool addition would be a right-angle finderscope. My red dot finder is great if i can see or estimate what i am aiming at, but not so good when there’s light pollution making it hard to spot the fainter stars. Another option is to attach the laser to my binoculars, and use it to point the way for the GWS to follow.

Mike, Tim and Therese arrived presently and mike provided us with some fine advice. He also helped me fish up M71 and M27. Alas the camera holder eludes me once again and i did not get a chance to see my pocket camera sneak photos through the eyepiece yet. With averted vision some of the stars in M71 could be detected. I set up by Bino parallelogram and suffered a hockey-tape malfunction but it still served its purpose for Kerry’s new binoculars. I tried some high power views using a 7.5 mm eyepiece to bring in Alcor and Mizar. They don’t even fit in the same field of view, but the scope split the double nicely. The double-double was not split under 26 mm, and when i tried the higher power, the clouds were rolling in and i could not fish it up.

The clouds rolled in for good by 11:30 and i was packed up and ready to leave by midnight. I think tomorrow i will try the dark skies where i did my messier marathon, near Lynden.

I think I gave manual guiding a fair try. I’ve been doing it for quite a few months and it hasn’t been going too bad. I started out really enjoying it but as time went on I started to become conscious of the observing time that I was missing… not only that but I was eventually getting tired and achy after staring at the illuminated reticle for several minutes at a time. Also, after looking at a ton of astro images on the net I started to notice how crisp the autoguided images were compared to the manual guided ones and figured perhaps I need to try it out someday. I did a bit of research and realized that all I would need is a cheap webcam or imager. I already lug my laptop with me into the field so why not lug around one more item plus a few more cables. So I talked to Mike and he recommended the DSI because of its sensitivity to fainter stars. I bought it off of him for a pretty good price and immediately began to work on re-configuring my astrophotgraphy setup.

I had to first get my CG5-GT (ASGT) mount to communicate with my laptop via the RS232 cable and ASCOM platform (many astro programs require ASCOM in order to communicate with the ASGT mount). I then loaded a free program called PHD Guiding which was able to communicate with the DSI and my mount. A few clicks of the mouse a bit of DSI focussing and a few more clicks and I was on my way. I was surprised at how easy autoguiding was to get running after getting the initial communication bugs worked out.

Last night at Binbrook I lugged my entire setup out and after my alignment, balancing, and focusing I started the autoguiding and the rest was pretty easy. WHile I was collecting the frames I could walk around and enjoy the views through the other scopes and actually have real conversations.

I tried a few frames on M27 and since this is my first real attempt, the tracking is not yet perfect but still better than when I did it manually. There are some settings in PHD guiding that I probably should play with in order to get better results

M27 Dumbell Nebula
By: KerryLH
Canon 300D with C6S-GT and f6.3 focal reducer
3 x 5 minutes autoguided with PHD Guiding and DSI-C on the 80mm APO
2 dark frames
Stacking in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in PS

After some instigation by Don, we all decided that the alternate site had a hope of providing us clear skies. Of course, with the new GWS, the chance for actual clear skies was slim. However, a big enough scope can see through clouds…. and a dob can slew faster than a goto.

I was the first to arrive, at about 9:05 pm, and Kerry pulled in before i had a chance to get out of the car. I selected a firm surface for the GWS and began assembling it. I chose the path just beyond the parking lot.

I put the top half on rotated 120 degrees but had it right 2 minutes later, for a setup time of 9 minutes from car to view. I aligned the finderscope, using the moon, and got it bang-on. I got a nice view of Venus as it was setting. A sharp crescent it was, even though it was directly behind a tree branch. A big enough scope can see through trees… 😉

The finder works great on anything that has bright stars nearby. M57 came in without any fuss whatsoever. It was quite easy to see M57 even with direct vision. I think i might benefit from a right angle finder scope for the GWS,
to help where the sky does not have bright enough stars for me to see them without help. Perhaps an 8 or 12-inch finderscope would do. 😉 (Actually, i think a 3 inch at 6x power would be fine).

I was able to hold my camera at the eyepiece and get a few shots of the moon by hand, and was impressed it could pick things up and the auto focus could focus on the moon. I borrowed Don’s camera holder and put my Dimage Xt onto it. It weighed down the GWS but i eventually remembered there’s an adjustable clutch which was able to counteract the weight. I think a super-magnet would help too.

I was able to get 4 second time exposures of Jupiter and the moon. Then i tried zooming in… I was able to get the camera to focus on Jupiter, but at 3x zoom looking into the eyepiece things move about 1.5 Jupiter diameters in 4 seconds. Once you know which way to go, adjusting a dob to keep things in view is easy. Guiding to keep them stationary is not possible though.

I tried one flash shot, after warning all within earshot to close their eyes. I got a sharp shot of Jupiter, but the moons don’t show in a 1/1000 second exposure. Here it is. You can even see some bands on it. ( i wish i knew how to link jupiter_1ms.jpg here. it’s uploaded already)

We brought in M13 and i switched to a 10 mm eyepiece to get a 180x magnification. Even with that magnification it was about 1/3 of the field of view and pretty bright. That’s when the collimation issue started showing up though. It turned out that the collimation was a bit off, and we all agreed that steps should be taken. I thought the gentle bump it got when I put it down last Thursday might have thrown off the collimation but I now think that a truss Dob can be out in several different ways, and what I need is a rigorous collimation procedure at setup time.

First, the secondary mirror might not be directly on the axis of the primary and the view through the eyepiece might not go to the center of the primary, as viewed in the secondary. These depend more on the length of the struts and the selection of which strut to use in each position than anything else. I plan to mark them. Unfortunately it was pretty dark (even with the Hamilton skyglow bouncing off the clouds) by the time I wanted to collimate, and that made it kind of impractical.

Clouds blew in and blocked our view of the area around Linear, and although i waited about 20 minutes for them to clear, they were followed by high clouds that made spotting comets impractical.

I packed up at about midnight, and zipped home, with enough energy to spare that I can do it again. I plan to try assembling the scope a few times on my porch and checking how the collimation changes. I am keen to see through all manner of eyepieces and at high magnification, once things get straightened out.

A group of us took advantage of a late day break in the clouds to head out to Binbrook for some observing just as the initial sliver of the new moon was just dipping below the horizon.

Tim and Therese were out visiting after a day running around Waterloo and then dinner with Mike. Tim didn’t bring any equipment, but he was providing sage guidance to Therese about the pros and cons of the various equipment that was set up. I quickly set up my binoculars and we were able to observe several of Jupiter’s moons. Tim and I could only make 2, but Therese’s keen eyes were able to resolve one of the points into 2 distinct moons (later confirmed in the scopes). With her sharp eyes, she’s going to make a great observer.

I didn’t bring along any of my little green friends from Fri night at the Parks Canada Discovery Centre, but Jackie was busy entertaining the local furry residents. The raccoons housed in a tree near our observing site appeared to be fascinated by her shiny cases and camera. One was even bold enough to come right to her feet. Judging by the way she jumped, I got the distinct impression that Jackie wasn’t quite as enamoured with the raccoons as they were with her. Being the shy wallflower that she is, she didn’t want to be the center of attention for the local fauna so relocated a little further away, into the midst and the safety of other observers. Dispite the disruptions of the animals, she’s a real trooper and returned to trying out her new XTi on her great little 80mm APO. We also had a great serenade by the coyotes for a little while, but they chose not to venture quite as closely.

Kerry meanwhile was busy snapping away at Comet Linear. It looked like she was able to get quite a few good shots. They’ll be something to look forward to once she gets them posted. She also noted a couple of smaller NGC galaxies in the area. I think she also managed to grab a few Messiers amongst all the shots she took. She was well set up with her C6, 80mm APO and Canon 300D.

After struggling with getting my Mak set up, I was finally able to start doing some observing. With Tim and Therese, I initially spent my time looking at some more conventional objects like Jupiter, M57 and a few other clusters. Later, thanks to coordinates provided by Kerry and after several re-alignment attempts, I was able to get Linear into view. A lot larger in the 7″ f/15 Mak than had been observed Fri night with the 100mm f/5 richfield, but alas still no observable tail. As midnight approached, I tried for Neptune and Uranus. Neptune never resolved into a disk, but its blue-green colour was evident. Regrettably Uranus was obstructed by trees East from our location.

After granting us a few good hours of observing, the weather gods decided it was time to bring the clouds back shortly after midnight. We were fortunate to have our dew shields with us as well since some dew was beginning to form. Those that had been imaging switched over to viewing to take in a few more objects before we were forced to leave for the night. Finally by around 1am we packed up and headed off to pleasant dreams of a fine night observing under the great skies of the Binbrook Conservation Area.

Update By KerryLH :

I had a real nice time… I got to see Neptune for the first time thanks to Don. It was funny how the racoons were so intersted in Jackie and her equipment; I guess they like shiny new things just like astronomers. Anyway my main goal was to capture comet Linear. After finding the RA and Dec coordinates on Carte du Ciel (free astro software) I plugged it into the keypad of my CG5-GT mount and several seconds later there it was in the middle of the eyepiece on my 80mm scope. I managed to take several images which I stacked manually in Photoshop. I’ll try a re-process of it later to get rid of the noise. Since the comet was touring through a cluster of galaxies I ended up capturing NGC5689 and NGC5676(in the widefield shot). You can sort of make out NGC5689 to the right of the comet. It looks like a small edge on spiral.

Comet VZ13 Linear
By Kerry

M101 second attempt
By Kerry

UPDATE by Jackie

I was very excited to get out to Binbrook Sunday night with my new Canon Digital SLR XTi and apo scope. The sky was beautiful at dusk and I captured Venus, working on my focusing:

My first Widefield view was of Jupiter and the constellation Scorpius, still working on the focusing (a little post-processing added the constellation lines):

Binbrook, Canon XTi 55mm @F/2.8 ISO 1600, 1 sec (unfocused)

I love the camera! I have bought a T-adapter so I can take close-up shots through the telescope. Watch me now!

– Jackie

Despite early technical problems with the theatre projectors (which we’ll blame on Friday 13th) part one of the two evening series “Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Astronomy” went off marvellously. Held at the Parks Canada Discovery Centre, many families took advantage of the opportunity to get first hand knowledge about selecting equipment and finding resources available to today’s amateur astronomer.
While Gail Muller manned the welcome desk (and even signed up a new member – welcome to the Club, Bill!), Tim Philp, Glenn Muller, and Mike Spicer got the session rolling with three short but informative AV presentations.
Outside, many HAA member had set up a wide variety of equipment, for both solar and dark sky viewing, and with the parking lot lights extinguished the guests were able to compare scopes and learn about several of the brighter celestial showpieces.
Jan, a videographer from Cable 14, collected footage for a future airing. He said they got a lot of mileage out of the last segment about the Club, and will let us know when this segment will air – stay tuned!
I heard nothing but positive comments and enthusiastic conversation, all evening, and credit for that goes to Darla Campbell of the PCDC, and the many HAA members who volunteered their time to make the evening so enjoyable.
Thank you all!

UPDATE: Images by Tim Harpur:

We had Sun Worshippers

and those that preferred the dark

Don was the first to spot Venus (and the invading horde)

WHY A SUDDEN DOWNPOUR THURSDAY EVENING?

My hopes of going to Binbrook for more comet images were dashed with the sudden downpour at 7 pm. A little while later Steve Germann knocked at the door to show me his new 16″ Lightbridge dob. He had picked it up at Khan’s at 7 pm and wanted some First Light.

A 16″ Lightbridge is a big scope. You have to be 6′ tall to see into the eyepiece when looking at things overhead. Still, it’s marvellously compact and easy to set up:

It fits into a VW bug:

One guy can put it all together: .

Looking through the scope was fun.

It moved smoothly; it was well-collimated; the dual-speed focuser was very smooth through its 35mm of focus travel. The scope gave very good views of Jupiter through the light clouds:

Watch out! Steve will be driving to Binbrook on every available clear night from now until Starfest! Here’s your chance to see through a very nice 16″ dob.

A STUNNING NIGHT AT BINBROOK 11 JULY

The cold front that threatened rain but did not deliver, provided us with an outstanding opportunity to observe/image at Binbrook Wednesday night. Transparency was so good you could see many deep sky objects with the naked eye and the Milky Way glittered from horizon to zenith!

I didn’t notice the clouds had disappeared until 11:30 pm. Rushing out to Binbrook with Jackie Fulton, I set up for imaging and was polar aligned by midnight for two glorious hours of imaging through an 80mm apo refractor. Here’s the globular cluster M22 (a single one minute shot with the Digital Rebel):

Jackie wanted me to collect images of some of the nebulae she was looking at through binoculars. Here is a one minute exposure of the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius:

Of course, the images here have been reduced to 450 pixels wide and further reduced to JPG format. The air was so transparent that it was possible to get an image of globular M4 near Antares, showing the faint globular NGC 6144 as well:

Jackie spotted 5 bright meteors that passed through the Summer Triangle overhead (all I saw were 8 or 9 very large jet planes – what’s that all about?). We were not able to spot the little Comet Linear, but I ended the night by taking some passable shots of galaxy M51:

Tomorrow night should be another great opportunity for some kewl observing at Binbrook. We had over 20 clear nights in each of May and June this year; July is also looking good, so I don’t want complaints you didn’t get in much summer observing, once the snow flies. Other astro-groups get together to eat hamburgers or to watch space movies… clear nights are your chance to show that Hamilton Amateur Astronomers is the area’s MOST ACTIVE ASTRONOMY CLUB!