Oh Dear Lord

This is wrong on so many levels.

More Space Men

I got to volunteer at the Bob Bullock State History Museum for the opening of Made to Walk the Skies: Texas & Space Travel. The exhibit I worked was a replica of a current Space Shuttle/International Space Station Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). In two hours, I shot 220 Polaroid pictures of big kids, little kids, babies, young adults and senior citizens posing with their heads in the suit. If there's any doubt about the public's support for space, I didn't see it today.


I admit it, I added the background in. The original was the granite wall in the museum--I like mine better.


I don't know who this kid is, but he looks like he's having a good time.

Journey Into Space

From Time Magazine, December 8, 1952:

The probable effect of zero gravity on the human nervous system is far more serious. The nervous system, says Dr. H. Strughold, head of the School of Space Medicine, was designed to work on the surface of the earth in a gravity field of one G. How would the rocket crew feel while the rocket was accelerating? They would lie barely conscious on their contoured G-couches. At this stage the rocket would be under automatic control; the men, weighing nine times normal, would not be capable of any action at all. With the power cut off and the rocket coasting upward, gravity would drop to zero. The men would be expected to rise from their beds of pain (not knowing which end is up) and perform navigation feats that would tax a professor of celestial mechanics. Dr. Strughold does not think they could work at peak form; they would be lucky to accomplish anything.

Texas Star Party, Friday & Saturday

We had a fun trip to the McDonald Observatory, where--guess what?--it rained, hailed, thundered and lightninged. Here's a look at the dome of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope:



And here is the 107" Harlan J. Smith Telescope:


Looking "down the barrel," you can see where a disgruntled employee took out his frustrations on the big mirror by shooting it several times with a pistol, then giving it a couple of whacks with a sledgehammer. Turns out the big hunk of glass is pretty tough: the spots are simply blacked out, and the telescope lost just a couple percent of its light-gathering ability.



Friday night was the Great Texas Giveaway, and I didn't come away empty handed. I won a small red- and white-light LED flashlight, and a super medium-sized equipment case. Apparently it's considered bad form to win twice, but I'm not proud.

We also managed to squeeze in a few hours of observing Friday night. The clouds parted at sunset, and we had fair conditions until about 1:00 a.m. I sprinted through the regular observing program so I could earn my pin, pausing just long enough to view the Beehive Cluster through the amazing Tele-Vue Ethos. The dew was horrendous; you could hear hair driers going on every few minutes as folks across the field tried to keep things dry.

Saturday morning was bright and only partly cloudy. We got everything packed up, ate lunch, and hit the road for home.

So here's the summary. My TSP 2007 memories:

A great Sunday night. Venus so bright it cast shadows. Watching the Milky Way rise. Pointing the scope at Leo-Virgo and the eyepiece filled with galaxies.

A good Monday morning. Viewing all those things in the Teapot that I can't get at home.

High clouds. Low clouds. Fog. Light rain. Heavy rain. Mist. Hail. Lightning. Yet virtually no mud.

Chasing Ian over every rock he came across.

Meeting Steph, Alvin, Glen and the rest of the CN krew. Such a nice group.

Interrupting my sprint Friday night through the telescope observing list to view the Beehive through the Ethos and my 13mm T6 in Al's 5" refractor. Referring to the Nagler 6-3mm zoom as "butt ugly" within Al's earshot. (Not my greatest moment.)

Touring Carlsbad Caverns and the McDonald Observatory.

Meeting a fellow from Houston who sat in Mission Control at the console next to FIDO on every Apollo flight. Front row seat to history.

Looking at a telescope-mount combination that cost not only more than my car, but my and Trudy's cars together. (12" RCOS on a Paramount ME.)

Lots of old, fat, white guys. A few women. Fewer kids.

Lemonade with every meal.

A lot of Canons, a sprinkling of Nikons, and a few others.

Wanting to return.

Texas Star Party, Thursday

Compare this picture with the one from Monday morning. Bleah. Just bleah.


But Carlsbad Caverns was very cool. Ian was a good boy--I'm so proud of him for not running crazy. He stayed on the path, and even held either my or Trudy's hand most of the time. We joined the legions of visitors over the years and ate lunch in the underground lunchroom.


So, no astronomy, and probably none tonight, but I'm hopeful for early in the a.m. or tomorrow. Tomorrow night is our last chance, so we're keeping our fingers crossed. We're scheduled to take the McDonald Observatory tour tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Texas Star Party, Wednesday

What a grey day. It rained all last night, and today has been foggy and overcast. The forecast is for more of the same, so tomorrow we're going to drive up to Carlsbad Caverns.

The day wasn't a total waste. I did get to meet Al Nagler, probably the most influential eyepiece and telescope designer of the last 50 years. His Nagler eyepieces, with their 82° apparent field of view, revolutionized eyepiece design. The 13mm Nagler Type 6 I have in my case is the best equipment purchase I've made.



I also got to look through the prototype of the latest in his eyepiece line, the 13mm Ethos. It has an even wider field of view--100°--and is fully corrected all the way out to the edge of the view. It's a jaw-dropper.

Texas Star Party, Tuesday

I woke up around three this morning and poked my head out the door. "Rats. It's still cloudy." No, it was the Milky Way. I drug myself down the scope, and I'm glad I did. I spent the morning in Sagittarius--the Teapot--which is tough to see well from home where it's usually in the light pollution from Austin. I think the thing I saw that impressed me the most was NGC 6520. It's an ordinary open cluster, pretty enough, but right alongside it is Barnard 66, a dark nebula. It looked like an ink stain against the glow of the Milky Way. Very cool.

It's raining again this afternoon, so I don't know what to expect. I'm looking at the field right now, and it's a collection of covered scopes, tarps and tents. Haven't run into any mud--it's pretty rocky--so at least there's that.

Texas Star Party, Sunday-Monday

Click for full-size.

Here we are at the Prude Ranch for the Texas Star Party. It took us about 7 and a half hours to drive 450 miles, but that included some extra stops for the boy. The upper field is pretty full, but there's still room. The middle and lower fields have plenty of space.


We got set up in plenty of time before dark--and dark is the operative word here. It's a little clichéd, but it really is hard to make out the constellations with all the "extra" stars around. Before it set, Venus was bright enough that I could cast a shadow passing one hand in front of the other. I was out until about 1:00 this morning, cruising around Leo, Virgo & Canopus. Omega Centauri is just a few degrees above the horizon, but still way more impressive than M13. I could see the "bridge" in M51. M104 looked like a single unprocessed image--the dust lane was easy, and there was a nice bulge around the center with averted vision.


Today was Malt Day. We met up with several people from Cloudy Nights and went into town to the Old Texas Inn for chocolate malts. It's fun to put faces to names.

There's some serious astronomy gear set up here. I has looking at a telescope and mount combination this afternoon that not only costs more than my car, it costs more than my and Trudy's cars together. Further up the field is a telescope with a 36" mirror. You can't really appreciate how big that is until you see that big hunk of glass. It requires a pretty tall ladder to reach the eyepiece when it's pointed straight up.

Anyway, I don't know if we'll get to observe anything tonight: We're just sitting here watching the rain fall. There was a pretty good thunderstorm this afternoon, and it's still kinda dreary.

More tomorrow.

An Old Joke That Made Me Smile

A man and his wife go kayaking in Alaska. The wife's kayak flips and she disappears beneath the waves. The next day two grim-faced Alaska State Troopers appear at the man's house in Anchorage.

"We're sorry, Mr. Wilkens, but we have some information about your wife," one trooper said.

"Tell me! Did you find her?" Wilkens shouted.

The Troopers looked at each other. One said, "We have some bad news, some good news, and some really GREAT news. Which do you want to hear first?"

Fearing the worst, an ashen-faced Wilkens said, "Give me the bad news first."

The Trooper said, "I'm sorry to tell you, Sir, but this morning we found your wife's body in Kachemak Bay."

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Wilkens. Swallowing hard, he asked, "What's the good news?"

The Trooper continued, "When we pulled her up, she had 12 twenty-five pound king crabs, 10 snow crabs, and 6 good-size Dungeness crabs clinging to her body."

Stunned, Wilkens demanded, "If that's the good news, what's the great news?"

The Trooper said, "We're going to pull her up again tomorrow."

M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy

A very noisy M51, with one problem solved. This is a stack of 15, 4-minute exposures. I did a freelance job that paid for a new dovetail bar & rings for the ST80 guide scope, and I am very happy with them. Goodbye guide scope flex, hello long autoguided exposures!

Now, about all that noise. I did shoot 4 darks that improved things some, but probably could have used more. I need to read more about bias frames and such, too. Summer's nearly here, and the camera gets noisier as it gets warmer.

Observatory Shootout

SkyShed POD vs. Thinking Outside SmartShed

Last spring when I decided I was finally going to go ahead with building an observatory, a Canadian company called SkyShed announced their plans to produce an inexpensive plastic observing dome, the SkyShed POD (Personal Observatory Dome) and called for beta testers. I immediately replied, but like about a thousand other people, wasn't selected.


Since I wasn't selected to test, I went with Plan B and purchased a SmartShed Deluxe by Thinking Outside at my local Sam's Club. I did a lot of research online about converting a storage building to a backyard observatory, and the SmartShed kept showing up. But I always had a nagging question: Did I make the right choice?


It turns out fellow Dam Astronomer Andy Raiford did make the cut to test the POD, and it recently arrived in his back yard. I went for a visit and made some notes comparing his POD to my SmartShed.

First Look

There's no denying it: the POD is cool-looking. You know when you see it that you're looking at an observatory. SkyShed got the proportions right and built a handsome building.

My SmartShed? Well, it's not unattractive--I think it looks a whole lot nicer than most storage buildings--but it doesn't look like an observatory. But is that a bad thing? The POD just screams, "Hey! There's a telescope in here!" while the Smart Shed doesn't say anything at all. Call is security through obscurity, but I don't mind not drawing attention in my suburban back yard. Let's call the outside looks a draw.

Seeing the Sky

SkyShed made an interesting decision building their dome. Rather than follow the traditional design of a slit along one side of the dome, they chose a clamshell design. The dome is split down the middle and pivots open at the base, opening up the whole hemisphere. It's cleverly done, and eliminates some dome drawbacks. There's no need to rotate the dome during an imaging or observing session to keep a slit aligned with the telescope. You can also stand in the building and see a big chunk of sky instead of just a sliver. The downside to a clamshell design is that unless you offset your telescope from the center of the dome, you can't point it straight up at the zenith. There's a lot of online debate going on about this: Some see it as a major drawback, as the zenith is the best place to observe in the sky as you're looking through the least amount of atmosphere. Others feel that the obscured portion of sky is too small to be of consequence, and that you can't image at the zenith with a German equatorial mount (GEM) anyway due to a situation called "meridian flip."


The SmartShed roof opens differently. It's also in two pieces, but rather than pivoting on a hinge, one half is lifted up and slides over the over. The building wasn't designed to have an open roof, but it's a happy feature with the way Thinking Outside put it together that it works without modification. The open roof does interfere with part of the sky though--I lose views to the north below about 25° elevation. East, South and West can be accommodated to the horizon by opening a door, but in my back yard the sky is obscured by houses before the walls become an issue.


After looking at both setups side-by-side, I think I prefer the SmartShed's opening. It does take a little more effort to unscrew four connectors and slide the roof off, and realigning everything at the end of the night and putting it all back together takes more time than simply swinging the dome closed, but I like the big view of the sky. I also don't have to think about offsets or turning the dome to any particular direction.

Controlling the Elements

I see having a backyard observatory as serving two purposes. It allows you to permanently mount a telescope so that it's available any time the sky's clear. You can simply open the roof and begin observing. The other reason is to control the elements--wind, cold and light. WInd and cold are related (duh), but even on warmer nights wind can present a challenge to observing or photography as it tries to push your telescope around. And while an observatory can't do anything about skyglow from urban lighting, it can shield you from the neighbor who insists on leaving his back porch light on all night.

I'll admit up front I haven't spent a night observing in a POD, but I have a pretty good imagination. I don't see the clamshell offering a whole lot of protection from the wind. The way I see it, unless the wind is coming directly from behind the open dome, the open half is going to act like a funnel and capture every breeze. As for the neighbor's porch light, the relatively low walls won't block much light from your eyes. This is where a traditional dome would have an advantage with its smaller opening.

The SmartShed has remarkably good protection from the elements despite the open roof. The high walls do a good job of deflecting most of the wind, and completely block all outside light when I'm sitting down. I find I can get as dark adapted as the skyglow will allow, and there is no white light showing in any direction. I think I can stay warmer inside too, by staying under the covered section.

Interior Features

There's no contest here. The SkyShed POD is a seven-foot diameter circle with about 38 and a half square feet of floor space. The SmartShed is a seven-by-eleven foot rectangle with 77 square feet of floor--more than double the POD's. The rectangular elevation of the SmartShed means more headroom, too. The POD can be equipped with bays to increase the covered storage, but unless you crawl, you can't actually get in them. Even with a table and an observing chair there is still plenty of room for two adults inside the SmartShed. The SmartShed also comes standard with built-in adjustable shelving.


A second major interior difference is the floor. The POD is intended as a portable building, and does not include a floor, unlike the SmartShed's full floor. No floor is an advantage for using a tripod, but I like having my pier coming up through a hole in the floor. I just don't see the need for a portable observatory, and you'll need a full-size pickup or a trailer to move the POD, so I'd rather have a floor. I don't know how weather-tight the POD is, but I can say that my SmartShed has never leaked, even during some pretty intense thunderstorms. I wouldn't want to leave anything on the ground inside the POD. I imagine there's going to be a lot of seven-by-seven decks built below PODs. The POD and the SmartShed are built from similar materials and can be assembled in roughly the same amount of time.

The Bottom Line

Regular price for a SkyShed PODis $1,495, with shipping to my door in Texas an additional $664. Shipping to other states varies from $365 to more than $900 to the Florida Keys.

A Thinking Outside SmartShed Deluxe is $795 at Sam's Club. I picked mine up at my local store, so there was no shipping costs. The Sam's web site estimates $267 shipping to my ZIP code. The only modification required for using the building as an observatory was cutting a 12-inch hole in the floor with a jigsaw for the concrete pier to protrude through.

I don't have that nagging question any more. The POD is cool, no doubt, and SkyShed should sell a lot of them. But in my opinion, the Thinking Outside SmartShed Deluxe is more useful and a better value.

Be sure to read the comments for Andy's rebuttal. He has more experience with the POD, and I appreciate his feedback, particularly concerning the floor and wind.

M104, The Sombrero Galaxy

Nothing wrong with this one that better focus, autoguiding, and about a 4-times longer exposure wouldn't cure. Oh, and shooting when it's not a quarter moon would probably help, too.

Info from Starry Night Pro:

Distance from observer: 50.000 Mly
Apparent magnitude: 9.50
Angular size: 12 arcminutes
Description: M104 is a nearly edge-on spiral galaxy with an unusually large central bulge. It is an outlying member of the Virgo Cluster. This galaxy is known as the Sombrero Galaxy due to its large circular glow and the dark lane which bisects the galaxy into two unequal halves. A small telescope can show the galaxy’s bright bulge with pointed ends and the dark lane. M104 was not in Messier’s published catalog, but was added in 1921 when it was noticed that Messier’s notes indicated that he knew of this object. Objects M105-110 were subsequently added for the same reason.

10" LX200 @ f/6.3, 30 x 120 sec, EOS 350 D @ 1600 ISO

Dealing With the Public

"I want my dollar or my taco!"

M65 & M66, Galaxies in Leo (Reprocessed)

While testing my guiding setup, I wound up shooting 3 series of this over two nights. I wondered what I would get if I tried combining them.



Finally, some color is coming out! My plan for the next good night is to try for 3 hours worth of exposure and see what I get.

This is kinda vignetted--I didn't shoot flats since I was only worried about guiding. Next time.

10" LX200 @ f/6.3, 60 x 90 sec, EOS 350 D @ 1600 ISO

M64, The Black Eye Galaxy

30 x 120 seconds, unguided.

Oddly enough, I get better tracking without guiding. The inexpensive mount I'm using to connect the guide scope to the LX200 has too much flex. Well, all it takes is money. (I'll be seeing how far I can go unguided for a while, I think!)

M65 & M66, Galaxies in Leo

Spring is here, so it's galaxy season! Here's 2 of the Leo Triplet, M65 & M66 (that's M66 on the left).



Info from SEDS.org:

M65, together with its neighbors M66 and NGC 3628, forms a most conspicuous triplet of galaxies, the Leo Triplett or M66 group, located at a distance of about 35 million light years.

Although it is close to and thus under the gravitational influence of its neighbors, M65 looks like a very "normal" Sa type spiral and seems to have felt little influence. It has a prominent central lense and tightly wound spiral arms, plus a prominent dust lane marking the facing edge. The luminous disk is dominated by a smooth old stellar population. Near the lane, some knots are visible, which, according to J.D. Wray, may be associated with star forming regions. The lane may hide regions of star formation usually associated with such features in spiral galaxies

M66 is considerably larger than its neighbor, M65, and has a well developed but not well defined central bulge, and is therefore classified Sb. Obviously its spiral arms are deformed, probably because of the encounters with its neighbors. They seem to be distorted and displaced above the plane of the galaxy. Note how one of the spiral arms seems to pass over the left side of the central bulge. Much dust is visible here, as well as a few pink nebulae, signs of star formation, near the end of one of the arms.

Canon EOS 350D, 10" LX200 @ f/6.3, 20 x 90 seconds, ISO 1600

Spring

Lone Star Rod & Kustom Roundup

First clear day in two weeks! Embarrassing moment: seeing a fellow who looked like Jimmie Vaughn and wondering aloud, “When does the Jimmie Vaughn look-alike contest start?” Guess who the guy was.

Lots more pictures here.

Bike Messengers Are on Crack

Explain to me again why I want my child to learn how to ride his bike?

Honeycomb Sucks, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Trudes recently bought a box of one of my favorite childhood cereals, Honeycomb. But inside the box were some weird cardboard-like nuggets instead of the sweet honeycombs I knew so well. What happened? We turned to the font of all knowledge:

Recently, "Bran Blend", defined as whole grain corn flour and corn bran, has been added to the ingredient list. This addition has also coincided with a near-tripling of the fiber content shown on the nutrition label (from originally about 1g to 3g per serving) and the inclusion of Honeycomb cereal in Kraft's Sensible Solution program.

Aficionados of Honeycomb cereal were able to immediately taste the difference. Post has registered many calls of complaints from Honeycomb fans since the change. It remains to be seen whether this new form of the time-tested cereal will continue to sell well with the cereal eating public.

I fired off a note to Post & Kraft Foods:

The "new" Honeycomb, quite frankly, sucks. If I wanted a high-fiber, "healthy" breakfast cereal, I'd have a bowl of Twigs-N-Berries™. If I wanted a sweet, nostalgic bowl of cereal of dubious nutritional value, I'd have a bowl of Honeycomb. Not any more--you've lost a customer.