Crumby's Telescope Tomfoolery Notes and Addendum
Anon, I shall venture forth into the stygian darkness. I have asked myself, "Crumby, why do humans and some proto humans maybe, leave lights outside on all night long or never turn them off, ever." All I can come up with is they're sniveling cowards afraid somebody's gonna sneak up on their houses at night. Perhaps they hope the police will espy the sneaks and arrest them. If the police arrest the sneaks, I say, "Give them fifty dollars and let them go." Then after awhile the sneaks will get rich and won't have to actually break in. But the only ones who should have to pay for the sneaks are the sniveling cowards.
Anon shows some promise as the skies were actually blue instead of puke milky blue at sundown for a change. Blue skies mean less pollution between me and the celestial bodies maybe. So I am looking forward to an interesting evening, even more interesting than fixing for the interesting evening. First fixing, I banged my finder scope on the door sill. Then I discovered the Rigel Quickfinder had been left on again for dang near 24 hours. Then I couldn't find the extra battery. Everything's OK maybe though. The finder seems to have survived unharmed thanks probably to its rubber armor. And for a wonder, the Quickfinder still lights up.
Tonight I will be testing out a lightly used 6mm Orthoscopic ep that came in the mail yesterday. I tried it out some last night, but there was so much humidity after that little rain that all the optics kept steaming up faster than I could wipe them off. If it wasn't the scope steamed up, it was the ep, and if it wasn't the ep, it was my spectacles. And the Rigel got wet too. In fact, it got knocked off the telescope when I had to excitedly relocate the telescope during the rain event and after it got knocked off it got rained on. For a wonder it still works.
The subjects celestial anon shall be in the eastern and southern skies. Which reminds me, I need to stop this and list the presumptive celestials anon in my field notebook which in this case should probably be referenced as my sky notebook. This notebook is an extension and modification of the methodology and results from some of my looseleaf notes totally evaporating, probably into a cow.
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Addendum
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The time frame for this addendum is about 11 PM til 5 AM for the dates of the Julian, July 21-22. As one might expect, a great many celestial bodies may be observed over an approximately six hour period. However, the desire to know what ones are being observed, and finding those particular ones employing the preferred Ludite methodology, takes time.
Observing conditions were as good as they get here probably. The moon didn't arise until 5 AM and there were no clouds. The Andromeda Galaxy was detectable in 8x42 binoculars at around 2 AM. One or another of those little galaxies at 9 0'clock from Andromeda was also espied accidentally in the 10" Newtonian, maybe. M 33 was not espied. It's not much fun looking below about 40 degrees on the north and northeast horizons. The sky that way is always very light.
Pie Aquila, off east, is a challenge for me and my telescopery. At 208x it becomes apparently binary. I have heard of it being split at much lower powers. But I don't fool around on it anymore. At 416x I can see two stars, fer sure.
To get a look at Alpha Pisces above the Celtis laevigata and Vitis mustangensis one has to wait awhile these days. So it was around 3:30 when Alpha Pisces got high enough to espy. Here again, I had to resort to 400x plus to identify a binary, not easy with a hand guided mount. Actually, I might be able to split it at something less than 400, but the appropriate eps weren't comparitively handy.
Mainly, the multiple stars I like are the colorful ones that can be espied at fairly low magnifications. A fair example is Struve 163, very pretty red and blue stars at 80x.
All told these were the multiples espied. Some are repeats. Pie aquila, Epsilon pegasi, 57 Aquila, Alpha capricornis, beta capricornis, 54 Sagittarius, 35 Piscis, Zeta Piscis, Alpha Piscis, Iota Cassiopeia, Struve 163 and Psi Cassiopeia.
Anon shows some promise as the skies were actually blue instead of puke milky blue at sundown for a change. Blue skies mean less pollution between me and the celestial bodies maybe. So I am looking forward to an interesting evening, even more interesting than fixing for the interesting evening. First fixing, I banged my finder scope on the door sill. Then I discovered the Rigel Quickfinder had been left on again for dang near 24 hours. Then I couldn't find the extra battery. Everything's OK maybe though. The finder seems to have survived unharmed thanks probably to its rubber armor. And for a wonder, the Quickfinder still lights up.
Tonight I will be testing out a lightly used 6mm Orthoscopic ep that came in the mail yesterday. I tried it out some last night, but there was so much humidity after that little rain that all the optics kept steaming up faster than I could wipe them off. If it wasn't the scope steamed up, it was the ep, and if it wasn't the ep, it was my spectacles. And the Rigel got wet too. In fact, it got knocked off the telescope when I had to excitedly relocate the telescope during the rain event and after it got knocked off it got rained on. For a wonder it still works.
The subjects celestial anon shall be in the eastern and southern skies. Which reminds me, I need to stop this and list the presumptive celestials anon in my field notebook which in this case should probably be referenced as my sky notebook. This notebook is an extension and modification of the methodology and results from some of my looseleaf notes totally evaporating, probably into a cow.
_____
Addendum
_____
The time frame for this addendum is about 11 PM til 5 AM for the dates of the Julian, July 21-22. As one might expect, a great many celestial bodies may be observed over an approximately six hour period. However, the desire to know what ones are being observed, and finding those particular ones employing the preferred Ludite methodology, takes time.
Observing conditions were as good as they get here probably. The moon didn't arise until 5 AM and there were no clouds. The Andromeda Galaxy was detectable in 8x42 binoculars at around 2 AM. One or another of those little galaxies at 9 0'clock from Andromeda was also espied accidentally in the 10" Newtonian, maybe. M 33 was not espied. It's not much fun looking below about 40 degrees on the north and northeast horizons. The sky that way is always very light.
Pie Aquila, off east, is a challenge for me and my telescopery. At 208x it becomes apparently binary. I have heard of it being split at much lower powers. But I don't fool around on it anymore. At 416x I can see two stars, fer sure.
To get a look at Alpha Pisces above the Celtis laevigata and Vitis mustangensis one has to wait awhile these days. So it was around 3:30 when Alpha Pisces got high enough to espy. Here again, I had to resort to 400x plus to identify a binary, not easy with a hand guided mount. Actually, I might be able to split it at something less than 400, but the appropriate eps weren't comparitively handy.
Mainly, the multiple stars I like are the colorful ones that can be espied at fairly low magnifications. A fair example is Struve 163, very pretty red and blue stars at 80x.
All told these were the multiples espied. Some are repeats. Pie aquila, Epsilon pegasi, 57 Aquila, Alpha capricornis, beta capricornis, 54 Sagittarius, 35 Piscis, Zeta Piscis, Alpha Piscis, Iota Cassiopeia, Struve 163 and Psi Cassiopeia.
posted by ray pistrum at Friday, July 21, 2006
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