Posts Made By: David Hakenewerth

I am a newbie from a DS observation stand point. I have spent most of my time doing planetary and lunar observing and doing telescope projects.

My 12 year old son is having astronomy night at school on May 12th at a dark sky sight Mag 6.2. in NE Arkansas.

I have completed an 8 inch F6.25 bartelized scope which I checked out the last couple of days in the lab (ie. garage) and last night outside in light polluted skies. It appears to be performing pretty well. It tracks good and doesn't show alot of vibration at the eyepiece.

I believe that we will have about 20 scopes of various sizes and models. We should have about 120 students and 60 or so parents in attendance. The will gather about 6:30 and have a cookout. Then observing will be from dusk till 11:30.

Saturn and Jupiter are stunning right now as will be the early first quarter moon but everyone will be displaying these easy targets.

I want to create a scroll file of DS objects that we can look at during this time and I want to check them out in the next 2 weeks to get the bugs hammered out.

Any suggestions. (I guess it's time I bought a sky atlas or some planetarium software.)



Thanks guys

Dave

Double transit of Jupiter tonight for those lucky enough to have clear skies.

The double shadow begins about 10:50 pm central time.

Good Luck.

My clear sky clock shows a 3 hour window opening up at the right time if it holds true.



00:28 UT, Europa begins transit of Jupiter.
02:28 UT, Io begins transit of Jupiter.
02:46 UT, Europa's shadow begins to cross Jupiter.
03:02 UT, Europa ends transit of Jupiter.
03:36 UT, Io's shadow begins to cross Jupiter.
03:36 UT, ** A multi-shadow transit event begins. **
04:40 UT, Io ends transit of Jupiter.
05:24 UT, Europa's shadow leaves Jupiter's disk.
05:24 UT, ** The multi-shadow transit event ends. **
05:48 UT, Io's shadow leaves Jupiter's disk.

Dave

Last night I had my first opportunity since Dec 19th to set up and have an observing session. 37 straight days of unacceptable viewing. Last night's session turned out to be good. Saturn started breaking down at 160x in my 8inch Dobs early in the evening but Cassini was visible as were three of the moons. Later that night around midnight I was able to push 350x and Cassini was inky dark. I picked out 6 orbs around Saturn. Without any guide to use I think 5 were moons and one was just a small mag 10 star in the area. I haven't worked on any ATM projects since November so last night was much needed "THERAPY".

I'm hooked.

Dave

Hi all,

When designing a new OTA I always seem to get bogged down with the design of the seconday size, and what the "main" use of the telescope will be. This time I want to design my OTA so that the secondary mirror is easily replacable, thus changing the scope from a small obstruction, small field of view planetary to a large obstruction large field of view RFT. My question is does anyone have a decent homegrown or inexpensive secondary mirror holder design which does not require silicone to adhere the mirror?

Thanks for any responses.

Dave

All of this is very interesting and I hope to put it to application. I attempted my first Messier Marathon 3-25-06 however the weather only allowed observations from 19:30 to 23:00. The site had a considerable amount of light pollution which made the observations very difficult. I also cheated by using a goto system, but even with this technology it was hard to stay on schedule. The bright objects early on were easy and some of the open star clusters spectacular, but the faint objects blew my mind. I couldn't see hardly any and the ones I did find required averted vision and moving the field of view to "see" the objects.

I need to do some reading and Charles and his equipment. It amases me how he was able to find these dimmer objects. I wonder how successful most are at their first Marathon without first having viewed the objects previously? I was stunned at how faint some of these items are. I never could see any of the real faint objects and based on the magnitude values shown in the tables I know I never will at this location.

This exercise makes me want to research Charles, his equipment, and viewing conditions.

Clear Skies Dave

Can someone school me please? This spring I attempted my first Messier marathon and of course mother nature only allowed about 3 clear hours of observation, but I was puzzled by the published Mags and my actual observations. How do they calculate Mag for an object with multiple objects like a cluster or an object that varies in Mag? Is it the brightest component? some statistical average? or something else? I had a hard time with some bright objects and easily found some dimmer ones.

Thanks Dave

Any chance one of you talented images could capture the Shuttle docked to the ISS?

Just curious
Dave

I built my first scope in 1999; because of info I surfed on the internet. At that time I also was watching the ISS construction schedule, and the NASA tracking webpage. I used to watch the passes with some regularity then, and I always enjoyed them. I shared one particular pass with a coworker, on the roof of our factory, and I will always remember it. It was very high in the sky and for a long arc duration. I had read that The ISS can be seen as an object brighter than Jupiter, but I alway found this to be a little untrue. To my eyes the ISS was alway just about the same or a little less than Jove. Normally you just see the sun reflecting off of the ISS and see it shine, but on this night for a very short duration we were in the direct path of the reflected light off the solar panels and it was much brighter than Jupiter. The duration was short, maybe a second, but it was bright enough to make me blink.

Anyone else ever experience this.

Thanks Dave

I've spotted a new bird for my area. New to me at least. I've seen this bird two days in a row in NE. Arkansas and would like help with ID. It is slightly smaller than a Northern Flicker, It is predominantly brown like a turtle dove. It has a white marking on it back and a red mark on the back of the head. I think it's some kind of wood pecker the way it flys. Don't see any spots or band the feather seem to be a smooth brown. It is very skidish and will not stay around when I stop and notice it.

Sorry about the sketchy details. Any guesses?

Thanks
Dave Hakenewerth

Anybody have any opinions on the protective clothing that is available. We finally are getting some good evenings but I just can't stand the mosquitos, even covered in Deet they still swarm unbearably.

Last night I used a Tyvek suit which really worked well on the areas that were covered, only my face and feet were under attack but good heavens it was hot.

Thanks Dave