Posts Made By: Paul Cezanne

I'm a rank beginner, have only been out a few times. I have an older Celetron NexStar 8. I've been impressed by Saturn and months ago, I was impressed by the Orion Nebula.

I've been disappointed in spirals so far, but I've not seen all that many. Don't get me wrong, seeing M81 and M82 together did elict a wow, and I know I'm not going to see what the cameras see, but which spiral should I be aiming at to see some hint of arms?

I've seen arms in M51 but that was in a 14" or 16" dob.

Thanks!

Paul

I have one for my 8" SCT. I roll it up when not in use. What is the best way to get it to keeps its shape when using it? Mine sorta both looks funny and sometimes even slightly collapses, presumably blocking some light.

If you are not familiar with the Astrozap, it is made up of flexible black foam, looks like neopreen, and has velcro to hold it together.

Thanks

Paul

I'm hosting a very casual, meant for novices, Messier Marathon this coming weekend. It is my first one also. It is meant to be laid back and fun.

With that said, having some direction would be good. I'm aware of Larry McNish's planner (http://www.telusplanet.net/lmcnish/darksky/messierplanner.htm) but it seems March centric. I'm in the Northeast USA so Sagitarius is setting soon after sunset so I would expect to have M4, M6, M8 etc... happen before M5. But I keep on seeing M5 followed by M102, M13 and M92. Maybe this makes sense in March or maybe I'm not getting something. But I think that grabbing M4 etc... then trying M5 and then back into sequence makes more sense.

But I'd love to have an October list generator or sequence. My google skills are failing me on this one.

Thank you!

Paul

I'm thinking of applying for a grant to stay at one of the dune shacks in the Cape Cod National Seashore. Almost all of the shacks are reserved for artists of one media or another (my wife Jeannette was in one 2 years ago on a writing fellowship).

However the Compass Trust also accepts applications for scientists!

This is the shack that Jeannette stayed in.

http://tinyurl.com/2h76wd

This is about 2.25 miles from downtown Provincetown, but about a mile from the nearest light source. I've not seen it at night myself but Jeannette says that she was able to see structure in the Milky Way from there. (My clearsky clock for there is http://cleardarksky.com/c/DrhyRsObMAkey.html?1 ) The Compass Trust shacks are different from this one but you'll get the general idea of my surroundings.

So, what kind of science project can I do?

I've recently purchased a tiny adaptor which lets me piggyback a small camera on my GEM scope. I was thinking of trying to take some very wide field sky shots both from there and from Provincetown and also maybe from Manchester to demonstrate the effects of light pollution on the visible sky.

Note, I will be out there for 1 week (2 if I can get the time off from work, it will be between April and October, and I'll be operating off of field power for the whole time. I may need to get some solar panels to charge up the dew heater battery.)

So, the questions I have for you all are:

1) what are some things I can do with this experiment/demonstration in mind? A set of photographs seems barely sufficient. Are there measurements I can make? What would be a good camera? My Canon A610 does take dark measurements for exposures over 2 seconds but it is limited to 15 seconds max exposure. At 15 seconds of exposure I certainly don't need to mount the camera on my GEM, a tripod would be sufficient.

2) do you have any other ideas for science projects? (Note, I have no desire to take traditional astrophotography shots, aside from my lack of skill and equipment, operating on field power would severely limit the amount of image processing I could do.)

Thanks all!

Paul

Thanks everyone. That's a great short list for me to try out.

Paul