Self portrait minutes after I saw the Delta II launch

I’ve always wanted to see the shuttle lift off in Florida, but that will probably never happen.  So this year I’ve been trying to spot a rocket launch here in California.

As you may know Vandenberg AFB is home to NASA’s west coast launch pad. And according to Brian Webb’s website www.spacearchive.info we should be able to see the rocket launches during the twilight and nighttime hours here in Southern California.

Well today I saw it and it was very cool! This was my third attempt at trying to see some artifact from the launch while at home here  in Lake Forest Orange County. There was a big difference this time: the launch was at dawn. All the other times were in the daylight, or at some other ungodly hour. I was not yet committed enough to this quest to justify going out in the middle of night to see something, since I did not even know if it was possible. The last time I tried was during the day, and I saw nothing. However somebody reported that they saw something up in the mountains in Big Bear California.

It was fairly clear with some fog/haze towards the horizon this morning. I started looking right around launch time (6:09 a.m.) and saw nothing as expected. Three  minutes went by and I looked around again and I noticed a faint helicopter looking light flying low from the Northwest area. I almost dismissed it, but I picked up my 10X50 binoculars just in case and pointed them that way. That’s when I saw the FIRE coming out of the ROCKET. Holy smokes it’s the rocket! No I did not see much detail, but I saw a small object with fire shooting out of the back of it. I was shocked. In fact I was not expecting to see that at all. I thought I would only see cool smoke plumes or something like that.

The rocket continued on a low fly by and all of a sudden the smoke plum started to show. The rocket was growing fainter as the smoke plum grew and became brighter. The smoke was totally visible to the naked eye at this time. It looked like a regular cloud as far as brightness, but in shape it was long and swirly. A few seconds later the smoke stopped and I could not really see the fire anymore, the rocket just looked like a satellite at this point. The smoke appeared to stop and then reappeared as another stage of the engine went off. I did not see fire, but saw more smoke. It then faded fast as it got lower to the SouthWest Horizon. It was at that time that I took out my camera and tripod and fired some shots of the smoke (click image below).

Ahhh that was a cool moment: to actually be able to see something lifting off to outer space!  I think what helped inspire me was a few months ago the shuttle was going to land here in the West. I heard or read somewhere that you might be able to hear the sonic boom. I set my watch and went outside. I told my neighboors that if they hear a loud boom that it was the shuttle crossing the sound barrier. They gave me some weird looks, but a few minutes later we all heard the boom and we all were excited.

So get out your binoculars, cameras and ears and do some astronomy. With just my eyes I have (and you can too) see the space station, the shuttle, a rocket launch, and Iridium Flares. Here are some resources that will guide the way:

http://www.spacearchive.info/index.htm

http://www.heavens-above.com/

Smoke from the Delta II launch 12-14-09

The Julian Starfest is a major Southern California astronomy event, featuring a free public star party on Saturday, tours of the Palomar Observatory, astronomy supplies and vendors, astronomy guest speakers and presentations, a giant raffle with $7,000 worth of give-aways and four days of camping and astronomy.

Camping area at the Menghini Winerty, Julian Starfest

With plenty of room at the winery to spread out we had enough space to accommodate all four of our imaging rigs, complete with computers, workbenches and Fat Maxes (our super efficient, ultra compact tool chests). Our compound was flanked by the travel trailer on one side and two tents (for the adventurous) on the other. Plenty of room for our gravity chairs and binocular sky tours in the center, while our rigs were up and imaging all night.

Julian Pie Company

We pulled in Thursday just after 3:00 pm when camping registration opened. We picked our spot and got set up. The first night was perfect with clear skies that got pretty dark. Friday was overcast all day and it never let up, the night was clouded over, even raining on us a bit throughout the night. And good thing we stuck it out because Saturday night was again perfectly clear and dark (though very damp and dewy). I’m not a good judge of what is dark or not (and we’ve had much debate about Anza vs. GMARS, etc.) and Jamie didn’t think Julian was as dark as GMARS – and I disagreed. We were tempted to get a dark sky quality meter to start taking regular measurements of our locations – this tool would be a helpful tool to aid in our ongoing debate. All-in-all, we had two great nights of astronomy.

Craig Stark speaking at the Julian Starfest

Craig Stark from StarkLabs (author of Nebulocity, PHD Guiding and DSLR Shutter) gave a great talk on SNR (signal to noise ratio), similar to his series on Cloudy Nights, and detailed the differences between cameras for astro-photography. He also spend a few minutes with us discussing, and helping solve an ongoing debate about ISO settings and its impact on SNR. Look for more MBS stories discussing some of the Stark topics like increased aperture and its affect on SNR, and how single-shot color cameras differ from monochrome cameras.

We’re all good friends with Keith, Chris and Craig at OPT (Oceanside Photo and Telescope) so its always fun when we get to spend time out in the field with these guys. Check out Chris’ newest images on his website. OPT is one of the big sponsors of the Julian Starfest and they have a giant booth in the vendor village. In fact, this has become quite an event for all of us to do some “shopping.” This year Harvey bought his new CCD camera (Orion Starshoot Pro) and was like a proud poppa when he unpacked the box. Ippei was close to making his final decision on a new imaging OTA, but the OPT guys sold the last one in stock – right from under his nose. Jamie finally got his wide field imaging rig completed when he attached his camera ball head adapter (manfrotto 486) to his Celestron CG-4 mount, complete with hand-crafted, hardwood dovetail. This ended up being used by everyone for wide field imaging right off the camera – it’s awesome! And don’t worry, if they don’t have what you need at the OPT Booth – they call the store and have someone bring it up, THAT is customer service at its best! I finally got a new HoTech centering 2″ camera dapter, deliverd to Julian from the store (did I mention OPT is awesome!)

With all of our new gear, the great food, the heated debates (360º capabilities, dark skies, Gaysted, breathing in the particles once you can smell them, etc.), the apple (and berry) pie, the ice cream lady, Bridgette, Ippei’s new truck (really a big help packing in all of our gear), Sea Breeze and the Millionaire Mile – We even got the chance to meet a few guys from the SoCalAstroPhoto group, and chat a bit – The Julian Starfest 2009 was a huge success!

Look for updated images from everyone under the MEMBERS tab.

We loaded all four of our Stanley Fat Max gear boxes into Ippei's truck.

Planning our strategy over breakfast in Orange County before heading out to Julian, CA

We stopped for pie at the famous Julian Pie Company

Setting up our campsite - astro-imaging center - and saloon. Four telescopes, four computers.

Our first feast of many - BBQ steak sandwiches.

Santa Ysabel Casino, just a few miles from Julian, CA - we went for the $4.95 Prime Rib Dinner! And some of us like horseradish more than others.

Jamie, testing his new personal dark adapted eye protection system. Now he can use the bright light from his computer monitor to light his work area - and still protect his own eyes - Patent Pending.

Harvey studying the manual for his new Orion Starshoot Pro - just picked up from OPT booth in Vendor Village.

Ippei and John conducting highly technical binocular comparison testing ... complete with vodka drinks.

All you can eat chicken quesadilla Mexican breakfast - note: three is too many.

Brian and Jamie posing for a quick portrait in town - Julian, CA

Harvey won this great piece of framed art in the raffle.

Nightfall at the Julian Starfest 2009. The milky way is setting over our campground.

Camping at Afton Canyon Campground was great (April 26, 2009). It’s about 30 miles northeast of Barstow right off the 15 freeway.  It was super easy to find and get to. You pretty much take one turn off of the 15 and drive about 15 minutes and run right into the campground.

Afton has been called California’s Grand Canyon. That’s a pretty bold statement, but it was interesting and nice too see so much variety in a Southern Californian landscape.

Unique to this area is the Mojave river that flows above ground right next to the campground.  You can see the river’s power as it slowly carved its way into the the surrounding hillsides.  A wonderfull sight is to see is the lone headlight of a Southern Pacific Railroad train speeding through the  dessert darkness. Just as soon as it lights up the bridge it will disappear back into the horizon from where it came. It reminds you how Jedediah Smith once crossed these same lands.

Astronomy-wise it was darker than Joshua Tree and the Riverside GMARS site. There were small light domes to the North from Las Vegas and to the Southeast from Barstow, but they were  small and not bothersome at all. It was pretty windy in the day as it was everywhere else the week we stayed there, but we were treated to great weather on our second night as the winds came to a stand still at midnight.

We lucked out and picked the first spot as you enter the campsite. This was a long thought out decision. We figured most campers would want to go deep into the campsite so we stayed on the outside. We were correct since the campsite became about 80% full and our side was the furthest away from campfire lights. There were a couple of campfires, but our site sat a little lower and there were some surrounding bushes (probably a scorpion lair) that protected us from the stray light. Playing 80’s rap music also helped keep people from venturing too close to our site.

Overall it was a great site and we had lots of fun. There were some mishaps, but those all count towards having an advenuture!

*we had to walk back a belligerent drunk to his campsite. Once again proof that not everybody can party like us . . .

Fueling up at the Flying J in Barstow

Getting Close

Afton Road Exit

Going the right way

Looking back towards civilization (the freeway)

The road in

Arrival

The campsite

The traditional drink upon arrival

The bridge over the Mojave River

Getting Dark

Campfires light the Canyon

A nighttime train passes by

Daytime adventure. This road . . .

or this road. This looks safe let's do it!

The end of the road, and begining of our peril.

Cave in the distance

The last thing we looked at before digging out our car for 3 hours!

Image from the trip - M13 Hercules Globular Cluster

I used a super long 60mm Tasco with a webcam mounted to it. It worked okay, but it wasn’t working so great with the clouds, and it did not help that I was imaging near the zenith. That meant that the webcam was near the ground. I spent so much time laying in the dirt that night that I had to come up better solution.

With a little online research on forums (www.cloudynights.com) I started reading about people using their finderscope as a guidescope with good results. This appealed to me because of its small size, wider field, and its easy mounting. Since I had all the necessary parts already, I decided to give it a try.

I had an 8X50 right angle Zhummel finderscope so I decided to give it a try. I was able to unscrew the mirror portion off of the finder, and also the piece that attaches that to the tube.

I had to figure out how to mount the webcam to the finderscope. I attached a .965 eyepiece barrell onto the webcam (from a Tasco-originally to use in a Tasco 60mm). It simply screwed on the existing webcam lens assembly. I added some epoxy to hold things down nice and tight.

I was able to unscrew the right angle mirror and viewfinder. Luckily the crosshairs are attached to this part.

I was trying to go as low budget as possible so I went to Home Depot and picked up two PVC parts. One piece fits snug inside the finderscope tube. The other piece fits snug inside of that and has an opening that a .965 eyepiece barrel fits into perfectly. I first did dry runs of everything.

Camera to adapter

Camera and adapter to sleeve

Now that I knew how I was going to mount everything I now could figure out where the webcam focused and position the webcam accordingly. Since I am able to adjust the objective lens by screwing it in and out, I will have some working room for focus. I wanted to position the webcam in the middle of where the objective lens would focus.

I had to sand down some edges to get the parts to fit perfectly. I like to take off as little material as possible. You can’t add material once you’ve gone too far. I sanded and tested, sanded and tested. It did not take too long since PVC sands easily.

Before I glued everything, I made sure I was able to focus. I also took a took a few shoots with the webcam to make sure the focus was right on.

After the glue dried I painted everything flat black with spray paint.

I took the oportunity here to make sure everything was clean before I did an instal. And since my tolarances were so tight, I had to do a little sanding after the paint dried. I was able to press fit the PVC adapter into the finderscope tube without having to add screws to hold it into place. No slop here!

Here’s the unit all together. A 1.25″ eyepiece cap fit the finderscope adapter perfectly.

Here is the completed product. I threaded three screws to really hold down the webcam. I also removed the plastic screws in the finder mount and changed them with metal ones. I also added a third screw next to the spring push to tighten everything down once a guide star is found.

Remember to get everything nice and tight, you want to rule out any slop (flexure) that can a ruin your guide setup.

On my first attempt a couple of weeks ago, I could not get it working. The calibration failed. I later realized that the telecope would have to move more when guiding because of the short focal ratio of the guidescope. A simple tweek in PHD from 750 to 1000 for the calibration step size was all that was needed to get this working.

Now I have a small light weight easy to setup guidescope! And it all fits in my Fat Max toolbox. No more laying on the ground trying to get a guide star.

This weekend I tested it again and I was always able to find a guidestar within the adjustments of the finder.

M44 Behive Cluster. 10 minute guided shot with a 8X40 finderscope and webcam.

Can you see colors in the night sky? Not really. There are a couple of things that may show a slight hint of green like the Orion Nebula, but that is the exception.  The planets and the moon are always amazing to look at. Yes Mars be a little red speck but you can see the rings of Saturn and some of its moons with a small telescope. You can also see cloud divisions on Jupiter and even the Great Red Spot.  Venus can be seen as a crescent and Uranus can be seen as a bluish disk. There are many star clusters to view that show tens and hundreds, and sometimes thousands of stars grouped closely together. And let’s not forget our closest neighbor: the moon. Even with just binoculars there’s plenty to see: craters, ridges and great shadow detail. But no, even with the highest powered telescope on earth, you will not be able to see where the Apollo landed.

So how do you find all the cool things to look at? A good way is to first learn the North Star Polaris.  Once you find that you can use it as a guide to find other stars. That is called star hopping. You find one star that you know and hop to the other. Soon you’ll learn a few constellations and then you’ll know your way around the heavens.

To help guide you on your way I recommend some tools. My favorite book is probably “Nightwatch” by Terence Dickinson. It’s a great book that has easy to find targets with big seasonal charts that are easy to read in the dark with a red flashlight. The book can be used with or without a telescope and or binoculars. Also check out the free monthly sky maps found at http://www.skymaps.com/. You can download and print maps that will show you where and when to look for the major events in the sky for the current month. Another handy tool is a planisphere. It’s pretty much just a disc that you spin around to tell you where the constellations are each night at specific times for your location. You will however need to get one with your geographic latitude.

So what other things do you need to get started? I mentioned a book, and I mentioned a red flashlight (preserves your night vision while providing light). Another easy to use and not so expensive instrument are binoculars. With them you can view lots of detail on the moon and start hunting the Messier objects. The Messier objects are a collection of some of the best astronomical items to view, and most can be found with binoculars, and of course dark skies help.

So where do you go to see all these things? Well first you can look in your own backyard. Even if you live in a light polluted area, there are tons of things to view and learn: the moon, constellations, and planets. This is the best place to practice and learn the basics. But when you are ready to view fainter objects you’ll want to try to find darker skies. The mountains and dessert parks are usually great places. Just beware that campfires can hinder your vision. You’ll also want to try to go out during a new moon. The new moon is when the moon is not visible at night. This happens for about 1 week each month. A good guide to a decent dark sky is if you can see the Milky Way. That’s the faint band of light going from one side of the sky to the other.  By the way that’s our galaxy you are in and looking at!

Going out to a dark sky site alone is usually not fun, and is usually creepy. Of course it’s always safer to go with a group. Find your local astronomy club to find places where you can safely view. Astronomy magazine has a good search tool that helps find local clubs. The astronomy clubs will usually have public outreaches where they invite the local public to view the sky though their telescopes. Most astronomy clubs also have a club site that is usually outside of town in an area that is dark enough to view most celestial objects.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions at the outreaches and the “star parties.” As you’ll soon realize there are many things to learn; not just where things are at, but how to use your equipment. It’s seriously a never ending mission.