Eclipse phases at Top of The World Laguna Beach, CA 12-12-11

It’s been a while since I’ve done some astronomy. But I finally got out again last weekend. I almost did not go, because the lunar eclipse was going to be in totality until it was light. I ended up going because when I started to look it up, I found out that the next total lunar eclipse visible in the states would not be until 2014. I did not want to wait that long, and I wanted to take the opportunity to see a lunar eclipse with my daughter while she is still young.

The eclipse in the morning light.

We got up early and went to Top of The World in Laguna Beach. I was surprised by how many people were there. There were lawn chairs, blankets, cameras, and at the top of the hill there was even somebody camping. I was the only one with a kid and a telescope: two things that usually don’t go together well when you are trying to image.

My buddy and I set up our tripods and started to take some snapshots. The field of view I wanted was really wide, but the moon was too small for the eclipse to be really visible so decided to shoot through my scope instead. I’m glad I did because I got some cool shots. It was also fun to be out when the moon was out. Usually when you are doing astronomy you usually plan your trips when the moon is not in the sky. It’s funny because we stare at all these celestial items that are sometimes too hard to even see, yet we have this awesome super bright object close to us and we hardly ever really pay that much attention to it!

I got an interesting shot taken the night before the eclipse. I had to make sure I could setup my gear properly since it has been so long since I’ve done imaging through my telescope. As I was framing the moon up in the viewfinder of the camera, I saw a plane fly across the moon. Luckily I had my remote in my hand so I was able to catch some smoke trails going through the moon. I got a cool image, but I really wanted to catch the plane!

A camera and telescope test the night before catches a plane flying by.

Equipment used: Nikon D40, Baader Coma Corrector, Celestron Omni XLT 150mm reflector on a CG-4 mount.

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.

That direct quote is from an email forwarded to me today. The sender was asking me if it was true.  I noticed in the email that it was also sent to about two dozen other people. These were all mostly business associates, so these are educated people, but the fact is that most people will not take the time to research stuff.

So sorry to disappoint, but Mars will not appear as big as the moon to us. A simple logic test would be to go outside and look at the moon and Mars right now. Is Mars half the size of the moon , now that August 27th is only a few weeks away? Can you even find Mars in the sky right now?

This hoax gets circulated each year, and each year I am asked by my peers if this will happen.  I usually ask them what do they think and why, and am always entertained at their excitement about the event, but lack of fact finding or preparation for such a great celestial event.

According to Snopes.com and Wikipedia this hoax started off in August 2003 when Mars did come to its closet point to Earth in 60,000 years. But Mars comes pretty close to this distance every 15 years.

So for your entertainment and reference here is the famous email hoax below.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING!!!

Every year, Team MBS participates in a couple dozen outreaches in the Southern Orange County area but this was the first ever joint venture outreach with members from the Orange County Astronomers, Riverside Astronomical Society and the Big Bear Valley Astronomical Society.  Fortunately, this was neutral territory so no OCA/RAS/BBVAS gang wars ensued with the use of our green pointing lasers.  Leading the way was John Day from the BBVAS, who brought along his home made Dobsonian.  John won an award at RTMC for this scope (the white one) which can be seen in the picture to the left.  He also kicked off each viewing session with an exciting presentation!

Each week there was a new group of 90 excited kids waiting to check out the night sky.  Saturn was a big hit, along with globular clusters and double stars.  We were able to see a lot of constellations with the naked eye, as well as the milky way and even some meteors which drew a lot of oohs and ahhs.  The International Space Station flew over us on the 6th towards the end of the viewing session.

July 20th was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.  In addition to the scopes, there was a meteorite presentation and exhibit, and even some prizes were given away for those that stuck around to learn more about astronomy.  Usually, most groups get excited when binoculars are given away as prizes but this group (both kids and adults alike) went absolutely wild for the half eaten bag of frosted animal crackers…maybe it was the thin air.

Yes it may be super windy, but we will hope for the best as we usually do.  At worst we can work on videos for the website and test out gear. We also plan on going on several photo expeditions during our stay.

If  interested reply to on the comments section and we will contact you.

M57 Ring Nebula

Saturday night we did an outreach for a couple of Girl Scout troops at Caspers Park in Orange County, CA. The girls were excited to view, but we had to explain it needed to get dark before we could show them anything exciting. Most volunteers were still setting up when lines began to form in front of their scopes.

This is a good resource to see what others are photographing and how there processing comes out. And best of all it’s fun.

April 2009 Beginners Challenge:

Bright- Double Stars(submit here http://tinyurl.com/cre435)

Deep Sky Object M13 (submit here http://tinyurl.com/dyenvf)

April 2009 DSLR Challenge:

M106 Spiral Galaxy in Canes Venatici (submit here http://tinyurl.com/cvz7xt)

Here are a couple that I am pretty close to done. More to come in the next few days.

Leo Trio 

(20 X 5 minutes)

 M51

 (30 X 5 minutes)

M13 (1 X 3 minute)

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.

I also noticed that when I went to the other side of the meridian, I had to recalibrate the guiding.

Now I have a small light weight easy to setup guidescope! And it all fits in my FatMax.

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