This past Saturday I had the opportunity to take another tour of the Hale Telescope and attend a star party courtesy of my ‘Friends of Palomar’ membership.
This time I chose to ride up. Of course this was nothing new as such. I really enjoy the Palomar road up, take a look at the map, whats not to enjoy? While I was taking my time and there was no traffic, I still managed to scrape a few foot pegs, its hard not to, the bike is so smooth and the road so twisty…..anyway, point is, its a beautiful ride.
I especially enjoy the bit of road between the T intersection at the top and the dome car park. In the late afternoon the light is just beautiful, the road is not so technical, so you can enjoy the atmosphere. The weather was one again perfect. Its a very moving experience for me each time I go up. I really value each opportunity to visit and tour the telescope.
The tour was a little different this time. When we entered the dome the lights were mostly off and we were ushered up to the dome walkway straight away. Turns out that Scott, the tour director had a little treat for us. Standing on the rim of the dome, we could just make out the Hale telescope in the dim light. Scotts voice boomed out ‘let there be light’, and with that the shutters on the dome opened up and a thin crack of fading daylight lit up the telescope, The light grew in intensity as the shutters slowly and almost silently opened up.
Before our very eyes the scope was then fully lit with the soft afternoon light. It was beautiful to see it lit up like that. Its the first time I have seen it so clearly.
Barley given a moment to take it in, I heard another noise that made my heart skip a beat…… They had started the oil pumps, this meant that they were going to move the telescope for us!
Sure enough, with out a single extra sound, the scope began to move, it was all too much for this geek and I have to say that a tear or two came to the eyes. It was just beautiful to see the scope move around so smoothly and quietly.
The shutters were closed and the door to the dome walkway was opened, every one except me headed outside to see the view. They started up the dome and took us around a few times. I was inside looking at the telescope. The rotating of the dome is so smooth that you think its the scope moving, its the best way to see all over the scope with out having to move.
Walking out of the dome we saw the setting sun and knew it was time to have a bite to eat before the star party got under way.
I had some of Freddys home made lasagna, and some french toast left over from breakfast. Nice.
There were about 6 telescopes set up. Its really good of those people who give of their time and equipment to come and help out at the star party. I was quite taken with Jims truck and telescope set up.
It was pretty busy for a long while, I took the chance to slip away and take some photos on my own of the dome. It was just perfect weather, a touch of cool in the air, very soft breaze, clear skies.
We got to look at a few different objects though a variety of size telescopes. Neptune was a first for me. It really is blue!
I was about the last memeber of the public to leave at 11:15pm.
The ride down was great. The road is so twisty that you cant see around the corners, so you are riding into darkness on a lot of the turns. I did not scrape anything on the way down……..
Got home, had a glass of port and went to bed.
- Category Archives Astronomy
-
-
ISS vs Jupiter.
Thanks to one of the guys at work (John, who also happens to be the president of the Temecula Valley Astronomy Club), I got tipped off that the International Space Station was going to pass very close to Jupiter around 7:34 tonight.
Armed with said information, I got the following two photos;
This one is about 1 second latter, its also a crop so you can see the moons of Jupiter better;
All in all it was a nice show, even if it only lasted about 3-4 seconds.
Thanks John, I have not had time to keep up with the goings on in the sky, with out your email, I would have totaly missed it!I wonder how many people saw it?
-
PATS
PATS was held over the weekend and I was keen to go and check out all the latest gear in the world of astronomy. Unfortunately I could not attend any of the seminars because of a lack of time, but I still appreciated the few hours to look over things and have a think about where its all going.
While I was there I found the tracking mount I have been looking for and thinking about for a long time……. Sadly its about 3 times the price it should be and thus it is well out of my reach.
I refer to the AstroTrac. Small enough to take on the bike, low power, accurate, easy to set up, simple to align, it is everything I wanted and more, but the price, I cant believe it costs so much…… I think in due course the price will come down, it has to, the device is so simple and there is very little involved in making it, it will not be long and it will either get copied or he will simply drop the price (or both).
I am considering looking at what it might take to make one. Time and tools are the biggest problems on that front.
That was the only real bit of gear that jumped out at me. Of course there were lots of nice telescopes there, but the prices are well out of my league (anything more than 100 bucks is out of my league since getting here!).
I was impressed with the quality of the gear, all was top notch. The CCD world is moving ahead leaps and bounds with larger and more sensitive chips, you have to wonder where it will end up with the back yard guy taking photos that surpass large professional images from only a few years back.
In the end I came away with two books and a healthy dose of depression.
The first book is a kids book about what happen to Pluto. It has been signed by Mike Brown, the guy that discovered the chunks of rock out there and caused the whole debate to finally come to head and get resolved.
The other book is ‘The Perfect Machine‘; referring of course to the Hale Telescope. Again, this book is signed by the current telescope operator Jean Mueller, so its very special to me and I have to say thanks to Sue for arranging Jean to sign my copy.
The depression? In a nut shell its the northern skies, my current digs and the internal confusion I am facing regarding not being able to access something that I have felt very passionate about in the past.
If that makes no sense to you, then welcome to my world.Apart from that, I’m busy at work, they want me to teach some sections of the classes as soon as next week. Selam goes on maternity leave in two weeks, the same time Tom leaves for a week of onsite training in Missouri, so that leaves me home alone with all the phone calls.
Did I mention that work keeps me busy……….?
-
Iris and focus…..
Tonight I adjusted the iris and tweaked the focus.
Here you see one of my favorite patches of the sky, Eta Carinae.
Its looking a little worse for ware since it was football practice night, and this patch of the sky is due south, and due south looks over the oval flood lights. While I have a dew / light shield over the front of the scope, its not long enough to cut out the reflections of these lights. They only practice Thursday nights for a few hours, so its not enough to really throw it all off.Still, not bad for a free telescope. It’s still my primary scope. The 4” can not see anywhere near as deep as this set up. I am still planing on putting the 4” into a housing and putting it on the roof as well / in place of this one.
Anyway, just a short note to say its back up and running and adjusted about the best it can be.
-
we have focus….
I focused the telescope tonight. It badly needed it. I should have done it quite some time back, but have been too busy. I have been working on the basic building blocks for the next version…..its taking some time, but I have been really enjoying getting it together. It will be for me and some of the stuff that Gary is doing. Speaking of Gary, hes got a new camera and mount. The nice thing about it is that it has 360° continuous rotation. I am very interested in the mount. The camera that comes with it is about .05LUX (from memory), so its not quite up to the astronomy light levels we need, but its more than enough for what he needs, and its razor sharp, the auto focus works very well, so all in all a very nice package that I will no doubt be spending some more time with as we get things in place to web enable it for Gary.
Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that the focus is better, and I will tweak the iris the next clear and dew free evening we get.