Peg's Big Escape, Mars, and Halos...

Labor Day weekend's beautiful weather continues, and out comes the C8. Setup was done in intervals, while watching (and pausing, and watching, and pausing, and watching, and pausing) 'Sahara'. During one of the pauses, while I ran out to align and Linda came out to tell me to hurry, Peg managed to open the door (which we both assumed was closed all the way) and disappeared into the night. Knowing that this was the last time we'd ever see her, the finger pointing and yelling ensued. I was in little mood after this to do any observing, but I decided to leave the scope out to give me something to do while looking for Peg - or rather, listening for Peg, since it's futile to try to see a black cat at night regardless of how dark-adapted one's eyes might be.

I GOTO'd a few of my favorite Late Summer objects (M31, M33, M39, M27, Albireo), but my heart wasn't just in it. Mars was rising around 0500, I looked at it for a bit with the 8mm LVW + 2.5x Powermate (625x) but I was tired and depressed, so I decided to lay down for an hour or so. I awoke at 4am (0800), by which time Mars had disappeared into the south oak (this tree must die) so I brought in the gear and went to bed.

Once again I was plagued by halo around bright objects. For example, Vega looks something like this:


Over time I have deduced that this occurs with both the C8 and TV85, at medium to high magnifications regardless of eyepiece. If it cannot be attributed to any flaws in the optical systems, then it must be either my eyes or the fact that Lake Wallkill has some serious seeing issues. Whatever it is, it's frustrating as hell.

I've also observed that my eyes have more difficulty focusing as they become more dark adapted. Perhaps this is a normal symptom of Night Myopia???

UPDATE 050904: Peg is back! I saw her just sitting on the deck late Monday morning. I put out some food for her and left the door open. Eventually she wandered back into the house to our great relief.

Venus-Jupiter Conjunction, Porta Mount Shakedown, Mars

I caught the Venus-Jupiter conjunction on the drive home. I saw Venus first while heading west on the Thruway above the Ramapo mountains, Jupiter a bit later while driving on the back roads into Greenwood Lake. The pair was framed beautifully over Long Pond, another missed photo op.

Linda and I stopped at the entrance of Wawayanda State Park just before Venus dipped below the mountain.

[ Memo to self: Next time there's an astronomical event, DON'T FORGET THE FUCKING BINOCS. ]

The following graphic was clipped from Starry Night Pro 5 (82.5 au from Sun).



Sky & Telescope article: Venus and Jupiter Kiss in Twilight

Once home, after the Yankees lost to Seattle, I put the Porta out back with the TV85. It's super easy to mount the scope, and the tripod seems pretty stable. I struggled once again with Starbeam alignment. Someone on the TeleVue Yahoo Group asked for my opinion of the thing, and I think I talked him out of it. Maybe it's because I'm going blind but I can't use the flip mirror on any but the brightest objects. And I really don't like the complex alignment procedure - the screws used to adjust the unit's pitch are in the path of the red-dot beam, so when I'm turning it I can't see the dot. Very tricky. If it was a set-and-forget thing like the Telrad it would be OK, but realignment needs to be done every time I use it - it seems to get knocked out of whack whenever I put the scope in the case. I finally got the job done by aligning on a light from a house across the lake. It's damn near impossible to do at higher power with a non-tracking mount.

First light for the mount (if a mount can have a first light) was Albireo, for no other reason than it was bright and placed well enough to let me find it with the Starbeam without doing a Monica.

Using the fork arm to move in azimuth, it is a little tight but smooth. Movements in altitude must be done by grabbing the scope tube or getting a grip on the dovetail block and twisting. Some sort of fixed pointing handle a la Tele Pod might be useful. The scope needs to be balanced fairly well to keep the tail from dipping. The fine motion controls are awesome, at least down to 8mm (75x).

I swept around the star clouds near Deneb with the 42mm LVW. Everything in the outer third of the FOV looked distorted. Tried it again later on M31 and it wasn't so bad. I think my eyes are fucked. The 42mm LVW may end up on eBay while I look for a TV 35mm or 41mm Panoptic.

Mars rises past the trees a bit after 1am. This is my first look at Mars with glass this time around. Not much to see at 75x; at 150x, I could see that the disc was waxing gibbous, but no surface detail. Angular size is now 14 arcsecs.; it will continue to grow and reach 20 arcsecs. for almost an entire month from Oct. 16 to Nov. 12. Mars will be at its closest to Earth on Oct. 30.

Mars drifts pretty fast at 150x, but kept in the FOV by easily twisting the fine controls. Focusing was difficult, deck shake severe. This must end - I need to clean out the corner by the bedroom window and start setting up on solid ground. I packed it in at 0145

The Porta gets a big thumbs-up first time out. I really like this mount! The Tele Pod was such a bear to maneuver - couldn't move it in alt when unless the tension screws were loose, couldn't take your hands off unless the tension screws were tight, couldn't tighten the tension screws without moving the scope -so even at low power, keeping objects centered over time required way more work than anyone should do without getting paid. Porta, on the other hand, is so easy to point and track it makes me giddy. Considering the very small price difference between the two mounts, I can't imagine why anyone would opt for the Tele Pod.