5 posts tagged “saturn”

Bob

Saturday was a kind of personal "astronomy day" for me.

First I met my predecessor in the position of Observatory curator. Bob was coming to town for a visit with family and wanted to meet me at the college Observatory. He's 77 now but active in his retirement as a tour guide at a professional observatory facility in Arizona -- "for the perks!" The job gives him access to the facilities himself.  He filled me in on some of the recent history and background of the Ohio facility and the workings of our century-old telescope. Though he rarely visits the area, he has taken an interest in the progress we're making with the Observatory and cares about its future, especially, of the vintage instrument. I'm sure we'll be in communication with each other for some time to come.

Sky conditions for Saturday night were forecast to be excellent (for Northeastern Ohio). I learned that some friends from the astronomy club were going to the club's observing site. I decided to take advantage of the situation and use my own telescope for the first time in more than a year! Well, even our usually accurate sky forecast can be wrong and this one was! An unexpected thin layer of cloud moved in so that, by twilight, it covered the darkening sky with a thin "haze." Drat! Everyone was disappointed as it was our best chance for stargazing for the entire holiday weekend. As it turns out the experience served us well as a shakedown. Lynn was learning how to operate the Sphinx computerized telescope mount (much cursing), Steve was apparently having focus problems (maybe atmosphere related but he wasn't sure), but I had a pretty good night.

I remembered how to put everything together --which was a bit surprising-- and, even more surprising, my own computerized telescope system performed flawlessly. It had been very tempermental most times in the past. My telescope's alignment was a bit off (my fault) so the system wasn't perfect in finding things, but I did manage to find and enjoy views of Saturn (beautiful), Mars (tiny and disappointing), galaxies M81 & M82 (unimpressive this night due to atmosphere), and a surprising view of M104 --the Sombrero-- which I had never seen before. The Sombrero, to my eye, looked like a long string of stars, like a stretched star cluster, instead of a fuzzy cloud -- the way most galaxies look when viewed through a small telescope. Optically my big refractor did at least as well as neighboring Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescopes (SCT) delivering excellent quality images of, especially, Saturn under the less than ideal conditions. I was very happy with the beast! I also spied my first Iridium flare which is an extended "flash" of light reflected off one of the many Iritium communications satellites that circle Earth. I had forgotten the custom dew shield for the telescope and, by about midnight, the objective was getting fogged up -- the telescope tube was already just about dripping!

I came home happy but late after a rewarding day with friends and the night sky.

Cincinnati Observatory

The day of presentations seemed to go on forever at the Antique Telescope Society's workshop. There was really good content but way too many hours of it. So I got up and walked out of the classroom --the former meridian transit room of the observatory-- or shifted in my seat. Often. At times rain poured down in sheets as we heard discussions of the viability and survivability of "Vintage Observatories" in the 21st century. Don't get me wrong... the presentations were both interesting and informative. My bottom still got sore from all the sitting, though. Fortunately the sky began to clear off in the late morning hours and many of us enjoyed strolling around the grounds of the Cincinnati Observatory Center. I shot many photos both indoors and outdoors showing various views of the main observatory building and the smaller Mitchel Building on Mt. Lookout.  After dinner I listened impatiently to presenters but was really anticipating sunset and a chance to look through the grand 16-inch Alvan Clark & Sons telescope, showpiece of the Center.

The Big Telescope

From inside the classroom I heard a rumble. Someone said that was the sound of the dome being rotated. So I ran up the stairs and into the dome room and got to see the huge dome rotate above me. The presenting astronomer for the evening offered me the honor of opening the shutter for the night's observing. He said to be careful to stand directly under the rope-operated pulley so as not to derail the rope and cause it to fall off. I got the shutter opened but managed to drop the rope! {Sigh.} Fortunately it was easy to fix: rotate the dome so that the aperture was over the observer's chair, climb up, loop the rope over the pulley -- fixed!

The astronomer also let me turn the crank to wind the drive weights into position. Or was that something like Tom Sawyer "letting" his friends paint the fence? No matter, I grabbed hold with both hands and turned the crank lifting 300 pounds of cold iron. Conversing with the observatory staff and just hanging around in the dome was a fine time for me, far from the yammering crowd below!

As luck would have it --this always seems to happen-- clouds began to roll in at about the time it got dark enough to spot Saturn. We all got at least one glimpse of the ringed world before solid overcast moved in and shut us down. I was allowed, and requested, to run the R.A. slow-motion control to center up Saturn before clouds could obscure it. That would allow some lead time should another opening appear in the cloud deck (and one or two did) whilst the telescope was tracking. The telescope is the largest refractor I've ever used and it moved smoothly and easily with the turn of a knob. I got one good, brief look at Saturn but that second or two hinted at how good the telescope is: I glimpsed at least three of Saturn's moons, some banding in the planetary body, and my first look at the Cassini Division -- the dark separation in the ring system.  And that was on a night of poor seeing!

The conference ends tomorrow (Sunday) with a half-day of sessions, door prizes, and a fond farewell to the Observatory Center. I may post one more photo here, but I'll have much to think about and photos to share and enjoy for quite some time to come. It's been a good visit.

I spent Saturday night at the observatory... it was our local observance of the Saturn Observation Campaign's Saturn Observation Night. The ringed planet was very near opposition and, after a partly-cloudy day, we were treated to a chilly but clear night. Saturn shown like a yellow diamond in the east and was, as always, a crowd-pleaser in the eyepiece. Seeing was fairly good (not excellent) and we could spot four moons, see the space between the inside of the rings and the limbs of the planet, and got regular glimpses of banding in the planetary atmosphere. In all 33 people of a wide range of ages visited the observatory and looked through the telescope. Most didn't stick around; after seeing Saturn they took off for home -- probably because it was a cold 28 degrees in the dome. Many also were treated to views of the Orion Nebula and eight late-comers climbed high on a ladder to see the rising, waning gibbous Moon.

Sweetie and I woke Sunday to a strange smell in the air. I thought it was Her hand, smelly from working with garlic the night before. No, it wasn't that! We searched the house for the source of the acrid, garlic-vinegar stench but to no avail: not the trash bag, not the garbage disposer, not the cat box, not anything we could find. It occurred to me that it might be the solenoid actuator on the heat pump's humidifier overheating and failing. I shut off the humidifier and we opened the house briefly to air the place out. There's still a hint of the odor here but it's tolerable now. This may be a mystery stink for a while... at least until we have the heat pump looked at for routine service.

My Mom has spinal surgery tomorrow. I'll be headed over there to greet her in recovery. It's not a particularly high-risk procedure but that sort of thing is always a worry!

Venus & Saturn

Tonight I dragged out my Meade 390 refractor and took a look at the pairing of planets Venus and Saturn in the twilight sky. With the 32mm eyepiece I was just able to fit both planets in the same field of view and got a very nice look at Venus in crescent phase --perhaps the best I've seen it-- with Saturn tiny but distinct. The twilight actually helped by controlling the contrast of brilliant Venus. Swung the telescope around and got a nice look at Jupiter, as well, viewed through openings between the trees here at home.

Once done with the short viewing session I decided to try and imitate a wonderful photo someone else did: their telescope silhouetted against the sky with star-like Venus and Saturn visible. I took too long and lost my ambient light so all I got was what you see here. Not near as good as the other fellow's but not bad, either! It felt good to get out and experiment and learn a little more about my camera. Earlier in the day I played with attachments and got my Canon Digital Rebel XT mated to an adapter that will fit 1.25-inch telescopes! Got easy focus using the Meade 390. Now I can use the camera with the 6-inch Meade and the 9-inch scope! Can hardly wait to try it out with the Moon as subject. But that's for another night .