DEC'11 Lunar Eclipse

What a great way to close out the observational year! I was very fortunate to have excellent viewing conditions and a easy to get to location to see this show - right on my driveway!

I was out the door at 4:15 a.m and I was able to spy the faint penumbrae "gray dusting" with my naked eye - easy with our very dry air conditions! Shades of gray on top of shades of grey.

First contact of the umbra is a highlight for me and right on time it shows itself kissing the lunar western frontier! Could it be because my street name is "Umbria Court" that I love this stuff so much?


As the shadow sojourned across Tom shows up to enjoy the unfolding shadow show. He joined me last year at this time for the previous total lunar eclipse. The cold and hour did not deter him from hanging out with the SUG, having some of his nitro coffee, and listening to my roaming commentary. Tom made good observes watching lunar features brighten and fade as totality came upon us. He really enjoyed the crater Tyco show that you can see in the pics!

AT 104 was the perfect scope for this outing with his sharp optics. The colors were absolutely vivid!















Here are keys to a successful early morning and very cool temperature Lunar Eclipse observe : Hot stick to your ribs SUGO Chicken Paprikash & Pasta the night before and nitro coffee! Bliss!

And of course a ruddy moon with shades of red, orange, brown and rust to color my western morning sky. By a stroke of celestial geometry I was just able to catch the end of totality on my nearby foothill with the binoculars with Luna a mere 5 degrees above the horizon shaded by morning haze in the distance. Not be left out Mrs.SUG joined me right at this minute and caught the still eclipsed moon as it kissed the western horizon. Impressed she was with this sublime view and her spouses fervor and tenacity to view all things cosmic!

End of Nov"11 Astro Stuff

I had my final session with Sierra NV Journey's Teacher's Workshop this Tuesday with our topic being Luna!

These teachers worked hard and put their hearts into everything! Modeling, observations, problem solving & presentation skills were covered. Great group to work with!

Saturday past while doing fall yard work there was a fine Sun Dog display to be enjoyed. Here is the eastern dog with arcs. The western one was hidden. I have been generally clouded out these last weeks. Wednesday eve looked promising till 80mph winds showed up!
And finally this is a book I have been wanting to read. I really like Dava Sobel's writing skills and research - amazing. I cannot recommended this read enough to shed the light of history upon events 400 years ago. Truly Science Faith Love melded together!

The last 10 pages were very moving. What was was played out is seen in the lives of the major players: devotion, heart felt dialogue and passion, nature's revelations, reverence, respect, and time as the great equalizer of everyone/everything.

Truly astronomy touches the human spirit and experience in many ways!

SNJ Teacher's Workshop Nov'11

Once again Sierra NV Journeys opened their doors to the Sidewalk Guy in the form of a teachers workshop on the Solar System. We had our first session last Tuesday.

Here are some pics of my highly involved group!





























This group worked hard for the 4 hours of this first session - this after a long day in the classroom. We covered a lot of ground (and space!) in this time moving from activity to the next. They handled the Sidewalk Guy's energy & enthusiasm and are looking forward to their personal Lunar encounter this next Tuesday - 4 hours of Lunar indoctrination, hands on activities, viewing along with the Zodiac made simple!

Frosty 12.5" Observe.

We got a clearing this afternoon from the winter like squalls and clouds. Our temps even warmed a bit so out in the garage I went to do some cleaning. As I was out there 12.5"Discovery Dob kept "calling" out to me begging for a opportunity to gather some photons. A number of years back (7?) I undertook a series of Lunar observes with 12.5". Yes indeed aperture is king especially when you can stop down the scope on the moon and planets. My best views of Mars have been through this scope masked off and the lunar views are outstanding. I need to use this scope more! Even with our moon 3 days from full and our skies still somewhat hazy 12.5 was on my patio by 3 p.m with a few hours to cool down the glass.

The views were nice with 12.5"inches of mirror working for you. My viewing conditions were hazy, cold, Mag 3.5 and you had to wait for those still pockets of air. Using the aperture mask and adjustable polarizing filter, with still air provided nice minutes of viewing - but patience was required along with warm clothing! Lots of good views but the Zucchius /Schiller basin was the best. This horseshoe shaped degraded basin is over looked a lot but crater Schiller's elongated shape makes it a easy capture if you know what your looking for! I spent a good hour observing it's 2 more prominent rims and finally saw the elusive third - arrow point in the pic! Are there more? Yes but some are buried, pounded down by other impacts and just lost in the sea of crater holes lapped upon each other.

I also wanted to bag a few as of yet unseen Herschel objects in Cassiopeia which would be in fine position during my time out. This was not the night to go deep sky with the moon light and haze but open clusters can be done so with some warmth left in my body lets bag a few. NGC 436 is that nice knot of stars in the top right of the pic. It is nearby the way more famous and splashier NGC457 the ET Cluster or Owl Cluster. NGC457 is a Herschel Object also which I have observed in detail before but that roundish group at the top was my main interest tonight. What a wonderful small cluster it is looking like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup at medium power! I will visit this hidden stellar candy treat again next week once we are past full moon and hopefully some warm temps and clearer conditions!

While searching for other Herschel clusters I payed token visits to some very tough doubles in the area. Years ago (10?) I used 12.5 for ALL my observing; deep sky, solar system stuff, doubles and even outreach. It was my work horse scope. It even survived a bad car accident with minor dings! I have forgotten how this scope kills doubles. I really like pairs that have big magnitude differences. Sigma Cas is one of these and 12.5 split this very tough pair with ease. Nice color contrast and pin point stars - lovely lovely with another nearby faint (Mag 10.5 equal Mag pair which I never saw before! This duo of doubles was awesome!

So out on my patio 12.5" sits being now frosted over by our unusual colder, and humid weather. Frost is rare here but I think 12.5 likes it especially since it reminded it's owner this evening that a medium mirrored scope in a cardboard tube mounted on a wood mount can provide a fun observing experience! The owner needed a kick in the head and he got it!

Nov '11 Astro Hodge Podge

I have a full slate of astronomy related activities for this fall month. Week 1 had excellent outreach opportunities, and quality observes from my yard. This last week has had winter like weather come in and it really killed the observational end of things. Our Sun is really putting on a show right now but my viewing options were limited to the Internet!



My backyard through the clouds Solar observe........

Even Herschel Wedge was bummed by it all. With wonderful Solar activity going on being covered by a blanket of puffy puffs there was no photon gathering for this very specialized device. The disappointment was profound!


But rays of light soon found me on Saturday with Drive By Astronomy chiming in on my face book with his very special picture of the current SUGSPOT activity! Apparently he is the only one that can do this type of Solar picture taking! For the life of me I have never seen this type of activity before! He had picture prefect conditions from his Buffalo NY digs and was bugging me all weekend with texts and phone calls about his quality observations. One thing we did do was a long distance Lunar observe via phone and Skype. I would be the navigator on this Saturday evening.
Using Alan Chu's down loadable atlas (if you want to seriously observe the moon you want this!) Mike was out in his yard with his 10" dob. Now I have been observing the moon in detail for sometime but this Chu Atlas is moving my and Mike's observing to a new level! Mike is falling in love with Luna. We had (or Mike had) the perfect evening for Domeland Luna observe! Over the course of two evenings Mike made awesome observes of hidden Lunar treasures! Hopefully he will chime in and tell you about them as it was a joy to hang with him on his excursion.















My weekend was brightened with the arrive of 'The Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects" to compliment my O'Meara "400 Guide"! The Cambridge was on sale @$26 (free ship too!) and could not be passed up. As soon as my weather clears 12.5 Discovery Dob will be out on the patio as I revisit and make some new celestial acquiesces! I will post my observes from time to time.

And finally a Raspberry Almond Scone on Sunday morning to ease my pain with this stormy pre winter weather! One of the best scones I have ever made enjoyed with extra bold french press coffee! I was in hog heaven doing couch astro dreaming of scopes on my patio with views to inspire!

End Of October Astro Wrap Up '11

It has been a busy astro month for this patio observer & outreach amateur astronomer! Four outreaches over the last two weeks and numerous personal observes have filled my astronomy tank nicely. I am looking forward to Nov'11! Sept was a bust weather wise but October has been awesome with warm days, cool nights, and generally favorable conditions. My outreaches have enjoyed the warm sunshine with great Solar activity, and a SUG tan to enjoy!

The prior waning moon was a joy to behold with super edge views due to Luna's tilting action. Early morning patio views were easy to get up for due to the ultra dry air, cool temps, and outstanding views. With too many fine views to recount this pic sums it up nicely with the Pythagoras & Babbage show in the northern Lunar frontier! Oh of course Jupiter was observed with transits, occultations, eclipses , Red Spot transits observed.

I was busy throughout the month bagging and tagging doubles all over our sky. Aquarius, Pegasus, Aries, Cassiopeia, Perseus were places of observation. I also had a wonderful observe this past Sunday evening in the little fowl Equuleus which is galloping near Pegasus. I really enjoy the obscure and this tiny constellation is a double star hunters challenge with tight pairs. Navigating this pony required patience as most of it's "guide" stars where on the threshold of my vision with fall haze being most unwelcome! But the horse must be ridden and off I went into the celestial corral and was rewarded immensely for my efforts.




Epsilon Equ is the easiest to bag for the average observer and a wonderful treat it is with pale yellow primary and blue second!


Outreach on the driveway for Halloween evening closed out my month. Mrs.SUG/PUG/and this night DUG decided to run the show. On the phone with work related things and a call to mom she also handed out candy, astro treats, shared outstanding lunar and Perseus Double cluster views, organized the crowds, and kept me at bay.

Tonight was her night to shine as only she can doing many things at once!

Same Size Sun & Moon Street Astro

Awesome fall day here and what a opportunity to get out and share some of the universe. One thing I enjoy doing in my outreaches is to challenge my visitors to see and examine the sky delights in detail and context. This includes our Sun and Moon sharing the same angular size in our sky. With our Moon being 400x smaller than the Sun and the Sun 400x farther away provides for us one unique same size view of our Sun and Moon. A total Solar Eclipse demonstrates this very well! But with no total eclipse available we have to demonstrate this in other ways. The first challenge is picking out that 3 day smiley face Moon against the bright daytime sky.

This is where Jumbo Styro Ball comes in. With a little coaching from yours truly and with the lunar phase cycle now understood and modeled one can set out to find this thin Moon with the JSB modeling what they should see. And you know what, they will see it! The joy and glee of this self discovery never gets old. With no prior astronomy experience these 2 women out for a day in the park with the kids had 20 minutes of discovery and enlightenment!












Next we move to the Solar viewers as we compare our now discovered day light Moon and our nearby star. OMG they are the same size! Look at David's as face it tells the whole story. He was floored by this new revelation. Daye nearby quietly complicated the whole show.


Jason went through the whole of this Saturday afternoon program and made quality observations of Luna and Sol - this is the last stage. Yes they are the same size here too with the same eyepiece! The Solar limb action kept Jason glued and in the process he was able to catch a glimpse of a white light flare! Changing Lunar shadows reviled jumbo craters showing peaks over the hour he spent at the scope. His son Andrew was so well behaved as pop enjoyed the changing celestial show.

Daye came back twice during the afternoon to enjoy the changing faces of the Sun and Moon. Having some vision challenges she patiently observed and was rewarded with great views and detailed observes!

I think she really enjoyed the daytime astronomy thing!