Practice Makes Perfect...

Yes…it sounds like it is a bit early, but everyone knows the old saying…practice makes perfect.  And I would like to be as close to perfect as possible on Aug. 21 when the moon will sweep in front of the sun.

I am somewhat lucky, as I live on the southern edge of the zone of totality, but I won’t experience the eclipse where I live.  I hope to be about 30 miles north of here very close to the centerline.  And I do hope to get a series of good eclipse photos.

I have never photographed a total eclipse, so what I do on the day of the eclipse will be a first for me.  However, I will soon have everything I need to make those photos become a reality and will then start practicing what I need to do.  I do wish I had a second Canon body, as that would make everything a lot easier…maybe I will be able to borrow one between now and then.

I plan to use the following equipment in search of the ultimate total solar eclipse photograph.

1 – An ETX-80 Observer 

2 -- Helios Solar Glass Filter of 108 mm size 

3 – A Revolution Imager connected to a monitor, or a MallinCam SkyRaider AG1.2c Imager-Guider attached to a laptop

4 – Canon EOS 60D 

5 – A Tolkina AT-X 12-28 PRO DX wide angle zoom

6 – A Thousand Oaks Optical 77 mm threaded white light solarlite filter for the lens 

Since I will need to remove the solar filter during totality to image the corona, I will need an easy way to remove the filter without disturbing where the camera is pointed.  Rather than spend a few moments unscrewing the filter, I have obtained a set of 77 mm Xume lens and filter holders.  I will “lift” the filter off the lens, shoot the totality phase, then reattach the filter to the lens and continue shooting the final partial phases.

Should I be able to obtain a second Canon body, I will have my Canon EF 100-400mm II on that body and using a Tiffen variable neutral density filter, photograph the corona during totality.  Hopefully, I will be able to “stack” the images to get better detail in the corona.

Now you must be thinking, “What does he need to practice?”  I’ll tell ya…

As I said earlier, I have never photographed a total eclipse.  My main concerns are setting my equipment up to provide the best images possible.  The final part of that will depend on where I setup for the eclipse itself.  Since I plan to image the entire eclipse, I do need to know what the best focal length of the wide angle lens will be.  That needs to be determined ahead of time and then used at the shooting site.

The next part I need to practice is the combination of the ETX-80 and the camera to attach to the telescope.  Both will allow “live” view of what the scope is seeing, but which camera – the Revolution Imager (RI) being a video camera adapted for astronomical use and the MallinCam being a 1.2 megapixel CMOS camera – will provide the best image.

A test with the MallinCam several weeks ago on the daylight moon (see previous post) revealed something I wasn’t counting on…a small field of view.  The sun would also fit in the field of view, but it would need to be carefully monitored to maintain the view.  I have yet to use the RI, so I do not know what will be its field of view.  However, I do have a .5 focal reducer.  With it, I should be able to increase the field of view.  But the reducer does need to be tested on both cameras to see which works best.

And finally, the last thing I want to do at the viewing site is to be figuring out how to use the camera I chose.  Once my solar filter for the ETX-80 arrives, I will be practicing on the sun.  Hopefully there will be some sunspots to image.

I think I have covered most of what I will be doing before the “Great American Eclipse” occurs.  As I mentioned in the beginning, I live on the southern edge of totality, in Redmond, Oregon.  The best place to view the eclipse in central Oregon is Madras which is about 30 miles north.  However, predictions are for thousands upon thousands of eclipse fans to arrive in the area of Madras.  Since I somewhat know the area, I will be searching for a decent spot where my friends and I can view the event with the fewest number of people to interfere with our enjoyment and most importantly, our equipment.

Besides, I am not a big fan of crowds. 

A Daylight Moon and Camera Test

On Sunday, April 2, 2017, I decided I would "play" with a recently acquired camera in daylight.  I wanted to see what I was doing...good or bad.

The camera is a MallinCam SkyRaider AG1.2c (you can find info on it here).  The scope I selected (not that I have that many scopes) was the Meade ETX-80.  I considered using the ETX-125, but laziness made the decision for me...the -80 was in a better position to remove from the storage room.

Since it was a rather nice day with very few clouds in the sky and an almost quarter moon hanging at about 11 o'clock in the east, I decided to practice on it.

After doing a simple solar system alignment of the scope and inputting the moon on the GOTO, I centered the moon in the view of the 26 mm Super Plossl and made sure I had good focus in the eyepiece.  I observed for a short period through several of my eyepieces (all Plossls if you are wondering) and decided I would attempt eyepiece projection and see if I could obtain an image using that system with my Canon EOS 60D.

After striping down all the "not-really-needed" heavy objects on the camera, I slipped the 17 mm eyepiece into the adapter.  The 26 mm was a bit long and protruded into the camera's mirror area and I didn't want to take the chance of damaging the camera, so I used the lowest power eyepiece I had which didn't cause me alarm...which turned out to be the 17 mm.

Sliding the outfit into the eyepiece holder after making sure the moon was still centered in the view, I turned on Live View and attempted to obtain focus.  It never happened.  I'm not sure why I couldn't obtain focus.  As a matter of fact, I saw nothing on the camera's LCD which indicated any light source.  So I removed the Canon camera setup and decided to try the MallinCam SkyRaider.

After starting the laptop (actually, it was a netbook which came with the camera) and making sure the MallinCam software saw the camera, I switched to live view and there was the moon on the screen of the netbook.  However, it was out of focus.  I attempted to get good focus, but found a problem with a daylight test...the sun washed out the netbook screen and I could only tell when the moon was way out of focus.

Since the object of the adventure was to test the camera (and learn how to use it), I began recording what was being shown on the LCD.  Since I couldn't see to focus well, I decided to slowing move focus up and down the scale, stopping for a few seconds after making a slight adjustment in the hopes of getting at least one decent image.  After about one minute of recording, I shut everything down and took everything inside.

Anxious to see what the video looked like, I found where it was saved and doubled clicked it to begin play.  I got a box stating Windows didn't know how to open the file.  I checked to see what type of video file I had created and noticed it was a .ser file.  What in the world is a .ser file I said to no one.

I now know what a .ser file is and after checking the net, found a number of utilities to help process the files, and most importantly, view the files outside of the camera software.

One thing I noticed immediately, was the view of the moon as seen by the camera appeared much larger than it did through the eyepiece alone.  Centering whatever I plan to image will need to be very well done.  Although the moon was poorly centered in most of the frames, I still found a few which were decent enough to show here.  

After picking the best one, I did a bit of sharpening with Faststone's Image Viewer, then converted it to grayscale.  I also cropped it from 1280 x 960 to 900 x 900.

I have a lot to learn about astrophotography, but I like the way this image came out.  By the way, the reason I converted the image to grayscale was because I did not like the color of the sky.  It was a strange blue-green color and I couldn't figure out how to make it more closely match the color of the daytime sky...so I went with grayscale.

A Clear Night...Finally

It has been a very cloudy month in the Pacific Northwest.  However, the night of March 30/31 was a cold, clear night.  A friend of mine uses Megrez to determine how well the seeing is and for me, the 3.3 magnitude star stood out fairly easily in my urban sky.

I decided I would tackle a couple of galaxies...M101 and M51...and took out the ETX80. 

After aligning the scope, I punched M51 into the Audiostar Handbox and watched the scope slew towards the area of M51.  When the scope finished slewing, I looked into the eyepiece and at first saw only a couple of stars.  I was using a 32mm Plossl and after a few moments, noticed a little fuzzball about midway between west side of the view and center.  I had to move the scope a little to center the galaxy in the view of the eyepiece.  I don't think I will ever hit the correct manual slew button on the first attempt...hehe.

I was pleased the GOTO found the galaxy as I wasn't exactly perfect in aligning the scope.  Through the 32mm, M51 looked a lot like a fuzzy comet.  It being rather small in the view, so I swapped out the 32 for the 13mm. 

Again M51 was to the west of center and a slight adjustment (still didn't hit the correct directional button right away) put it more or less centralized.  With the 13mm, I could see an oval shape to the fuzzball, but no other detail.  I was rather disappointed in that.  I thought The Whirlpool Galaxy would show some arms.  I switched out the 13mm for the 6mm, but I lost the contrast with the 6mm and went back to the 13mm.  

With the 6mm, there was a star of about 8 mag to the east of M51.  With the 13mm, I could see one other star north-northeast of M51.  It also appeared at about 8 mag.  All attempts at using averted vision to see some detail didn't bring out much, although I thought for a moment or two I was seeing some banding of arms.  It would come for a split second, then disappear.

Being the "Old Fart" that I am, my fingers were beginning to go numb in the 28 degree temperature, so I decided M101 could wait for another day.  After seeing what I saw of M51, I wonder what M101 will show.

Maybe I'll use the ETX 125 on it.

Feb. 10 and 11, 2017

It's a milestone day!  My first true astro post...

Feb. 10 brought a penumbral lunar eclipse at moonrise.  Since my eastern horizon is rather blocked by tall trees, I waited until I could see the moon well enough to see if the Earth's shadow was visible. Unfortunately, I couldn't see any chance in lunar brightness from the time I began watching and the time the eclipse was predicted to end, which was around 6:45 pm.  But in my defense, I have old eyes and the moon was very bright.

Several hours later, I grabbed the binoculars and went outside to look for Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková.  I had a good idea of where the comet would reside in Hercules and went to the south side of a storage shed on the property where I live.  I tucked myself into the slim shadow of the building and scanned the area below the keystone.  I didn't see 45P, nor did I see anything which looked greenish to my eye.

Once again, the bright moon interfered with what I wanted to do.

I did briefly consider bringing out the camera and tripod, but it would have been difficult to set the tripod in a spot I could frame the image based on several factors...the moonlight, the snow still on the ground and the proximity of the building to about the only place I could setup.

Snow depth is falling finally, and should open my regular observing area soon.  I don't have great sky views here, but I do have a north-northwest to east view of the night sky, and a sliver of a southern sky.  But I do have a nice view above me.

Not sure when my next update will occur, but I do want to give the ETX-125 a maiden voyage.  I spent a few hours this afternoon mating my Lenovo laptop with both the Meade scopes.  I had to order another USB-to-Serial adapter and it arrived in today's mail.  After loading the drivers for the adapter, I made all the connections and was able to control the scopes from the computer on most of the astro programs I have on the computer.  I didn't test the setup on all of them, as I will only be using the Meade Autostar Suite program and C2A to control the scopes.

Well, that is all for today.  Clear skies and no moon, y'all!

The Beginning

What is Ashrunner's Skies?

The simple answer is that it is an astronomy blog I have started.

The not-so-simple answer is that it is a blog where I will talk about my adventures in Astronomy.

I know there are probably thousands of astronomy blogs on the internet...and the majority will be better than this blog for the most part.

I started this blog as a way to keep me interested in what I see in the night skies.  When there isn't a lot of snow on the ground and the temperature is above 20F and I have nothing better to do, I will be outside watching the night sky, photographing meteors in the night sky, or peering through a telescope at the night sky.

I have always loved the night sky.  When I was 14 or 15 (give me a break...I'm 65 now), I developed an interest in astronomy.  For Christmas that year, Santa brought me a 6 inch reflecting telescope on a German equatorial mount.  As soon as I could, I dragged the scope to my backyard in south suburban Chicago and looked through the eyepiece.  I didn't point the scope anywhere in particular, I just pointed it up at the sky.  When I looked through the eyepiece, I was amazed that I was seeing a lot more stars than I could see with my eyes alone.  I was hooked.

A year or so later, my father read about a public star party at an address near where we lived.  On the night of the star party, he dropped me off and began to mingle with the gathering people.  I learned a lot of interesting things that night, looked through some really good telescopes and met a number of people who would become good friends.

The star party that evening was hosted by the Lowell Astronomical Society of Burbank, Ill.  One of the people I met was president of the society and he invited me to join...and I did.  I remained a member of the society until I joined the U.S. Air Force.  I stayed in the Air Force for more than 20 years and although my interest in astronomy remained, I never had a telescope...binoculars...yes, but no telescope.  Even after I retired, I couldn't afford a decent telescope (my 6 inch reflector disappeared four or five years after I entered the military).

But that as all changed.  After retiring from the military, I began nature photography.  I don't make a living at it, but through time and the assistance of a friend, I have acquired a good camera and several excellent lenses.  I have used the camera mostly to photograph the sky during meteor showers, but I will also occasionally photograph a random part of the sky hoping for a beautiful sporadic meteor.

Along with the camera (it is a Canon EOS DSLR) I have two telescopes.  Both are small scopes, but are of excellent quality.  One is the Meade ETX-80 Observer, an 80 mm f/5 refractor telescope.  I have owned this scope for about two years and have used it to view the moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus mostly.  I have also looked at the Pleiades star cluster and the nearby Beehive cluster.  Both are beautiful sights in the fast f/5 scope.

Most recently, I took delivery of another telescope...the Meade ETX-125 Observer which is a 127 mm f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope.  I have yet to view anything through it as the night sky has not cooperated since the scope arrived on my doorstep.  If the optics on the new scope are as good as those on the ETX-80, I'll be very happy.

I also have several cameras which connect to my telescopes.  I hope to be doing some astrophotography in the coming days.  And as I learn the trade, I'll post to this blog for those who read Ashrunner's Skies.

Stay tuned for clear skies!