Getting an Image Ready for the Fair

I'm a fan of our state fair, which I've attended almost every year since I was a child. In recent years I've been entering baked bread in the baking competitions with some success. My wife usually enters some of her craft work, too. And my mother, now 91 years of age, enters both stitched and baked goods.

The first day of the fair is usually dedicated to visiting the buildings where our entries are on display and seeing what ribbons we've won (most years at least one of us gets a ribbon, some years, all three). After that it's on to the Education building, the 4H building, Fine Arts Building, and then to wherever time permits. It's not unusual to attend on a couple of days, as there's a great deal to see.

One of my uncles was a painter (as I hope to be some day) and managed to get his work displayed in the Fine Arts building on a couple of occasions. He never won a prize or mention, though, which I think irritated him a little. To carry on with his tradition I'm going to submit an astrophoto this year.

In the past there's been some astronomy presence in the building. A local painter has entered her impressions of astronomical objects, and there's usually at least one picture of the Moon. Last year was a particularly fruitful year, with these on display:

At top are two star trail images, lower left is an aurora, and bottom right is art with a fairly realistic depiction of the northern sky (note the big and little dippers). Obviously my pictures don't do justice to the works!

Seeing these got me thinking that the judges might be receptive to other examples of astrophotography. So I'm submitting my M31 image from the South Dakota Star Party:

While I'm not suggesting that it's great astrophotography, it's one of my best to date, and I like it. I've had a test print made using the services of National Camera Exchange in Burnsville. It looked good and faithfully reproduced the image I submitted, but for the full-sized print (11x14 inches) I changed the yellow-blue balance a little, which nicely brought up the blue. I'm also going to print it on metallic paper, which is said to enhance the vibrancy of the color. The print will be ready next week, and then it's off to the framing shop.

The Fair requires that the image be framed with a glass or plastic cover, and I'll go with glass. Registration requires submitting an image of the art that is about 1,000 pixels on the short side. 

Judging takes place in several phases; Phase 1 is where they cull the entries based on the submitted image and is completed by July 13. Phase 2 is where the jurors do the hard work and decide what will be displayed and how awards will be allocated.

Between now and the end of registration on July 7 I need to decide if I will offer the print for sale. The price would be set by the cost of printing (a modest $14) and framing (probably not as modest) plus 20% to cover the Fair's cut and a few bucks so I can say I came out ahead on the whole thing. 

There are cash prizes awarded, and the dream would be to land one of those, sell the print, and do this over again next year with a better image. At this point reality says: Let's just see if I can get past Phase 1.

I'll post more about this as the process rolls on.

A DIY Binocular Mount

Thanks to a change in plans--a wedding I want to attend is on the same Saturday as the Wisconsin Observers Weekend--I am going to go to this year's Nebraska Star Party. No offense intended to WOW, but NSP is a bit of a bigger show with more people and darker skies. NSP begins as the annual Jeffers Petroglyphs party ends, so I'll be able to save a couple of hours of drive time by going straight from Jeffers to NSP.

But what to do at NSP? I'll have my imaging gear from Jeffers with me, but maybe I should just make my first NSP a strictly visual affair. All that really dark sky, you know!

I've come into possession of an old pair of Celestron binoculars, their 11x80 Giant model from the 1990s:

This is not the model that was labeled "Comet Hunter" or "Comet King" apparently to cash in on Halley's Comet in 1986. What reviews I can find for this later model are mixed.

Good features from my standpoint:

• It was free
• It has a wide FOV (4.5 degrees)
• It comes with a mounting bracket. 

Cons:

• Probably not the greatest optical quality
• Heavy (6.7 pounds) 
• Exit pupil (~7mm) that is too large for my old eyes. I'm 60, and although I haven't measured, I would guess my pupils don't open past 5mm. This means that some of the objective size is being wasted, but some people suggest this has a small silver lining in that one's eyes can move a little laterally and stay in the light.

My past experience with large binoculars suggests that a mount is a very good thing to use for steadiness and comfort. A little googling turned up this plan, which I am adapting to the top of my CGEM tripod. The CGEM tripod has two threaded holes for mounting the azimuth post. These are perfect for attaching a base plate. In my case I'm changing the plan to substitute a 3/4" piece of hardwood for the 3/8" aluminum plate. The rest will be pretty much as the design suggests.

I was unable to find the nice round counterweights seen in the explanatory pictures, so I'm using lead scuba weights from the appropriately named Lead-co USA. Construction begins next week.

An update on May 20: Lead-co uses fixed-cost USPS mailing boxes, and I had paid for a medium sized-one. It turns out that the weights I bought fit in the small box, so Lead-co refunded the difference. Nice!

Definitely Rusty

First the unpleasant winter, and then too much work. I'm barely able to keep up with the lectures I need to prepare, so maybe it's been a blessing in disguise that the winter has made it difficult to get out and observe. I really don't have the energy or, sad to say, the will.

That said, last week it was finally nice enough for me to get out and try to resume imaging. Amazingly, I remembered how to get everything put back together and working. The fist night by the time my polar alignment was done my target (Thor's helmet) had moved behind a tree. I thought I'd swing up to Regulus and take a stab at trying to image Leo I dwarf galaxy. I screwed up and instead centered on Gamma. Nice shot of it, but not what I wanted.

The next night I was ready for the Helmet and started shooting as twilight ended. The tree won the battle, though. All I got was 9 frames for a grand total of 27 minutes of H-alpha. Not nearly enough to get the fainter outer regions.

As expected, the Bright Nebula list has a gaping hole in the sky during spring, so I'll be imaging other targets until the summer milky way starts rising.

I'm going to go back and get Leo I, I think, only I'll use my TV 102 or C9.25 for it. And maybe I'll do some planetary imaging. Classes end the first week of May, and after that I'll be free to do as I please!

Snow.

We had our biggest snowfall of the season last week, and while it wasn't all that much (maybe 12 inches) it brought our snow depth up to a level we haven't seen since 1982. This winter has been unlike others in that the temperature has stayed low enough to prevent the usual gradual melts that keep the snow cover in check. Each snowfall has added to the last and now we're up around two feet of the stuff.

I know for other parts of the country that's not so much, but winter is somewhat subjective. Thirty two years between mounds of snow like this are almost enough to erase it from the collective memory. Almost.

Anyway, with the forecast for continued cold (and I mean sub-zero lows cold) cabin fever is pounding at the door. To do something--anything--constructive is to hold the madness off for a while. So I decided to go dig out my observing platform.

BEFORE

The Pristine Winter Wonderland/Wasteland

AFTER

80 cubic feet of snow and ice later

THE SNOW

The yard stick does not lie.

The depth was 26" on one side and 24 on another, with the average as you see it above.

This was completely futile, of course. March, only days away, is our snowiest month on average. But it was nice to see the wood planking again, and maybe--just maybe--the Sun will do some work and melt it clear before the next snowfall.

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I did manage to do some astronomy evangelizing the week before last. I volunteered to make an astrophotography presentation to three photography classes at Richfield High School. It was fun, and doing some show-and-tell gave me an excuse to get out my neglected cameras, now three months into their winter exile.

Nebraska Star Party Weather

(Continued cold and clouds have curtailed all my imaging activity, so thoughts continue to turn to the summer)

I'm still toying with the idea of attending the Nebraska Star Party, which in 2014 is from July 27 through August 1. I have some concerns.

A minor concern is electrical power. I run off two deep-cycle batteries, and it's unlikely that I can get more than a few nights off my gear. I'll be coming from the Prairie Grass Star Gaze. It's likely my batteries will need to be topped off before getting to NSP or I might have less than two night's capacity.

The bigger concern is the weather, both the heat and the potential for damaging storms. This has led me to investigate the weather that's typical for late July. Here's what I've found for nearby Valentine:

TEMPERATURES (all in degrees F) (source 1)
---------------------------------------------
July 27- Average, 89/61, records 106/43
July 28- Average, 89/61, records 108/44
July 29- Average, 89/61, records 110/42
July 30- Average, 89/61, records 105/38
July 31- Average, 89/61, records 110/44
August 1- Average, 89/61, records 106/44

WEATHER PROBABILITIES (source 2)
---------------------------------------------
Entire period, daily chance of thunderstorm is about 39%; daily chance of rain is about 50%.
An average five day interval will see two days with thunderstorms and two or three days with rain.

CLOUD COVER PROBABILITIES (source 2)
---------------------------------------------
In late July and early August the skies are clear or mostly clear about 66% of the time. This probably understates the likelihood of favorable conditions at night, when clouds are less common.

Sources:
(1) http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/daily/USNE0494?climoMonth=7
(2) http://weatherspark.com/averages/31908/Valentine-Nebraska-United-States

Numerous attendees have reported that the thunderstorms can be strong. I usually take down my scopes at night but leave the mount up so that my polar alignment is retained. I might consider looking into how to stake down the mount so that really strong gusts don't topple it.

As for the heat, it could easily top what I experienced at the Iowa star party last year. The Solution is a lot of water, and either bring or borrow shade.

Goodbye to the AT72ED

Two years ago I purchased a used AT72ED. The scope I wanted was the AT65EDQ, but it was too pricey for my budget.

The AT72 was an able performer when paired with the Orion Field Flattener for Short Refractors (see my Andromeda Galaxy image in this blog post. I didn't care for the mounting foot, but it was easy to replace with rings. The focuser was no Moonlite but it held my heavy CCD + Filter wheel without problems. If it had a fault it was a little blue haloing on brighter stars. (I can't be sure if that wasn't my fault for not being a diligent focuser.)

Eventually a local club member decided to part with his AT65 and I was able to pick it up for not much more than the AT72 cost me. This made the AT72 expendable and I put it up for sale. I let it sit idle for a while on the club's merchandise forum. Finally this fall I listed it on Cloudy Nights and it sold along with the FF. The new owner is interested in using it to get into wide-field DSLR astrophotography, for which it's wonderfully suited.

The AT65 has been great this fall for chasing down the larger Astronomical League Bright Nebula objects. I recommend it to anyone who wants to get into imaging without spending a lot on an expensive telescope.

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One of my telescopes is becoming something of an orphan. My old ShortTube 80, originally purchased as a travel scope to take to the 1998 Solar Eclipse in Aruba, doesn't have a role any longer. I'm holding onto it for now because it's still a good travel scope, and it's great as a guide scope. The Orion mini-guider has replaced the ST on my refractors, but I'm uncertain if the little scope will work well with my C925. That determination will have to wait for the summer when the weather is better.

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Speaking of the weather, it's not been helpful. I got the usual fall head cold a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. Then after the holiday the weather turned cold (frequently going sub-zero). I can handle temperatures down to around 10 degrees F, but zero is outside my optimal range of operation. Cold and Clouds have continued all December. I'm hoping for a better 2014!

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Oh yes, one more thing. Astrobin did a major reworking of their site code and all my image links are now broken. I'll be fixing them as time permits.

Astronomical League Bright Nebula List

EDIT: 5/9/15: The lastest version of my corrected ALBN list can be found at THIS post.

Earlier this year the Astronomical League introduced the Bright Nebula Observing Program. As is traditional, this program provides a list of objects to be observed. In this case there is also the option to image objects. For the BN program visual observers are required to acquire 60 objects (non-observations are also accepted). Imagers must capture 100 objects.

The first version of the object list contained quite a few errors and has since been revised. Unfortunately the revised list still has a few errors and some points of confusion, particularly concerning some compound objects:

• The Heart nebula is given as IC 1805 + IC 1795. NGC 896 is listed as a separate list item, but most references have it as identical to IC 1795. Why is there a distinction here?
• The Flame nebula is listed as NGC 2024 + NGC 2023. Most references do not include 2023 in the flame, as they're quite distinct from each other
• Sh 2-8 and NGC 6334 are considered to be the same object (the Cat's Paw nebula), but are listed as separate objects. Possibly the list intends Sh 2-8 to be the extended nebula surrounding NGC 6334, but that distinction is not noted
• The Gamma Cygni nebula is also referred to as the Butterfly Nebula, which is IC 1318B and C. It's not clear if observations are meant to include IC 1318A
• The Pelican nebula is generally considered to be made up of two objects, IC 5070 and IC 5067. For some reason the list adds IC 5068 to the Pelican

Some errors give evidence of inadequate proofing:

• LBN 8 is listed twice
• The declination of NGC 2174 (Monkey Head nebula) is incorrect, probably because of a cut-and-paste error. It is given the same declination of the object just before it in the list
• LBN 10 is the probable victim of a typo; its right ascension is off by five hours
• IC 1287 is placed on the list out of right ascension order

And one error is just plain dumb:

• IC 425 is on the list, but it is generally considered a fictional object. Another non-existent object was removed from the list's first version but this one persists. Maybe it's there as a test of observers' veracity?

Since it's my intention to do this list through imaging I've been taking a closer look at it. Because I find the published format (PDF) difficult to work with, I've converted it to a Microsoft Word document. As a part of this reformatting:

• Objects that are also in the Lynds Catalog have had their catalog number and Lynds brightness added. The list fulfillment requirements include giving the Lynds brightness for each object
• A list index has been added so that each object can be referred to by a sequential number. (For what it's worth, there are 154 real objects on the list. The list originally was said to have 160 objects; it didn't. It now is said to have "over 150," which is correct.)
• The above-mentioned errors I've spotted have been corrected

Note that I have NOT done a quality check of all the data supplied by the AL--I've only tried to catch obvious errors. Nor have I tried to resolve the issue of multi-component objects, or to reorder the list. Omitted are the chart numbers.

Here is a link to my revised document. Feel free to download it. If you find errors in it, let me know and I'll correct them.

This can be easily converted to spreadsheet form, which I've done. I've also converted it into an observing list for Sky Tools 3.

Final comments: This is a difficult observing program, particularly because many of the objects are very dim. Northern observers will not be able to see many of the objects at all (at least 22 are invisible from my latitude of 45 north). I think that this program would have benefited from having several people examine and field test it before it was announced. Perhaps in time it will get cleaned up.

Working the list: As of today my tally is 47 list objects imaged with 53 remaining to do. After looking at the list it appears there are about 50 reasonably "doable" objects left for imaging, which will leave me three short. It's going to be interesting.