Socked in and soggy

If you had looked at the right side of the blog and followed the EC forecast and Clear Sky Chart, you'll notice we're right in the middle of some soggy and humid weather. Toronto's summer has been a little on the unusual side with lots of cloud cover and a little wetter than normal. Yet the air is generally clean which is a good thing. Bad if you are observing. The scopes have been idle for a while now so the itch is there to return to action ASAP but that window of opportunity may not happen till next week. There is a narrow, and I mean narrow window of *maybe* Friday night, but it is not looking good until at least another week from now or more. But it's the weather, it does what it wishes.

M:)

Update on Struve 2668

I am posting this as a new entry rather than editing the previous entry which was Uranometria, Struve 2668 and The Living Star Atlas. Do 5 is part of the Dolidze catalogue of clusters which frequent the area of Cygnus. This cluster in particular is an eye catcher, also it is the home of Struve 2668. Again, it's position is 20h 20.3m RA, +39 24" DEC

Sources: Uranometria 2000.0 Vol 1 2nd Edition, Tirion et al and Double Stars for Small Telescopes by Sissy Haas.

M:)

Our man in Shanghai (Eclipse in Shanghai)

We are wishing for clear weather over there for the Wednesday eclipse of the Sun in Shanghai. Our man, Malcolm Park, President of the North York Astronomical Association continues to update us on his adventure. Lets hope it clears up...but the forecast is not looking promising.

Check out his blog, Cygnusx1 here

Drive-In Astronomy

I have been frequenting (why was does that word sound so wrong?) the 5 Drive-In in Oakville on a few occasions where it has actually been clear. I have been tempted to set up the Pronto on a whim just to see what would happen. There are literally hundreds of people there hunkered down in their cages watching the big outdoor screen. Karen and I sit outside of the car taking in the film but both of us have drifted off staring at the night sky if the movie is iffy, watching planes make their finals (or takeoffs) from Pearson Airport and looking at, or literally staring at some old familiar sites. Screen One roughly faces north so The Great Bear makes a dive this time a year towards it. Usually we have spotted Jupiter rising over the diner during the film and as we go home late, it's soaring above the parking lot. Saturday night I was trying to split Mizar and Alcor naked eye. I used to be able to do that. Let's face it, my eye's aren't what they used to be. I also left my wallet there and I have to go retrieve it. Silly me!

It could be an interesting outreach for people to learn. Not sure how the management would feel, but it's not a bad thing I suppose. Perhaps I will be more subtle and just use my 8x42s instead. But the Pronto, being small enough, just might do the trick and just keep it at a minimum towards the back. Of course, there is the possibility of using the facility as an outreach during non-movie times, something to consider.

M:)

Uranometria, Struve 2668 and The Living Star Atlas

I was fortunate last night to do a trial run of the Antares 105 and the TV Pronto all at once. Two scopes that are very, very different in how they approach the night sky, granted they are both refractors, they are very different. 8X50 finder scopes are generally adequate for most if not all types of night sky star hopping, but they start to show their limitation with really super-detailed atlas's like Uranometria. Last night I cracked open the Uranometria for the first time in 2009 and immediately felt out of touch and out of whack with the image scale. But after a few false starts, I turned to the Pronto for some interpretation and sure enough, it showed an incredible amount of detail as a finder telescope. It was clearly much better than any standard 8X50 finder scopes obviously with it's shear quality of optics. The Pronto was not physically attached to the Antares, it was sitting on an AZ-3 Mount beside it. There are no plans to adapt the Pronto physically to any telescope at this time.

Struve 2668--With the Pronto as the finder and the Antares as the primary observing scope I was able to do two things at once. Searching for Struve 2668 in Cygnus I could not really make out what I really needed to star hop in the 8X50, but the Pronto began to show details I really hoped to see. Struve 2668 was not all by itself. It's located in a small open cluster known as Do 5 which the 8X50 failed to see, but the Pronto readily saw beside a "wall" of four dimly lit stars. I wasn't just finding, I was observing at the same time. That's a nice feeling. Struve 2668 is a very nice double but not a very bright one and the companion is not easy to spot at first. No problem though in the Antares 105mm. The magnitudes are 6.3 and 8.5 respectively with a separation of 3.4".

Next time someone calls your small, high quality refractor a glorified finder scope, thank them! The Pronto and the Antares 105 make a great team.

M:)