From Mike Jones on February 21, 2008:
We had alternating clear and high cirrus, but lots of holes
to shoot through. I got about 50 pictures or so, up to mid-totality. Then about
9:40PM we felt the wind switch to coming out of the north, the temperature
started dropping, and the sky completely clouded over in just a matter of
minutes, for the rest of the night.
Equipment: Takahashi TOA-130S on equatorial tracking mount. Canon XTi set to ISO
200, exposures ranged from 1 to 1.6 seconds. Reduced high contrast levels in
Photoshop to bring out details in the dark and bright sides.
(click on photo for higher resolution [4-800KB] views)
From Mike Jones on June 6, 2007:
We had a beautiful moonbow over Azle,
TX Sunday night, May 27, during a break between thunderstorms. The coloration
in the moonbow was the best I had ever seen, with the hue clearly visible and
changing from red to blue going out from the Moon. The orange glow to the lower
left is the light bubble from Fort Worth. A faint jet contrail can be seen to
the left of the Moon, and Arcturus is at upper left. 15 sec. exposure at ISO
400 setting using a Canon XTi and 18-55 zoom lens.
(click on photo for higher resolution [615KB] view)
From Mike Jones on January 15, 2007:
I took this about 5:30AM on Jan. 1,
2007, from a campsite at Seminole Canyon State Park, northwest of Del Rio. The
sky was incredibly clear and calm, and the darkness there was equal to McDonald
Observatory except for a small light bubble to the southeast from Del Rio. Canon
Powershot G3, 15 seconds. The bright object is Jupiter, located above and to the
left of Antares. The three stars in the head of the Scorpion are to the right of
and above Jupiter. It was almost totally dark when I took this, and the picture
shows the first hint of dawn's twilight, along with the yellowish skyglow from
Del Rio. SPAC members that haven't been to visit and observe at Seminole Canyon
are missing out on a great observing experience. The park is also the site of
hundreds of prehistoric pictographs dating back to more than 6000 years ago.
These are easily visible during the tours down into the Pecos Canyon, held twice
daily.
(click on photo for higher resolution [404KB] view)
From Tom Heisey on July 11, 2006:
Subject: Moon Cam pics - First try at imaging and Registax
I finally got around to recording the view through the moon cam. I tried
to pick a few interesting areas in the13-day old waxing moon with the terminator
at 72 degrees west. ( according to Hitchhiker's Guide for 7/8/06)
Jeff, David, & Russell -
I've tinkered very little with Registax until now, so these are baby steps to
say the least. I'd appreciate hints & tips on getting the most from Registax,
so I'll bring the DVD, converted movies and the rest this weekend. I used video
clips that ranged from about 30 seconds to about 5 minutes. The air was pretty
unstable and videos had a lively dance.
I've got to find a good program to capture the video from DVD. The current
software I use seemed to have shrunk the image from the camera's 500x500 to
352x240. It's also not easy to use. I have a new (to me) DV camera that may
help solve this problem, but have yet to play with it.
Anyway, here are the images. I haven't dug into the maps to identify the
craters, though I'm fairly sure of their general area. (If you know them off
hand, please let me know.)
I took the liberty of flipping the vertical on this one as it was more pleasing
and made more sense in this orientation. In the camera, the curve and open
space were to the lower left. The central mountain looked really wild on the
screen - almost like a snowman.
This is in the original orientation. I was struck by the little "ET" peeping
out of the crater...
Here's a wider image (stacked & wavelets, but otherwise unprocessed). The
limitation of the AGC shows how the camera was unable to see anything on the
plains in this view. However, ET is still there.
Here's the horse-head or Rook ?asterism? in right-center at the edge of the
mare. Orientation is as displayed in the camera, but I can't seem to find
this on the maps. It was more obvious at high magnification (add a doubler),
but the skies wouldn't hold it on the 8th. The sun's angle was also different
as it appears slightly different from last teacher's seminar.
Here's the original.
Anyway, I thought you'd enjoy my first tries at Lunar imaging in a while,
Tom
From Mike Jones on June 28, 2006:
I started out using the very fine Hastelite PO polishing compound on the 18"
fused silica McDonald Observatory mirrors because it changes the figure very
slowly, allowing me to sneak up on the paraboloid nice and slow. Well, it was
so slow it was hardly doing anything at all!
Picture 1 is what I started out with, a smooth nearly spherical surface with a
long edge but not turned down, as evidenced by the continuous diffraction ring.
Picture 2 is after almost six hours of center-over-center polishing, first with
a 10.5" Acculap polisher, then with a 6" Gugolz pitch polisher. It was hogging
out a small dimple in the middle, but hardly changing the figure otherwise. At
this rate it might have been this time next year before the mirror reached the
desired parabolic depth.
I changed to Ce-Rite compound from Salem Optical (almost pure cerium oxide) in
hopes of speeding things up. Picture 3 shows that shure 'nuff it did. This is
the figure after only 40 minutes of running the 10.5" Acculap polisher. The
figure is still undercorrected outside roughly the 75% zone and overcorrected
inside it, but at least the figure is moving now. The surface looks nice and
smooth so I don't see the need to go back to Hastelite PO at this point.
I'll post more pictures, and figure graphs as the figure gets closer showing the
wavefront correction.
Clear, dust-free South Plains skies,
Mike
Wheelchair Access Telescope!
I have started figuring the two 18" f/8 mirrors for the new Wheelchair Access
Telescope at the McDonald Observatory Visitor Center. The picture shows one of
the 18" mirrors on my 24" Strasbaugh polisher. The mirrors will lie on their
backs for figuring on the 22" drive wheel, and must rest on something soft and
flexible that gives uniform back support and does not scratch. Rather than
carpet, which fills up with polishing mud, I'm using a dimpled rubber bathmat,
visible in the picture and easily rinsed off.
The focal length of these 18" mirrors is 12 feet, meaning a radius of 24 feet.
This implied a lot of back-and-forth walking while testing to align the mirror
to the tester each time. So, I built a 24" capacity motorized test stand for
Foucault/Ronchi/wire testing the mirrors to simplify alignment during testing.
The stand uses two reversible Hurst 10 RPM motors controlled by a 35 foot six
conductor cable and up/down/left/right hand paddle. I'm getting 0.1"/second slew
rate in elevation and 0.2"/second in azimuth at 288" with very smooth motion. I
eventually want to go with wireless control and eliminate the 35 foot cable.
The tester is built from 2-axis precision slides I lucked into at a ham radio
swapmeet in Dallas for $50. They give 2" of longitudinal travel and 1" of
transverse travel, both with Starrett micrometer heads. Ed Kotapish of the
Lockheed Martin club milled the upright bracket from 4" angle aluminum. A white
LED gives more than enough light and looks good. I'll rough in the figure with a
slitless knife-edge test (razor blade visible), then switch over to wire testing
for higher precision. I bought a piece of 0.005" straight tungsten wire from
Small Parts, Inc. for the wire testing.
Mike (Jones from Azle, Texas on May 20, 2006)
A couple of photos from SPAC friend Mike Jones of Azle, Texas on June 2, 2005...
(click on photo for higher resolution [308KB] view)
"The Iridium satellite photo was taken from my back yard on May 24, 2005. Canon
PowerShot G3 4 MP camera, 15 seconds, f/2.5, CCD chip set to ASA 100,
post-processed with PaintShop Pro. The peak brightness was about -8 and occurred
at 10:38PM, within seconds of the predicted time given by Heavens-Above.com. The
Hercules keystone appears above the flash, and M13 is barely visible."
Special Note from Webmaster: On May 28, 2006, I received a request from
Sakari Nummila to use this photograph in "Tähdet ja
avaruus" (English: Stars and space), a Finnish amateur astronomy
magazine. Mike gave his permission and Sakari provided Mike and SPAC each with a
copy of the edition in which Mike's photo appears. It is a nice
magazine with beautiful photography. Anyone in SPAC read Finnish?
(click on photo for higher resolution [66KB] view)
"While driving home this past January 14 I saw one of the best displays of a
full solar halo, all three sundogs (parhelia) and even a faint upper tangent arc
I'd seen in a long time. This picture was taken after I got home a little after
5PM, using our gazebo bird feeder to block the sun. Only minutes earlier all
three sundogs were visible, and the upper tangent arc was more visible and
well-defined. Imagine an eyebrow-shaped rainbow above the main solar halo and
just touching it. By the time I had gotten home and ran out with the camera the
upper tangent arc had nearly disappeared."
Here's a very educational picture of the Galactic Center (the left,
negative side labeled) that Lubbock's own Curt Pfarr imaged
at the May 2005 Texas Star Party...
Some photos taken early December 2004 by Curt Pfarr with his Orion
ED80 scope.
WOW!
(click on photo for higher resolution [328KB] view) (click on photo for higher resolution [91KB] view)
(click on photo for higher resolution [328KB] view) (click on photo for higher resolution [187KB] view)
From Tom Heisey on December 1, 2004:
I'm working on a presentation about light pollution and I wanted to compare
Lubbock to a city with light control regulations - Tucson was a natural starting
point, given their success in limiting light pollution for Kitt Peak. The
results shown in the attached file were surprising!
Tucson and Pima county are roughly the same size as Lubbock and the surrounding
area (maps are the same scale), but Tucson has three times the population and
sprawling suburbs. The light domes (out to yellow bands) are roughly equivalent
even though Tucson's white area is the size of loop 289!
The maps are a combination of the famous light pollution maps from the Clear Sky
Clock - http://cleardarksky.com/ and
Mappoint maps http://mappoint.msn.com. I
manipulated the two images the same scale, arranged them in semi-transparent
layers, then cropped the resulting images to cover the same amount of ground for
comparison.
You are welcome to use the image for spreading the word on light pollution. I
ask only that you keep the image intact.
Clear (dark) skies,
Tom
Tom@TomHeisey.com
http://www.tomheisey.com
Submitted by Collin Smith. Photos taken during the October 27, 2004 lunar
eclipse viewing at the TTU Museum. I believe these shots were taken with only
available-light. Looks like it was an enjoyable time...
(click on photo for higher resolution [191KB] view)
This photo was forwarded to us by Collin Smith. SPAC Friend Curt Pfarr took the
picture on the night of September 5, 2004 and shared it with Collin by e-mail.
Curt wrote, "around midnight I did set up in my backyard to test a new Canon 20D
DSLR at prime focus through a Megrez 80 (achromat). Attached is a blend of 10 X
90 second images (about the limit for the light pollution - I'm awash in street
and porch lights...). Looks promising, though the red sensitivity is not great
due to an infra-red filter built in."
Good job, Curt!
(click on photo for higher resolution [168KB] view)
(click on photo for higher resolution [782KB] view)
(click on photo for higher resolution [652KB] view)
Here
are a few astro pics I took while doing outreach for a girl scout troop
astronomy badge. They were taken with an HP 5-megapixel digital camera
through my 8" Orion reflector with a 25mm eyepiece. I took them
Thursday, May 27 between 7:15pm and 7:45pm, near 107th and Frankford.
The "moon & cloud" pic is straight through the camera, no scope
here, at smallest digital zoom (or is that biggest?) I went for the
"close-up" of the moon - ha ha, yeah right.
Patrice
(click on photo for high resolution [728KB] view)
Aurora Borealis photo taken November 21, 2003 by Mike Jones in Azle, Texas at
about 12:30 a.m. Mike wrote, "We
had some fine but subtle aurorae low in the northwest sky here in Azle last
night. This is one of several pictures I took literally from my back
porch. You can see Deneb and Cygnus setting in the northwest, and a jet
headed eastbound for DFW airport just below the auroral curtain.
15 seconds, f/2.0 with our 4 megapixel Canon PowerShot G3.
This particular curtain lasted from about 11:30PM to a little past 1AM. There
was also some VERY faint pink shading in the rising bowl of the Big Dipper the
camera just barely captured."
Meanwhile near Fort Davis, Frank Cianciolo, Senior Program Coordinator for the
McDonald Observatory Visitors Center (http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/)
wrote "...Aurora was visible out here at the Observatory, too. It was
all fairly faint to the eye but my camera picked it up nicely. Instead of a
single shot, though, I was able to do a time-lapse movie... ...I've put up a
small page with several versions at different resolutions (everything from 1 MB
to 18 MB) for different download and display capabilities. They're at http://hercules.as.utexas.edu/11202003aurora/index.html.
To keep the file size in hand, I essentially clipped the best 2 hours worth of
the display (out of the 7 hours I shot) and made movies of that... ...If someone
is interested in the entire thing, it's still available at http://hercules.as.utexas.edu/Aurora_11202003_sm.mov...
...This file is 3.4 MB so it might take while to load over a slower
connection."
(Note: QuickTime software is required to view these movies. The
player edition is free and available at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/.
The initial download of QuickTime for Windows is approximately 400KB, which then
provides installation options ranging in size from approximately
5.8 - 11MB.)
Sun dog taken by member Carol Phillips on April 7, 2003 at Fort Walton Beach,
Florida. Carol says "...It
was such a bright sun dog that it is hard to tell which one is the sun and which
the dog... By the way, the dog is to the far right."
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