Under the stars

[Alan]

By the way, where is Underthestars?  Anyway, watched the shuttle launch successfully. One of the coolest things I have seen from a hot tub is watching the space station go overhead with the space shuttle chasing it. Its quite a site.  You can find out if the duo passes over your skies at http://www.heavens-above.com

 

[windsurfdog]

Looks like we won't get a sighting   :'(  our only ISS sighting in the next 10 days is Aug. 5 and the shuttle will probably be home then.  How long is STS-114 scheduled to be up anyway?

 

[Alan]

Looks like we won't get a sighting   :'(  our only ISS sighting in the next 10 days is Aug. 5 and the shuttle will probably be home then.  How long is STS-114 scheduled to be up anyway?

12 or 13 days I believe

 

[Chas]

Well, we finished up a new telescope this evening. Collimated it, but didn't get it balanced as well as we should of. So, between not having a very dark sky and the 'scope wandering off by itself, I couldn't find Mars.

Couldn't even find the Pleiades, with or without the 'scope: and I can usually spot it with my naked eyes.

Well - off to bed. I guess we'll spend some more time balancing tomorrow, and re-align the Rigel.  This was supposed to be the brightest night, but we'll try 'her again tomorrow night. May even drive out to the edge of town.

Looked at the moon - wow. Not much clutter up there... Beautiful.

 

[Alan]

Mars can be dissapointing in any scope. Its hard to get a good image of it.

 

[Chas]

Mars can be dissapointing in any scope. Its hard to get a good image of it.

Bummer. I should have put that all together: the images I am seeing on various web sites, taken by amatuers, are not very impressive, yet some of those folks have 'scopes to rival yours.

It's funny, because it seemed so big when I was growing up there....

 

[Alan]

If you told me I forgot, what kind of scope did you get?

 

[Chas]

6" Newtonian (Reflector) on a Dobsonian mount made out of birch plywood. My daughter and I built it together. We also added a Rigel finder, which helps a newbie a whole lot!

We are going to try to connect with a local club to go see Mars through a bigger instrument, and also to learn a few tips on handling this thing.

It works great, but we are new at using it. The picture above is not ours: we have finished the mount just like that but have not painted the tube yet.

 

[Alan]

The 6" may be a better scope for looking at Mars than mine. Mars is just too bright most times for my light bucket.  It helps to find it first in a low power eyepiece, something that adds up to 10-20X then move up in power. Much above 100X in that scope won't look good on Mars most nights.

We are going to try to connect with a local club

Great idea.  One tip that is true for a long tube scope like that and is especially true when trying to look at Mars, whenever possible, take the scope outside at least an hour before using it let it cool to the temp of the air.