Optimism in amateur astronomy

I am an optimist by nature, but this sunny disposition is often greatly challenged by one of my chosen hobbies in amateur astronomy. There's a lot that can happen to foil your best laid plans for a night of observing, especially when you live in a major urban center with a marine climate that is hell-bent on throwing clouds your way about 98 percent of the time.

Perhaps that last statement wasn't entirely optimistic. Yet I enjoyed a couple of clear nights of observing on Monday and Tuesday this week, and with a good weather forecast for Wednesday I set out to improve my views of Mars for that evening's session.

This involved a trek out to Ballard for a visit to Cloud Break Optics, where proprietor Stephanie Anderson was able to set me up with a set of planetary filters that could well improve my observations of Mars.

My new set of planetary filters.

I have not been much of a filter user in my astronomical observations. Up until this week I only owned one filter, a 13-percent Moon filter that tones down the light reflected by Luna. Without it, viewing the Moon through a telescope can be downright uncomfortable. Still, I'm always willing to try new things, and Stephanie set me up with a Mars Observing Kit made by Celestron. The kit included four filters: an #80A blue filter that can enhance views of surface features and polar ice caps; a #56 green filter that improves contrast for polar caps, low clouds, and dust storms; a #25 red filter can darken the seas on Mars while lightening its orange deserts; and a special Mars filter that combines the features of the red and blue filters. It also included a Barlow lens that doubles the magnification of any eyepiece you use in observing. I already had one of those, but will soon hold a competition to find out which is better.

The weather held as predicted on Wednesday, though as I made my way home from Cloud Break Optics I noticed some ominous clouds off to the west and, in another example of shaken optimism, immediately recalled the old adage that buying new astronomy gear means bad weather for weeks. It's sort of like rain being caused by washing your car. I am occasionally chided for passing along "weather superstitions" (most recently when I blamed my putting up the lights on our deck umbrella for causing rain). Some say they're not useful or helpful. Nevertheless, I think they're true.

I gave my new filters a test and could tell right away they worked. The glare of a super-bright Mars was greatly reduced, making more detail visible. It was a little strange looking at green, hot pink, blue, or purple Mars after years of seeing the unfiltered orange/red version, but I'll get used to that soon enough. The bad news was that while the details of Mars became a bit more prominent, it was difficult to really make them out because even though the sky was clear the viewing conditions were atrocious. The seeing, though not as poor as it was Monday, wasn't great. The transparency was truly awful because of high moisture in the atmosphere. So while I could see a bit more detail on Mars, I had a decidedly muddy view of what the details actually might be. The moisture was bad enough that pretty early on in my viewing session my optics, including my new filters, collected a heavy layer of dew that brought my work for the night to an end.

I remain undaunted. As I write this in the early afternoon on Friday, the sky is mostly clear, with a little haze off to the west. As an optimist, my telescope is still by the back door, not down in the corner of the basement where it sits for months waiting for the clouds to clear. I'm planning another shot at Mars for tonight.

Another look at Mars

Being blessed at Seattle Astronomy headquarters with the rare-for-December occurrence of consecutive clear evenings, I ventured out again last night with the telescope to see what could be seen.

My prime objective was Mars. Seeing and transparency were somewhat better than there were on Monday evening. While the view of Mars through the telescope was much more stable, there was again very little detail to be seen. I've come to the harebrained conclusion that Mars may simply be too bright! This is seldom noted as a problem in astronomy. Usually things such as galaxies and nebulae are too faint to be seen, especially in a city where light  pollution is an obstacle. I have, however, noticed with other planets such as Jupiter that the best views may be in twilight when the contrast between the object being looked at and the sky is not so great.

The Moon from Seattle Astronomy
headquarters on Dec. 1, 2020.
 Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

I may be in touch with our friends at Cloud Break Optics to see if they can set me up with a Mars filter, STAT. The forecast for tonight is another clear one.

There was better luck with the Moon, which being a couple of days past full was still pretty big but clearly on the waning side. I managed to capture a nice (by my standards) photo of the Moon using a handheld iPhone camera. I always have trouble finding the exit pupil with the smallish lens of the phone cam, but got a decent one after a few tries this time. I always use a disclaimer that I'm not really an astrophotographer, but do like to grab the occasional snapshot, just to prove I was there!

I'll be out again tonight if the weather forecast proves true!

Mars glistens; Jupiter-Saturn conjunction approaches

Not the view through my telescope!
This image of Mars was captured by
the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018.
 (Credit NASA, ESA, and STScI)

It was a nice, clear night last night and I dragged the telescope out of the basement for a look at how Mars was coming along. The answer: swimmingly! That is to say, neither the seeing nor the transparency were very good despite the "clear" sky. One look at the nearly full Moon revealed that there was plenty of moisture in the air, as its orb was surrounded by a rainbow halo of light. 

Thus my views of Mars from last night were mostly on the wobbly side. In the occasional moment of steady seeing I was able to spot the Red Planet's southern polar cap, but couldn't catch much else in the way of surface features.

This is not to say that the views of Mars were bad. Though we're nearly two months past its closest approach to Earth for this particular apparition, Mars is still bright red and it's quite high in the evening sky. Maybe the view was even better without a telescope! Our forecast in Seattle is for another clear evening today, and I plan to give Mars another look.

Another sky spectacle is approaching. Jupiter and Saturn have been hanging out together for much of the year, and they've pulled noticeably closer together in recent weeks. The two are headed for a great conjunction on Dec. 21, 2020, when they will appear less than one degree apart in the western sky! In fact, they'll be within six one-hundredths of a degree at their closest and will appear as one bright object! For reference, the full Moon appears about half a degree wide.

This article from Sky at Night magazine explains the conjunction, which will be the closest of our solar system's two largest planets in about 400 years! Fingers crossed for clear skies that night!

New book The Last Stargazers by Emily Levesque out this week

An interesting new book by University of Washington astronomy professor Emily Levesque is coming out this week. The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers (Sourcebooks, 2020) will be published August 4. In The Last Stargazers Levesque shares the tales and experiences of astronomical observing. Weaving together stories from more than 100 astronomers and observatory employees, The Last Stargazers explores how modern observatories are run, shares some of the many incredible stories from the astronomy community about what it’s like to work at a telescope, and reveals the transformative developments in astronomy's immediate future.

Several events mark the release of the book, including a virtual meeting of Astronomy on Tap Seattle at 8 p.m. August 6. Watch live on either Zoom or YouTube. Levesque also will do a launch event August 3 through Elliott Bay Book Company and another through Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore August 13 in conversation with Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait. 

Levesque's research specialty is the evolution of dying stars. We covered a talk she did for Astronomy on Tap Seattle back in 2016. She's an engaging speaker and writer and we're looking forward to reading the book.

By the way, you can pre-order the book by clicking the image to the left or the title link above. Seattle Astronomy gets a small cut, at no cost to you, when you do that, and it helps support our work. Many thanks!

NEOWISE spotted from Alki Beach

Last night, July 14, 2020, was a pleasantly mild one on Alki Beach in West Seattle, and it turned out to be a perfect on during which to catch a glimpse of Comet C/2020 F3, to which we will henceforth refer as NEOWISE.

I wandered down to the beach with my binoculars and my DSLR camera a little past 9pm to stake out a good spot for comet searching. It turned out to be way earlier than was necessary. Scanning often with the binoculars, I didn't finally spot the comet until right around 10:30pm. Once spotted it was still pretty faint, but at the same time easy to find again.

Shot of Comet NEOWISE from Alki Beach on July 14, 2020.
Photo: Greg Scheiderer

I'm not often accused of being an astrophotographer, though I sometimes like to get a snapshot just to prove I was there. In this case, as the weather forecast looked favorable for the evening I must have read a dozen articles during the day about how to photograph a comet. This gave me about two dozen techniques from which to choose, but enough ballpark information that I thought I would be able to get a decent shot. The one directly to the left is my favorite from the evening.

An unexpected challenge of getting this shot is that NEOWISE was so faint that I couldn't really frame the photos through the camera viewfinder or with the back screen. I ended up taking images, and if the comet wasn't there, I'd just move the camera a bit, take another one, and another, until I found a composition that I liked.

NEOWISE from Alki
Photo: Greg Scheiderer

It worked out pretty OK!

For the photog types out there, I used a Nikon D3100 with the 55-200mm zoom kit lens. I was at ISO 1600. The upper photo was a 10 second exposure at f4.2 with the lens at 66mm. The one to the left was at 55mm, eight seconds at f4.

I found several shots that were zoomed in a little closer to be a tad blurry. It was pretty hard to set focus!

Comet hunting was fun and I was a bit surprised that there were so many folks out who were aware of this event, many of them back for a second evening at Alki. My binoculars gave lots of folks a better look, so that was enjoyable.

NEOWISE was the most impressive comet I've seen. Back in early 2007 Comet McNaught was spectacular, but mostly a Southern Hemisphere event. I caught it briefly one evening as it moved between the clouds right around sunset. Hale Bopp was great in 1996-97, but I don't remember being able to see so much of it's tail, at least when I saw it. I was in college when Comet West was here and still haven't figured out how I missed that entirely.

NEOWISE will be around for a few more weeks. This NASA site has good info for spotting it.