Astronomy

More accurately, the lack of it. I seem to remember management types banging on about this concept in an earlier life, I also remember thinking what a bunch of twats they all were but maybe if I taken a little more notice I might, with seemingly all the time I have on my hands right now, have got out, since my job went tits, and had a look at the sky by now. But it hasn't happened. I know that this is in large part due to the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and the baseball being on every night but I'm also waiting on my woodworking friend to let me know what he might be able to do by way of a mount for the safety film for my solar observing and I do have a fair bit to do to get organised in my current circumstances. I really want to get a decent grip on the photography side of things and I feel that will require a number of daylight sessions and that means, most of the time, all there is to look at is the Sun and I'm not ready to go with that right now. I will start a little woodworking of my own to produce a spacer to go in the Microstage II to make the clamp position the camera about half an inch further to the right which should then allow me to use it satisfactorily. Metals, glass, electronics, yes; didn't expect there to be wood involved quite so much though.

I did get to do my bit for the ‘100 Hours of Astronomy’ thought I’ve little to show for it. Saw a little of ‘Around the World in 80 Telescopes’, before the laptop went ‘phut’ and got the whole panoply of kit out Saturday afternoon, planning to start with the Sun and go through into the evening. The weather put paid to the evening and the new kit failed to deliver in the afternoon, every last bit of it.

I got lined up on the Sun without too much squinting and had in sync to track the Sun as it moved around, and it was nigh on perfect. I focussed on the limb and placed it in the middle of the field using the Meade 15mm and x2 Barlow and it held it absolutely spot on for over two hours, but that was the only successful element of the whole afternoon. Once I was lined up I put the UV-IR Cut filter in, no visible change to the image at the eyepiece, which didn’t surprise me too much, and then added the Solar Continuum filter and everything when green, not just a tint but as green as a very green thing indeed and more significantly, no detail whatsoever. So I thought I would fire up the little Cannon and take some shots and see if Photoshop could find anything that the Mk1 eyeball was missing. Nothing doing. The Cannon has the threaded tripod mount at the extreme left end and the Microstage does not allow the camera to be moved far enough to the left to place the lens at the eyepiece. Also the knurled screw which secures the camera to the Microstage is so short it barely bites with the cable release wrapped around the camera, tilting it up at the right hand end. So no photos to examine.

I think I can modify the mount where it grips the eyepiece, forcing the pivoting arm further to the left and allowing the lens to be brought to the eyepiece. I was very disappointed with the Solar Continuum filter but when I got to the PC and emailed Baader, a possible cause of the problem occurred to me and I put it to the people at Baader and they have confirmed that this is the case. I do my solar observing through a 45mm cut out in the full 130mm end cover, backed by Baader’s Astro Solar Safety Film and it occurred to me that this maybe fine for most purposes but with the addition of the filter the light transmission may not be enough to show the detail which the filter should pick out. In a rather prissy reply from Baader, telling me to consult the supplier in future about such matters, they advised that the 45mm aperture may be enough to see sunspots, but that’s all, and there aren’t any at the moment as we are in a very quiet solar minimum, but that I would need the full aperture to be able to see any granulation. I have a very good friend who is a bit of a wizard on the woodworking and I think I will have to challenge him to produce me a couple of 130mm+ hoops to trap a layer of the Safety Film so that I can use the full aperture. As for the cable release I can’t see any alternative but to wrap it around the platform as well as the camera in order to get a secure fixing to the mount, I think there is enough length available but haven’t tried it yet.

Things not going well recently, had a few problems with a job application towards the end of the week due to email issues on my laptop, but it won’t be an issue again for a while as the laptop is now dead. Got up with me tea tray on my lap with the power cord wrapped around my leg and as I tried to shake it free my coffee cup slipped of the tray and smacked down on the laptop, since then not a peep out of it, not even a light to show the power cord is plugged in. I’m thinking the two may not be unconnected? So it’s away to Comet, might get it back in about 2-3 weeks. Bugger. Up until then I had been having a lovely time watching the ‘Around the World in 80 Telescopes’ webcast. Got a little grief at Comet, they agreed to send it off to be checked out and suggested that it might be swapped if too badly damaged to repair; fair enough but I remembered I hadn’t taken out the extra 2Gb of memory and asked for a screwdriver to remove the panel and take it out, at which point somebody chirps up, ‘if you’ve added memory it might invalidate the insurance’. Say what!! By the time she’d wandered five steps to go and consult with her manager, I’d already constructed the first dozen lines to Comet Customer Service. Anyway it seemed to blow over and it’s away to the tender care of whoever does the repair and should be back no later than 24rh April.

As indicated in previous post, I had a bit of pre-unemployment splurge at Sherwoods and got a couple of filters and a couple of bits for the camera. I need to know if I can make the photography thing work with the camera I have, so I got a Hama cable release, which I have tried inside and it seems to work though it’s not ideal. The strap wraps around the case of the camera, placing the plunger built into the strap over the shutter release. The motion in the plunger built into the strap is considerably less than the motion which can be delivered by the sheathed cable which screws into it and due to the stiffness in the strap, the built in plunger does not sit in contact with the shutter release. I was concerned that the movement available was not going to be sufficient to trigger the shutter, but it does, but it must be a close run thing and will need to be put in place quite precisely. When it is in place the strap obscures all the camera controls so the shooting method to be used needs to be set up before putting the cable release on. The Baader Microstage II looks and feels quite sturdy and offers all the adjustment of my current mount, with the addition of the ability to rotate the camera away from the eyepiece to allow visual aiming without needing to realign everything to find the sweet spot again.

I also got the Baader Solar Continuum filter I’d been hankering for since the first time I look at Sun and jumped the UV-IR Cut filter up the wish list and got one of those too. Not used any of the kit in observing conditions yet and the weather forecast suggests that Sunday will be the first opportunity to give it a try.

http://www.sherwoods-photo.com/index.htm

Has a final splurge before times of stringency took over completely and ordered some stuff from the above company. Not had chance to try any of the kit yet but as it was all received in good order, whatever deficiencies may crop up later won’t be down to Sherwoods. I tried to order the items via their website on Sunday but that didn’t work out too well. It took me a while to find the various items I was looking for, I had checked that they had all the items I was looking for previously, and this was the main reason for ordering from them. It may well have been over an hour before checking out and I had been doing other things though the page had remained open but when I went to ‘View Basket’, there was nothing in there so I decided I would ring them on Monday to place the order. There was no facility, as far as I got with the order, to create an account to retain order data and there is no login link on the site. Once you click ‘View Basket’, you get bumped over to a third party site called Romancart.com, whom I have never heard of, without any indication that this is happening, as far as I got, other than in the web address bar. I’m sure this is not an uncommon practice amongst small businesses with a web presence and wanting to have an order fulfilment capability but I would have liked to have had a clear indication that I was being transferred to a third party.

When I phoned on Monday I was greeted by an unenthusiastic operator who took the order efficiently enough but certainly didn’t seem interested in engaging me in conversation which may have led to further sales. I was also informed that, as I ordered by phone, I could not receive confirmation of despatch by email which I didn’t feel was particularly customer friendly. I did learn that the order would be despatched via Royal Mail Special Delivery for delivery Thursday or Friday so I decided to ring them again on Wednesday to check on progress. When I made the call I think I spoke to the same guy who quickly confirmed that the order was being despatched via City Link and came up with the tracking reference. The items arrived at 9.30 this morning within the expected timescale, all the items were there and correct.

The bottom line is that the stuff turned up on time, the prices were reasonable though not exciting and the postage was free. The telephone contact was perfunctory and I didn’t get to see how well things worked via their online offering. I would be happy to use them in the future but it would be price or availability that would drive me there and my preference for most transactions, be it web, telephone or face to face, remains Green Witch.

The 'Around the World in 80 Telescopes' event can also be followed on

Many of the events incorporated in the 100 Hours of Astronomy event are being streamed. Seems to be a little high brow and wordy right now but other events, such as 'Around the World in 80 Telescopes' and '24 Hour Star Party' may be a little more accessible.