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 DSO Observing Report Report for 27 - 28 Oct 05
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tulsawalk
 Wednesday, December 21 2005 @ 11:49 am EST (Read 7477 times)  
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Hello all,

I've lurked here off and on for a little while and decided to contribute to the forum. I hang out predominately in another astro forum and thought a couple of my observing reports posted there might be of interest here.
===========================

Greetings all,

Thursday night I took off with Shane to a moderately dark place about 50 miles from my house to get my groove back after a a time without any light. What follows is a somewhat rambling report that covers more of being out than the list (although the list is included at the end). There is also an account of getting scared in the dark deserted place we were observing. I will be happy to entertain any and all ideas about what it was.

Anyway, fair warning the report, as entered in my journal, rambles so if you're inclined read on.

Report for 27 - 28 Oct 05 / 2100 - 0245 hours CDT

Went to Nowata, OK tonight with Shane and his daughter Sidney. Slight north breeze blowing, 5MPH with a temp of about 35 deg. F

Tulsa clear sky clock showed good transparency and seeing but could not find a clock for the Nowata area. Seeing using the Pickering scale was 4/10 and transparency using the method developed by SAC was 7/10. Our darksky overlay for the state of Oklahoma that Shane created shows this site to be blue, maybe edging towards gray. We did have skyglow to the southwest from Tulsa about 50 miles away and to the west from Nowata about 10 miles away but was low enough on the horizon to be in bad atmosphere anyway so doesn't interfere with observing unless there is a little haze to bounce light over us which was not the case last night.

Very glad I brought the new observatory panels I made a couple of weeks ago to block the north breeze. I made three panels, 4’ x 6’ out of 1” PVC pipe and covered with blue tarps from Wal-Mart using zip ties to hold them on. Zip ties are also used for the hinges allowing the panels to “Z” fold and lay flat in the bed of my pickup. More info on these can be seen on my website: www.tulsawalk.com/projects

I made a mistake and waited until I got cold to set them up. Was actually into shivering and was actually too cold to completely recover. Stupid choice of clothing (not enough). Blue jeans with no insulation, wool socks, t-shirt, denim shirt, fleece pull over and gortex jacket, no hat. Clearly not enough for this night.

Dew didn’t come on until after 1 AM which was nice.

Coyotes howling everywhere all around us. Would generally come up from the north and get within about 100 yards before sitting and howling at us, then move around to the east and circle creating a racket the whole time. We were clearly sitting in a path they preferred to use as they traveled. It created a very cool ambiance for observing. It was tempting to turn on the bright white LEDs and spotlight for eyes but it would have ruined the night vision so didn’t.

It was the first time in the field using my laptop which turned out to be very cool in my nerdy way. My battery is shot so I purchased a Black & Decker DC/AC converter that plugs into the cig lighter to power it. Bought a dark red lexan panel from a plastic company in Tulsa and had it cut to “clip” into the frame of my monitor which worked very well as a filter. Used WinStars instead of charts to hop. WinStars will not replace the mag 7 charts I got here but since the hops last night were easy it worked very well and was cool to have a nice shot of the whole sky to look at.

We set up on a dirt road a jillion parsecs from anything (actually only 10 miles over the hill to the tiny town of Nowata) on a dirt road. Parked Shane’s car about 20 feet in front of my truck to provide some protection from traffic should any come along. We only had one car come by all night at about 2330. Would have liked to have seen the drivers face when he pulled along side to see two guys with their eyes closed, telescopes that looked like rocket launchers with all the other associated stuff sitting there.

We got the bee-gee-bees startled out of us at 0245 (yes I checked my watch). We were loaded up ready to go and talking, standing in front of my truck sort of looking to the east when there was a very bright white flash rather low reaching to the ground stretching about 90 deg north to south in the west. It was large and bright enough to envelope us but so fast it didn’t hurt our dark-adapted eyes. Best description I came up with after several minutes of discussion was it resembled a very strong camera flash. We all talk and laugh at horror movies about how if the house says “LEAVE” or something obviously weird is going on we would be gone. BUT, Shane and I stood there like a couple of teenage horror movie victims looking around in the dark trying to figure out what it might have been. After considering that we might not be alone out there, Shane made the observation that if it was someone taking our picture it was better than being shot. Truth be told, had I been alone out there it would not have taken me long to bug out!

If anyone has any ideas on what we might have seen chime in please. I considered an iridium flare but have only seen one and it was no where near that bright or large.

Realized I’m stupid in my Messier hunt. I’ve officially logged 35 with my telescope but only 4 with my binos. Why why why have I not taken the extra ten minutes to pick up my binos and log those at the same time? I would be able to finish both certificates at the same time that way. DUH, I can be very dense sometimes.

Besides “officially” logging 4 new Messier objects last night I spent a bunch of time on Orion and Mars. The seeing was 4/10 so it took a lot of patience to get anything out of Mars but every once in a while it would pop out VERY spectacular. Might try a sketch from memory later this evening unless the skies clear up.

Got the NGC7662 the Blue Snowball last night which I had tried without luck at my house on one other occasion. Very cool and even obvious at only 34.3x Shane says I’m starting to turn into an observer when something that has just a little bit of difference literally jumps out at me in the E.P. I’ll reserve judgment on that for a while.

Shane hopped to Uranus and being so cold by this point I just looked through his scope instead of trying find it in mine. Way cool, looked the same at 50x as the Snowball did in my scope at 34.3 to me. We pumped some mag on both of them and they both rounded out nicely although the nice blue color softened some.

Speaking of scopes. Shane left his 8” f5 and his 4” off axis at home and just brought the Celestron 6” f8 his son won in the drawing at OkieTex this month. Pretty nice scope, good contrast and azimuth bearings but the elevation has some irritating back lash that rather than getting used to got more annoying.

Objects observed over the course of about 5.5 hours: I include the names and descriptions for the beginners like me that have to look things up to see what they are.

M42 Orion Nebula
Trapezium to element E
M31, M32, M110
Uranus, Mars
NGC7662 Blue Snowball Planetary Nebula
M45 Pleiades
M33 Triangulum Galaxy
M11 Wild Duck Cluster
M81 Bode’s Galaxy
M82 Cigar Galaxy

And the flash left behind after the aliens brought us back to our observing site after our abduction.

Hope this wasn’t too boring or rambling. Dark skies!!


Mike Moffatt 6" Cooper Tube Newt/Dob Celestron 15x70 Skymaster
 
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dgrosvold
 Thursday, December 22 2005 @ 11:00 am EST  
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Great report!

Keep 'em coming. Just don't let the aliens know you're writing these things! Laughing Out Loud


Dave - Morrow, AR
 
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tulsawalk
 Thursday, December 22 2005 @ 07:03 pm EST  
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Thanks.

I hang out in another forum on a different website all the time and there is a terrific amount of activity in the forums unlike here. What's the deal. AOAS has the same sort of forum engine and site make up but doesn't seem to draw the users.

I noticed there are frequent readers to the posts sometimes but no responses.


Mike Moffatt 6" Cooper Tube Newt/Dob Celestron 15x70 Skymaster
 
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dgrosvold
 Friday, December 23 2005 @ 02:41 pm EST  
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Mike, I wish I could explain that.

We seem to have a club made up of mostly sideliners who don't want to get into discussions, I guess.

We've had a few lively debtates that went WAYYY afield, and we then felt that they had become inapropriate material for the site. I'd certainly like to see more activiy here - especially of the kind of contributions you've made to the site in the short time you've been posting. Perhaps the more we get, the more we'll get, if you know what I mean. Rolling Eyes


Dave - Morrow, AR
 
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tulsawalk
 Friday, December 23 2005 @ 09:18 pm EST  
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Well I can certainly do that. I'm nothing if not prolific both in spoken as well as written word. Laughing Out Loud


Mike Moffatt 6" Cooper Tube Newt/Dob Celestron 15x70 Skymaster
 
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Anonymous: TexasJagsFan
 Sunday, December 25 2005 @ 06:08 pm EST  


Thanks for the excellent reports. I feel inspired that I may do something like this next time I go observing on New Year's Eve.

I've noticed the activity has picked up lately.


 
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tulsawalk
 Sunday, December 25 2005 @ 10:21 pm EST  
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I'm thinking of driving over and checking out the observatory and doing some observing myself. I hope it's clear, I've been wanting to come visit you guys for a while.

New Years Eve may be a good time. I'm old and dead according to my kids and don't party any more. Laughing Out Loud My wife is good about giving me kitchen passes for astro pursuits. I'll keep an eye on the weather as the date approaches.


Mike Moffatt 6" Cooper Tube Newt/Dob Celestron 15x70 Skymaster
 
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Anonymous: TexasJagsFan
 Monday, December 26 2005 @ 01:11 am EST  


We'd be glad to have you.

Bob, is it pretty sane over there on New Year's?


 
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tulsawalk
 Monday, December 26 2005 @ 12:39 pm EST  
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Don't worry about sanity, it's New Year's Eve for goodness sake. As far as that goes I said I "don't" party anymore not that I can't or won't. Laughing Out Loud

If I make it up I'll take it as it comes, NP.

I do have one question:
What is the clubs policy on green laser pointers. My wife got me one for Christmas and after last night she enjoys me pointing things out to her because she can actually find "the star under the fuzzy blob, over the pointy top of that tree, next to the neighbors house......." You get the idea.

She may come with me and depending on the club policy or if someone is imaging I'll leave it in the case.


Mike Moffatt 6" Cooper Tube Newt/Dob Celestron 15x70 Skymaster
 
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dgrosvold
 Thursday, December 29 2005 @ 06:16 pm EST  
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Mike -

Our club doesn't have a specific policy on green laser pointers. The club owns one of them and several members own them. They do get used at club star parties. I guess the best I can tell you is - be courteous with it and there should be no problem.


Dave - Morrow, AR
 
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