April 6, 2016 Getting the GEM setup with the NexStar 8iSE scope

Warm weather moved into the interior of Oregon and so I headed out to the obs to do some aligning of my new setup.
I demounted the optical telescope assembly of the Celestron NexStar 8iSE (OTA, in other words, the telescope itself) from the alt/az mount it came with and put a dovetail bar on it. Then I was able to attach it to my LXD75 German equatorial mount (GEM).

Since the tripod legs of the GEM needed to be isolated from the obs floor, I cut three 12"x12" holes in the floor, inserted the needed concrete pads, and placed the GEM on them. Now if I breathe the image in the scope doesn't jump around !
But as far as polar alignment was concerned I just guessed where to put the mount on the concrete pads, leveled the mount, and figured I would have to take a good portion of the evening of April 6th just trying to get it aligned.
But to my absolute surprise, when I turned the mount on, and pointed the scope at Jupiter it stayed in the field of view at low power. So I tried higher power. It stayed! So I tried it at even higher power with my Mallincam Micro-EX astrovideo camera (which has a very narrow field of view when using it at the prime focus of the telescope... and it pretty much stayed in the field of view even then!
Talk about getting lucky !

I will post the results when I update this page in a couple of days.

Jupiter wasn't really clear as the winds aloft were blurring detail, yet I was able in those brief moments of stillness to see the shadow of Jupiter's moon, Io, as it slowly crossed the planet's disk.
That was a first for me and I shared it on Night Skies Network http://www.nightskiesnetwork.ca/ with a few of my online friends from New Zealand, Australia, and others around the world. 

It was a windy night...

... but I got out into the observatory to check out my Celestron NexStar 8iSE on the Moon.
Here are some images captured through it. I ended my session within the hour as the winds were swirling in the observatory and moving the scope too much for photography and the winds aloof were blurring the view of the Moon.

Ever wonder what Northern Lights look like in REAL time (not time-lapse)?

Alan Dyer braved the cold air of Churchill, Manitoba, to grab real-time video of an auroral display that approximates very closely what you can see with your unaided eye. The low-light views of the night sky available with modern digital cameras are truly amazing. And it is just a coincidence that there is a lot of green in this video (it's St. Patricks Day, you know!)

Click on this snap shot to a look at Alan's video here. (it is almost 11 minutes long!)

Awesome shot of the Total Solar Eclipse I saw on Facebook

Just saw this shot on Facebook by Shigemi Numazawa (https://www.facebook.com/numazawa7) of the corona during the total eclipse in Indonesia. Great wider view!

This image is a combined shot (HDR) at various exposures to bring out the best in the eclipse.

If you look carefully enough you can actually see detail in the Moon itself ! 

Way to go Shigemi!

Solar Eclipse of March 8, 2016 from a Japanese satellite

This is worthy of a view! Click on the image for the time lapse movie !

Back in the Observatory with The Great Orion Nebula (close up)

Today was a preparation day at the observatory for CLEAR SKIES !
I jimmy-rigged an electric motor focuser so that I don't have to touch the telescope. I made it out of an old windup radio generator motor, two AA batteries, and two touch switches... works well !

As evening approached I replaced the standard Celestron NexStar 8i SE collimation screws with a home-made "Bob's Knobs" screws that I got at Ace Hardware. Ok, they are not as nice or convienent as Bob's Knob's (which I will buy someday) but at 75 cent for three, it was hard to pass up. The collimation went well and the views through the eyepieces tonight were very good.

As evening settled in I did some live broadcasting on Night Skies Network (NSN) of the Great Orion Nebula (M 42).  Nothing spectacular, as the full Moon was rising in the east but it was enjoyable... until the temps dropped below 27 degrees F. So I threw the Big Switch and shuttered the observatory.

Here is a poor video snapshot sample of what I broadcast tonight. Tracking wasn't all that good.
Telescope: Celestron NexStar 8i
Camera: Video camera - Mallincam Micro-Ex
Settings: Brightness: 8  Exposure: X512  Gamma: .3  DNR: 1

Part 2: Prepare to Meet Thy Total Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is going to be a total solar eclipse of the Sun that will be visible here in the Northwest, and in Oregon in particular, on August 21, 2017 at about 10:21 am (PDT) in the morning.

I was reading my January 2016 Sky and Telescope magazine...

...when I noticed an article referred to on the front page about "Be Part of Coast-to-Coast Eclipse Science," the possibility of joining with amateur astronomers across the USA in recording the eclipse for scientific research in video. Sounded interesting...

It is called "The Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse Experiment" or C.A.T.E. (link).

"The Citizen CATE Experiment will use a fleet of telescopes to observe the total solar eclipse of 21 Aug 2017.  As the shadow of the moon travels across the continental USA, citizen astronomers from more than 60 sites will take images of the brightness of the inner solar corona.  While the totality phase of the eclipse will last only 2 minutes at each site, the combined Citizen CATE Experiment data set will reveal for the first time how this part of the solar atmosphere changes during 90 minutes. New scientific results about the dynamics of the magnetic fields and plasmas in this part of the solar corona will be derived from the data, and the image sequence will provide a beautiful perspective of the solar eclipse as never seen before." (text copied from the home page of C.A.T.E.)

Here is what the scope that will be used looks like:

I have already signed up and spoken with the coordinator, Matt Penn (who is an associate astronomer with the National Solar Observatory in Arizona) and a fellow amateur astronomer in Salem, Oregon about helping with the training and implementing of the observations here in Oregon.

I am looking forward to participating with this project !

Here is a map that shows the path of the total solar eclipse here in Oregon:

Here is a map that shows the path across the entire USA:

If you want to find out where the closest places are to you check out this page.
You can zoom in and locate potential sites near you!