Seeing Red October

Artist's conception
of my general mood
during recent
imaging sessions.

For the astronomically afflicted in Arizona, October brings a return to the lower deserts where day time temperatures are mild and night time temperatures can often be enjoyed in just a jacket.  The longer nights mean more time under the stars and I entered the autumn months with intent to take advantage of it. 

After September's ill-fated trip to northern Arizona and nearly freezing to death, I was finally sufficiently motivated to make a long time dream of mine come true.  You see, I love camping.  I love astronomy.  I love the great outdoors and hiking and generally being away from civilization.  There's a sizeable contingent of observers in my astronomy club who bring an RV of one sort or another for weekend (and longer) observing sessions.  Some of the club members have Class A's, some have fifth wheels or travel trailers and some have the ubiquitous pop up camper.  My wife and I have been looking for some time at various trailers and have even rented them on a couple of occasions while trying to decide what was best for our family.  During the first week of October I placed an order for a new travel trailer.  Anxiously, we awaited the notification that it had come off of the production line and we could pick it up for ourselves. 

In the meantime, I was able to get out one weekend to do some imaging and test out the freshly serviced mount.  I had high expectations.  I did manage to shoot a lot of frames that night, but it was a constant fight that evening with the autoguider and it was well past midnight before I started getting what I considered to be acceptable sub-exposures.  I captured a large set of frames for M42 at various exposure lengths.  The one image that I thought was pretty good was my attempt for the first time at the California Nebula (NGC 1499).  Shown below is my processed image.

NGC 1499 - California Nebula
Celestron 11" Edge HD w/Hyperstar 3
6.3 Megapixel QHY8PRO CCD Camera
16 sub-exposures x 3 minutes
Capture & Pre-process in Maxim DL 5.15
Post-Processing in Adobe Photoshop CS5

Once again, the evening seemed more like work than fun when it came to imaging.  The mount seemed to perform okay, but it did make some sounds like it was having to work to slew the telescope in some orientations.  I've really been missing visual observing since taking up astrophotography and I'm hoping to soon get to a state where I can setup the imaging rig and it becomes self managing for several hours at a time so that I can also observe visually.  It's truly a treat now that my wife has taken up visual observing as well.  I did manage to do some observing with her that night as well as a couple of other club members who were in attendance.

Actual normal life got in the way to some extent at this point.  I did double duty on a couple of consulting gigs over the course of three weeks, averaging just over 80 hours of work each week.  Sending my daughter off to her first homecoming dance and then celebrating my 21st wedding anniversary with my stupendously awesome bride chewed up what was left of October.

The Veterans Day holiday weekend of November 11th was used for the most exhausting road trip that we've ever undertaken to go and pick up the travel trailer.  Because the delivery charge from the manufacturer to Phoenix, AZ was somewhere north of $3000, we opted to go and get it ourselves figuring we could do it for less than $1000.  Even my wife was impressed with the stats - 11 states and 3100 miles in 76 hours. 



Somewhere in central Nebraska I was able to snap the first picture of the new travel trailer.

Upon returning home we immediately made plans for a quick "shake-out" trip with the new rig the next weekend during the last quarter moon.  And here's where it all went south again.  While slewing to the first calibration star that night, the RA motor made a horrible whining sound and bound up to a complete stop.  The mount would not slew past the meridian to put the telescope on the west side of the mount for anything.  I had learned my lesson at this point.  I simply shut the mount off, put the cameras away and had a wonderful evening observing visually with my wife.



Setting up the scopes at KOFA over
Thanksgiving weekend. 



With the long Thanksgiving weekend coinciding with new moon this year I desperately wanted to get the mount squared away as we had plans to go to one of my favorite places in the world - the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge.  So I set the mount up on my kitchen counter and prepared to dismantle it in an effort to straighten things out.  Wouldn't you know, it didn't bind up at all.  It worked perfectly as expected.  Of course this was without any equipment or load on the mount but that shouldn't make a difference as a well balanced load places minimal stress on the mount itself.  Fast forward to the next weekend.  We had setup camp on the refuge and anxiously awaited nightfall with six other fellow astronomers.  As soon as I slewed the telescope to Vega the binding noises began again and the telescope simply would not slew to anything even close to its intended targets.  I shut down the telescope and went about visual observing again with my 15" Obsession Classic.  Again I thoroughly enjoyed my evening and I was able to glean considerable knowledge from one of the most accomplished amateur astronomers out there. 





My youngest daughter Emily at
KOFA.  We're standing on a 40º
incline here with the rocks behind
 going 1000 feet (305 m) higher.

 Next morning, I tore apart the mount and attempted to adjust the spacing of the RA worm gear.  I seemed to have some success as the telescope would slew to any part of the sky without making any funny sounds.  Because it was daylight it wasn't possible to know if the slews were truly accurate, but the telescope was slewing to the correct portions of the sky and stopping in the vicinity of the targets.  We left for a hike in some of the most extreme, hostile, unspoiled, untouched and truly beautiful terrain left in North America.  First, we drove 2 miles to the south on one of the few "roads" in the refuge.  Please understand that the word road is a greatly exaggerated term for this particular thoroughfare - but that's one of the reasons that I absolutely adore KOFA.  After our 2 mile drive, it was a two mile hike across the desert to reach the entrance of the canyon that we had decided to explore.  Surrounded by rock walls of volcanic origin that rise out of the desert in nearly vertical unbroken chunks of rock 1100' (335 m) into the air, we began exploring to our hearts content. 

After an afternoon nap and an early dinner we waited for sunset.  I turned on the telescope mount and began to align the CGE again.  It immediately started making cranky noises like the gears were binding up again.  I shut it down and packed it up in the twilight.  I spent the evening instead observing visually with the other astronomers present.  My friend Chris and I made a game of seeing how deep we could go with the Obsession visually.  I don't consider myself an expert visual observer by any means - that's why I got into imaging - but I was able to see galaxies down to about magnitude 15.2 with the 15" Obsession and 13mm Ethos.  Chris was able to see a little deeper even. 

So the moral of my long, sad story is simply that astrophotography is really, really hard.  Things go wrong and it gets frustrating and I wanted to make sure that I illustrate that so that someone else who might read this while they're struggling will know that it's not just them.  It happens to everyone at some point I think.  So I've resolved to just take a step back and start again.  Currently, the mount is in for some service work with a different vendor and I hope to provide a full positive report soon.  Once I get the mount back, I'll start again - one step at a time.  Hopefully that'll be in just a couple of weeks.  And hopefully, the bad mojo is behind me and I'll spend the remainder of the winter cranking out spiffy new images.  

In looking back at the last few months I've pushed it pretty hard.  I changed to a new mount, added a new guidescope, and switched from DSLR to a cooled CCD camera all in about a six week period in mid-summer.  I may now just be feeling the frustrations of all that change at once.  I've resolved to move with a little more deliberation in this next phase.   Thanks for reading.

A Pox on You, Jimmy Dugan!





It's supposed to be hard. If it

wasn't hard, everyone would

do it. The hard... is what makes

it great.



It was Tom Hanks character Jimmy Dugan in the movie A League of Their Own who said "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."  While I can appreciate the wisdom being offered by the fictional alcoholic played by Hanks, I've had some difficulty several temper tantrums actually living those words when it comes to the hobby demoralizing obsession of astrophotography these last few months.  His quote very much describes astronomical imaging in general.  Thus my pronouncement of a pox upon the aforementioned fictional character.  Oh, I've been around and I've been busy, but I've little useful to show for my efforts in that time if we're talking purely about astrophotography.  Not that I'm complaining because there have been so many other awesome things happening that it takes the sting out of my imaging struggles.  I'll see if I can't catch things up over the next week or two.  A lot has happened.





When driving in to the observing

site on the forest service road

you get a great view of the

dome housing the Discovery

Channel Telescope.



 It all started back in September when I made the decision to get one last trip up North in before winter took over the mountainous terrain of northern Arizona.  The Saguaro Astronomy Club has an observing site near Happy Jack in the shadow of the Discovery Channel Telescope and I've observed and imaged from there with great success on multiple occasions.  This was not to be one of those occasions and it afflicted all who came to the site that particular weekend.  My wife and kids had exercised a greater measure of common sense than I possess and chose not to come to 7000' (2133m) elevation at the end of September to sleep in a tent.  Cue the foreshadowing for a future post as it was very, very cold in the tent.  I met some friends from my astronomy club who were all more prepared for the autumn weather than I was since they all owned recreational vehicles of some sort to keep them warm at night. 




Ken's new custom pier for his

CGE Pro mounted C14 is just

awesome.

  I was quite excited to see my friend and fellow imager Ken because he'd added some new equipment to his setup and I was anxious to ogle it before sunset.  He had purchased a sexy new crayford focuser for his C14 and it didn't disappoint.  He had also added the Starizona SCT Corrector to his arsenal and I was interested to see some of his results. But wait - there's more!!  What he hadn't told me was that he found the act of hoisting that C14 optical tube onto the tripod mounted CGE Pro to be as difficult as you would imagine.  The C14 is a generous 40+ pounds and the saddle of the CGE Pro sits somewhere around 5.5 feet (1.67m) off of the ground.  To solve his problem, he had commissioned the construction of a portable pier from a local welder somewhere in Scottsdale.  I forgot to ask because I was so blown away by the coolness of the pier - but the whole rig is easily 2 feet shorter now and getting the telescope into the saddle of the mount is a much less risky affair.

My friends Mitch & Lori arrived in time to get setup before dark and a couple of other observers were there as well.  The night sky was glorious - truly glorious.  Crisp and cool air with unbelievable transparency and a limiting magnitude somewhere around 6.5.  It was only nightfall that alerted me to the presence of the unmentionable astronomer - Murphy.  Yes, he of the famous law and he was displeased with all in attendance.  First it struck Lori who was having trouble getting her laptop to talk to any of the imaging equipment.  Then another imager named Jim had some sort of power surge that blew out his laptop - forever.  It had taken the laptop dirtnap.  Another observer gave up early and retreated to his class A motorhome to watch baseball.

I was having massive struggles of my own.  As I attempted to align the telescope I simply couldn't get it to accurately point at anything.  Each slew to a new alignment star would result in the pointing being off by upwards of 10º each time.  I checked and rechecked everything I could think of but I just couldn't get the mount to behave well enough to even get a useable alignment out of it.  I looked longingly at my 15" Obsession waiting patiently at the other end of my observing area to be put to some good use visually.  Instead I chose to continue fighting with my temperamental CGE mount.  I eventually figured out that the mount was missing it's target always in declination by up to 10º and it wasn't consistent in magnitude or direction.  Eventually, knowing that I had a decent polar alignment I took what I could get and resolved to slew manually with the keypad.  I would find my targets and plate solve my way to the framed image that I wanted.  By this time it was after 11pm and my frustration level was off the chart.  I kicked off a series of exposures of M31, but seeing that the autoguider was having to work really hard it didn't expect much from the effort.  M31 was the only object I attempted to shoot the entire weekend.  To add the final punctuation mark to the evening, Ken's netbook was the next electronic device to go take a dirtnap.  A power spike of some sort blew out that piece of equipment as well.  Clearly wasn't supposed to be a great night for imaging.  The processing is overdone and garish, but this was the result of my efforts on a night I'd generally like to forget.

Looking over at the Obsession, I realized that I had wasted most of a night of nearly perfect observing conditions wrestling with astrophotography gear when I could have been enjoying the heavens.  In great frustration I resolved at that point that I wouldn't again waste another great night with a camera when I could get something enjoyable out of it with my own eyes.  I spent a very chilly night buried in a sleeping bag in the tent in anticipation of a night of nothing but visual observing on Saturday.  It was sometime around the point where the temperature dropped below freezing that I realized I might be getting too old for cold weather tent camping.  Saturday night's observing didn't happen.  Clouds rolled in and never left.  Soon after dark on Saturday night I packed up and went home defeated.

The next weekend I took the mount down to Starizona to have it looked at, and Dean spent several hours working on it working it over.  Let me just say now, that Dean Koenig of Starizona is the James Brown of amateur astronomy.  That is to say, he's the hardest working man in the telescope business.  Any time I go to see him he has twenty different things going on and he still goes far above and beyond the call of duty in his efforts.  Talking with other people that I know, they say the same things about him and all the crew down there.  They're truly an asset and I hope the astronomy community of Tucson recognizes how good they have it with him being the local shop.  He took it apart and regreased it, tightened everything up and adjusted the backlash.  It seemed to behave like a brand new mount and I was excited to get out and put it through its paces.  That wouldn't come for a couple of weeks.  More on that next time.



She Blinded Me With Science



 Amateur astronomy has long been a pursuit that loves to debate the controversial topics, even from its earliest days.  All those hours spent studying, observing and watching the sky frees the mind enough that it can form hypotheses and compare them with those of nearby observing companions.  The earliest known controversy occurred one night long ago when one observant dinosaur looked to the heavens and said, "Look, a meteor!  I think it's going to hit the ground!"  His observing buddy looked up, pondered the scene for a moment and said, "No it isn't."  History doesn't record for us the rest of that conversation.  Thus was established the scientific method as it's typically practiced in amateur astronomy circles.  These discussions contributed to some of the most fundamental philosophical changes ever conceived in the early 1600's when everyone in the world said "The Earth is the center of the Universe".  To which Galileo simply replied, "No it isn't." 

                A topic that seems to generate slightly less debate amongst modern amateurs is the subject of star party light pollution and there' s no shortage of opinions on the topic.  With the advent of electronic go-to telescopes, CCD Cameras and modern astronomical software the laptop computer has invaded star parties worldwide.  The encroachment of electronics onto the observing field has been one of uneasy tension since the successful release of the Meade LX200 line of go-to telescopes back in 1992.  The noise of the coffee grinder mount slewing across the sky forever changed the landscape of the star party.  In the years since, more and more electronics have come to the observing field.  Among them has been the advent of the laptop computer and a significant amount of controversy. 

                Some observers swear by them and their use in the field.  Some observers insist that they're a nuisance and have a disruptive influence on productive visual observing.  The modern astrophotographer has little choice but to use a laptop computer in the field for CCD imaging.  The problem is that a laptop computer can generate an enormous amount of unwanted light on the observing field if they're not properly shielded.  Some would maintain that it's not possible to properly shield a laptop computer in the field to preserve night vision.  For someone who has a deep love of  hopeless addiction to astrophotography like I do this presents a conundrum.  I also enjoy visual observing and the fellowship of observing with other members of my club.  I was quite cranky when astrophotographers were sequestered to a separate end of the airstrip at this year's Messier Marathon.  "My laptop and the way that it's shielded is less damaging to night vision than many of the red lights that I see on the observing field on any given night!!".  "Why do we have to go to the North end of the observing field?  The visual observers should have to move to the south end if it bothers them so much!!"  My own reactive hyperbole does nothing to further the discussion or find a way for all observers to co-exist peacefully.    So instead of writing my own defensive but highly entertaining rant, I've opted to stage my own informal experiment to compare the effects of various observing field light sources on night adaptation.

 Test Subjects

 My test is designed to measure the amount of light pollution generated by five different test subjects:

·         Laptop Computer - Unshielded:  Anyone not named Ray Charles knows that this will be the most obnoxious test case in the group.  The test will be done using a 16.4" Sony laptop and a SkyTools 3 generated chart of M31 with the laptop screen at full brightness.  No red film or "night vision mode" is employed for this test. 

·         Laptop Computer - Shielded:  Naturally this will be a test of the laptop as I use it in the field.  I have used a laptop for almost 10 years in the field, even for visual observing.  The test will be done using the same laptop and a SkyTools 3 generated chart of M31 with the laptop screen at minimum brightness and covered with a sheet of fitted, dark red acrylic plastic.  In addition, the "night vision" mode implemented by SkyTools 3 will be turned on.

·         Regular Star Chart/Dim Red Light:  A common red LED flashlight (Celestron Item #93588) with the dial set to "minimum" and a chart from Uranometria 2000.0.  The light itself will be suspended over the chart about 8 inches (20cm) away from the paper to approximate a typical observer's use in the field.

·         Regular Star Chart/Medium Red Light:  The same LED flashlight with the dial set to its halfway point and a chart from Uranometria 2000.0.  The purpose of the medium light test is to establish a result for a standard red light that is typical of an average observer's use.

·         Regular Star Chart/Bright Red Light:  The same red LED flashlight and Uranometria chart, this time with the brightness dial set to "maximum".

            Test Conditions

·         The Eye:  To provide an objective means of measuring the results I employed a Canon 60D DSLR camera operating at ISO 800 with an 18mm f/3.5 lens.    This is in an attempt to approximate the optical specifications of the average human eye without a negative impact on the financial specifications of this particular observer's bank account. 

·         The Measurement:  Each test subject will be photographed in a darkened room in aperture priority mode.  By using aperture priority mode, the camera will adjust the length of the exposure based on the amount of light hitting the light meter (center weighted average metering).   A shorter exposure indicates a more destructive light source.  A longer exposure indicates a more night vision friendly light source. 

·          The Observing Conditions:  Measurements will be taken from two distances.  The first will be from 30 inches (76 cm) to approximate the effect of the light source on the observer that might be using it.  The second will be from a distance of 10 feet (3 m) to approximate the effect of the light source on a nearby observer. 

            Test Results

                I conducted all of the photography in my state of the art darkened laboratory which also doubles as the storage room for my astronomy and camping gear in its spare time.  I conducted all of the tests as described before learning that there wasn't a memory card in the camera.  I put a memory card in the camera and conducted the tests again.  The table below lists the results of each test scenario.  As would be expected  an unshielded laptop computer will instantly turn you into one of the fabled three blind mice.  The main point of the experiment though was the comparison of a shielded laptop with that of a standard red LED flashlight.  Results show that a properly shielded laptop computer is no more damaging to an observers night vision than the ubiquitous red LED torch that we all use - placing 2nd overall of the five test cases.

                In the table below are the test results listed in order from the dimmest to the brightest.  The 2nd and 3rd columns show the results of the tests from a distance of 30 inches.  My patent pending and proprietary "Fried Retina" Factor measures the additional light output of each additional test when compared to the dim red light test.  For instance, an unshielded laptop is 250 times brighter than a dim red light. The 4th column shows the test results as measured from a distance of 10 feet - designed to measure the effect of the light source on nearby observers.   The magnitude column attempts to express the results in the form of star magnitudes as another basis of comparison.  For instance, if an unshielded laptop is equivalent to Vega (0.0 magnitude), then a dim red light shines with the magnitude of a 6th magnitude star.

Test Case	30 in. Exposure	FR Factor*	Magnitude	10 ft Exposure
Dim Red Light	5 seconds	1	6.0	8 seconds
Shielded Laptop	3.2 seconds	1.56	5.6	6 seconds
Medium Red Light	2 seconds	2.5	5.0	8 seconds
Bright Red Light	1/3 second	15	3.4	4 seconds
Unshielded Laptop	1/50 second	250	0.0	.6 seconds

                                *FR Factor - Fried Retina Factor

                My own subjective thoughts on the experiment:

                Dim Red Light:  The output created by the light source at this setting would have been unusable for me.  Ten years ago I would have been able to use this light with a chart, but there's no way that I could do it now with my aging peepers.  I believe that very few observers would be able to use the light at this dim setting.

                Shielded Laptop:  The laptop with all of the shielding methods in place is a about 1/2 f stop brighter than a dim red light.  This is right in line with a typical observers red flashlight that I typically see on the observing field.  I did find it interesting that at a distance of 10 feet the laptop appears to be marginally brighter than a red light at medium setting.  This is almost certainly due to the fact that it's still a backlit light source. 

                Medium Red Light:  This light setting is a touch brighter than what I see from most observers at a star party and would be too bright for me to use without damaging night vision unnecessarily.  I actually added this test after completing the other four in an effort to provide a fairer comparison of real world conditions.   

                Bright Red Light:  This light was really, really bright.  I can say that I've never seen an observer use a red light to look at a star chart at this setting.  I have used a light at this setting when crossing the observing field to keep an eye out for tripping hazards like dark colored dogs sleeping on the ground or random satellite dishes.  Don't laugh.  I've found myself face first in the ground because of both. 

Figure 1:  Comparison photo showing a 3.2 second exposure of a shielded laptop, and a medium brightness red LED flashlight.

            Conclusion

                In a case of astronomy imitating life, everything old eventually becomes new again.  The laptop computer, go-to hand controller and smartphone are simply new expressions of an old issue:  proper light control.  A properly shielded laptop is no more damaging to night vision than a properly shielded flashlight.  Even with the influx of technological advances to the observing field the age old task of maintaining proper dark adaptation is still the same, just in a different form.    Without question, there are additional precautions necessary with many laptops.  In my case I generally take four steps with my laptop on the observing field to properly shield it for myself and my fellow observers:

1.       Red Fitted Acrylic Cover:  I cover the laptop screen with a dark red fitted cover and tape it down to prevent any unfiltered light from leaking out of the screen.  These can be custom ordered from http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=519 .  I also cover every indicator light on the laptop with electrical tape. 

2.       Red Light Mode:  Most charting/observing programs have a night mode that will turn everything on the screen to a red light type of color scheme in an effort to help.  I use SkyTools 3.  The red light mode in Sky Tools 3 turns everything on the screen black and all of the relevant text to a deep red.  In conjunction with a red plastic cover, the screen is very readable.

3.       Adjust Screen Brightness:  I adjust the screen brightness to be as dim as possible.  These three steps were taken to create the results in these tests on a 16.4" laptop screen.

4.       Point the screen to the North:  I try to setup so that the laptop screen itself is always pointed to the north on the observing field.  Few observers are ever trying to observe an object that is low in the north, so this setup puts my screen out of the line of fire of almost every observer on the field. 

                I don't expect that this will be the final word on the subject.  Astronomers love a lively debate and this will continue to be debated long into the future.  I simply hope that my admittedly unscientific experiment has added to the discussion in a positive manner.