Chandler Mountain July 2, 2011

Earlier last week we were afforded some good skies during the work week. We had a front push through that kept most of the gulf moisture to the south. Each summer we get this weather pattern for a few days, they are not long lasting. I encountered one of these patterns back in August 2007. However this time the pattern was starting to breakdown and so by the night I made it out to the observing site, the more typical pattern of weather for summer in the south was starting to return however.

I had been watching the weather the whole day, so once it got within about 2 hours of sundown I headed out to get dinner and to the observing site. I figured even with the Birmingham Astronomical Society having their star party at Oak Mountain State Park to the south of Birmingham someone else would still be on the mountain with me...but alas there was nobody but me.

Unfortunately, as the Sun went down I noticed the seeing was very good, mainly from the humidity. However after twilight finally ended the transparency was improving, but still it fell short of the normal winter time conditions here in Alabama.

I spent most of my time looking for Herschel 400 objects and Messier objects. The H400 is a project I have been working on for quite some time. I did however finish the Binocular Messier list. This has been a project that I thought I had completed back in 2009, but when I got ready to send the object list in to get my pin from the Astronomical League, I came up one object short. I really did not enjoy the binocular observing since I did not feel you could really see the objects clearly, so I sort of put this project to the side.

The Messier Objects are some of the brightest objects in the sky, a small telescope will reveal them easily and a moderate telescope will start to show quite a bit of detail in some. With binoculars the point to is just to locate the objects. There is not much detail to be seen. But to earn the Master Observer Pin from the Astronomical League this is one of the required projects, so therefore I completed it.... finally.

So the night I ended up observing the following towards earning Astronomical League pins:
4 H400 objects--Bringing my total to around 90
2 Messier Bino Objects--Bringing my total to 51

I also observed a beautiful pass of the International Space Station. With 10X50 binoculars, the ISS is clearly got some shape.

But the highlight of the night was observing Supernova 2011dh in the galaxy M51. I found the object not to be super easy nor super hard. The supernova erupted in early June so by the time I got out to observe it was fading.

Before packing up though I spent sometime with M13 the globular cluster. I have always liked globular clusters. What I was wanting to do was see if I could see the propeller pattern in the cluster. I find my eyes see it easily in many pictures, but at the telescope I was having a little bit more trouble. I could see one blade I thought for sure and a possible second, but I was not seeing a Y shape like so many pictures show.

I was using a 10in SCT at between 113X and 208X under fair skies, so if anyone else has seen the propeller effect, I would love to hear about it!

(The link to the Las Vegas Astronomical Society I included for the good information, and because when I was a teenager I was a member of it. Hope you enjoy it)

Texas Star Party 2011

This year's TSP was held the first week of June. The TSP is located just outside of Fort Davis TX and is in the shadow of McDonald Observatory.

I left Birmingham on Friday May 27th and drove to Abliene TX. Getting up on Saturday I headed out of Abliene before 7am and first drove into Odessa stopping at the meteor crater. I did the walking trail around the craters and it was nice little walk explaining some of the geology of craters. Best of all the museum and walking trails are free. There is a small exhibit and gift shop. I bought a small meteorite fragment that was found at the site during the episode of Meteorite Men at the site.



From Odessa I drove onward to Fort Davis, stopping by McDonald Observatory. I took the opportunity to approach observatory from the west as one would if approaching from western Texas or New Mexico. The drive gets progressively more hilly and narrow as you get closer to the Observatory. I took the opportunity to approach from this direction to take in the geology of the area. The area of West Texas has some awesome geology and I was lucky to have the book Roadside Geology of Texas with
me.

After leaving the observatory I headed on down to Alpine TX and stayed the night there. There is a neat little bookstore in Alpine that I took the chance to take in. Sunday morning found me leaving Alpine and heading for Big Bend NP. I entered the park via TX118 and did the geology drive and took in the Santa Elana Canyon loop. I took a couple
of smile hikes to a couple locations, which I have included a picture of (Tuff Canyon).





However the best part of the drive is the arrival to Santa Elana Canyon.
I think the picture speaks words of the beauty of the location.



It was over 100 down by the river. Leaving the canyon I headed to the Chisos Basin and took in the beautiful Alpine mountain lodge. It is amazing to see the beautiful trees and be several thousand feet higher and quite a few degrees cooler. There is a lodge at the basin that serves food, the quality is okay, and the price was a little high I thought. After leaving the basin I went to Park Headquarters at Panther Junction. This is a nice station that I took the opportunity to speak to a nice ranger and there is also a small gift shop. After leaving the station I headed out of the park on TX385 and stopped at the fossil
exhibit. I was a little disappointed with this exhibit; there is a glass case of replica bones and a display that explains the layering of the soils and dirt layers. By this time it was well over 100 degrees again
because of the elevation change and so I didn't spend much time of the exhibit, but I didn't think it lived up to the hype.

One last thing about Big Bend, the earlier in the year you can visit the better, in summer certain portions of the park are not open. Park entry is 20.00 per car and it is good for 7 days.

Once leaving the park I zipped up to Marathon TX then turned west into Alpine TX, lastly making the northward jog into Fort Davis. I arrived at the Prude Ranch a little after four in the afternoon.

I got my stuff stashed at Crows Nest Bunkhouse which is near the middle field, also found out I was bunking with a guy I had met in 2009 Len Philpot.

So what about the observing for the week.... well.... The first night was great, I was able to complete one of John Wagoner's lists and earn the pin "Lions Tigers and Bears Oh My!"

At the time I was trying to do the other program he had for the year "About Face" but I was finding the scope was slewing back and forth the sky too much, coupled with the objects for "About Face" were getting lower and lower I decided to tackle them on Monday night. Unfortunately for me Sunday was the only completely cloudless night we got, every
other night started off cloudy and cleared later in the evening if at all. Monday was good after midnight. Tuesday we had a storm. Wednesday cleared after the clouds left only to be smoked by a wildfire that the
storm had started the previous night. As for the rest of the week... well they were a write off too. Saturday evening looked promising at one point, but with an early evening storm it rained (first time since Sept
2010) and even had a little mixed hail in it. However I did get to see the dwarf galaxy Barnard's Galaxy with Mike and Dave in a 17in scope on Monday morning. It was a round glow that is quite large. We even found it in some very large binoculars that Mike had.

I took in a few speakers for the week. I found the two most interesting to be Jimi's on the Sweet Pea object he discovered on a SLOAN survey. He then proceeded to observe the object with his 48in telescope and Larry Mitchell's talk about really faint objects that are near the Messier objects. The main speakers on Friday and Saturday were really not as
good as the ones from 2009. I actually walked out of Saturday's speaker because of the dryness of content and the speaker. The speaker was supposed to talk about the galaxy zoo application and citizen science, but instead talked about the science galaxies and frankly talked over the heads of most the audience.

Overall though it was a good trip and I enjoyed myself and was able to
un-stress from life and work.


(this is an observatory that is located on the Prude Ranch, a short hike from the upper observing field, built by Alabama astronomer Ed Boutwell in 1983)