• Finder issues
• and then there's the vertical stop
• Not Microsoft
• The Beehive
• Eskimo
• Saturn
• M35
• M3 and M51
• Scope facts just for the record

Hey Scotty, Give me warp .3!

Sorry sir, the best we can do is warp .7 – and that’s stretching these new engines.

Nahhhhh. . . maybe it wasn’t a stretch at all. Maybe I’m just lazy. The manual said you should get warp .5 or less for accurate pointing. Well, I didn’t feel like doing another two-star alignment, so I accepted the warp .7 and guess what! I had a wonderful 90-minute cruise around some distant – but familiar – corners of the universe.

What am I talking about? The sweet little Orion 6-inch Dob “IntelliScope” that just arrived a couple of days ago. In defiance of the “new telescope curse,” when I had it ready and was set to use it, the skies were clear! Of course, for me that meant 3 am this morning. But it was a balmy 32 degrees and when I first got out the transparency was terrible – so terrible that I abandoned my other observing plans and decided simply to test out the new little Dob, particularly its computer brain.

Now you push this Dob to its target and you push it to keep it on target – there are no motors. But in the case of the Intelliscope from Orion (I really don’t like that name, IntelliScope, but hey) . . . . anyway , in the case of this scope you pay another $130 and get a little computer that hooks up to it, knows where it is pointing, and tells you where to point it to find things relatively quickly. In amateur parlance this sort of system is described as “digital setting circles.”

Finder issues

In practical terms, the bottom line on the Dob I receved is an A- minus - and I’m a fairly tough grader. I marked it off because the shoe that holds the bracket that holds the finder scope was not aligned properly and when I gave this scope a quick try two nights ago I could not get the finder aligned with the main scope for the life of me. No amount of adjustment using the prescribed process would get it closer than about 4-degrees of the target – which is not close at all. What did work was to go to the scope’s discussion group on Yahoo(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skyquest-telescopes/) and do a search on “finder” and sure enough, someone else had encountered the same problem. They found that the shoe was attached to the metal tube by two screws and when you loosened them, there was enough slop in the holes to move the shoe a little and retighten it. I did that and aligned the finder while pointing at the glass insulator on a neighborhood telephone pole in daylight. No problem. BUT . . .while making this fix was not rocket science, it is not the kind of thing I would like to confront someone new to the hobby with – so for this I mark the scope off one third of a grade.

On optics, sturdiness, and the use of the computer, I give it an “A.” Oh – and other people might not mind twisting their necks to use a straight-through finder on a scope, I do. There are times - and this is one of them – when my neck really complains about such contortions – one of the hazards of growing old. So I’m going to order a right-angle finder ($50) because I like using this scope, but I don’t like that aspect of it. (Maybe I can sell the straight-through finder on AstroMart – someone must like these things?)

That said, I don’t think that would bother most people and if you are going to use the finder just to find a couple of guide stars, even I can put up with this situation. And that’s what you do when the computer is up and running. Getting it up and running meant putting in the batteries, connecting it to the scope by a single wire and turning it on. It was ready to go. What it asks you to do is point the scope straight up. This is simple, of course, but they do warn you that this first step is important and when you’re constructing the scope – excuse me, assembling the scope – one of the last things you do is put in a “stop” that is supposed to assure that it points straight up when you point it straight up – I mean, really straight.

and then there's the vertical stop

That’s the bad news – and really, not very demanding except for the confused directions. The good news is, you do NOT have to place this scope on level ground to use it. Sure, something pretty close to level is only common sense, but you don’t have to worry about it. What the computer needs to know is that the scope is making a 90-degree angle with its base. Which brings me back to 3 am.

I had put the scope in a shed last night so it would be cooled down – a 6-inch mirror can take an hour to reach temperature equilibrium with the outside air if it has been stored inside and it won’t deliver its best until equilibrium is reached. I also brought out a stool to sit on. One thing I like about this scope is that with the stool it is comfortable to use just about wherever it is pointed. That’s important if you want to spend some time studying – and maybe drawing – what you see. And for all you Spartans who are sneering at comfort, I can only say that you’ll see more if you’re relaxed – not asleep, mind you, but relaxed.

Not Microsoft

Now the manual says that all you need to do to get the computer oriented is point it at a couple of bright stars. Well – after you put it vertical – which the computer asks you to do as soon as you turn it on and politely responds with “Thank you!” when you do this. (Nice touch, Orion – glad to see your computers weren’t infected by the Microsoft germ of seeing how stupid and inadequate they can make a user feel.)

Does this mean you should know the names and locations of some bright stars? Yep! I think Celestron has now found a way around this with their latest “GoTo” system, but I don’t think it’s asking too much of the new scope owner to expect them to be able to identify a handful of the brightest stars in the sky. I choose Arcturus and Regulus this morning and in just a couple minutes was in business. Well – sort of. See, this is where “Scotty” comes in . After I did the two star alignment, he gave me a “warp .7.” No kidding. Well, Scotty is in my imagination, of course, but the computer said “warp .7” after I pointed it at Regulus and hit “enter” and according to the manual I should not be happy with anything larger than a warp .5!

So, should I realign? Naaaaaahhhh . . . that’s my native lazyness coming to the fore. But with the wide field of a 40mm eyepiece (the scope comes with the standard 25mm and 10mm Plossls) and a target as big as M44, I figured I couldn’t miss and I didn’t. Yeah, it wasn’t centered , but it was there and quite nice. ( Now, if you’re new to the game, follow directions. If you get a warp .7, take three minutes and do the alignment again. When you get your selected star in view, switch to the 10mm eyepiece. With it’s narrower field of view it will help you make sure you have it centered and thus give you the best chance for an accurate alignment. )

The Beehive

Even with lousy transparency and at 30X I could count more than 60 M44 (Beehive) cluster members. Does anyone else get off on the little triangles in this cluster? There are three of them that always catch my attention, but I haven’t seen others mention them, so maybe I just have a thing about triangles?

With success at the behive I tried a slightly harder target – M47. Yep. Found it. But I didn’t dally. It’s an open cluster as well, but at this time was still in the trees for me. Understand, I could have found most of the stuff I saw this morning with a quick glance in the finder and a little star hopping. But that’s because these are relatively bright and familiar objects and I have seen them many times. Even so, it was simpler using the computer.

Eskimo

But as a harder test I decided to go for NGC 2392, the Eskimo nebula. While I knew this general region of sky, it would take me a lot of hit and miss to find this from memory. With the computer, I was there in less than a minute. Not dead on- but close enough so some slight movement of the scope brought the target into view.

One minute is about how much time it takes you to hit the “NGC” key, punch in 2392, hit “enter” and then move the scope until the two numbers displayed count down to zero. They recommend focusing on one number first and getting that to zero – or near it – then focusing on the other number. Maybe in warmer weather the computer responds faster, but I found this morning that I needed to move slowly to accomplish this – not painfully slow, just slower than I normally would. To its credit the little scope moves very smoothly and when you stop, it stops, and quiets down very quickly. What’s more, if you move it to “zero” on a horizontal plain, it really stays pointed that way as you move it vertically to zero. There’s a nice , simple tensioning system – turn one large knob – on the scope that keeps the vertical movement smooth. That’s the axis where delicate balance comes into play to compensate when you switch to large, heavy eyepieces – so this adjustment is handy.

One little glitch, though. When I would select an object from the computer’s data base and the guide numbers would appear, they wouldn’t always count down when I started to move the scope. I decided I had to hit the “enter” key first to activate this feature – but that didn’t seem to be the case either. I tried holding down the enter key for a few seconds. Bottom line _ I never found a consistent pattern and I don’t see the answer in the instructions. It wasn’t a big issue. After a little fiddling it would work. But it is a minor irritant and I need to find out if I was doing something wrong, something is wrong with the unit I got, or if it’s just a quirky design flaw.

And 2392? Well, from memory I was hard pressed to tell the difference between the view I had this morning in this 6-inch and what I saw in my Meade LX90 8-inch a few days ago. What’s more, I was able to crank the 6-inch up to 240X and this object takes that magnification nicely – though it moves out of view in about 30 seconds, so you have to chase it. At these higher powers I miss a compensating motor drive that keeps the target in view. However, using the 10mm eyepiece (120x) that comes with it, I found it comfortable and under normal conditions – and after half an hour I had my normal. Mag 5 skies with average seeing - 120X is fine for most objects.

Saturn, yes . . .but

I could, for example, see the major details on Saturn – Cassini division, shadow of the planet on the rings, the South Equatorial Belt and a few moons - all easily at 120X, though I admit they were easier still at 240X. My seeing seldom permits any more power than that anyways. (That was achieved with the 10mm Plossl and 2X Barlow,)

OH – speaking of Saturn, Orion likes to brag that with their system you don’t have to enter data like telling it where you are, But when you go to look at a planet you are suddenly faced with a question you haven’t seen yet – date? It displays a date and you need to correct it to today’s date. Little quirky here, too – you enter the day and it jumps to the next column where you scroll through and choose a month – but this time you need to hit “enter” before it jumps to the next column where you put in the year. And you’re going to have to do that every time you look for a planet on a new date. Again , a minor difficulty – but then the supposed “hassle” of entering time and date and place into other systems isn’t a hassle either – at least with the Meade and ArgoNavis systems that I use. In those cases you enter this information once and from then on it keeps track of things – unless you make a major change in location. So on this basis I find the Orion system a tad more of a pain, but certainly not anything to consider seriously.

M35 and counting

About this time I was beginning to feel real good about how a 6-inch reflector could deliver, compared to the 8-inch and 15-inch, ( I haven’t used such a scope since the 70’s hen the love ofmy astronomical life was a Criterion Dynascope. Anyway, I went to a very familiar object, M35. I love this open cluster and its faint companion, NGC 2158 and have spent many a freezing morning with them as my main company. So what was clear to me immediately was that aperture really does count. I have a quick test of this with M35. I count the stars in a particularly nice cascade that dominates this cluster. In the 6-inch I saw a dozen, in the 8-inch I see closer to 20, and with the 15-inch it gets up around 28. Not scientific, but a good reminder that while you don’t get what you pay for – it costs more and more to deliver less and improvement – the larger scopes do deliver.

Still, the 6-inch Dob is a wonderful compromise in terms of cost, ease of use, and ease of storage. One reason I got this rather than the 8-inch version was that I thought – and I was right – that this would be at my comfort limit in terms of easily carrying it in and out of the house. This is important, not only because of deteriorating physical abilities with age, but in terms of what you feel like doing. Lots of scopes gather dust in closets because they are simply too demanding to out and set up. What seems like nothing in your initial excitement, becomes a hobby-killing chore six months down the road. Anyway, you certainly can see every major type of astronomical object with a six-inch, though you’ll see them better - and more of them – with larger scopes.

M3 and M51

Driving this point home before the cold got to me, I swung the little scope over to M3, a very nice globular cluster, The halo started to resolve at 120X and conditions wouldn’t let me use 240X on it. I also went to M51 and was real pleased with the view – though I have to think a beginner looking at these two galaxies may not even know if they have found them. We’re talking faint smudges, here. Actually, I would say the same about NGC 2158, the companion cluster to M35.

M35 is gorgeous and no one has any trouble seeing it. Swing the scope to NGC 2158 and I suspect a lot of folks would say something like “what am I supposed to be looking at?” It’s a faint smudge – at least in the 6-inch this morning under my skies. But it fascinates me because I know it is about the same size as M35. Both are wonderful, open star clusters. It’s just that NGC 2158 is six times further away – and looking at the two side-by-side with a wide angle eyepiece, you begin to appreciate what a difference a “little” distance makes. Of course NGC 2158 is only about 18,000 light years away, a minor gap between us and it when compared with the distance between us and the two colliding galaxies of M51. Those two are about 15 million light years away and it is simply mind boggling to imagine what it is you’re seeing – and to know that with these simple, little tools made by the hands of homo-sapiens, we can journey such incredible distances across time and space without leaving our back yards.

A faint smudge, you bet – and an absolute wonder like nothing you have ever seen before – that was M51. I could easily make out the two galaxy cores and get a sense of a spiral shape in the larger smudge that represents the main galaxy. Did it look like it’s pictures? Of course not. But this was real. There simply is a difference between looking at images on a screen and actually being there when the photons come flowing in, tripping circuits in your eyes and pinging your brain. Besides, like being at a ball game, you do this for the whole experience which for me includes the call of an owl – a little unnerving at 3 am, and then later that day finding the tracks of a fox in the snow – a fox that took a detour and checked out my observing site long after I had left it for a cup of tea and the comfort of my library.

Bottom line: I’m confident the six-inch will be a great addition to the public program that is at the heart of my current astronomy activities.. Sometimes it will be used with computer, sometimes without. I also see it as a handy little travel scope – hardly airplane carry-on type, but the sort of thing I can toss in the car when visiting grandchildren, or whatever. Also the sort of thing I can use in sections of my yard that let me see parts of the southern sky that I can’t reach from the fixed observing locations where the larger scopes are. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it enthusiastically to any beginner – though I would also suggest they first buy just the telescope in the “IntellicScope” configuration – but not the computer. Use the scope manually to learn your way around the major objects. Then, after six months or a year, buy the computer to find fainter stuff, or move quickly to the objects that are already familiar to you.

Oh – and that warp factor business. I need to play with this scope more. If I keep getting figures like warp .7, I’ll have to fine tune the vertical adjustment. But then, I suspect my large warp factor was due to casual centering in a wide field eyepiece of the two stars I used in the initial alignment. I should have taken the time to switch to a high powered eyepiece with a narrow field and made certain of my centering. But I was having too much fun on my initial sightseeing tour to waste time on this task this morning – which in itself speaks well for the scope and its computer system.

Scope Facts - just for the Record

• Orion SkyQuest XT6 Intelliscope
• 6-inch, F8
• 25mm and 10mm Plossl eyepieces
• 6X30 finder
• Dobsonian mount
• 34.4 pounds assembled

Price is $359 plus $42.95 shipping
That give you the scope configured with encoders ready to receive a computer controller. You can use it manually as is.
I bought the controller ($129.95) and a metal "holster (18.95) to moount the controller on the base. I'm not sure if this last was a good decisions. It comes with velcro strips and can be ounted that way and that might be just as good.
Also, my cost wil climb by about $50 because I'm going to replace the straight-throuugh finder with a right angle one that is more comfortable for me to use. (Not sure if anyone relly likes the straight through finders.)

No . . . that is not it . . .just my childish dabbling in Photoshop . . .

Some time last spring I had one of those wonderful experiences at the eyepiece where lots of things – meditation, scientific knowledge, a smattering of history, and the photons streaming in from this distant explosion – all came together.

What I was viewing was the Crab Nebula – the first item in Messier’s catalog and a ghostly blur in my 8-inch telescope. It’s a dim fuzzy, no doubt – and the sort of thing that I guess gets most people wondering what all the excitement is about among us folks who spend thousands of dollars on esoteric equipment and sit alone at 3 am on a frigid night and look at such things – and I got thinking, maybe this new image would help explain it?

But then – even looking at this fantastic image – the URL in a moment, please – one really needs to know what one is seeing. For me, to know meant climbing inside the body, mind and spirit of a novice, Buddhist monk who is sitting, meditation-style, beside an old master. The year is 1054 – it is night time, and spread out before them is a new star map of the heavens. The young monk holds in his hand, a brush, poised to make a stroke. But it stays poised as both monks witness the sudden brightening of a “guest” star which in a short time outshines all others.

Eventually, the young monk puts a large dot of ink on a star chart, - a dot larger than any others. Neither feels the need to acknowledge what they have seen, for they sense that what they have seen is greater than any word or gesture of theirs can explain, complement, or supplement. They have looked, they have seen, they have smiled. That is enough.

And today that explosion that brightened the skies in 1054 – that explosion goes on and yet, I know most of us never see it, never observe it, never have a clue what it is all about – think for a moment – explosions happen in “instants” – a bang, a flash, a puff of smoke - but this “instant” is already nearly 1,000 years old – this incredible cloud of gas, dust, and energy – this once-a-star that in its death throes has created the very stuff of which we are born – the heavy elements, such as carbon, so critical to our existence – are now spewing out across the universe in an expanding cloud - and so we sit here and maybe watch with eyes dulled by too much light and minds cluttered with the mundane and the trivial, as that explosion continues to echo down the corridors of time – and I know that I too, frequently look at M1 in even my largest telescope – and all I see is a grey, ghostly blob.

Maybe for me – maybe for others – thinking of this image - an image stuck together with great skill from several fantastic Hubble shots – an image which, by the way you can zoom into and prowl about in – will help – if you can only remember what it is you are really seeing. No - I don;t mean that swirl of color at the top of this entry. That's just a teaser. Please look here at what folks at the "Sky Factory" have done:

http://www.skyfactory.org/hst/crab/crab_int.htm

• Messier 47 - an open cluster
• Why visual observing
• Saturn
• NGC 2392 - the "Eskimo"

Well, even I, with my lousy hearing, can hear myself crunch-crunch-crunch to the observatory on a morning like this. It is 3 am, 26 degrees F and there is a brief window of clear skies between two snow storms. (Actually, I think it was clear two hours earlier as I first awoke – but I couldn't quite drag myself out of bed ;-)

As usual, I am well armed against the cold this morning – hooded sweatshirt on top of regular sweatshirt and winter jacket on top of them both, followed by two warm hats and a scarf. Warm gloves go in my pockets – thin, knit gloves I wear as long as I can stand it because it is easier to manipulate instrument controls with them. I have a large cup of tea in a large, insulated mug. (About 90 minutes seems to be the threshold for the decision of whether to make a mug or a full thermos of tea and this morning I doubt I will be out longer than 90 minutes.)

The goal this morning is to scout out some open clusters in the general vicinity of the great dog who happens to be in the gap between the woods and my house at this hour with brilliant Sirius dominating a section of sky already blessed with many bright gems. The LX90's computer will undoubtedly choose Sirius as its first alignment star. That's fine when Sirius is not hidden in the trees, which, unfortunately, is usually the case.

I flip on the LX90's electronics, then climb the short ladder to open the shutters, being greeted by a dusting of snow as I do so. About an inch or so fell yesterday and has frozen. They're predicting up to eight more inches tonight and tomorrow. But for now Ilove the view while standing in the open shutters and I pause to pay homage to the bright lights of winter – particularly the red stars Betelgeuse and Aldebran, which I contrast with the nearby blue diamond, Rigel – then for a more subtle test I check my reading on yellowish Capella. Calling stars red, and yellow, and blue is a bit deceptive – even with these prime examples, I have to look closely to see the color differences I know are there. They don't jump out at you like lights on a Chistmas tree – then again., once you are used to judging star color they do seem painfully obvious and you start wondering why others don't seem to notice.

Climbing back down I turn the LX90 off and on again. This is routine. For some reason the computer display never works on a cold morning when you first turn it on. It just glows a dull red and is unreadable. However, if I turn it off, then turn it on again, it works. I assume it just needs to heat up first – but then, you figure if that was the case whyw ouldn't it just start working without being switched off and on again?.

M47 is first on my list and if I've seen it before, I don't remember. Some folks collect Messier objects like stamps. I don't. The objects I know, I try to really know, so I'm pretty sure I haven't been t M47 before, but the LX90 whirs and takes me to what I'm sure is it – a bright, fairly loose collection of stars that is nicely framed by a 25 mm (80X) eyepiece but I switch to a 42 mm ( 48X) one to give me a good, wide field and a sense of context. I like it. I think I'm looking though some bare tree branches and so missing something, but this one is worth getting to know.

How arrogant of me! Here I am looking at a few dozen young stars and I dare deem them worthy of my time! But this is how we get – so blinded by what we think we know that most of the time we have absolutely no idea what it is we are looking at. Would you like to be privy to a nuclear explosion? From a safe distance, of course. Well a star is a nuclear furnace that gives off so much energy in a thousandth of a second that it makes the Hiroshima bomb look like one of those red-paper "caps" children put in toy guns. It is incredible that we can witness such scenes – and to see not a single star, but dozens at once . . . frozen in time, silent, and yet beneath that cool, quiet exterior you know they are seething in a tumultuous, continuous creation of raw power.

But my mind can't sustain these kinds of thoughts for long and I return to making a quick sketch that includes a note about one of the main stars being a nice double – which it turns out when I look it up is, indeed, the 7.9 magnitude double star cataloged as Struve 1121. My general impression – especially in the 42mm eyepiece – is of a huge pinwheel of fairly faint (maybe 11th or 12th magnitude stars - in two great arcs with brighter ones marking the ends and hub.

Later, when I look at photos I'm reminded of how different photographs are from the real thing – and in the case of star clusters, just not the same. You simply can't effectively show variations of brightness in a photograph. Brightness is another dimension entirely and what the paper – either star chart or photograph – does is simulate brightnes by making the image of a star larger or smaller. So when I see a photograph of M47 it is a mass of stars, far more than enter my eye – or consciousness – when at the eyepiece. This is partly because the photograph has collected a lot more light than my eye at the telescope – but it's also because of this problem of representation where all the stars seem to run together on an image, even when many are shown as much smaller dots than others, there's an unreal sameness.

When I look at this cluster through the telescope I am first struck by four bright stars – two near the center and two that sort of anchor the edges at the 2 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions. I almost immediately become aware, then, of a second layer of five – slightly dimmer - stars, one near the center and the others scattered around the core, framing it. As I continue to look I become conscious of other stars, in fact a whole, wonderful cascade of lesser lights that stream from the bright star at 2 o'clock, swirl about the center in an "S" curve and trail off beneath the bright star at the 8 o'clock position.

You need not take this description too literally – it's a first impression and not – well, photographic – but the point I'm trying to make is that the variations in brightness that our detection system, (telescope/eye/brain) provides us is different – and to me, far more interesting, than what the film detects or the hand tries to represent on paper when sketching. It is this layering effect of lights of varying intensity that I think is one of the keys as to why I find visual observing so satisfying.

This, by the way, is contrary to the grave disappointment the new observer usually feels, having been prepped to expect something much different by drooling over the wonderful, multi-colored photographs taken by the Hubble Space telescope – or for that matter, amateur astronomers using the same type of telescopes I use. Don't get me wrong – these images are stunning – and, of course, scientifically – important. You will never find me putting down the efforts of astro-photographers be they amateur or professional. It's just that the visual experience is different and I value that difference and it's wrapped up, not simply in what we see, but in the entire experience – including the 26-degree air, the crunching sounds of the snow underfoot, the snow shower down the back of your neck from opening the Observatory dome's shutter – the warm tea, the soft glow of the red light by which you take notes – the stillness of even our busy world at 3 am – all of these and more enters into a total package that is the observing experience – and I'm sure there is more than one person reading this who is saying – "yeah, and you just listed several good reasons why I don't want any part of it." ;-)

What can I say? I love it because ultimately it connects me with the rest of the universe in a way that I simply can't duplicate anywhere else. That is not to say that someone else can't duplicate this connection – and do it better – in their garden, in their contact with birds or butterflies – or for that matter, the microscopic worlds of biology and physics. There's no single path to this kind of connection – but this is my path – the one I most enjoy and know the best, so I take it.

This morning it also took me cruising by Saturn and four or five of it's moons. Hmmm. Let me check the software. Make that three – and something is wrong with Starry Nights software, or I'm doing something wrong. The astronomy software seems to be a day off in the placement of Saturn's moons. I know I have Titan, the brightest moon – and unmistakeable – in a different place than the software puts it, as well as Tethys and Rhea. What's more, when I look at the little JavaScript program that Sky and Telescope uses to predict the positions of the moons for any given time, the positions agree with what I sketched. (See: Saturn's Moons; think I'll start relying on the S&T pages for this info.

Saturn is showing nicely at 160X, but when I bump it to 266X it doesn't work – I'm wondering if the combination of the 15mm GSO SV eyepiece and the 2X Barlow simply don't perform well, or whether the seeing simply wouldn't permit 266X – or a combination of both. I'd rate the seeing as average and I guess for me that means that about 200X is the limit of useful magnification.

Anyway, I can see what I expect to see – Casini's division, shadow of the planet on the rings, and some banding on the planet in different shades of yellowish-brown. But I can't get excited about Saturn this morning – I've switched to it only because some high, stratus clouds are reaching in from the southwest to blot out M47 and that region. I really need to return to M47 one of these days and get to know it better.

Right now, the only thing left on my list to check out that isn't behind the advancing clouds is the "clown" or "Eskimo" nebula (NGC 2392) in Gemini. This I have visited before, but I'm trying to see many familiar objects in the light of the limited skills and equipment the new observer in my program will be bringing to the task. To this end, I think this planetary is nice for an intermediate observer, not a beginner. Nice because it looks like a fairly evenly matched, wide-spaced double star – with one of the stars out of focus. Hmmmm. .. and that might make a good object for comparison – having newcomers compare the companion star for brightness, color, texture, and size of the image with the nebula. I have a quick impression of blue – I crank up the power from 80 to 160X and try to see details, but the clouds are racing in ahead of me.

As I climb the little ladder to close the shutter of the observatory I can still see to Mag 5 in the area of the Little Dipper – but the clouds are giving the sky that "fan" look you sometimes get near sunset – long , fingers of stratus reaching all the way from the Western horizon to Leo and other constellations in the east. As I walk towards the house, the only constellation remaining clear is the "W" of Cassiopeia sitting on the horizon. So I came out to the light of the dog and I go in to the light of the queen – not a bad way to spend 90 minutes, really.

The first group is for the naked eye and hand held binoculars. In this one I would recommend people stand and the main equipment is my green laser pointer. However, my one rotating, adjustable beach chair is great when using hand held binoculars, so I would include it at this station and maybe add a chair or two eventually. (In fact, as I think about objects like meteors and comets, plus constellation study, the chairs are a good idea.)

The second station would be the three, relatively modest, binoculars on mounts. I have an old Vista mount (a simple, light-weight metal parallelogram) and am building one of Pete Petersons pipe mounts (See; http://www.petersonengineering.com/SkyDiv/binocmount.htm). I have also ordered a small parallelogram mount made of red oak – with a small red oak tripod – from Burgess. Looks cool and I have good reports of it, at least when used for these light weight binoculars. (See: http://www.burgessoptical.com/Mounts/TinyTitanCombo.html) This is very much like the Vista mount and provides the same functionality. What I like about the two paralellogram mounts is the ability to point them yourself, then move them down to the height of a youngster without having lost the object you were pointing at. but the pipe mount is the only mount of the three that could handle large binoculars and at some point I may add a pair. But I feel 10X50s are perfectly adequate – especially when mounted. So on these three mounts will go the old 10X50s I got from Orion many years ago, the 12X60 Celestrons, and the 16X50 Pentax – these last two kindly donated to the program by the gentleman who purchased my Myauchi’s.

I think the binocular stations will add an important step in the new comer’s ability to find deep sky objects and once they have located them in binoculars, they will know what to expect when they use the telescope’s finder. On a more subtle basis, the binoculars help with context. In fact. I hardly ever go through a personal observing session without some binocular time.

The next station incorporates three manual telescopes – a 4.5-inch Orion Dob – modest aperture, but a real sweetheart to use and impressive both optically and mechanically. A 6-inch SkyWatcher refractor on a homemade, Dob-like mount, is also an excellent scope for the beginner – very intuitive to use. This has both a Telrad and optical finder. Finally, I have the 8-inch LX200 which, with its slow motion controls – the computer is shot, as well as the drive motors – makes an effective and relatively simple manual telescope. It is a good optical finder, but I should add a red dot to it. (I find optical finders can actually confuse beginners when looking for an object, such as Albireo, in a sky that suddenly becomes crowed with stars. If an object is visible to the naked eye, the red dot – or Telrad or Rigel – finders all are better choices.

(At this writing I have a requst in to buy a 6-inch INtelliscope on Astromart at a very good price. This one does not have the computer with it, but that could be added later. It came up forsale, of course, right after I ordered an identical, new scope with computer from Orion. But two of these would be nice to have and I suspect that without the computer the used one would fit nicely in witht heother manual telescopes, maybe replacing the LX200 which is harder for the beginner to master with its combination of slow motion controls and locks. On the other hand, I haven't heard anything for 24 hours, so maybe thats cope has been sold.)

The last three telescopes are a just-ordered Orion 6-inch Intelliscope with computer controller - as mentioned. I see this as a transitional instrument. I got the six-inch because I have more confidence in the F8 optics than I do in the larger, faster scopes, and it will cool down more quickly But the main reason is it’s at the weight limit of what I want to carry in and out in a single piece during set-up and take down. I see this as a transitional scope. Depending on the assignment and group it may be used as a manual scope by visitors. On the other hand, if folks are having trouble finding deep space objects with it, the computer can be turned on. There are no drive motors, of course.

However, most of the time I see this as one of the scopes I will point – using the computer - so that people can then take on an observational assignment where they spend real time at the eyepiece and collect data or draw, rather than search for some faint fuzzy. (I am not a big fan of seeing how many objects you can find and how quickly – I like to encourage time on target and the development of observing - as opposed to finding - skills.)

I will continue to use the two “go to” scopes this way – the 8-inch LX90 in the dome and the 15-inch Obsession on the Observing Deck with its ArgoNavis and ServoCat.

What I will be selling is one scope I’ve had a long time – the ETX90 RA – which I find gets little use in these sessions, and the Orion ShortTube 80 which, again, gets little use. Neither scope really makes a good fit with the program for various reasons, though both are fine optically and well mounted.

I’ve also, with regret, cancelled the order I placed last spring for one of Steve Dodson’s ( “Stargazer Steve”) little 6-inch, truss tube, Dobs. (See: http://stargazer.isys.ca/ ) I was ordering this with the idea it would be a great, little travel scope – and I still think it would be. But I no longer plan to do much traveling and while I would find the scope personally useful as a grab ‘n go , it would not be as useful to the program as the Orion Intelliscope. Steve – whose production of this particular scope was delayed because of a fire in the optical shop that makes the mirror - is a wonderful, understanding gentleman and a pleasure to do business with. I wouldn’t hesitate to order one of his scopes in the future if it happened to fit the needs of my program.

Bottom line – the set-up is pretty near complete, I believe. Yes, I’ll probably tinker with some things in the future, but from this point forward I can focus almost entirely on developing what I have dubbed “learning opportunities” and learning what does and doesn’t work for people through practical field experience with small groups.

• Pleiades
• Beta Monoceros
• Sigma Orionis
• 4.5-inch Orion Dob

Stars tend to hang out together and observing stars that are close to one another offers some special opportunities to make comparisons. On the mornings of December 3 and December 1 I got to observe under much less than optimal conditions – try windy, cold, and poor seeing - but still good enough to help me in planning the public observing sessions. Briefly, here’s what I learned in revisiting familiar objects with my planned “learning opportunities” in mind.

Pleiades On December 1 I focused on the Pleiades with the 15X45 IS Canon binoculars and 12X60 Celestrons mounted on the old Vista mount. I tried the “find the missing Pleiades” task I had mapped out and planned to use. It was about 4:45 am and the Pleiades were low in the northwest and seeing poor, though transparency about average. My conclusion: This task is hard.

In fact, this is much harder than I had imagined. Hell, I had a rough idea of which stars I had left out and I still had trouble tracking some of them down! What I had imagined would be a clue – the close trio of stars near the brightest of the Pleiades, isn’t, of course, because while you can see these in binoculars they don’t split – at least under these conditions. So what looks on my chart like three stars, looked in th ebinoculars like one. So the chart will mislead.

I am rewriting this task and eliminating different stars in the hope that it will be a bit easier. I think it’s a good exercise that will move folks from simply seeing, to starting to observe. It should take someone just learning between 15 and 30 minutes to complete. We'll see!

Beta Monoceros - This is a neat triple star that seems especially well suited for helping people begin to evaluate magnitude differences in stars. The three stars are 4.6, 5.2, and 5.6 respectively. Without knowing this in advance, I evaluated them on th emorning of December 3 using the 8-inch LX90 with poor seeing and intermittent clouds. In my field notes I ranked the primary as “a bit brighter” than the star closest to it, and that star as a ”tad” brighter than its companion. So for me “bit” is about .6 magnitudes and “tad” about ,4 magnitudes ;-) The point is, it would be nice to see if they could simply get them in the right order of brightness. Sounds easy – but I think it would b a challenge to inexperienced observers. And again, this sort of task takes the person out of the sight-seeing category and into the observing one.

Sigma Orionis - This can present a similar challenge – with the added bonus that it can be split into two stars with binoculars. I think beginning observers will need either very good conditions – or the 8 or 15-inch – to split it into four stars. Three are easy, The fourth was a challenge for me under the conditions that prevailed at 4 am this morning – which were poor. Since they are magnitude 3.8, 6.5, 7.2 and 10 they are fairly easy to get in the right sequence.

Sigma would be the easiest star for them to find using a red dot finder. An optical finder should be OK, but might present them with too many field stars, Beta Monoceros is more isolated and I think easy enough to find with the naked eye because it makes a nice triangle with the foot of Orion and Sirius, so they could use an optical finder with it.

4.5-inch Orion Dob - On December 1 I also had a chance to put the 4.5-inch Orion Dob through its paces and was real pleased. I set it on a table and between 5 and 5:30 am was able to quickly find – using the optical finder and memory – M38, 36, 37, and M44 – all real easy, plus M3 (much more of a challenege, but found quickly) and M51. I couldn’t see M51 in the finder, but I could do some simple star hopping to get to it. I was surprised it showed as nicely as it did in the 4.5-inch.

Two points - first, I have to wonder if I found it with this scope, then turned the eyepiece over to someone who is new to the game, would they even see it? I'm becoming more and more aware that my observing skills - which I honestly consider very limited - are better than I think - and that seeing details on a planet, faint stars in a cluster, or a soft fuzzy like this pair of galaxies, is more difficult than I expect it to be. My eyes are old and weakened - but experienced, and that seems to make a difference. Second, i can't remember ever seeing M51 in a scope this small. I'm sure it's not unusual. In fact, I'm sure folks find it with smaller scopes. But I can recall seeing this pair of colliding galaxies for the first time about 35 years ago using the RV-6 Dynascope and being quite excited that I could see it then. It's nice to know this little scope can deliver.

Double-star field notes document with stars suitable for fall to early winter. Download file

Well, I'm learning. I'm learning that my expectations for youth between the ages of 9 and 12 – and for adults – are out of sync with reality. So last night's session with the Webelo Scouts from New Bedford was very instructive for me – and I think they got something out of it as well. But it was a long way from what I envisioned it would be and what I had planned so carefully.

What I believe went right was having a specific observing task and a prepared observation reporting form. They all seemed to get into the assignment of drawing each double star and reporting the colors on their field notes sheet. (A PDF version of this is linked at the start of this entry.) Having a meaningful observing task and bringing some discipline to the observing by asking key questions, is essential – and a continuing challenge to develop.

But more important form my perspective is what went wrong.

There were two issues. First, finding a specific star in the telescope is much harder than I thought, even when they know the basics. (That is, these folks had had an indoor introductory session about telescope use and knew enough to point one at the moon or a bright planet. But a star is much different. )

Second, the task of seeing what they are expected to see and comprehending it – especially when using high powered eyepieces - is challenge enough at this stage (third learning opportunity for this group under the stars).

The next time this group is out I want to focus on open star clusters, but I need to really think about exactly what I will do about this, In some ways the clusters will be easier for them to find, so maybe I should have done them before double stars.

Aha! The flaw in my reasoning. I am not putting the observing challenge first and I need to. It had seemed to me there was a logical progression from double stars to star clusters. IN an abstract, lesson plan way that's true. But when I replay the tape in my mind from last night what I see is too eager Scouts, both familiar with the Orion 4.5-inch Dob and both being able to find Albireo with the naked eye, struggling terribly to find it in the telescope. Why?

Because when you point the little Dob towards Albireo – especially in the skies we had with relatively poor transparency and lousy seeing – and you look in the little optical finder, you suddenly see half a dozen stars or more and you don't know which one is Albireo. I know. Any experienced amateur would. But for the beginner the differences in brightness don't jump out at them and that's the only real clue. They've gone from a sky with a single star in it, to a sky with many stars revealed by the finder.

Solution? Either don't give them the task, or give them a scope with a one-power finder - a Telrad or red dot type.

Next time out they will be looking for M35, 36, 37, and 38. Here the optical finder is a better choice. Sure, you can use a Telrad , or something similar, and star hop. The Telrad with its concentric circles is good for this task. But an optical finder will show them the cluster target as at least a blur. When they see it, they will know what to point at, if they have been properly prepared. But for a double star that can be seen with the naked eye, the one-power finder is the way to go.

Needless to say, life would be easier if I had several six-inch Dobs. Even though I've focused on having telescopes that are easy to use, the mish-mash is a challenge and the two scopes that are easiest to use are the 4.5-inch Dob and the 6-inch refractor which is on a simple Dob-like mount. If I were equipping this program from scratch and money were not an issue, I would purchase four, six-inch Dobs and probably complement their optical finders with a one-power finder.

But moving to the other problem – knowing what you are looking at and looking through a high-powered eyepiece. There are a couple of obvious solutions to the high-powered eyepiece problem – one is to use a low powered eyepiece and Barlow it – that keeps the eye-relief at what they are used to. My standards have been the 25mm and 10mm Plossls. Adding the Barlow – and encouraging its use with the 25mm makes sense, though this may not be quite enough power to do the job. The other obvious solution is to use eyepieces with high eye relief and therefore accommodate eyeglass wearers as well.

Bottom line – I find that both youth and adults simply have problems getting used to looking through any eyepiece. Some are easier - and generally they are the ones with more eye relief – but too much eye relief can lead to confusion as to just where to hold your head. So I don't see a simple fix. I'll continue to do what I'm doing – ask people to move their heads around until they see the image. This does suggest one thing, however:

Start a group of sessions – and maybe each session – with a bright object and tell them to get used to using the eyepieces. I don't run into this problem of "I don't see anything" when they're looking at a bright planet, the moon, or even a very bright star.

As to knowing what they are looking at, this comes with experience – but it's helpful, I think, to frame the subject properly by carefully choosing the eyepiece. So maybe what I need to do is frame the subject well and have them look at it first with one of the "go to" telescopes. Then have them find the subject on their own? To avoid having that take away the fun and excitement of discovery, perhaps I should do this with only one object of a particular class – one double star, one galaxy, one nebulae, one star cluster – whatever.

Actually, this suggests a general pattern I may be able to apply to most sessions:

1. Introduce 1-3 constellations. Point them out quickly with green laser – then hand out appropriate charts, Ask them to study and scan vicinity with binoculars for anything that looks interesting.
2. As they're busy with naked eye and binoculars take one at a time to one of the "go-to" scopes and have them look at a sample of the type of object they're assigned to observe that night. When each is done, send them to a telescope to find, observe, and make notes or drawings of the object as instructed.,
3. Keep the two "go to" scopes pointed at the dimmest – or most difficult – examples of objects to be observed that night. Have each take a turn at these scopes near the end of the session.

I'll use that as a general plan for my open cluster session which is next on the agenda.

This particular exercise is designed to help them start to develop several observing skills, but the real goal is to get my guests thinking about star color and asking what it means. It’s very difficult to see color in stars and also very subjective. There are some objective differences in our physiology that makes for different reports as well, not to mention the differences introduced by instrument used and conditions. Still, there is some general agreement about color usually, and, of course, there’s the scientific evidence of the star’s spectrum which sometimes- but not always – matches the observer’s perception.

Simply put it’s easier to see star colors when you have two contrasting stars right next to one another, thus the focus of this exercise on double stars. My challenge on this particular night is to make sure my plans are realistic in terms of the stars being looked at, the telescopes being used, and choices of eyepieces. I also want to get a better handle on the observing skills needed to see if my expectations for them are realistic. I’ve chosen six multiple stars to work with suitable for late fall/early winter, and I want to point some of the scopes at some of the stars myself – otherwise they’ll never get through the lesson in the time allotted – but I also want them to find one or more of the stars using charts on their own.

Here’s my list of stars: Albireo, Almach, Polaris, Gamma Aries, and Iota and Eta Cassiopeia. And here’s what I found about each star.(You can find some wonderful color drawings of several, if not all, of these double stars on tis web site. )

Albireo – This is one of the easiest to find and certainly the easiest to split, since it’s right at the head of Cygnus and there’s a lot of separation and the “blue and gold” colors are widely reported. I’m going to have them use the ShortTube 80 mm refractor on this one, with an Alt-Az mount and 25mm and 10mm eyepieces. They should be able to find it fairly easily and they’ll also gain experience using different eyepieces –one to find it (low power) and one to view it (higher power) .

Almach – this too is a bright star, easy to find, and generally reported as blue and yellow. Some like it better than Albireo, but I still have an emotional attachment to Albireo since it still sticks in my mind from viewing it as a teenager. But I want them to learn the basic outline of Andromeda in this lesson and Almach figures prominently in that task. I used the lovely little 4.5-inch Orion Dob and found it instantly in the 25mm (36X), although the 10mm eyepiece (91X) is needed for a good solid split.

Polaris – I think this is a good one for the LX200, but on this night I haven’t dragged that scope out. I’ll have them find it, since pointing to the North Star certainly should be within their skill levels and with the alt-az mount and manual slow motion controls (the computer is dead on this scope) they should have no problem. Of course, once someone points it towards it, it will stay in view – no tracking needed – so they’ll have plenty of time to play with different eyepieces. I checked this using the 6-inch Skywatcher refractor and found I could split it easily using the 25mm Plossl with a 2X Barlow – that’s around 96X in this telescope. They may be able to split it with just the 25mm in the 8-inch LX200 – that would give them 80X. But it might be a better experience to have them start with the 40mm (50x) , then use the Barlow to double it. (One of the observing skills to pick up during this process is to see that the Barlow doubles the power while maintaining the eye relief of the lower-powered eyepiece.)

Gamma Aries – I really love this little pair of “cat’s eyes.” They are so perfectly matched in brightness and color and easy to find and split. While there’s no color contrast here, this is a wonderful example of a double star and good one for the beginner. But I won’t have them find this because Aries is not one of the constellations they know. Nor is it high on my list of constellations worth learning. Instead I’ll point the ETX90 at it and simply let them fool with eyepieces. In this case I found that a 25mm eyepiece (50X) will split it, but it’s much better using the 13mm Plossl (95X). Heck, I was even able to split this one with a 40mm eyepice (31X) I was using t find it, which is a testimony not to the huge gap between the stars, but how evenly they are matched in brightness so one doesn’t drown out the other. The 13 mm eyepiece has relatively little eye relief, so it will serve as a good example of the difference between using a Barlow and using certain high-powered eyepieces. (In this case this is one of the very early Televue Plossls.)

Iota Cassiopea – This is a triple, but I don’t think I’ll tell them that in advance. I’ll see if they can “discover” it. While this star is fairly easy to find – and a good one to demonstrate how best to use the Telrad reflex finder with its lighted circles for star hopping – I think I’ll find it with the LX90 and let it track it. They can focus on observing and changing eyepieces. Besides, while I split it with the 6-inch, I needed 240X and seeing conditions might not allow that much power. I’ll have to see how it does with the LX90 at either 180X, 200X, or 222X. I know they’ll be able to split it in two – the question will be how much power does it take on that scope – and with the sky conditions of the moment – to see the third component. Taking the need to find it out of their hands, they’ll be able to focus on the issues of power and seeing and thus increase those observing skills

Eta Cassiopeia – this is an easy star-hop to find, so I’ll have them use the 6-inch refractor which includes both the Telrad sight and a decent 6X30 optical finder. Here the observing skills learned will be in the finding of the double, though it will be very interesting to see what they report in terms of color.

Speaking of reporting, they will have a simplified observing form where they will draw each double, showing separation, estimated position angle, and relative brightness, then write down their impressions of color. I found this an easy split in the 6-inch, especially at 96X – the 25mm plus 2X Barlow.

Notice anything missing? Yep – the 15-inch Obsession. I tested it the other night on M103. What I found was that cluster has five bright stars of varying hues. So I’ll lock the 15-inch on M103 and have them try to identify the star colors. The bonus is that the next observing session will focus on open clusters – assuming no interference from the moon – and this will make a good transitional object. It will give a final focus on star color and a first example of an open star cluster, Oh, and to make things even better this particular cluster – at least in the 15-inch – looks like a little Christmas tree with a bright star at the top and colored bulbs. How seasonal can you get? Wonder if any of them will see it that way without being told? (yes, I know the “real” cvhristmas Tree Cluster is over in Monocerosos and it is better – but hey, we see what we see and this is what I see when I look at M103 with this scope ;-)

Ok – back to last night – I was able to test all this, fool around with various eyepiece combinations, and then get the scopes packaed away as the clouds started to roll in – we’re due for a little snow this morning, which is Thanksgiving. I also got a look at the best meteor I’ve seen this fall, if not all year – I would put this at about magnitude –2 and I wish there had been others out there with me because it moved slowly enough from Andromeda to Cygnus and was so bright and large that I would have had plenty of time to call the attention of others to it. (For the record, that came at about 6:25 pm EST in case anyone else nearby reading this might have been looking ;-)

Oh – and the real bottom line? On the surface I’m doing lesson development, but what I’m really doing is getting in about 90 minutes of wonderful observing time and while the objects observed aren’t all new to me, I learn with every experience. The main lesson I came away with from this night’s session is that I know some stuff that I don’t know how to teach. In fact, I’m not sure it’s teachable – but it is learnable through experience. What was this. exactly? Well, it’s difficult to put into words, but I know these stars – especially the new ones – were easier for me to find then they will be for a newcomer. Looking in a finder and recognizing exactly which of the stars in the wide field of view is your target, is one of those experiential skills that builds with repetition and variety. The more things you find on your own, the easier it gets. So there’s no golden road to this knowledge, no easy shortcuts – but you can sure enjoy yourself traveling it anyway and hey, why not – it’s covered with star dust!

OK, I want to talk about those "serpents" eventually, but there's so much more I find pouring out as my observing experiences set off chains of mini-mind events. Observing is such a delight – and I'm so bloody lazy – that my experiences get way ahead of my reports of them. I want to try to be more consistent in reporting in this space, not because I think everyone out there really wants to hear all the details of what I'm up to, but because I think observing is a three-stage process:

• Stage 1 – Prepare.
• Stage 2 – Look.
• Stage 3 – Reflect on your observing experience.

Sort of like the standard advice to someone preparing a speech – tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said. It also works as an exercise to explore your own thinking and quite frequently I don't know what I'm thinking until my hands get to the keyboard. ;-)

That said, my idea of preparing for an observing session is an eclectic mix of the specific and general. I really don't want to do too much preparing because I'm afraid it will prejudice the experience – direct it in ways that I then miss some things. But there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, for example, that I am much better prepared to observe the moon having read – no, studied – "The Modern Moon: A Personal View" by Charles A. Wood. In fact, until I read this book I was more likely to curse the moon – as a nuisance drowning out more interesting things with its intense light – than observe it. Now I find myself really looking forward to the next opportunity to see our closest neighbor.

That's the mood – and the preparation – I brought to the eyepiece of the 8-inch LX90 November 21 when I knew a waning moon was high in the sky and was likely to give me an opportunity to study the general vicinity of the Sea of Serenity. I love these old names - Sea of Serenity indeed! The whole moon is more serene than our dustiest, most silent museum. Time – and change - is measured there in millions of years – billions really. What a difference from the hectic pace of our planet – and I'm not talking about the 5 pm traffic jams, or the recent rise of this brainy biped who is intentionally, or otherwise, constantly creating what we think of as monumental changes.

What I'm talking about is what we tend to see as the slow, majestic forces of nature – the running of rivers and blowing of the wind; a seed dropping in a crack in the rocks and ending up splitting giant boulders as it grows to be a tree; the moving of techtonic plates beneath our feet. These don't occur on the moon – at least as far as we know, or in anything remotely like what our planet experiences. So, for example, when we look at one of the craters on the moon there's a pretty good chance it was created during an intense bombardment period about 3.9 billion years ago. Large, moon shattering events, were frequent then - by my calculation about one every 117,000 years or so. Recently (meaning the last billion years) such events have slowed to a one-every-32 million-years pace.

But it boggles my mind to project myself back to any one of these instants in time when the moon suddenly shook from the impact of some giant piece of primal solar-system building material – think of it as a concrete block someone forgot to include in the foundation. It's zipping around in space, minding it's own business, until the moon gets in its way. Try to picture yourself standing nearby – at a safe distance, but just waiting. Think of waiting for 117,000 years (let alone 32 million) for something interesting to happen! And then when it happens you might have been on your coffee break, or potty break, or whatever and so missed it because these are not slow-moving events. Even the most unimaginably large events were probably over in a matter of minutes, or maybe days. But more typical would be literally "out of nowhere" a huge explosion would happen and a space the size of a small city would be blasted out of the moon and moon stuff sent hurtling – big stuff – for dozens of miles. And then silence and another 117,000 years, more-or-less, goes by with nothing of significance happening. Keep in mind, Jesus walked the Earth 2,000 years ago and our oldest historical records go back about 5,000 years and our Earth was dominated by Dinosaurs – with not even a hint of man to come – a mere 65 million years ago. That kind of time we can talk about glibly, but like huge distances, it utterly escapes our experiential knowledge – and yet, I find looking at the moon – really observing it – does bring me just a tad closer to an experiential knowledge of such time.

But back to the Sea of Serenity, just a wonderful place to be and when I attach the binoviewer to the LX 90 I feel like I'm on a silent helicopter flight just a few miles above the moon's surface. And I do mean silent. Of course I can't hear much anyways, but at 3 am, surrounded by the walls and dome of my tiny observatory, it's pretty silent for the Earth. Not moon silent, mind you, where there's no air to carry the sound waves, but Earth silent. And that's my preparation. No specific target, no real goals – just establish a distraction-free observing environment and be there and see what catches my fancy.

And what caught my fancy here was the discovery – for me, of course, not the world – that the Sea of Serenity has serpents! Well, at least on this particular moon day – let's see, according to the Starry Nights software the moon at this moment was 19.87 days old. That may seem like overdoing the precision, but one thing I learned during this session was how quickly the appearance of the moon changes – appearance, mind you, not the moon itself – with the changing angle of sunlight on any given feature. So, for example, if I'm going to see this area of the moon again even close to the way I saw it on this particular morning, then knowing exactly how old it was is important. Even next month at this exact stage in the lunar cycle – 19.87 days - these lighting conditions will not be precisely the same because of other variations in the Moon's orbit relative to us – but they'll be close and I'm too inexperienced an observer to know how close.

Looking at the whole visible portion of the moon to start with, what jumped out at me was how absolutely brilliant the crater Aristarchus is at this moment. We're talking gleaming-sequin-on-the-fabric-of-the-universe here, and I really do want to know why – why it should shine so much brighter than some other portion? Is the floor of Aristarchus a huge mirror? Briefly I tried to examine it more closely at higher power, but the atmosphere tonight is kind of sloppy and won't tolerate much above a magnification of about 187X. In fact, I used a combination that yields about 133X most of the time. So I back off that project - I'm pretty sure I'll find a satisfactory answer later in Wood's book – and move on to the less brilliant, but no less fascinating, Serpent in the Sea Serenity. (Doesn't that sound sinister? Poe loved playing with sounds that way. Hmmm... doesn't sound sinister to me, but then maybe I know I'm dealing with Puff the Magic Dragon here, or his kin.)

See, this is the area right now where the line between light and dark is located, the sunset line – the so-called "terminator" - and that's the area that is most interesting. (Isn't it always so? Being in the middle of the ocean would bore me to tears – what's interesting is where two environments meet – where the ocean meets the shore – that's where all the action is. ) It's better here at the terminator because the sun is hitting at a low angle and stuff on the moon is casting long shadows and most lunar features are much more dramatic in this play of light and dark. So what catches my eye first is not a crater, but a long, serpentine wrinkle stretching roughly north-south across the whole eastern portion of Serenity. (I borrowed the photo at left from this Web site – but I could not discover who the photographer was – captures it nicely. )

No sharp, jagged peaks here – just a wrinkle. And that sends me to Antonin Rukl's splendid "Atlas of the Moon." (Another thing I like about lunar observing is my night vision isn't as critical, so while I use red light to search this atlas, it's pretty bright red light making the search easy.) What Rukl tells me is my sea serpent is a combination of "Dorsa Smirnov" (a system of sizable ridges about 130 km long) and Dorsa Lister (230 km) and Dorsum Nicol (50 km), (See why I don't study these things too much in advance? I'd rather see a sea serpent than a "dorsa" or even a "dorsum.") Again, atmospheric seeing conditions won't let me crank up the magnification enough to see the kind of detail in the ridges the atlas shows, but the system of ridges does lead my eye to two craters that roughly anchor either end – a huge, mangled one to the north, and a more pristine example to the south. Rukl tells me these are Posidonius (95 km with a "fractured floor") and Plinius (43 km), the one I think of as sort of the quintessential example of a lunar crater – textbook oval, with a sharp central peak and terraces.

For the next 45 minutes I focused on Posidonius. I couldn't decide if its general shape is a tadpole, or the letter "Q" – though the tale of the "Q" seems to bend the wrong way in my view of it. (The LX90 flips things left to right, so that's what I did with the photograph.) The sunlight is highlighting the "Q-tail" beautifully, and I assume it is a mountain ridge. However, studying the charts reveal it as part of Charcarnac, a 51km crater with "a disintegrated wall." In other words, it was a crater until something smashed it. Hmmmm . . . does this mean it was there first, then Posidonius rumbled into town, redrawing the surrounding moonscape? That's the heart of the matter, you know – not just observing, but asking why something is the way it is. Scientists have been doing this for centuries with the moon, constantly refining their vision, until now they have very plausible explanations of why things look the way they do – very, very plausible, but not certain.

Oh don't get me wrong – I don't have delusions about making any discoveries or any useful contribution in the smallest ways to lunar science – but this is a personal journal of discovery and that in itself is a goal worthy enough for me. My ultimate quest here is time – the most perplexing, if not the ultimate, mystery - and these silent moonscapes do help me experience it to a greater extent than normal.

On this particular morning what has really caught my attention about Posidonius is the way the eastern rim appears double. That is, there is a real bright, outer rim, catching the setting rays of the sun – and inside it a second rim, bright by normal standards, but not nearly as bright as the outer one. In the course of about 30 minutes I watched that second rim go from bright to dull, to nothing but three, widely-separated peaks that weren't all that well lit. Lunar sunset. That's a miniscule slice of real time illustrated by the interplay of light and shadow and thus calling itself to my attention. The picture above, taken by fellow Massachusetts amateur Edward Roach, and found on his Web site with many other terrific astro photos, gives some idea of what I saw. (I flipped this horizontally so it roughly mimics my view through the telescope.) But the photo shows details I didn't see, and, of course, is taken at a different time so while the sun is catching the outer eastern rim, the inner rim is not as brightly lit as it was when I first saw it.

But back to the moment and my state of mind during observing. What the heck am I looking at? A young crater perhaps? For once Mr. Wood leaves me frustrated. Posidonius gets one reference on page 81 in which he calls it "one of the most interesting features on the entire moon." Holy cow Chuck, give us a break. You gotta say more than that!

I suspect it is a young crater because the volcanic activity that came after the ancient bombardment did not fill up this crater and hide its inner mountains as it has done to some. (Wrong! Take a look again at Ed's picture and you will see lava has indeed flowed into this region. And when I checked Wood's book I did see Posidonius listed as belonging to the "Upper Imbrium" time frame. That means they think it was created between 3.2 and 3.75 billion years ago – after the terrible rain of stones referred to earlier – but soon enough to get inundated by lava which has not flowed much in the recent era. ) Bottom line – I have a lot to learn and I can't wait for another chance to study Posidonius – but I like this taking my knowledge in mind-sized bites. Maybe I'll actually remember some of this stuff ;-).

What's more, this Web site (http://www.glrgroup.org/tlp/posidonius.htm ) reports some fascinating studies and has some excellent photos taken through various filters that reveal more of the geology of the crater – though I need some one like Charles Wood to pull this kind of raw material together and tell me what it means in a larger context.

But there's more at work here than the scientific facts. The experience, in total, has an aesthetic side to it as well. There is a stark beauty – its been said before, but it certainly is true – to the moon. My field notes on this particular morning include: "This begs to be drawn." Or better yet, done in pen and ink with watercolor washes – not that I have the skill to do that – but what this and other moonscapes do for me is the same thing an Ansel Adams photo does – it gives me a new and deeper appreciation of tonal values, of the splendor of black and white with a million shades of grey and the magic of light. The world is complex enough and so loaded with information, that color can actually be a distraction sometimes. Maybe that's why they put the moon so close, kept it essentially in grey tones, and kept change to a minimum – so we humans, with our incredible ability to be aware of the universe, can take our first baby-steps to really perceiving it. And suddenly I get a picture of myself, flat on my back in the crib, staring up with glee at this pock-marked ball dangling above me – and making these almost intelligible gurgles and goos.

I used the LX90 in the dome since the 15-inch was all zipped up and the moon is only a couple days past full, so things are pretty washed out. What I was looking for was this:

and what I found, was this:

Which was really quite interesting. I did a quick sketch. Bottom line - the Astronomy Picture of the Day view was normal - but I didn't know that. My view was flipped left-to-right, a normal view for telescopes using a diagonal mirror. (Reflectors would turn it on its head as well.) My point is this. This is a pretty tight, small cluster - the sort of thing you really need a telescope to appreciate. Since nearly all astronomical telescopes flip and/or invert a subject, it's interesting that this would be called the "37" cluster since telescopes will display it that way. So I wonder how it got named? From my perspective it looks more like the "YZ" cluster ;-)

That said, I also took a quick look at Saturn and Mars. Saturn was very nice, but Mars a disappointment - too low and the seeing was average at best. I meditated a bit too, but that was interupted by some noise outside the observatory like someone walking around and bumping into the rear of the building. Unnerving at 4 am! However, after I let my imagination have its fun, it slowly dawned on me that there was a wind and the doors to the observing deck had probably come loose and were banging up against the observatory - which later proved to be the case.

With the moon 17-days old I tend to be dismissive of it. I have a lot to learn. What I saw when I turned the scope that direction was a real nice view of Mare Crisium and an "S" shaped ridge near its west end, while the east side seemed dominated by a long, interesting wrinkle in an otherwise very smooth sea floor. Now I have to go read the chapter in the Modern Moon on Crisium, a pleasent little crisis, so maybe I can study it more in about 20 hours or so. Wish I had the patience to draw these things - and knew how to do it. Crisium, which I'm used to seeing either washed out, or too near the horizon to get a good view (when the moon is young) was really quite haunting.

Bottom line - the moon, which I used to curse as a nuisance, is proving more and more interesting and there's a lot to explore both in th ebooks and through the telescope.

(Note: this ia handout used to supplement talk/demo on purchasing a first telescope.)

Magazines

Sky and Telescope - http://skyandtelescope.com/ They publish Sky and Telescope magazine, a standard with astronomers for over half a century. The December 2005 issue has an excellent article on purchasing an inexpensive first telescope, and the Web site has another, more general article on the topic.

Night Sky - http://nightskymag.com/ - A really excellent new magazine aimed at the beginning observer and published by Sky and Telescope.

Astronomy - http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx - Another excellent astronomy magazine, aimed at the amateur observer, but with quite sophisticated scientific articles.

Beginner Books

Find the Constellations – by H. A. Rey - This is a classic aimed at the 9-12 year old reader. I’m not proud, though. If children’s books do the best job of explaining something, I buy them!

Turn Left at Orion: A Hundred Night Sky Objects to See in a Small Telescope--and How to Find Them -- by Guy Consolmagno – Although I have many guide books and 40-years experience, I still refer to this beginner’s book on a regular basis. It tells you what to look for, where to find it, and what it is you’re looking at.

The Backyard Stargazer: An Absolute Beginners Guide to Starwatching with and without a Telescope – by Pat Price. While Rey’s book focuses on the constellations and “Turn left . . .” is really for the small telescope owner, this book covers both subjects.

Where to shop online

Orion Telescopes and Binoculars - http://www.telescope.com - These are the folks who sell the beginner scopes recommended by me and in the Sky and Telescope article.

Astromart - http://www.astromart.com/classifieds/ - Sort of the Ebay for amateur astronomers. You can find some very good deals here on used equipment, frequently in excellent condition – but you need to know what you are looking for. Might be a good place to ook after you have decided exactly what you want to buy.

Cloudy Nights Telescope Reviews - http://www.cloudynights.com/ - A good place to learn a lot more about telescopes, eyepieces, and related astronomy equipment. Many excellent reviews written by fellow amateurs.

Other Astronomy Web Resources

Yahoo Groups – http://groups.yahoo.com/ - Many general groups on astronomy, as well as several specific groups aimed sometimes at a single make and model of telescope. These groups can be very, very helpful when deciding which telescope to purchase, or when first learning to use a new scope.

Astronomy Picture of the Day – http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html - A fascinating way to get an astronomy education one picture at a time – or dive deeply into their archives for a heavy dose of some of the most interesting pictures in the universe.

The Astronomical League - http://www.astroleague.org/ - An international federation of amateur astronomers. Take a look at their “observing clubs.” This is a great way to add a sense of purpose – and a systematic approach – to your observing.

SkyScrapers, Inc – http://www.theskyscrapers.org/ - An observing club based near Providence that has been in existence for many years and has maintained an excellent reputation. They hold regular meetings with guest speakers.

CalSky - http://www.calsky.com/ - a rather overwhelming – but very useful – site on all things pertaining to astronomical observing.

Hands on the Telescope, Eyes on the Universe - http://www.giveyoujoy.net/awe/public.html - This is the link to give your friends who may be interested in participating in the free Driftway Observatory programs.

Rapt in Awe – http://www.giveyoujoy.net/awe/index.html - My personal astro-blog. I’m never sure what I’m going to put there, but here’s where you will definitely find news relating to Driftway Observatory, as well as links to the Driftway “Clear Sky Clock,” giving up-to-date observing weather info and many other useful resources. Of course, this is also where I ramble on about what’s important to me, which, in a word, is not astronomy per se, but “awareness.”

Six links to a good observing experience

Most telescopes do an adequate job with several of these “links.” But one weak link can ruin the whole observing experience and leave the user frustrated, and ready to quit trying.

1. Finder – Helps you point the telescope at your target. “Red dot” types are good for bright stars, major planets, and the moon. Optical ones help with finding both bright objects and ones too faint to see with the naked eye.

2. Objective lens or mirror – This is the heart of your telescope. It should be at least 60mm in diameter (about 2.25 inches), but larger is better because larger ones gather more light, and what you are trying to see is frequently very dim.
3. Eyepieces should be 1.25-inch (a standard) in diameter. Two are fine to start with and good sizes are typically about 10mm and 25mm. Don’t be fooled by promises of high power. We rarely use more than 200X, and anything much above 100X is frequently useless on a small scope.

4. Focuser –You want a smooth, jiggle-free motion. Even though you are looking at objects that are at infinity, you will find you frequently make very small changes in the focus, and a smooth focusing action helps.

5. Mount – You’ll see three basic mount designs – Dobsonian, alt-azimuth, and equatorial. The Dobsonian is simplest, the alt-azimuth next in simplicity, and the equatorial adds functionality, but also complexity. In any mount what you are looking for is ease of use, portability, and above all, steadiness. When you point the telescope at something and look in the eyepiece, you want the image to be steady – not vibrating as the scope slowly settles down from having been moved. Your best guideline here is common sense – flimsy looks flimsy – though, of course, if you are able to test the mounting for yourself that is even better.

6. Tripod – Once again, the key is sturdiness. Test the tripod by extending it to its highest point. Make sure the joints in the tripod legs lock securely. All tripods will hold a scope – not all will hold them steady, especially if there is any wind. (Dobsonians almost never use tripods.They simply sit on the ground.)

Computer controlled "go to" scopes – These can be very useful. I own two. But I don’t recommend them for newcomers. First, it’s hard to make a really good one that is also inexpensive. Second, the advertising makes them sound easier to use than they are. Third, in my humble opinion they are a poor way to learn and appreciate the night sky. As your second or third scope, a good one can be quite useful. But starting out with one is like being handed a calculator when you have no idea how to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. Besides, it takes the satisfaction out of discovery.

• We change the earliest start times every 15 days based on when true darkness begins
• We can start half an hour earlier if the target is the moon or bright planets
• Times for April-October assume Daylight Savings is in effect. DST actually begins April 2, 2006, and ends October 29, 2006.

That said, here are the earliest evening start times for 2006. (For the remainder of 2005 the times are 6 pm in November, 5:45 pm in December.)

The above are the earliest start times, an important consideration for youngsters. For various reasons we may agree on a later start time for any given session.

When is the best date and time for a public observing session?

There are a lot of things we can observe any night that it is clear, but obviously the weather is the biggest factor restricting observing and this is unpredictable, so we make a final decision a couple of hours before an observing session is to begin. We can’t see through clouds, but some nights we can observe between them.

That said, factors restricting when and what you can see are:

• Time when true darkness begins.
• Whether or not a bright moon is in the sky making other objects dim. (Of course sometimes we want to observe the moon, but other times it’s a big, bright nuisance!)
• What’s in the sky at an altitude that makes for good observing and isn’t blocked by trees or buildings. The stars change constantly with the season, and the planets change constantly in a less predictable fashion. Meteor showers come and go, and a comet may drop in at any moment, but we seldom know when or where.

All these factors make a good observing session an experience to be valued when the opportunity is available. This is why we ask you to commit to a time and date in advance, and honor that commitment if the weather permits.

The public observing sessions are usually limited to the early evening hours and begin after sunset when it is dark enough to see what you plan to see. For looking at the moon and bright planets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) observing can start about 30 minutes nefore the times given. For observing stars, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies we have to wait to begin until about an hour and a half after sunset for really dark skies - and these are the times used here.

Look at the preceding times and you will see that for youngsters, the window of observing opportunity can be very restricted.

For children in the 8-12 age range, we assume they need to be home between 8 and 8:30 pm on a school night. This immediately restricts us to about four months a year – November, December, January, and February - and when the new daylight savings time start and finish dates are introduced in 2007, we’ll be down to three months a year!

Obviously adults aren’t so restricted, and Friday and Saturday nights may extend the opportunities for youngsters.

Unfortunately, summer is seldom a good time to observe here because of cloudy – or hazy - skies and short nights when it doesn’t get really dark until as late as 10:30 pm.

The moon factor - Two days before full moon, full moon, and two days after it, observing is restricted to the moon (not too interesting at this point in its cycle), bright planets and possibly double stars. For early evening observing the moon is easiest to observe from when it is about 5 days old until it is 12 days old. However, at this time it makes observing anything else except bright planets and double stars more difficult.

For complete, up-to-date, information on speecial sky events be sure to check the this web site.

Special notes:

Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter. It and the moon are about the only observing targets available tonight.

A fun note, true all week and then some. Look first at Venus, very bright and low in the southwest sky. Then turn nearly 180 degrees and note Mars – not as bright, but brighter than any star, rising in the eastern sky. Now think about what you are seeing – a nice line up of the planets with Venus nearest the setting sun, then the Earth where you are standing, and then Mars, far away from the sun. If you could look down on the solar system from above at this moment, here’s what you would see, courtesy of Starry Nights software.

Get it? Now picture yourself on Earth, facing south. Look to your left – away from the sun – and there’s Mars. Look to your right, towards the sun, and there’s Venus. We are, incidentally, moving away from Mars since we go faster in our inner orbit. As a result Mars will get smaller and smaller in our telescopes over the coming weeks and months. Oh, and Venus, in its smaller orbit, will be catching up to us, getting brighter.

What I like about this is it allow the opportunity for one of those deep awareness moments when things not only make sense in the abstract, but you can combine your abstract knowledge with the experience of the real event to suddenly grasp the whole picture. (Easy to say - it doesn't always happen that way - but this is one of those opportunities.) The abstract idea of these huge balls of rock whirling around a common center of gravity (the sun) can become immensely real and simple to grasp at this time.

(Thanks to Sky and Telescope Email News Bulletin for calling this to my attention.)

11/15/05 Tuesday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
14 days full Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter. It and the moon are about the only observing targets available tonight.

11/16/05 Wednesday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
15 days waning Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter. It and the moon are about the only observing targets available tonight. Moon remains a difficult target when this bright and flatly lit.

11/17/05 Thursday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
16 days waning Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter. It and the moon are about the only observing targets available tonight, although some double stars are worth pursuing. Moon getting a little more interesting.

11/18/05 Friday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
17 days waning Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter. The moon rises about when our early observing session begins, but it’s quite low in the southeast most of the time, so it won’t begin to be a nuisance until about 8 pm and as it climbs higher, it does become an interesting target in itself. Good night for double stars and some deep sky objects in the west will be acceptable early in the evening.

11/19/05 Saturday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
18 days waning Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter. The moon rises more than an hour after our early observing session begins, but it’s quite low in the southeast most of the time, so it won’t be a nuisance until it climbs higher, and eventually it does become an interesting target in itself, but later than our public observing sessions go. Another good night for double stars, constellation study, and some deep sky objects will be acceptable early in the evening.

11/20/05 Sunday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
19 days waning Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Bye bye moon! The moon doesn’t rise until after 8 and it will take it two or three hours to be well placed for observing, so it does not figure into our public sessions. Yes, it will cause some glow in the east before it rises, but will not be a serious impediment to most star and deep sky observing. Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter.

11/21/05 Monday Date
5:15 pm Earliest Lunar and Planetary Observing time
5:45 pm Earliest Star and Deep Sky Object observing time
20 days waning Age of the Moon

Special notes:

Good night for constellation study, as well as observing deep sky objects. The Andromeda galaxy is well placed overhead and a great target for binoculars. Nice time for a close look at M15, as well – and the Pleiades will be fun for low power viewing as they rise in the East, Mars remains close and presents a disc of about 18 seconds in diameter.

Fireflies appear!

Success!

If I had to write the headlines for last night’s first session under the stars with the Webelo Scouts from New Bedford, they would read like the above.

I had great plans – really I did – but I didn’t come close to executing them as planned. What did happen was both the Scouts and their parents seemed enthusiastic and involved for nearly 90 minutes as they moved from telescope to telescope, sometimes using them to find things on their own, sometimes calling friends over to share a discovery, and sometimes looking through the two computer-controlled scopes in the Observatory and on the Observing Deck at objects I had found.

Did they enjoy it? Sure seemed to. I heard “awesome,” several times and one Scout said to me, with awe in his voice: “I would like to do this every night.” But my favorite reaction came from a Dad. I can’t remember now which scope he was using at the time, but he was looking at M45, the Pleiades cluster, for the first time. As he lifted his eyes from the telescope he said in a tone of wonderment : “It looks like a swarm of fireflies!” I told him Lord Tennyson would agree with him, but I doubt that he got the reference. It’s from one of my favorite poems from the 19th Century, Locksley Hall, and in it Tennyson has this beautiful description of the Pleiades:

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of Fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Hmmmm. . . rereading those lines I have to think Tennyson used a telescope at some point. With good eyes and clear skies –and, of course, no light pollution which would be the case in 1850 – the Pleiades could look like a “swarm of fireflies” to the naked eye. But I really think you need a telescope – and a pretty powerful one at that – to see them as “tangled in a silver braid.” I assume this is a reference to the faint nebulosity that surround this beautiful, open cluster of youthful, blue stars.

OK – deep breath – now, what worked, what didn’t work.

What worked

The Observatory – The 200mm LX90 was locked on M27, the Dumbell to start, and one of the parents, Jeff Washer, was in charge. His job – to make sure the one Scout/parent combination at a time got a chance to look through the telescope and study the object . This meant adjusting the observing chair for the person using the scope and making sure they knew how to focus – then asking them a couple question to make sure they looked carefully at the object. That certainly seemed to work. Later I shifted the scope to M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, and everyone filtered through again, getting a look.

The Observing Deck – Here the 375mm Obsession was aimed at M57 to start - and at the conclusion, Mars. Jeff’s wife, Veronica, was in charge of this scope and again her assignment was to make sure each person knew how to focus the telescope and how to climb a ladder – if necessary – to look through it without touching the telescope itself. Seemed to work. I first went through the drill with Jeff and Veronica, since it was all new to them. They were great and this freed me to spend most of my time in the Telescope Garden helping others use the scopes there.

Fist-as-a-Yardstick and Polaris – Yes – this worked. That is, using the Laser pointer I was able to direct them to the North Star, then have them hold their fist at arms length and count the number of fists high the star was – 4 in this case and they all got it right. I also pointed out the Summer Triangle, Lyre and Cygnus.

Finding Vega – I think most of them were able to use the telescopes to find Vega on their own. What I discovered, though, was they frequently didn’t know when they had the focus correct and sometimes the boys were more interested in the out-of-focus star image – especially in the catadiotric scopes where it looks like a dougnut. But that fascination lasted only briefly. So they gained some very basic knowledge in how to find things and how to focus. Later, either Scouts or parents found Mars and the Pleiades on their own – but I had to train the scopes on Albireo and the binoculars on the Coathanger for them to then get a peek. All of these scopes are manually controlled and once I had found something, theyw ere able to move it and keep the object in view.

Christmas lights – I had five strings of tiny, outdoor, red Christmas lights running just above ground height set out in such a way as to define the borders and thus preventing folks from straying without ruining night vision. It worked. I started the session with the small barn’s white outside light on. That let them see the layout. But I turned it off after the first five minutes. I had a fresh handout – a sort of log sheet – for them and with the white light on they all pulled out their 3-ring binders and added the new page and did so with an enthusiasm that surprised me.

What did NOT work

Telescope Garden - Any sort of systematic approach to using the telescopes in the Telescope Garden failed. While folks went in good order to the big telescopes, taking their time, the Telescope Garden was chaotic throughout the session. I know each person got a chance to use more than one scope. I’m not sure everyone used every scope and I’m not sure everyone used any single scope to really find something as simple as Vega on their own. They assure me they had – but that was a general response – not a show of hands, or anything more trustworthy. Parents did get involved and were a big help here, but, of course, they were learning as well, so they were limited in what they could do.

I really have two categories of learning experience going at once – one is just “eyes on” – that is, they look through the big scopes at things I have locked the scopes on. The other is a combination of a hands and eyes and that’s what broke down.

Journal-keeping – I think this worked in a very limited way. I need to set up a table with proper red light and dew shielding and pencils and encourage them to go over to that table periodically and make notes on the form I supplied. A little of this may have happened. And it perhaps it happened when they got home – or the next day. But I am trying to make the point that all astronomy – well, just about everything – involves three steps – preparation – doing it – and reflecting on what you did. I’m not sure that’s working yet, except in a very superficial way.

Bottom line – They were plugged in and really seemed to enjoy themselves – and I’m sure they learned some things. It was immensely successful in that respect – and I can’t remember when I have enjoyed myself more, so it was certainly successful for me But . . .

• I need to reduce the chaos in the Telescope Garden and get more productivity out of that aspect of it.
• I need a better grasp of tasks I can expect people of various ages to carry out and in what time span. Finding Vega or Mars was well within the beginner’s grasp. My idea that they would find M27, M57, or the Coathanger was way beyond them – at least under these circumstances. If I were working with just one or two the whole time that might have happened.
• I need to get them to focus more energy on reflecting on what it is they have seen – more field notes emphasis.
• With this group – and probably others – I have to see this as an introductory session. Next session I have to go over everything they may have learned in this session, then build on it with a few new things. In fact, I think every session I will be reinforcing basics while adding some new things.

Oh – one parent did ask me about buying a telescope and I think I helped to start them on the right track – and they veered away from buying a pretty expensive model at a local discount store. But I really couldn’t spare much time to discuss the subject.

Hmmm – and I now have two parents who can take responsibility for a scope and a couple of others – I’m not sure which they are – who I can also have take responsibility. That will make a big difference next time. I need to develop a balance between what is the most effective use of my time and what responsibilities I can farm out to others.