ESP Report- Oct. 14/15

Eldorado Star Party Report:

Rick and I arrived a few minutes apart late yesterday afternoon. We are both set
up our 16" Lightbridge telescopes next to each other. Last night the sky was
beautiful. Rick did some Hershel stuff for the Astronomy League and I worked on
getting some Messier Objects done for my Astronomy League award. I bagged about
25 Messier Objects last night detailing what I was seeing using a voice
recorder.

There are around 100+ telescopes here. We talked to people from all over Texas.
Rick and I are set up next to a guy from San Angelo and a woman from Houston.
Meade Telescopes is here with a tractor trailer full of stuff, ETX-LS, 16"
Lightbridge, PSTs and LX200 16". One of the Meade guys said he was from New Orleans.
I have chatted with many of the people here online and it is nice to now put a
face on a name.

Some other SAAA members are set up across the field in what I have dubbed "Camp
San Antonio". Mike F., Anne, and Yogie. Were there when I went by before sunset.

The first night was good and hopefully the rest will be the same!

-Matthew

Eldorado Star Party- Here I come

Today after work I'm heading to the Eldorado Star Party near Eldorado, Texas which is south of my hometown. I'll be there until Sunday morning. I'm hoping that the sky is nice. While I'm there I might drive up to Ft. McKavett to meet with some old astronomy friends doing a star party at the historical site there.

Here is a video I found from the 2008 ESP:

Nice Morning Sight on Oct. 13, 2009

Plan to get up early on the morning of October 13, 2009 for a great view in the eastern horizon. About 6:30am CST in the Central United States if you look to the east you should see Venus and Saturn only a half-degree apart in the morning sky. Below them Mercury will be rising above the horizon. Plan to get up and get to your favorite spot from which you have a clear view of the Eastern horizon and enjoy this dance of the planets.

Post your comments if you got to observe this.

Stolen Telescope!

I friend and fellow San Antonio Astronomer had some equipment stolen from his house last night:

He said both his Ford F-150 (EARLY-1990s) truck with telescope trailer, and Chevrolet Suburban (also early 1990s) were stolen from his house over the night.

His 30" Obsession and Meade 8" LX200GPS were in the trailer along with most of his eyepieces and myriad of other astro gear.

The F-150 is a two tone Beige/White combination with a Beige camper shell. The Suburban is all white. The trailer is all white with a rear loading ramp.

If by chance you see something that may resemble these vehicles, I would greatly appreciate a contact. This was taken from San Antonio area so if someone shows up with a new LX200 or Obsession at a star party call police.

Toys on Mars??

I've been thinking about Mars lately. I've learn lots about the Mars explorations over the past years. In 2008 I was selected to be part of a team of educators from NASA Explorer Schools to go to Yellowstone National Park to study the water cycle and extreme-o-files. While there we did many video conferences with Mars exploration scientists to learn about how studying the water-cycle on Earth and extreme-o-files helps with the exploration on Mars. (more on that later)

Mars truly seems to be the next great frontier. We have been to the moon... hopefully we will go back but that depends on the economic and political conditions of our planet. *yes the entire planet*

I look forward to the LCROSS lunar project coming up this Friday and further exploration of Mars and the Moon. I look forward to the day when there is great enthusiasm by the general public. We saw and example of this when Hot Wheels produced an action set of the Mars Rovers. My readers might not know that I'm a past Hot Wheel collector and I have about 4 of these Rover sets still in the package. My Hotwheel days are behind me but it is good to see that I even had an interest in astronomy back then.

Website Spotlights: Andy's Shot Glass

This is the first of my "Website Spotlights" and for the honor I have chosen my favorite astronomical website "Andy's Shot Glass". One of the main things I like about this website is the authors straight forward approach to astronomy. The website subtitle is "Astronomy and Astrophotography for Non-Gazillionaires." Andy has some great advice on this site and my recommended gold nugget of the website that I believe any Newtonian owner should view would be the Collimation a Newtonian video in the Articles-DIY section. I encourage you to take a look at the site and bookmark it. I'm sure you will find it as enjoyable as I have.

The Adventure of being an SAAA member

One of the things I really like is that being a member of the San Antonio Astronomical Association is an adventure! We do star parties at all kinds of locations. During the "School season" I find myself observing in light polluted schools with some times lights only a few yards away. It is almost like a sport we have a team of astronomers at each school and the goal is to get 300 or more people young (some as young as 2-3 years) to look at each telescope in the hour and a half that we are there. That in it self is a rush.

Sometimes I find myself setting up in some of the darkest skys around at our Dark Sky site near Fredericksburg, Texas or at Garner State Park. These events are usually great when the seeing is good and if the seeing isn't up to par at least your their with some friends. Many times we are given free access to events and state parks that we do astronomy at.

A few occasions I've found myself driving across different parts of Texas with telescope in tow. I've been out to Ft. McKavett near San Angelo, Texas with the SAAA for some extremely dark sky on a cold night that dipped into the teens. Not bad to most astronomers up north but we didn't have a warming hut and we slept in tents when viewing became bad. This past summer my wife an I made the long car ride out to Alpine, Texas for vacation and on a number of nights we trekked out to McDonald Observatory to set up our 16" telescope for visitors at the visitor center. Thanks to our connections in the SAAA we were allowed private access to the 86" and H.E.T during the night and got to see actual research being done.

Last night was no exception, my wife and I volunteered to do some sidewalk astronomy at the Botanical Gardens (BGs) of San Antonio for their annual "Gardens By Moonlight" event. It was an adventure we parked in the serve entrance of the BGs and a few members had there equipment carted up the hills to the area we were to set up in by a golf cart. The cart never returned to set pick up my 10" dobsonian and gear. Do I carried it on my back up the hill and though the woods to the area we were to set up at. It really wasn't that bad... it added to the adventure. I took about 4 trips to get all my equipment there... and I needed the exercise! So there my wife and I were now at this location in the Botanical Gardens of San Antonio and we had enough time to walk around and see the Gardens before it got dark enough to do observing.

Later that evening I was showing Jupiter and it was spectacular. At first only 2 moons were visible then the night went on and the moon on the right split and there were now 3 visible. We could see a transit shadow of a moon and we also could see the bands of clouds with great detail. As the night went on those 2 moons that were once one moved further and further apart. And about 10 pm (I didn't have a watch so it is purely a guess) a moon appeared just off the edge of the left side of Jupiter. We continued to observe another hour or so and that moon steadily moved away from the Gas Giant.

Around 11:15 we started to tear down. Once again the cart didn't come quick enough for my taste so I found myself making trips with gear in hand. After everyone was loaded up we headed to Jim's a 24 hour diner here in San Antonio and enjoyed some dinner with fellow SAAA members. We parted ways about 1 am.

What an adventure!

To join the SAAA visit this link.