3 AM Observing

Early this morning I was crawling into bed around 3am. Then I noticed that my dog, a 3 year old white miniature poodle was trying to sneak into our closet... a sign that she needed to go the restroom. I put on a some shorts and off we headed downstairs and out the door. While outside I noticed a bright object up in sky. I thought it looked like Jupiter but I thought I'd like to know for sure. I opened my garage door and grabbed my little Celestron IYA firstscope (3" Reflector) and set it on the hood of my old Ford Ranger. Within seconds I knew that it was Jupiter. My little scope is an f/4 and with the 18mm eyepeice I had in there I could see a few moons.

I'm really glad I have a little grab and go telescope like this, my other scopes aren't as quick to setup. This little scope might just be the best $50 I've spent. I have a homebuilt 4" Dob... but it still isn't as easy to set up. I can grab the first scope in one hand and have it on an object in less and a minute after taking it out of the garage.

Hot Hot Hot... weather weather weather

My Telescope in HDR, originally uploaded by MPR Photography (Matthew2000tx).

If you don't know central Texas has been very dry this summer and San Antonio gets it's water from the Edwards Aquifer which has gotten very low this summer so we are at Stage 3 water restrictions. It has been unseasonably hot lately and today's high is expected to be 105 degrees; a temperature we usually don't see until the first part of August.

Why all the weather talk?? Well hot dry conditions are generally great for astronomy. I have gotten in some good viewing in lately because of the lack of humidity in the air allows the day time clouds to dissipate after sunset.

This week things have begun to moisten up a bit with rain the past two days. This is mostly due to the usual afternoon thunderstorms. Although we are in dire need of the rain, as is evident with the hue my lawn is showing, I have found it too humid in the evening to get the telescope out.

This week I have my parents in town from San Angelo, Texas and today is Wednesday which means it is the day of the week that the San Antonio Astronomical Association does it's weekly star party at McAllister Park near the San Antonio International airport. I would like to take my little Celestron First Scope out of a spin at the park and introduce my parents to the other astronomers that I talk about often. I see from the weather widget that the day's high is forecast as 105 and partly cloudy, so we might be able to make it to the park. All we need to hope for is that we don't have another one of those much needed rain clouds.... at least not today.

First Light with new telescope

So I was in Dallas/Ft.Worth area this week for family and photography business. I stopped in at Fry's Electronics on I-635 (I think..) and I bought a little telescope I've had my eye on for a while, the Celestron 76mm International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) first scope. Telescope is what I call a baby (maybe a premature baby) dobsonian telescope that retails for $49.99. I couldn't resist. The telescope is tiny pointed a zenith it sits about a foot and a half tall.

I'll post some more details about this little scope later. But this post is about the first light with this scope. Today (July 3, 09) after driving the 5 or so hours back to San Antonio I decided to get this thing out and take it for a tour of the light polluted sky of San Antonio.

The telescope comes with 2 eyepieces and I took the 20mm out for tonight. My object of choice for first light was the moon. I needed something easy to spot since the first scope doesn't have a finder (an optional accessory kit is $20 more). It wasn't too hard to align the mini telescope to the lunar surface. The first thing I noticed about this telescope was how wide the field of view was. I was able to take in the whole moon with a 9mm eyepeice. I got some decent views with the the supplied 20mm eyepiece but I got some slight blue ghosting at the edge of the moon. This isn't the worst view I've seen in a beginning telescope however when I put in my Orion ED-2 18mm eyepeice it really took the views up a notch. I was rather pleased with the views in this scope. I also got to take in Jupiter. I didn't see any details of the planet but I could see a line of moons.

I have some big plans for this little telescope.. more on that later.