ASTRONOMER IN RESIDENCE
Blake Nancarrow
May 9 - May 29, 2022
Blake Nancarrow is a life-long science, astronomy, & space-flight nerd. He bought his first telescope in 1990 and immediately took it on camping trips. A Royal Astronomical Society of Canada member, he is currently the national Observing Committee chair & software training coordinator. Blake regularly writes for the RASC Journal & SkyNews magazine.
Read Blake’s blog posts as an Astronomer in Residence:
It was a beautiful day, blue skies, warm. And the weather forecast is looking good for the rest of the week. I started out later than I wanted but began packing the car around 11:00 AM and left the house at 2:30 PM. Spotted a First Quarter Moon rising up in the east. Gathered some supplies and food before jumping on Highway 400, which turns into 69, and is part of the Trans-Canada Highway.
Just north of Barrie, I followed a route that I took many times to Awenda Provincial Park. It was there many moons ago that I did my first astronomy presentation and telescope viewing for park visitors.
Another flashback: going to Coldwater to the late Geoff Gaherty’s house. One of those visits was when a gang of us were going to the Algonquin Radio Observatory.
I noticed that everything was still brown with the deciduous trees only just starting to bud. Summer ain’t here yet! A good reminder it’s really the very early stages of spring, winter is just ending. Friend Trevor Horvatin, a former KPP staffer, told me it snows in Killarney sometimes in May.
First spotted Canadian bedrock, the Canadian Shield, somewhere between marker 153 km and 156 km. Lots of colourful granite, majestic igneous rock, scraped clean by glaciers.
I arrived at the official Park Office at 6:45 but then headed to the staff area. Warmly greeted by Kathleen. We made plans to get together tomorrow to start planning out the week.
Long day but satisfying.
The Moon is higher now!
I can see my Moon shadow…
Woke to grey skies. The Sun tried to punch through all day.
Ground some good beans and fired up the coffee maker. Very important. Found an enameled tin cup in the cupboard. That made it all perfect. Enjoyed a simple breakfast and then pinged Kathleen.
We met in the Dog House and planned programs for the week. Wednesday for a sky tour of various celestial objects (even though it will be moonie), Saturday to help people learn the sky, and then Sunday late will be lunar eclipse time, of course.
We headed outside, opened Kchi Waasa Debaabing SkyShed POD, and pushed the dome back on the table. We touched upon the basics and fixed a couple of things. We also booted up the camera control laptop. I tested the DSLR with APT and the ZWO with the FireCapture app. All seemed to be in order.
Kathleen left me to my own devices so I did a quick run-through with the instruction guide. I shot a short video for the dome retaining clamps.
12:09. Kathleen emailed me the poster for the week with our 3 planned astronomy events. I replied that it looked good. It’s official: I’m on the docket.
Ugh, slowly programmed my red LED name badge by hand… Sadly, I cannot connect it to the new laptop. Anyhoo, added “Welcome to the Killarney Observatory!”
4:30 PM. Had a quick Zoom meeting with Bruce, letting me ask a bunch of questions. He’s very helpful.
Over dinner, I noodled some more on the program notes based on SkyTools targets. I considered adding an exoplanet target.
Did some odds and sods and kept looking outside. Took care of a few RASC things including Stellarium Training Series registration wrangling. Chatted briefly with professor Karim Jaffer and David Levy in Montréal. Forgot to proof my column for the Journal! Oops. Deadline’s tomorrow.
I had really hoped to play tonight, but there were clouds everywhere… Boo.
9:17 PM. Had a sudden realisation. I had not consulted all my usual weather tools: Clear Sky Charts, Astrospheric, Good To Stargaze, Aviation Weather Service. Tomorrow looks good.
If we’re to try my complete target list, with a comet and a quasar, I think I need to figure out how to program the LX600 for custom locations, by RA and Dec. That will make it easy for us to get to them.
Spent a lot of time in the Dog House today. Looks like it is my new “office.” My office in the woods and fresh air is surrounded by amazing bird calls.
We planned a tour of the night sky, objects far and near. Alas, we were clouded out in Killarney. So we did a virtual tour instead.
I thank Bruce for last-minute tech support, Kathleen for logistical support and co-presenting, along with her park staff for set-up.
I’ll share more later but I’m tired after a long day of preparing and fixing and learning.
I understand it was clear over the Allan I. Carswell Observatory down in the city. That’s good to hear.
When I headed to “The Office” yesterday morning, coffee in hand, I noted some activity over at the Kchi POD. Saw Kathleen, said hello. She introduced me to Shawn, the assistant park superintendent.
10:37 AM. When I arrived the Dog House, text messages from Bruce rolled in, and surprise, surprise, I received an email from a certain professor emeritus from York! Paul Delaney sent his congrats. Nice touch.
I did a deep dive into the weather tools and was not pleased. Conditions had turned. It looked like it was going to be cloudy. That meant I needed to be ready to deliver a full presentation with images. I prepared a slide deck.
6:35 PM. After installing Zoom on the dome laptop, I did a quick live-stream test with Elaina. Looked good. Another box ticked.
Finished my presentation assembly, converted to PDF, and transferred it by sneaker-network to the dome computer.
Oh oh. Black flies! Nooo.
Readied the dome. After the Meade mount was up and running, I slewed to the Moon. Off a few degrees so I tried to align. And kludged the mount! But Bruce, by speaker phone, walked us through the polar alignment process and all was well.
As the sky was covered with clouds, I delivered a virtual tour of the night sky.
We started with terrestrial phenomena (e.g. rainbows) then ventured out into the solar system. Then in our imaginary spaceship we explored the galactic neighbourhood taking in some double stars, open clusters, and exosolar systems with exoplanets. Moving further out, we took in the whole Milky Way galaxy and the gaggle of globular clusters (like bees around the hive). Now we travelled to galaxies, some near, like the Magellic Clouds and the Andromeda spiral, out to distant island universes. The supernova in NGC 4647 was a big hit. We had a look at the energetic black hole inside Messier 87. Our final destination before returning home was to visit an extraordinary quasar. I pointed out that 3C 273 is one of the easiest quasars to spot in an amateur telescope. It was time to return to Earth sadly but it was a good trip.
It was around 11 PM and Kathleen and I closed up shop. Still cloudy.
It was a long day but we got lots done.
Up at 8-ish. Still not having much luck sleep-shifting. Oh well. Made coffee. I’m drinking Grizzly Claw from Kicking Horse. It has a cute little black bear on the container. Hopefully that’s the only bear I will see! 😉
10:30 AM. From the Dog House, caught up on various emails and text messages.
I don’t know why they call it this name. It’s a general purpose building for staff meetings, indoor training, etc. There’s a storage closet for the observatory accessories. I like working here as I receive a super-strong wi-fi signal from the Dog House router. I don’t think they send people here as punishment. Or do they?!
To do a deeper edit of the 16-inch telescope operational guide, I headed to the observatory. Opened up the structure, flipped open the SkyShed POD clamshell, and turned the dome to offer some shade. Worked on the guide. Applied various edits for additions, new equipment, different processes, etc. Shot various images to include in the instruction sheets.
3:36 PM. Tidied cords. It’s kinda crazy when you image with a telescope. And this setup can take three cameras! Wires everywhere!
We had a York-Killarney team meeting at 4:30. I took that in the observatory, with the telescope in the background. Our recently installed hard line is working well!
During dinner clouds rolled in. Boo. Looked like I was scuppered again…
I also took the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Observer’s Handbook editing team meeting in the Kchi Waasa Bebaabing observatory dome. Is THIS the new office? My al fresco workspace? I like it! Got some vitamin D too.
Oh! Skies started to clear up ‘round dinner time… Exciting! At last, a chance to do some personal observing. I was looking forward to some quiet time to get better acquainted with everything. Despite the bright Moon, I had a few targets that I hoped would be visible. Loose plans to do some visual astronomy and a bit of imaging.
8:16 PM. While the sky was still blue, and despite poor seeing, I viewed some lunar features including craters Aristarchus, Copernicus, and Proclus and its intriguing ejecta blanket. Noticed Schiller and its bizarre elongated peanut-shaped crater. The Sea of Moisture (Mare Humorum) is a fascinating mare with all manner of the things around the perimeter and three teenie-tiny craters in the middle. Upon suggestions from Chris Vaughan, I looked for some Dorsae near Iridum.
Viewed and imaged the Moon right beside double star Porrima. That was fun.
Viewed Algieba, another double star. Lovely pair, unequal brightness, same shimmering light gold colour.
10:10 PM. Tried for supernova 2022hrs inside galaxy NGC 4647. Dang! The gibbous Moon was right near this part of the sky so everything was washed out. Boo!
Chose a RASC Deep Sky Gems observing list target Levy 401 in the Lynx constellation. Found it by star hopping from Tania Borealis, one of the back foot stars of the Ursa Major, Great Bear, constellation while skirting Leo Minor. Viewed the small cluster of stars in an interesting formation in the refractor with a 36mm eyepiece (at 25 times magnification).
Considered chasing down some double stars from Sissy Haas’s book Double Stars for Small Telescopes but I was tired after another long day.
11:46 PM. Decompressed a bit before heading to bed. Read another page of Gravity’s Rainbow.
Beautiful day at Killarney. Sunny, warm, bird chirping, students chainsawing.
There seems to be more green in the trees today… I don’t think that’s my imagination!
9:16 AM. Headed to the Dog House to get my internet fix. Kathleen popped in with double-side copies of The Evening Sky Map (brilliant) and self-adhesive Velcro strips (all right).
Did a bit of digging into Astro Photography Tool. Last night, I could not seem to zoom in. One suggestion I read was to turn off the camera’s face-detection. There’s also the Magnifier tool in APT. So a few things to try…
I found my old Killarney background landscape files for the Stellarium astronomy program. Trevor shot the photos in 2014! I tried the custom landscape and it worked!
The weather prospects for this evening looked good. The Clear Sky Chart suggested the seeing conditions (steadiness of the air) would be better. The Environment Canada cloud data showed low or zero while the European model said I’d get clobbered at midnight. Perhaps a good night for double stars?
Considered some DSLR-on-a-tripod imaging . Initially I thought, oh, star trails. But that doesn’t really work with a gibbous, nearly full, Moon. And then I spotted a reminder in my calendar that there would be a bright flyover of the International Space Station. I could image that with the fisheye lens!
My sister scolded me for not packing my binoculars. I know! How could I forget?!
Had a walk down memory lane. My last visit to Killarney was in 2015. I arrived on Thursday 20 August at around 9:30 PM and stayed with friends at site 67 in Bear Alley. On Friday we hiked to and climbed The Crack and I shot lots of photos. We canoed lakes George and Freeland on Saturday. It turned windy and I felt out of my depth, getting spun around many times. We wanted to take some astrophotographs on Saturday night but the transparency (clarity) of the air was poor (I think there was a lot of smoke from forest fires). We broke camp on Sunday. Overall a great trip. And my perfect record of not capsizing was maintained!
Watched a YouTube video by Julie Bolduc-Duval on Teaching Astronomy Outdoors. She is very inspiring.
Blue skies everywhere after dinner. Opened the Kchi dome and slewed to the Moon. From my observing list, I noted the supernova 2022hrs in galaxy NGC 4647 beside Messier 60. I had tried yesterday but the Moon was too close. Tonight I could JUST make out the big Messier galaxy (while panning). The star chart confirmed I was on target. Fascinating considering the host galaxy is about 63 million light-years away but this exploding star is outshining that galaxy’s core. Into my eyeball!
Imaged the ISS pass. The first part… I ran into some trouble with the intervalometer. Dang. Loose connector. But then, the Rokinon lens fogged, in just a few minutes. I was surprised by that! The humidity was very high! Next time, I’ll have a dew heater on the lens! Anyway, I got some of it.
Viewed a few double stars before throwing in the towel.
Saturday we have another astronomy event planned: Learning the Sky. I’ll about paper solutions like the TESM and planipsheres (aka star finders), mobile device apps, and full computer applications. Then we’ll arc to Arcturus!
Using heavens-above.com I knew there was to be a bright flyover of the International Space Station. It would reach a maximum altitude of 87°, i.e. right overhead. It was start at azimuth or compass bearing 156° (SSE). It would reach a maximum brightness of magnitude -3.9.
Set up my DSLR with Rokinon fisheye 8mm lens on the tripod and attached an intervalometer. Aimed north-west. Programmed the intervalometer for 10 second exposures with a 3 second gap to run continuously.
This is one shot from that run.
Canon 40D, 8mm, 10 seconds, ISO 800, f/5.6, captured at 11:33 PM.
I did some “light painting” inside the Kchi Waasa Debaabing dome with a red flashlight pointing up. The glow at the top-left if the Moon trying to photo-bomb this shot.
Ha, ha, when I looked at my phone, it was 8:47 AM. Wondered why my 8:00 alarm had not gone off. ‘Cause it’s Saturday, silly. I’m losing track of the days. 🙂
Sunny, lots of blue sky. Maybe we would not get rain today after all?
Walked over to the park office and bought the last package of After Bite! While there I checked out the astro-stuff the Friends of Killarney store have for sale. Spotted a few books, including Nicole Mortillaro’s Almanac and the latest edition of the Backyard Astronomer’s Guide by Terry Dickinson and Alan Dyer. As I returned to the observatory, the black flies found me. Holy smokes, they’re gonna make me use up all my anti-itch stuff!
From the Dog House, I aggregated all the photos from the previous day including the attempt to image the flyover of the International Space Station. Then prepared a presentation slide deck for the evening. Considered logistics for how I’d talk to the audience and show the slides. Along with a live view of the Moon. Kate and Marisa checked in and we firmed up the evening plans.
Still sunny and clear. But I noted the fire-smoke notice on the Killarney Clear Sky Chart page. Dang. That time of year again. Smoke and air-borne particulates degrade the transparency of the sky.
After dinner, I spotted some clouds in the west. A bank of clouds over Huron I had been monitoring was almost upon us.
7:52 PM. I set up at the Kchi Waasa Debaabing SkyShed POD and waited for the Moon to rise. Meanwhile, thin clouds moved overhead.
9:00 PM. Started my presentation on learning our way around the sky. We provided everyone a copy of the excellent The Evening Sky Map and I explained how to read the chart. I talked about how learning the stars and constellations of the sky was like using driving directions and terrestrial maps to find our way on the ground.
As an example, we identified the bright stars of the Big Dipper (or The Plough for people in the United Kingdom). I pointed out, however, that is an asterism (group of stars). I showed a larger stick figure with a torso, head, nose, front and back legs, making up The Great Bear or Ursa Major, the popular constellation in Western culture though I prefer H.A. Rey’s stick figure of a polar bear. I then showed the borders defining the “territory” of the constellation, like a country or a province, and noted that was the official constellation designation, the international standard, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Then with Stellarium, I showed the same region of the sky according to different cultures. For example, the Ojibwa see The Great Fisher, the brave hero who brought summer to the land.
We had periodic looks at the Moon through the 16-inch with the DSLR camera. While nearly full, I pointed out the craggy craters and bumpy mountain ranges along the terminator line. The park visitors head back to camp.
Took some excellent questions from the park staff. We spotted a faint Moon halo, 22 degrees away from Luna. We identified Polaris using the Big Dipper. That’s finding north at night. And we enjoyed the bright flyover of the ISS, right on schedule.
At 11:05, Kate spotted a weird bright object low in the north, near Capella. It looked like a long white bar! I did not understand what we were seeing! A UFO?! It was slowly moving to the south-east. As I made notes of the date and time, Marisa and Kate examined it with their binoculars. I asked if it was in fact made up of individual points of light. Yes, they said, yes it was. I realised it was a recent launch of a gaggle of satellites, perhaps another batch for the Starlink internet constellation. In the binoculars, I saw about 40 objects. A couple of minutes later, they disappeared into the Earth’s shadow. Never see that before, the satellites so close together!
(Checked the SpaceFlightNow website: “SpaceX lofted another 53 internet relay stations at 4:40 p.m. EDT (2040 GMT) Saturday from Cape Canaveral.”)
I had one last look at my portable weather station. It showed 71% relative humidity and 14.1°C air temperature. The stack of extra paper sheets were soaked. Everything was covered in dew…
That’s all, folks.
A lunar eclipse is completely safe to view with your eyes, binoculars, and telescope (where a solar eclipse is dangerous and requires specialty filters).
Lunar eclipses are made possible by the perfect alignment of the Sun, Earth, and Moon–in that order. The Earth, in the middle, blocks some of the light reaching the Moon causing it to dim.
See if you can spot the Milky Way and many stars in the sky, normally not visible during a bright full Moon.
Lunar eclipses often are “colourful” events where the Earth’s atmosphere reddens some of the sunlight that reaches the Moon.
It’s easy to photograph a lunar eclipse with your DSLR camera. Use a zoom lens so the Moon is not too small. Use your tripod to keep the camera steady. Use the self-timer set for 2 or 10 seconds to reduce vibration from your hand. Start with a 1/100th of a second and go from there. As the light level changes through the lunar eclipse, you’ll want to check the exposures and adjust accordingly.
The Moon is approximately 359400 km from the Earth tonight. This is about the closest it gets to the Earth. That means it is a little bigger in the sky and a little brighter but that’s difficult to discern with just your eye. A close Moon can make for bigger tides too. This is all because the Moon’s orbit is an ellipse and not a perfect circle.
The Sun is 150 000 000 km away from the Earth.
This lunar eclipse might be a deeper red due to the Tonga volcano.
Foggy before sunrise. The air was cool. Cloudy when I woke. Today was The Big Day, the Total Lunar Eclipse.
Worked on the KPPO operational documentation some more. Learned about the focal reducers available for the Kchi telescopes. Then started to write up a separate guide on imaging with three sets of instructions for the three cameras. Had a Zoom meeting with Bruce to discuss framing. It did seem like the refractor would offer an attractive view for the lunar eclipse. Then I closed the dome in case of rain.
Processed a RASC Explore The Universe (ETU) certificate. The ETU program is open to the public to encourage learning about the sky and it offers a good sampling of celestial objects. On completing the program, the observer will receive a paper certificate and attractive metal lapel pin.
Dr Elaina Hyde shared the YouTube and Zoom links for the evening. The Allan I. Carswell Observatory (AICO) was going to start the total lunar eclipse footage livestream after 9:30pm. I predicted I’d be able to acquire the Moon around that time (although still in the trees).
8:45 PM. Kathleen and crew set up the projector and screen.
Hey, two balls! Cool. The team provided a volleyball and small squishy ball. I could do my alignment demonstration, showing the “syzygy” of the lunar eclipse. The blue volleyball would be the Earth. The yellow ball, about the size of a soft ball, would be the Moon. I crunched the numbers. They’d need to be about 3 metres apart for proper scaled distance (and the Sun, 1000 metres away!). Packed my white flashlight to serve as the Sun.
As our local park visitors arrived and settled in on the lawn, we joined the YorkU Zoom session and started sending down our live image of the Moon. That was a good thing as clouds covered the York University telescopes. We had patchy skies at the start.
Initially we were imaging through the Meade 16-inch but during a brief presentation, I moved the DSLR camera to the 130 mm refractor. Kathleen examined the view while I manually focused with the two-speed dials. Looked good. When the umbral phase began and the live view was too dark, we started shooting still images. I suggested to Kathleen exposure speeds and ISO values and she captured good photographs. We saw stars! In the sky, to the unaided, the Moon almost disappeared! Amazingly, our skies improved, the clouds dissipating, with more and more stars revealing themselves, one at a time. It was lovely. We reaped the benefits of being in a Dark Sky Preserve.
Canon 6D Mark II, Meade Series 6000 130mm ED apochromatic telescope, APT software, ISO 3200, f/7, 15 seconds.
The bright star up and left of the Moon is HR 5762, a magnitude 5.5 star in the constellation Libra.
We did it. Everything worked. We, the Killarney Provincial Park Observatory and YorkU crews, were all pretty happy and relieved. A big shout out to Kate and Marisa for wrangling our projection screen out in the open air in rather breezy conditions! We packed it in after midnight.
That was a stunning lunar eclipse!
P.S. Visit the Allan I. Carswell Observatory YouTube channel to watch past videos, including this one.
This is going way too fast…
Yesterday, during the eclipse show, a park visitor asked about the lunar eclipse cycle. I shared that I did not fully know the math or the patterns but that solar and lunar eclipses were interrelated and that long-period “Saros” cycles came into play. I offered to get my RASC Observer’s Handbook to read the essay but they declined.🙂
Today I read the entry in the 2022 edition. Briefly, there are “eclipse seasons” that occur two times in a year, each lasting approximately 32 days, due to the inclination or tilt of the Moon’s orbit. For 2022, they occur in Apr/May and Oct/Nov. They shift each year, backwards in the calendar, so it’s good to check a trusted resource (like RASC) for current information. Within a year, there can be between 4 and 7 eclipses, lunar and solar combined, within these two seasons.
The 2022 events:
Apr 30: partial solar eclipseMay 16: total lunar eclipse- Oct 25: partial solar eclipse
- Nov 8: total lunar eclipse
The Saros cycle, known from ancient times, is approximately 18 years and it says that the Earth will be nearly exactly in the same position in its orbit, the same distance from the Sun, and with the same latitude region will be exposed to an eclipse.
See page 122 for the essay Eclipse Patterns by Roy Bishop.
Or see the Eclipse Wise website listing for 2022 events.
Cool and overcast today. During breakfast, I watched them unload a wood delivery from a flatbed.
10:44 AM. Allendria sent me my proof copy for the next SkyNews, Canada’s astronomy magazine. I reviewed it and submitted the required revisions.
The weekly e-newsletter from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada came out. I noted the Haudenosaunee Astronomy Webinar offered by the Six Nations Polytechnic. I’ll try to register so to learn more about indigenous astronomy.
In addition to the lunar and solar eclipse patterns and Saros cycles, I read about the designations for Dark-Sky Preserves, Urban Star Parks, and Nocturnal Preserves. Killarney PP is a Dark-Sky Preserve, of course.
While at the park office, I chatted with some visitors about astronomy.
While examining Google Maps, I noticed there are a bunch of streets in Sudbury with celestial names, e.g. Galaxy Court, Crater Crescent, Moonrock Ave.
Met with Kathleen in the afternoon and we planned out the activities for the week. Weather’s not looking great, according to Environment Canada but we’ll try!
- Wednesday, day-time, 1-3 PM drop-in, solar observing, with a rain date of Thu
- Saturday night “tour of the night sky”, 1 hour plus Q&A
- Sunday, day-time, 1-3 PM drop-in, Ask-Me-Anything (AMA), telescopes and mounts
I also showed her a couple of prediction tools we could share with park visitors. The Space Weather Prediction Center by NOAA (NASA) in the US has an Enthusiasts Dashboard that can help determine if aurora borealis (northern lights) may be visible. And the Heavens Above website is good for planning for flyovers of the International Space Station (or identifying mysterious moving objects!). Sent her the links and she’s going to arrange to print and post in the “astronomy booth” in the park office.
Stumbled across an Ojibwe Sky Star Map sheet, a nice colour print out, prepared by Annette S. Lee. It will help me better learn some of their sky stories.
Silly me. I forgot to do this before. I created a sky alert for the Killarney Provincial Park Observatory. Of course, astronomers rely on the Clear Sky Charts created by Attilla Danko using Allan Rahill’s astronomy data from Env Can. But I also have alarms configured using Mark Casazza’s Clear Sky Alarm Clock. If good conditions are coming down the pipe (per my parameters), I will receive an email.
New parts of my body are itching. Darn blackflies!
It looked like clear skies as the Earth turned away from the Sun tonight but it was very windy, gusting at times. Shifting from the north-west. Temperature dropping. It was too windy for the big ‘scope, unfortunately. That said, I was tired. So I took it easy, caught up with friends.
Set up for another flyover of the International Space Station. Max altitude 75°, starting at 150° (SSE), max magnitude -3.8.
As before, put my Canon camera atop my sturdy Mamiya tripod. This time, I put a bit of tension on the intervalometer cable to ensure the connector wouldn’t wiggle loose–it worked! Also, I attached a dew heating strap to the lens to prevent dew from forming–it worked too!
Took over 2 dozen shots, kept about 20, Combined them in StarStaX. And then did some magic in Photoshop.
Canon 40D, Rokinon 8mm, Neewer intervalometer, 10 seconds (each frame), 20 subs, ISO 200, f/5.6, post in StarStaX and Photoshop.
Pleased I captured the whole pass, though the camera was aimed a little low.
At any given moment, there are a number of stars in the universe which are exploding in a rather cataclysmic way. Just visit the Bright Supernova webpage by the Rochester Academy of Sciences.
I had heard about the SN near galaxy Messier 60 so I put it on my list of things to image. Tonight with the clear skies before moonrise, I ramped up to collect some data. I was able to acquire the target as the twilight sky darkened and shoot a number of short sub-exposures. Finished the run around 10:45 PM.
Canon 6D Mark II (unmodified), Meade 16-inch ACF LX600, f/8, 10 seconds, 34 sub-exposures, ISO 12800. Stacked with Sequator. Some post-processing in Photoshop.
The supernova is marked with the 2 yellow lines. It is very obvious. The designation is 2022hrs.
Also obvious in the image, down and left of the SN, is the extremely bright core of the elliptical galaxy Messier 60 in constellation Virgo. This galaxy has a published distance of 70.0 million light-years.
Now up and right of the SN is a faint spiral galaxy. Can you make out its spiral arms? This is NGC 4647 from the New General Catalogue. Together, M60 and NGC 4647 are also referred to as Arp 116 from Halton Arp’s collection of unusual galaxies. My trusty SkyTools does not show a distance but The Amazing Wikipedia says around 63 million light-years. So that means, it is in the foreground, or closer than M60.
SN 2022hrs is thought to be inside NGC 4647. The rather amazing thing about this, which you can plainly see, is that a tiny individual star (or binary system), exploding and releasing extraordinary energy, is currently outshining the core of its host galaxy! That’s bright. Really bright. If a supernova went off in our galaxy, we’d probably be able to see it in the day-time!
This supernova is classified as a Type Ia (Roman numeral one-A). Because this class of SN produces a fairly consistent light curve as it brightens and fades away, we can use it as a standard for measuring distance. This means we will be able to refine our distance calculation for the host galaxy. Type Ia supernovae are very helpful for astronomers learning the vast distances that galaxies are from us here on Earth.
OK. Let’s try to estimate the effective brightness at the time of the image run. Conveniently, there is the pair of stars up and left, at a 45 degree angle, and the lower one is about the same intensity. SkyTools says that the star is TYC 00878-0293 1 and it shines at magnitude 11.85. There’s the triangle of stars below M60 and the upper star is GSC 00878-0222. It’s mag 12.24 but unfortunately the data quality for GSC stars is not great. The triangle at the bottom-right of the image has the bright star TYC 00878-0286 1 at mag 11.48 but the SN is not as bright as that one. So, briefly, I believe we can say that SN 2022hrs is around magnitude 12. What do you think?
Finally, if you look very closely in the image, you’ll find more galaxies. Once again, beside the right-angle triangle of stars below M60, there’s a faint fuzzy canted elongated patch of light. That’s galaxy LEDA 1394064. At the bottom-right of the image is the obvious bright galaxy NGC 4638. Look again. Just left of it is an elongated horizontally-oriented fuzzy: NGC 4637.
That was fun!
We ran our solar observing drop-in session today. Lots of visitors, young and old. Lots of great questions.
We used the Meade 10-inch SCT in the Waasa Debaabing observatory with a Kendrick full-spectrum white light visual solar filter. Great view of the Sun.
Captured with a Canon 40D at 11:04 AM, ISO 100, 1/500th of a second. The large group at the top is the Active Region 3014. The two smaller spots below is AR 3015. Bottom-right is AR 2010 and finally bottom-south is region 3016.
Out of frame I saw Active Region 3007.
Busy place. Hopefully we’re get some aurora soon…
Two young lads helped do some safe solar projection with some old (small) binoculars. Science!
Why can I never remember how long it takes the Sun to rotate?!
It’s around 27 days.
My favourite question was: Why is the Sun not yellow?
Woke to the sound of rain. Amazingly, this is the first rain I have encountered at Killarney. And it looks like I’m in for a couple more days of it. Which will make everything all the more green, when the Sun returns.
Well, it’ll give me time to catch up!
Informed Elaina and Bruce of my Tips and Tricks documentation for the future AIR people. Noted on all my little discoveries and suggestions. We briefly discussed plans for shooting some video. I’ll bungee-cord my smartphone to my tripod again!
Received a message from the RASC national office. The June 2022 Journal is available for members to download. In my Binary Universe column, I reviewed the latest version of FITS Liberator, the 4th edition, with many welcome improvements. I look forward to reading Alister Ling’s article on De-rotating and De-trailing Tripod Shots. There’s also a book review of Vera Rubin by Mitton and Mitton. Sounds quite interesting. Another intriguing issue, if I may be so bold.
I needed some supplies so I headed to Sudbury. During one of my excursions, I drove past Science North, the big snowflakes perched on the dark rocky outcrops. I’ll have to coordinate a visit if I return…
Did some Stellarium Training Series wrangling. Two courses ran tonight: a level 1 in the Mountain time zone; and a level 2 in Eastern.
Received an automated email from Telescopius with some interesting suggestions for celestial targets, as the sky darkens over the coming days. Hmmm.
At 6 PM, I joined the Six Nations Polytechnic’s Haudenosaunee Astronomy Webinar facilitated by Tom Deer. Three hours long! Lots of good learning and knowledge exchange. With another session next week. I was grateful for the invitation.
Wow. Today went by super-fast.
Holy smokes, it’s Friday already! (And the beginning of The Big Weekend.)
Realised I should add a slide at the end of my Tour of the Night slide presentation about the RASC Explorer the Universe program. It’s open to the public. Anyone can do it! Tomorrow evening I will delivery this presentation.
Had a proper Blake’s Breakfast Sandwich with peameal bacon! Yum.
Chatted with my sis. She asked if I’ve seen any porcupines! Gosh, no. I told her about the bats and the moths. She loves bats.
The rain’s picked up. It’s a good day for a duck. Checked the Clear Sky Chart for Killarney. Oh dear.
Considered how to stack my supernova images. I checked the Dell laptop for Deep Sky Stacker. I used that before so was ready to try it. Bruce recommended Sequator. I’ve also used it but only once or twice. OK. The good news? Sequator accepts CR2 files directly! The spiral arms in NGC 4647 were visible. That was impressive with such short subs, and no flats, and no darks!
Tested the batteries in the various finders. Put red film on some of the extremely bright LEDs in the Kchi observatory.
It turned fair, stopped raining. I entertained the idea of getting on the bicycle, finally. But then I had to head into a meeting. Elaina and I caught up.
Dinner time: Mexican night! Ola!
Updated images recently captured and began uploading them.
At 6:55 PM, I heard thunder. The lights flickered in a brief brown out. Three minutes later? They stayed out. And I heard a gennie fire up…
Oh. I missed the weather alert, the severe thunderstorm watch, from earlier in the day.
“Conditions are favourable for the development of severe thunderstorms that may be capable of producing strong wind gusts and large hail… A tornado or two is possible.” That can be a little unnerving when you’re in a tent.
I read a few more pages in my book. Played a phone game but then put it to sleep to save power. Put my laptop into Hibernate mode. Then lay down on the couch…
Flickering lights, clicking, beeping pulled me out of my slumber at 9:20 PM.
Kinda time to wind down anyway…
P. S. Heard from Trevor. He’s been camping and then busy at work. He asked me if I had seen any bears. As a matter of fact…
Popped into the park office to grab a map. In case I got lost on my bike-about.
Hey! That’s me!
Up early. Ugh. Made extra coffee.
Finished the revisions to the 16-inch telescope operator’s manual! It’s in pretty good shape. Finished the text overhaul of the 10-inch user manual. Next step: add the images back in.
Started collecting all the official user manuals for the telescopes, mounts, accessories, cameras, software, etc. For the operator library.
Looked like it wasn’t going to rain so I hopped on the bike. It felt SOOO good. I do believe it was the first official bike ride of the season. Didn’t have a heart attack, didn’t get off the bike on the hills, didn’t have a diverging fall, didn’t experience a fast leak in the front tire, and went fast enough to outrun the blackflies.
I checked out the park’s amphitheatre, Yurts area, small Nature Centre building, and Trout Creek section. I paused at the scenic La Cloche Silhouette trail head. Ah, the smell of campfires. Experienced flashbacks when I arrived at Bear Alley. I remembered the steep roads, walking along them at night without a flashlight, site 67 and where I set up my tent, and spending an afternoon at Second Beach.
Dinner? It’s Vindaloo night!
About an hour before show time, I heard Kate setting up in the observatory grounds. I decided to deliver my presentation at the front, beside the projector, with my laptop directly connected. I wanted them to see me, and me them. More intimate.
I did a redux of my Tour of the Night Sky. Virtual tour as we were clouded out once again. Actually, the deck was updated with our recent supernova and lunar eclipse images! And I added a slide encouraging people to try for the RASC Explore the Universe certificate. Any one can do it. The presentation seemed to go well, with the biggest crowd yet. Haven’t used my remote presenter device for a while–handy as I had gloves on.
Some intriguing questions at the end such as “Can aurora happen at any time?” Yes, but it depends on the Sun! Showed some of the monitoring sites I watch and suggested trying a smartphone app.
I apologised that my science team has not perfected the cloud filter. Alas.
Tomorrow: it’s Ask Me Anything.
Still raining. Hopefully it would clear up for the afternoon, during the planned the Ask Me Anything event. Slept till 9:00 AM and the rain stopped an hour later.
Headed to the Killarney Provincial Park Observatory domes and tidied up.
Had a good look at the huge planisphere by Celestial Teapot Designs. It’s twice the diameter of any that I have! I noticed that meteor showers are indicated on the date dial, that’s unique. And it looked like every Messier object is shown, marked in blue.
After lunch, I marked the close positions on both observations. Takes some of the guesswork out of turning the dome before closing the clamshell.
Marisa arrived in advance of our session. I noted her astro-themed backpack! She said the Subaru provided a bunch of gear to the park staff. I explained the significance of the logo.
Around 1:30, as I was reviewing email and text messages, the Kchi Uninterruptible Power Supply started squawking. Oh oh. And power went out. Immediately, the maintenance area generators fired up. Unplugged my laptop to not burden the UPS and saved my files.
Received visitor Christine during the Ask Me Anything.
We talked about dark sky preserves like Killarney. They themselves use appropriate lighting within the park. They reach out to the local towns and cities about their light management plans. And they educate all on the importance of reducing light at night.
We discussed meteor showers at length. I consulted the reminder items in my phone calendar. The only major active one at the moment was the eta Aquarids. It peaked back on May 5, would conclude on the 28th, could produce 65 per hour, and was from debris left behind Halley’s comet. One didn’t need to necessarily look directly at the constellation; I recommended just looking at the whole sky, perhaps from a reclining chair. The Perseids runs 17 Jul to 24 Aug, should peak on 12 Aug could produce 100 per hour. From Comet 109P/Swift–Tuttle. The best meteor showers though were in the winter! Why not organise a party with friends?!
I mentioned both the American and International meteor organisations:
Finally, we talked about winter camping in a Yurt so to enjoy long winter nights. I gave her a copy of The Evening Sky Map and encouraged her to dust off her telescope
Marisa herself asked a bunch of questions.
What is a UPS? We used one in each observatory to keep the telescopes going in the event of a power failure and to allow a graceful shutdown. Handy.
Are there motors in a telescope mount? There could be. Our use them. The 10-inch telescope rides on a Losmandy G-11 mount which has one motor, called a “clock drive.” It essentially operates like a 24-hour clock, turning the telescope to rotate the opposite direction as the Earth turns. The 16-inch ‘scope on the other hand had two motors, one to counter-act the Earth’s rotation, and the other for up and down motion. They can also be commanded to drive at fast rates as it is a Go-To mount.
We wrapped another day-time astronomy event.
Finally, I found a spot for the USB hub on the 16-inch ‘scope so I affixed it with self-adhesive Velcro patches. Tidied the cables again. Very neat.
3:39 PM. I heard the big generator shut down. Woo hoo, power’s back! Charged up computers and phones! Caught up on messages, including a text from my cousin in Michigan.
Closed up shop and considered dinner. How about bammed spaghetti? Yes!
I examined all the weather tools and it looked like it was going to clear after midnight. That’s hard-core but I thought let’s take advantage. I considered an imaging run of the Milky Way, tracked with my home-made barn door tracker but wimped out. Instead, I opted for a simpler star trails imaging run, facing south-east. From 1 AM to 3 AM, it would be clear and without any moonlight. OK. Prepared a packing list and reviewed my astronomy blog for exposure details.
Weird. The clouds predicted by all the tools from 8 PM to midnight did not show up. So I headed out at 11 PM to did some visual astronomy.
I used star hopping techniques to view galaxies NGC 5371 (aka NGC 5390), NGC 5350, NGC 5354, and NGC 5353. The later 3 faint fuzzies are part of the Hickson 68 galaxy cluster in Canes Venatici. Some of these are targets in the RASC Deep Sky Gems observing certificate program. And before I knew it, it was approaching 1 AM.
Set up my DSLR on the tripod with fisheye lens set to f/5.6. Secured the intervalometer. And started shooting 35 second exposures with a 5 second gap. Number of shots? Infinity. Headed to bed and set an alarm for 3 AM. Nightie night!
Imaged the sky turning. Rather, the Earth turning below the sky! In a moonless sky.
Captured Sunday night or technically early Monday morning.
Canon 40D, Rokinon 8mm fisheye at f/5.6, ISO 1600, daylight white balance, 35 second exposures, 5 second gap, 202 shots captured with Neewer intervalometer, from 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM. Converted from RAW to TIFF with Photoshop. Combined with StarStaX, gap-fill mode.
Those are true star colours. Lyra with white Vega in the middle. Scorpius and orange Antares at the right.
Note the meteor down in the trees. How many little sporadic meteors can you see?
There’s a “tumbler” satellite at the top-left. Or a plane?
Forgot, again, to shoot darks! Sorry for the hot pixels.
Click the thumbnail image in the gallery for a full-size version and dive in…
You know you’re in a dark park when the trees go black.
Happy Turtle Day to you and yours. The world needs more turtles!
8 AM. Simple breakfast.
Heard a weird sound. Went outside. Silly woodpeckers. Territorial sapsuckers. They were pecking at the steel roofs of the buildings in the staff area. Their special woodpecker Morse code. Are you bonkers? The roof, like a big drum, amplifies the sound and…
Wait a second! Smart woodpeckers!
Missed Tony’s text message from yesterday evening. They enjoyed glorious conditions on the Blue Mountains. I shared the news about the excellent skies.
Met with Kathleen and staring, once again, at the weather data from Environment Canada, we planned astronomy activities for the week.
- Tue night – tour of the night sky with hopefully live views
- Fri night – getting started with astrophotography
- Sat day – solar viewing
Learned some of the fascinating history of the area.
Transcribed my audio notes from last night’s visual observing. Informed the president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada that I will speak on behalf of the national Observing Committee during the General Assembly in late June. Took some questions from a RASC member about to embark on the Explore The Moon observing certificate program. Finished the major edits to the 10-inch telescope operational manual.
Prepared a large Caesar salad with back bacon! Tasty.
At dusk, I locked up the SkyShed POD. Clouds tonight, sadly. Walking back from the dome, I passed closely to the bat boxes. I could hear lots of scratchin’ and squeakin’. Go get those bugs!
Woke early. My sleep shifting is definitely not working. Observed some wispy clouds but it was trying to be sunny. The windsock was down: zero knots.
Discovered a message in my inbox from the night before. Missed it. A RASC member was looking for some technical support with TheSkyX and a Paramount MyT. Sounded like a cabling problem. “It’s always the wire.” I looped in others to see if someone had more ideas.
8:03 AM. Our woodpecker friend is back. Sending signals again. Was able to get a fuzzy photo of the little rascal.
… . -. -.. / — — .-. . / … .- .–.
Worked on a target list for the evening. Some Messiers, a couple of unusual things, a double star of course, a few combo unaided eye-telescope things. Made up a worksheet for the telescope operator.
Weird. The Clear Sky Chart for Killarney had not updated. It’s a couple of days old now. Astrospheric is working fortunately. Looks good according to Environment Canada.
I looked up the evening’s best flyover of the International Space Station. And who’s on board right now: Korsakov, Artemyev, Matveev from Roscosmos; Lindgren, Hines, and Watkins from NASA; Cristoforetti from ESA; and crash test dummy Rosie the Rocketeer from Boeing. It is very interesting that there are many spacecraft docked to ISS: the brand new Boeing Starliner; SpaceX Dragon; and a couple of Soyuz.
Did a bunch of prep at the dome! For the show for the park visitors as well as my next wide-field imaging run.
Had a go at trying to fix the finder scope illuminator on the 10-inch telescope but it uses some peculiar coin batteries which I don’t have.
Received a confirmation that I’m on the docket for a presentation at the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada General Assembly. I’ll talk about how amateur astronomers can perform citizen science on double stars, contributing to our body of knowledge on star formation and stellar distances.
Brianna sent me a YouTube link on an interesting piece on time. I look forward to viewing it. We like these brain benders.
3:29 PM. Started received Clear Sky Alarm Clock alerts for some of my other favourite observing sites around the province. A good sign, in general.
Updated the imaging document with some information on the Fire Capture software.
Dinner: pork chops with a secret recipe rub.
I thought the skies were improving. Yeh! Wispy clouds kill galaxies.
Huh. Tried to find it but the old NRC magnetic declination calculator is gone! Used a different web site instead. It’s roughly -9.5°. Note the negative, meaning west (magnetic declination).
At 9:30 PM, we ran another Tour of the Night Sky. But this time, without clouds! And it was a fantastic event!
Apologised for the lack of planets. But for the early morning people, I encouraged them to check out the very nice grouping before dawn, over the next couple of days with the Moon passing Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. Showed a simulated view in Stellarium Mobile Plus.
We shared live views and photographs from the telescope. Sky was bright at the start but we viewed Arcturus with our eyes and on the camera. Then we checked out the neat double star system in Ursa Major: Mizar, Alcor, Mizar A and B. We ruminated on the exosolar system Muscida, a naked-eye star with known exoplanets. Messier 53, a globular cluster, looked wonderful with a long exposure. The Owl Nebula was green! A very interesting planetary nebula. Finally, we enjoyed the Black Eye Galaxy with its curious dark features. We found the North Star aka Polaris using the Big Dipper. We tagged the constellations Leo, Ursa Major, Lyra, Cygnus, and Corvus. And that Big Dipper also marks the location of The Fischer Hero. Kathleen flew the 16 aided by Kate. Everything worked and I was very pleased with how things looked. Oh, and we saw the ISS flyover.
Whew!
Fun!
While reviewing the Space Weather Enthusiasts Dashboard at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, I noted that the kp-index numbers are climbing to 4. This starts at 1800h UTC on 26 May and continues to 27 May 0900h UTC. If I’m doing my math right, we add 4 hours to those times. Therefore, look north starting 10:00 PM Thu 26 May. If there are no clouds, you might see a glow or spires off above the northern horizon. If not sure you’re seeing aurora, shoot with your tripod-mounted camera a 15 or 30 second exposure and look for green.
And then, over at SpaceWeather.com I saw a note about possible noctilucent clouds. So watch for those before dawn or after sunset.
Early breakfast on this grey day. I deserved two cinnamon buns today. Hrmph.
Retrieved my camera and park laptop from the dome. Pulled the images Kathleen captured last night, cleaned them up, and uploaded them (I was told they won’t appear until the weekend, sorry!).
Pulled the photos from my DSLR. Sadly, only 12 subs for the Milky Way. I have a balance issue to sort out with my barn door tracker. The individual shots look OK. Maybe I’ll have another go at one of those. At least I got darks this time!
Visited the Friends of Killarney Store again. Noted another astronomy Almanac on the shelves. This one has charts by my favourite cartographer, Mr Tirion.
Spotted the Dakota-Lakota star finder by Annette Lee. It’s a very nice design with wonderful artwork. The sales person asked where the Moose was. I turned the wheel to late summer. Voila.
And I stumbled across some astronomy-these postcards by Bill Gardner. Nice.
Treated myself to a nice hoodie with a Moose and a Moon!
Made a short movie of my images used for the star trails. Lovely motion of the stars and Milky Way rising in the east. Elaina reported that unfortunately the MPEG file will not display from the normal image folder. She’ll have to make it available by other means. So, again, sorry, you’ll have to wait a bit for that too.
While looking for my old presentations on getting started in astrophotography, I found the slide deck I had prepared for the recreational camping talk I did for Mountain Equipment Co-op. Forgot all about that. Strangely topical.
Hopped into the York U Wednesday Night astronomy show. Speaker Alex Innanen talked enthusiastically about clouds on Mars. After the live web cast, in the Zoom backstage, I showed my video from inside the Kchi dome. Couldn’t open the observatory for the team as it was raining.
So, all in all, a very quiet day. Good for me to recharge.
I almost forgot. Happy Towel Day!
I’m still disappointed my barn door tracker didn’t work for me. But I decided to take a single frame from the Milky Way tracked run, and have a go in Photoshop. It’s hard to tell on this white background but it looks decent (you really want to view the large version full screen). I think I can even see oxygen air glow!
Canon 40D, Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/5.6, lens heated, manually focused, ISO 800, 210 seconds, tracked with custom barn door mount, various minor enhancements in Photoshop, a single dark frame removed.
Slept till 8. Wow. Blake NcMuffin breakfast.
Received today’s invite for the Haudenosaunee Astronomy Webinar. Somehow I missed the first one but I’ll watch for the recording.
Raining. A little windy. Foggy. Heavy rain at times. Environment Canada showed rain all day and into Friday morning. Friday night, cloudy periods. Today was a good day for a duck, beaver, otter, frog, and a fish.
I queued up some Miles Davis then decided to have a go at freshening my “Getting Started in Astrophotography” presentation. For raw beginners and up. Made a new version in Google Docs and asked the park to print up some double-sided copies for me.
Holy nut butter! The sky brightened up. Didn’t realise how dark it was before. It was clearing up. Woo hoo. Let’s do stuff outside! Aired out both of the domes.
Headed to the park office. Forgot to buy something at the Friends store yesterday. When I bumped into Kathleen on trail! Funny. She was looking for me to talk about the next couple of days. I was gonna ask, at the store, if she was in her office. We had a walking meeting along the green path. Could get used to meetings like this.
Returned to the store and bought badges! Apropos that I have “I Stargazed” at Killarney badge, don’t ya think?
Back at the observatory, I set up to shoot some video. Ugh. The mozzies were out so I powered up the DEET deflector shields. Strapped my smartphone to my camera tripod with a bungee cord. Hey. It works.
I made 7 little instructional video clips for the 10-inch observatory. Uploaded them from within the Dog House and let the team know they could check them out soon. Bruce said “right on target.” Good. I was hoping.
While my little laptop pushed data up to Google, I had a look at the light panel. It seemed to work fine. On-off control with about 8 brightness levels. For when people want to shoot flats.
Low carb dinner and then wound down.
Surprised by the 8 AM alarm today. TGIF.
Reviewed my weather and sky resources. The Aviation Weather Center showed winds pushing from the SW, gradually clearing. The Clear Sky Chart was not updating even after clearing the cache. Env Can said mainly cloudy tonight, hiss; clear Sat, meow. Astrospheric said it wouldn’t clear tonight until 11.
I noted a good ISS flyover at 10 PM. If clear, we could photograph that. The NOAA space weather page showed kp-index values of 4 in our early evening and through the night. If clear, if we saw a glow in the north, we could photograph that.
Headed to the Kchi observatory and shot a bunch of videos to augment the written guides.
Then trundled to the maintenance building hoping I could borrow some tools. They graciously let me use their cordless drill, a large bit, and a spanner. I modified my barn door tracker, moving the camera mount closer to the curved rod. Hopefully this will improve the balance.
12:59 PM. I was ready to upload the videos so I set up my laptop in the observatory, connected to the hard line, and pushed the MPEG files to Google. It predicted it would take over 2 hours for the 19 files. OK. I can take lunch now.
Headed to Killarney and enjoyed a classic fish-and-chips meal at Herbert Fisheries. Yum. Walked down the street to the Gateway Restaurant. Busy, lots of people at the picnic tables by the channel. I bought some treats! Had a laugh on seeing a photograph of Ron Swanson in the restaurant.
Back at camp, I heard a loon. Not the first time: a couple of days ago I heard one.
Around 2:30, I returned to the dome. Holy Universe! Google said it needed another 2 hours for the remaining 10 files. The original estimate was off by half! Ah, it ain’t internet by fibre optic here.
Did more tidying up. Made more labels. Dried out some electronics. Put silica packs in cases with sensitive equipment.
4:12 PM. Had a quick meeting with Marisa about the “Getting Started in Astrophotography.” We lamented that it was going to be cloudy.
Ah ha! I learned why the Clear Sky Charts were not updating… The Ottawa region was still recovering from the big storm about a week ago with hydro only being restored now… Mr Danko reported: “POWER FAILURE: A power failure has shutdown main chart-updating computers. So chart updates may be delayed or limited to one per day depending how I can scrounge generators, gasoline, and internet access…”
Checked the Clear Outside weather resource. It too showed clouds to midnight or 1:00 AM.
6:03 PM. The upload finished, at last.
Light low-carb dinner again. My last pork chop.
Set up about 30 minutes before show time. The blackflies were bad tonight. Forced me to fetch my bug jacket.
10:26 PM. We concluded our presentation. Clouded out again, sadly. Lots of good questions though. I showed classic shooting with my Canon 40D camera on a tripod. Or smartphone held to tripod with a bungee cord. Or smartphone on deck railing. Showed an inexpensive intervalometer for remote control. Then tracking the sky, in this case with my home-made barn door tracker. I showed through-the-telescope imaging, using the Meade 16-inch and Canon 6D as a sample. That’s a big lens! I also showed the rather sophisticated features on my motorola e6 smartphone camera, including a full manual mode, and the ability to save files in RAW format.
Another day done.
It’s National Hamburger Day!
As predicted, the clouds were leaving. It was clearing. So I readied to do some wide-field imaging.
As I set up my barn door tracker, DSLR camera, intervalometer, and dew heating system for another Milky Way series, I noticed a glow in the north. Could it be?
OK, OK. Turned the camera to the north and took a quick shot. Yep! There ya go. Green. Tried a couple more shots as spires, over 20 degrees tall, easily visible to the naked eye, danced to and fro.
Canon 40D, Rokinon 8mm, f/5.6, ISO 1600, 30 seconds, tripod, manually focused.
(High-rez photo uploaded to the gallery but unfortunately I don’t know when it will be synced.)
More technical issues with my home-made barn door tracker. But at least I got a better shot of the Milky Way. Exposed longer but still not enough! The histogram is still clipped.
Canon 40D, Rokinon 8mm, lens heated, f/5.6, ISO 800, 240 seconds, tripod, tracked, manually focused, dark frame applied.
(High-rez photo uploaded to the gallery but unfortunately I don’t know when it will be synced.)
The final full day…
Did a bit of pre-packing. Loaded non-essentials or used/done items into the car. No astronomy activities planned tonight so that gear could be stowed.
Checked SpaceWeather.com for the state of our star today. Active Region 3023 is a big one. A double?
Inspected the 16-inch dome after removing all my stuff. Put various park gear items in the astro-closet. Opened the 10-inch dome in advance of solar observing. Moved my eyepiece case over there. Grabbed the old park bins (for projection experiments). Took at least one blackfly bite. I think I saw a Grey Catbird!?
Touched based with Chuck Allen of the Astronomical League in Kentucky. We want to chat in detail about our respective observing certificate programs…
Bumped into Kate. She thanked me for all my efforts. I’m grateful for all her support.
Almost lost my Ontario Volunteer Service Award pin. Dang.
12:45 PM. Spotted Harrison, my helper for solar observing. I had him serve as a model for some operational shots of the Losmandy mount.
We enjoyed a good view of the Sun. I had no trouble with the dual spot group AR 3023 at our 4 o’clock position and AR 3024, a single, at the 5 o’clock.
While we waited for park visitors, we talked about astronomy history. Hans Lippershey invented the magnifying instrument, initially for a military application, which Galileo later turned to the night sky. Had my dates wrong at first; that was in the early 1600s. Then Newton and others made ‘scopes with mirrors. In the mid-1900s, Mr Schmidt made his camera lens. A compound design with lens and mirrors. This led to the three common telescope types today.
We received our first visitor. She said, “Tell me everything.” Where to start! Not my job; just a hobby. Self-taught. Voracious reader. She was a raw beginner so I recommended NightWatch by Dickinson. Showed her the Sun in the ‘scope but unfortunately the contrast was degraded because of the wispy clouds. Hold the phone… In those wispy, ice-cold clouds, we spotted parhelia, a beautiful full 22 degree ring, very colourful. Gave her The Evening Sky Map and Getting Started in Astrophotography handouts.
A full family came through and the two little boys immediately ran into the dome and started pulling on the eyepiece – yikes! I dashed into the dome and got everyone settled down. The view was getting soft but I think they all enjoyed looking at the Sun.
I had Harrison shut down the ‘scope and close up the dome. He thanked me; I thanked him!
Put the solar filter and bins away.
And that’s it! My last program was completed.
Looking cloudy so tonight I’ll relax.
At 10:04 AM, having turned in the keys to the observatory, I left the park office of Killarney Provincial Park. A little sad, a little homesick, a little itchy. I would return to noisy neighbours, lots of cars, big box plazas, ground pollution, air pollution, and light pollution.
Thanks for having me. Thanks for following along. Hope you enjoyed the show.
Blake’s photos as an Astronomer in Residence:
Week 2, May 2022:
Week 3, May 2022:
Week 4, May 2022:
