Telescope Assembly

By midday I had managed to assemble the telescope - run power to it from the external socket and drop the two extra long USB cables down from the terrace where the telescope is located and through the front window where my laptop is located - next to the fireplace where I have a roaring log fire in the evenings. I was about to go to the supermarket but my neighbours dropped in and I gather everything is closed today due to it being a public holiday (3 Kings).  Good job the freezer is well stocked.

 I was able to assemble the telescope in some warmth - a really nice day with clear sky and hot sun. The time is now 12:06 GMT and already the sun is at the back of the house about 15 degrees or so above the mountain ridge to the rear.The sun will disappear in an hour or so from the terrace which will be in shadow and a lot cooler - always best to set as much up as possible in the morning for that reason.

The next step is to polar align the telescope again - using the polar alignment technique I described previously. The camera is attached to the telescope - it had been to the UK and back in my hand luggage (I am surprised how easily it is accepted at airport security - it looks rather like a land mine!) without being used once as I did not manage to get the right combination of clear skies and an unfrozen dome to be able to use it on my C14. The lift off door to the dome was frozen solidly to the dome when a few clear nights did occur but I could not remove it - it had a "weld" of ice running down both sides where it contacted the dome and I could just not prise it off at -15 degrees or so.  I did get in when there was a thaw and set the camera up but there were no clear nights at all so zero images from the UK over Christmas and back to the hand luggage for the camera.

On 3rd December I took an image of M33 from Spain and on the 17th December a Japanese astronomer found a Nova in M33 which was not present in my image. See below:

The image on the right is the discovery image by T. Yusa  and the arrow shows the location of the Nova.  The image on the left is one that I took 2 weeks earlier from Cabrera where the Nova is not visible. I will try to get another image when my telescope is properly set up.

The sky was clear in the evening and I set up the telescope by first realigning the finder scope which must have been knocked out of position. I did this by centering Betelgeuse in the main scope using an eyepiece and then adjusting the finder to put Betelgeuse on the cross hairs.  I then went through the CGEM 2 star alignment process with the camera back in place. The telescope was clearly out of alignment but I did manage to locate the 2 stars in the finder. I then went through the standard drift method of polar alignment. It is fairly easy on the CGEM with its handy adjustments on both axes.

A star was located near the meridian slightly above the celestial equator. If the star drifted south I moved the telescope to the west and if it drifted to the north I adjusted it to the east. This was carried out until the star did not drift for about 10 minutes. I then located a star near the eastern horizon. If it drifted to the south I increased the angle of the polar axis - if it drifted to the north I reduced the angle of the polar axis. This was carried out until the star did not drift for about 10 minutes.

I then repeated the operation with a star near the meridian again and repeated the process until the star did not drift.

It began to get cloudy so I abandoned operations but with a polar aligned scope.

Return to Rivendell

It is 23:33 GMT and I have arrived back in Spain at Cabrera ( which reminds me of Rivendell in Lord of the Rings for some reason) but have not yet set up the telescope as I decided to wait until I was less tired – not wanting to make any mistakes! Of course that means that the sky is completely clear with brilliant stars and probably has supernovae popping up all over the sky to be discovered by others. From my previous experience it will take a few days to set up the telescope and get the tracking and pointing accuracy that is essential for supernovae searching. I gave a talk last night about SN to the Bolton Astronomical  Society with a few technical issues but otherwise went OK . The sky tonight has no cloud and the only lights are the two walkway lamps which I did not bother to extinguish with my hat technique and the street and house lights from the plain 1000 ft below which do cause a small glow but not significant. Sirius is brilliant to the east of Orion. At the meeting last night we discussed the likelihood of Betelgeuse becoming a supernova as this is regarded as a possibility but it is still there tonight. Strangely when I got home from the meeting last night I watched part of the BBC Stargazing Live astronomy programme that I had recorded and they were discussing the very same possibility !  

Setting up the CGEM 12" telescope without backstrain.

On Sunday 5^th December strong winds developed in the later evening with powerful gusts that threatened to blow the entire telescope over. I nervously watched the telescope being hit by these gusts for several hours.  This resulted in me removing the OTA from the mount at 3.30 a.m. local time early on Monday morning as I really needed some sleep!  I removed the OTA together with the camera/focus assembly in its entirety and brought it indoors. The strong winds continued through Monday and again no imaging was possible the next night. 

 It was partially cloudy on the Monday night but there was a fantastic evening view with Orion rising on its side with really bright stars in the dark sky. The only light was from the 2 adjacent walkway lights and some light from the local town of Turre (out of view on the other side of the hill) reflecting off the passing clouds. I awoke this morning (Tuesday) to find a blue sky and sunshine on the Almeria plain 1000 ft below Cabrera but still breezy so I will not reassemble the telescope until I am sure the strong winds are not returning.

The wind continued to prevent any activity until Thursday 9th December when I was able to reassemble the telescope. The day was warm with my car thermometer registering 33 degrees when parked and going down to 25 when I was driving - a more realistic estimate of the temperature.

The wind had gone completely and it was effectively a warm summers day!

As I am on my own and the OTA with equipment weighs over 50 lbs I have to be very careful not to injure myself lifting the OTA back onto the mount so I use a technique that I discovered via “You Tube”  from a crazy American amateur called Greg who considers a C14 to be a small portable scope. It comes in two videos – in the first he did not know of this technique  – and used brute force to mount the C14 OTA referring to “girly men” who whinged about heavy OTAs – then in the second – somewhat abashed he had been told by others of the technique I  now use – he revises his thinking!! Although I have an LX200 12" rather than a C14 in Spain I believe that the weight of the 12" is similar to the C14 - I believe Meade mirrors per square inch are heavier than the celestron mirrors - or perhaps the mirror supports are heavier. Anyway - I adopt the technique he eventually demonstrated.

Links coming later but first the technique.

The essential thing to have is an observing chair – I had brought a kitchen stool in my truck for that purpose. The process is shown in the images below. The mount is set up as shown below with the weights removed – adjacent to the chair.

The next stage is to put the OTA onto the chair as close as possible to the saddle on the mount – using books or telephone directories to get the correct height.

Then lift the OTA onto the chair with the dovetail adjacent to the saddle.

I then adjust the saddle screws so that the “jaws” of the saddle are wide enough to accept the dovetail maximum width – without unscrewing the saddle adjustment completely – and push the mount into the saddle – tightening up the saddle screws to clamp the  dovetail.

The position of the OTA in the saddle is adjusted later during balancing. Care is needed as the clamps on the CGEM axes are difficult to lock just by hand – I must admit I (carefully) use my truck jack handle to tighten them as it conveniently fits over the clamp levers. I believe you can buy extenders as an extra – obviously an initial design issue.

 

The link to You Tube Video 1 is here

The link to You Tube Video 2 is here

Another clear night

Another clear night with the opportunity to image some of the objects on show in the early December Sky.

This is a 1-second exposure of the Great Nebula in Orion otherwise referred to as Messier 42.

  

This image is of the Hubble Variable Nebula

The three well known star clusters - M36,M37,M38 were imaged.

CGEM Pointing Test

It was clear last night with occasional drifting cloud but I managed to successfully get the CGEM to follow an Orchestrate script and take images (albeit only 1 second images) of galaxies. The CGEM managed to centre these very well although all the galaxies were within a few degrees of each other. The process is more complex then using a Paramount in that I really need to go through a process of alignment each session simply to get to the point where I can synch The Sky to the telescope. Once The Sky is able to recognise where the telescope is pointing I can do a plate solution and synch on the centre of the solved image.  This normally requires at least a 10 second image or more to get enough stars for The Sky and CCDSoft  to compare with the chart.

Moon, Venus and Saturn before dawn

Venus was brilliant this morning at 0545 UT in the Eastern sky.

This image provides some identification.

Clear spell last night

Last night after a dry day the skies cleared and gave me an opportunity to accurately polar align the CGEM mount on the telescope. The stars were bright and the Milky Way was visible as a very bright band crossing almost overhead. Although there are no street lights here as such there are two shoulder level walkway lights that would interfere but fortunately I had brought two black woolly hats that covered the lights completely and removed the problem entirely without even getting warm.  The standard 2-star alignment was followed with 3 additional 'calibration' stars added as advised. The drift method was used to polar align the mount by sighting on a star near the equator just to the east of the Meridian and using only the azimuth adjustments on the mount to maintain the star on the horizontal cross hair of the ccd image(using a small netbook)  until it remained there for more than 15 minutes without moving north or south. This was repeated using a star about 20 degrees above the horizon in the east but using the altitude adjustment on the CGEM until it too remained on the line for a similar time without drifting.  The laptop indoors was connected to the mount and camera via trailing wires from the terrace down through the window so that everything became more comfortable. The telescope was instructed from The Sky software to move to PGC 6382 a very faint spiral galaxy (shown as Mag 30 in The Sky - I must admit a lot fainter than I thought so is not visible) and a 30s image was taken as shown below:

  

The image on the right is a chart of the same area obtained by a plate solution - confirming that the "Go To" was accurate. The centre of the chart on the right is the exact location of the galaxy. Unfortunately cloud moved in at this stage and it has been raining ever since (Monday 3pm) , so further goto testing has not been possible.

4 Days of cloud and rain

No observing for the last few days as it has been cloudy and pouring with rain until last night - this morning was dry and sunny. It certainly looks better than the weather in the UK on the News channels on TV.

Cabrera White Wagtail

The White Wagtail below was imaged in Cabrera on Sunday 21st November. This is the continental version of the British Pied Wagtail which has black upperparts rather than the grey exhibited by the White Wagtail below.

 For comparison the image of a Pied Wagtail taken beside Loch Lomond in 2009 is shown below.

Leyland Observatory moves South for the winter - First Light at Sierra Cabrera

Last night (22nd November 2010) the first images were captured using the 12" SCT/CGEM set up at the winter base of Leyland Observatory in the Sierra Cabrera mountains(actually the terrace of a rented villa) in the village of Cabrera just above the town of Turre in Almeria, Andalusia, Spain.

The latitude is just over 37 degrees North.

Having arrived at 9 pm on the 15th Nov(last Monday) after a 650 mile drive from the ferry port of Santander in the North where the boat arrived at 9 a.m. that morning I was somewhat tired but arrived to see a dark sky glittering with stars.

Cabrera is a village of modern moorish design villas 300m above the plain where the local town of Turre sits. Getting to the village is quite a feat - the inhabitants sometimes refer to it as Brigadoon because of its detached magical nature although I think it is more like Rivendell in Lord of the Rings!  (Sorry - beginning to sound as though I am selling something!)

This is one of the roads in to Cabrera with the Mediterranean Sea in the background

This is a typical Cabrera view

This is the view from the village centre.

This is the terrace of the villa where the telescope can be seen covered by its "Scope Coat"

This is the telescope and the view from the terrace looking to the North East. The optical tube assembly  is my 15 year old 12" Meade from my original classic  LX200 sitting on a Celestron CGEM mount. In reality the OTA is right at the weight limit for the telescope so it remains to see how the CGEM will fare with slews to several hundred galaxies per night - in terms of tracking, pointing accuracy and dealing with the workload. I aim to use The Sky, CCDSoft and Orchestrate scripts  working in harmony using the 23000 galaxy  RC3 catalog to image galaxies in terms of increasing radial velocity and thus distance to hopefully capture brighter supernovae. At present I am trying to get as near perfect tracking as I can by accurate drift method polar alignment.

 The view to the South from the terrace

First night images:

The first image of M74 combines 35 X 10 second images. The second image of NGC 891 is a single 10 second image. Clearly the images were not precisely focused - it is sometimes a challenge to prevent mirror flop with the LX200 OTA which requires the mirror to be "solidly" clamped.