POD fix, Moon, Geminids Meteor Shower
Thursday, 9 December, I did some work in the POD during the day. Had to fix a dome wheel that had slightly shifted downward. Fix was easy: just swapped the short rubber axle sleeve below the wheel with a slightly longer sleeve. Here are the before and after photos:
And my extra D7000 battery and the EP-5B Power Connector for the Nikon AC Adapter arrived this day. Thanks OPT! Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy that evening. During the day on Friday, 10 December, I did some quick tests of the Power Connector just to verify its functioning. Cloudy skies were the norm for several nights.
Sunday, 12 December, had a pretty sunset, as seen in the iPhone 4 photo at the top of the page. The forecast was for clear skies but the clouds hung around into the night and moved eastern over the whole sky. But Monday night, 13 December, the sky was clear, so I opened the observatory at 1805 MST, 68°F, under a First Quarter Moon. My eyes had been dilated during my annual eye exam in the afternoon and were still not quite back to normal. And two neighbors (to the northwest and northeast) had their very bright floodlights on (and they stayed on all night; I guess they had no plans to watch the meteor shower). At 1812 MST, I viewed the moon in the 8” at 77X. Slightly dilated eye was not a problem. Then viewed Jupiter at 77X; four moons were visible but no SEB. Next, I set up my reclining chair and table for Geminids Meteor Shower watching, which would begin later.
I then did some lunar astrophotography with the Nikon D7000 DSLR using the new AC Power Connector. This was my first actual use of Power Connector. It worked as expected. You can read more on my experiences with the EP-5B Power Connector, including some photographs of the connector, on my D7000 DSLR review.
Here is the moon taken at prime focus, 1/400sec, ISO 1000:
And the lunar terminator at prime focus + 3X TeleXtender, 1/160sec, ISO 1600:
I removed the camera from the 8” LX200-ACF and inserted the 5.5mm (364X) eyepiece. Seeing was excellent and the views along the lunar terminator were awesome. The earth-lit portion of the moon was clearly visible in the 5.5mm eyepiece. I added the 3X TeleXtender, yielding 1091X (much higher than the theoretical maximum magnification of 400X for the 8” telescope); the views were still very nice.
At 1920 MST, I decided to put the telescope to sleep and start watching for Geminid meteors, even though the sky was still rather bright from the moon. At 1925 MST, I saw my first Geminid for this night, low in the east. I took this self-portrait with my phone:
Beginning at 2007 MST, Geminid meteors were coming at the rate of one every few minutes. They seemed to come in “spurts”, two or three within a few seconds, and then a lull for a few minutes. I decided to stop counting and just enjoy the meteor shower. At 2130 MST, I took a break from watching and woke up the telescope. Viewed M42, the Great Orion Nebula, at 77X. Lovely. I then observed the last 4 double stars at R.A. = 05h that I wasn’t able to get on the last session. My total is now 74 double and multiple star systems. At 2141 MST, put the telescope to sleep and returned to meteor watching. Saw several excellent ones. Took another break from watching at 2255 MST and woke the telescope. Tried to observe NGC2237, the Rosette Nebula, a faint diffuse nebula. Unfortunately, the sky was still too bright from the moon and I couldn’t see the nebula. I decided to catch a couple of hours of sleep; closed the observatory at 2300 MST, 58°F.
I returned to the observatory at 0050 MST but did not power on the telescope. I set up the D7000 DLR for sky photography. I pointed the camera almost straight up and began taking exposures at 0100 MST. Exposures ranged from about 10 seconds to a couple of minutes, ISO 1000, focal length 18mm. I took 81 exposures from 0100 MST to 0235 MST. I saw many Geminid meteors, with the peak 0100-0200 MST, but none were captured by the camera. Some were close to the camera field-of-view but not inside it. So no meteor photographs. But here is a 32 second image showing Gemini on the left, and Taurus and the Pleiades on the right:
I closed down at 0240 MST, 50°F.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010