DSC_0042, originally uploaded by david parmet.

from the Andrus Planetarium at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY.

After a week of cloudy nights, I was finally able to try out the Magnilux MX-1 this evening.

The MX-1 is a bracket that attaches to an eyepiece and holds an Apple iPhone or iPod in place so it can photograph whatever is in view.

Just before the Moon vanished behind the trees, I managed to squeeze out a couple of shots. Setting up the MX-1 is pretty straightforward and the screws are tight enough to allow you to fiddle around a bit and when you find the sweet spot where you can see what’s in the eyepiece, you are good to go.

I can imagine a lot of nifty uses for this – mostly at public star parties so everyone gets a view of the action right on the iPhone screen.  It’s sort of a poor man’s MallinCam. I can see it being used for the Moon and planets but deep sky objects are probably too dim for the iPhone’s camera.

My club gets a lot of donations, sometimes too many to fit in the various garages and storage rooms of the members. So I’ve come to be the caretaker of this slightly used Celestron Celestar 8, an 8 inch SCT on a equatorial wedge and tripod.

The Celestar is pre-GoTo. It comes with a motorized R.A. drive, but you have to first find what you are looking for the old fashioned way, with a star atlas, setting circles and some knowledge of the night sky. Fortunately we are entering the months of the Winter sky, my favorite time of the year. Taurus is already up in the Eastern sky, soon to be followed by Orion the Hunter and the hunting dogs Canis Major and Minor.

Tonight, the first clear night since I’ve brought this baby home, I’ll be putting it through its paces.

UPDATE: Man, the scope has great optics. I mean truly great optics. Jupiter just popped; I could clearly see the shadow of a transiting moon (Ganymede I think) and the Northern Equatorial Belt was as distinct as I’ve ever seen it, even with my low-power 32MM TeleVue Plossl.

The clock drive works flawlessly. I did only a rough polar alignment using the compass on my iPhone. It took well over a half an hour until the errors showed up and Jupiter started to wander out of the field of view.

The only weak spot is the tripod – it’s a bit wobbly. But that can be managed.

Overall, the Celestron 8 is a keeper.

The Summer Triangle, originally uploaded by david parmet.

I’ve been using an Astrotrac mount to capture longer exposures with my Nikon D80. This was a one minute exposure at ISO 400 – not much but the skies were pretty bright from the clouds coming in and anything longer would have blown out the sky.

After two nights of playing with it – one of them with the always helpful Doug Baum over my shoulder – I’m very happy with the Astrotrac. All you have to do is find Polaris and center it in the polar scope, making sure that the arrows pointing at Ursa Major and Cassiopeia are pointing in the right direction, and you are good to go. It took me only a couple of tries to get it down pat and the results as you can see are spectacular. I am seriously in love with this mount.

Update: I’ve created a set of all of my Astrotrac photos on Flickr.

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Jellyfish Nebula, originally uploaded by david parmet.

The Boy Genius and I were visiting my neighbor Doug Baum the other night. Doug is the inventor of the BIPH – aka the Binocular Photon Machine – a light amplification device that brings jaw-dropping views to even the most mundane telescopes.

Doug, his own Boy Genius, my Boy Genius and I retired to Doug’s observatory to do some astrophotography. Doug’s got a Takahashi FSQ-106 set up purely for CCD astronomy. You can see some of his photos here.

The above image was created by my little guy with some encouragement from Doug and his guy. It’s a five minute exposure with some refinement and polishing post-processing. The Jellyfish – IC 443 – is 2,000 light years from Earth.

One of the true revolutionary trends in amateur astronomy is the availability of inexpensive and high-quality CCD cameras – leading to pictures that rival those created by the professional astronomers of only a few decades ago. Just compare the above image to the one on the Wikipedia entry (link above). Imagine what we could have done if we had a half hour.

Now that I’m using an LX-200, I can understand the logic of setting up a semi-permanent (or permanent) structure to house a telescope and accessories. It’s certainly easier on the back.

This here puppy arrived last month. A neighbor of ours bought it on a whim several years ago. He never figured out how to get it working and so here it is, currently living in my office but making frequent trips to the back deck. The electronics are shot but even using it manually is a pleasure.

The scope is rated at f10; looking through it with anything smaller than a 12mm eyepiece is like looking through a straw. My 32mm gives me fantastic views of the Moon, Saturn and Mars and many DSOs.  I’m still figuring this big baby out but having a great time doing it.

Taken at NEAF

I’ve been playing with Stellarium, an open source planetarium application.

It’s not as full featured as many other planetarium applications like The Sky or
Starry Night. But it’s got some neat features, it’s easy to use and you can’t beat the price (free, as in beer).

You can download Stellarium here.

The first thing most people ask me is how do you know the name of THAT star or THAT constellation? Or that point of light is a planet? With a little bit of work anyone can learn to find their way around the night sky – most of us can already recognize a few star patterns like the Big Dipper or the Belt of Orion.

But to really learn what’s where and where you can expect to find what you are looking for, you need to spend many nights under the stars just looking. And a good star atlas can’t hurt either.

Most amatuer astronomers collect star atlases like baseball cards or matchbox cards. I currently have three.

The big one, the one that stays on the desk, is the Sky Atlas 2000.0. This comes in various editions – laminated for the field, white on black or black on white, with or without bound pages, you get the picture. It’s the big book of stars and it’s a sight to behold.

The one that goes with me to star parties and comes out at night with me is Sky & Telescope’s Pocket Sky Atlas. This has just enough detail to keep more advanced users happy but simple enough to use for beginners. Plus it’s small and can fit in your backpack. It’s also perfect to take along on a trip in case you get a nice clear night and need to find your way.

Last but not least is Will Tirion’s Bright Star Atlas. It’s a nicely sized reference guide, halfway between the full blown Sky Atlas and the pocket sized Sky and Telescope version.

There are a lot of other books out there. I would also recommend a copy of Sky and Telescope or Astronomy for the current month to get yourself started. They will alert you to anything new – a comet, nova or meteor shower in the sky, and let you know what planets are up and where to find them.

Just a few things I couldn’t otherwise live without:

I have three Tele Vue eyepieces, the best by far is the 12.0mm Radian. The view out of this baby is like looking out the window of the Enterprise. It gives me 76X magnification, just enough to really show details on the Moon, color on Saturn and even the Equatorial Bands of Jupiter. It’s a lot to spend on an eyepiece but worth it. I’ve had mine for years and it never lets me down.

My telescope sits on an Orion EQ Deluxe, which they no longer sell. The current equivilant model is the Orion SkyView Pro Equatorial Mount. This guy is rock solid. The movements are as smooth as can be. EQ mounts can get very expensive, this is a good pick up for the money – you won’t do any better at this price point.

I own a Newtonian Reflector so collimation is a task of which I have become intimately familiar. If you don’t know what collimation is, I’ll be covering that soon. In the meantime, here’s a guide. I’ll just say that I couldn’t do it without my trusty Orion Collimating Eyepiece. Don’t stare down the eye piece barrel of your Newt without one!