Post by Kalvis on Jan 23, 2006 16:30:30 GMT -6
Yesterday (Sunday, Jan 22, 2006) was my third time volunteering as a telescope interpreter during the 1-3 p.m. solar observation session for the public. During my drive to the Adler Planetarium the Sun was relatively bright and often peering through the mix of upper level clouds. I was expecting a nice day of observing.
Because I was working alone (my first Adler solo session!) I decided to set up only the Solaris Hydrogen alpha scope. I understood from Christine in the Education Dept. that during the past week Adler astronomer Larry finished adjusting the new Sol-Finder attachments to this scope. This was going to make aiming safe, quick and easy -- or at least so I thought.
I set-up the tripod and oriented the polar axis along the North-South lines of the large paving stones on the telescope terrace. I attached the rear filter and electronic cooling attachment, plugged it into the outlet, and inserted a 32mm eyepiece. By this time the cloud cover was heavy enough not to allow a dot of light to shine through the pin hole front end of the Sol-Finder. I was also noticing that the rotation of the mount around both axes was all weird and funky. It took me another 5 minutes finally to realize that I had oriented the mount facing South instead of North! The first though to cross my mind was “I’m glad I’m not being certified today!” Then without anyone else within earshot I quietly cussed myself out for being such a numbskull. So I rotated the mount 180 degrees, and it felt normal once again. Still, all I could view through the eyepiece was a reflection of my own eye and I simply got more aggravated. By this time 3 or 4 visitors had stopped by and asked me if they could take a look but I sheepishly had to admit that I couldn’t get it to work.
I went back to the scope closet and hauled out the 8 inch Orion SkyQuest. I attached the solar filter, inserted a 25mm eyepiece and attempted to find the Sun. The hazy upper level clouds were still blocking enough light to prevent formation of a crisp shadow on the grey stone terrace. I just kept moving the tube around until I finally found the sun. After moving it into view and getting it into focus I was thrilled. Two larger sunspots about a third of the way out from the center in the direction of 10:30 were clearly visible. Viewed at 48x magnification each region had a definite dark central umbra surrounded by a lighter penumbra. To put icing on the cake, there were 5 or 6 smaller spots along the path between the two larger ones. Three of these smaller ones were in a nice neat perpendicular row which reminded me of Orion’s belt. There was also an interesting black filament that was arcing back from the larger outermost sunspot towards the smaller ones. Quite cool!
When I finally lifted my gaze up from the eyepiece I headed over to the Há scope. Sure enough, the sunlight was now bright enough to project an image through the pinhole onto the mini screen of the Sol-Spotter so I adjusted the aim to center it. I looked into the eyepiece and lo-and-behold an image of the fully red sun finally appeared! I got her into focus and was thrilled to spot some nice prominences around the limb around the 7:30 position. I was somewhat puzzled that the sunspots were much harder to discern in this scope than in the white light filter of the Dobsonian. I guess it’s just a matter of black-on-white contrast vs. dk.red-on-lt.red.
Anyways, after that the rest of the afternoon was a thrill. I was so pumped that I went into the building and invited people to come out for a look. Apparently there wasn’t any “juice” left in the battery pack which I had taken from the bin to drive the right ascension motor on the Solaris mount, so I had to tweak it by hand every minute or so. What’s more, the fine adjustment knob kept falling off and I didn’t have a screwdriver handy. In the end I didn’t care about shortcomings of the equipment nor the partial cloud cover because the fantastic views which I was able to share with about 35 visitors over the course of the afternoon made it all worth while.
Kalvis
Because I was working alone (my first Adler solo session!) I decided to set up only the Solaris Hydrogen alpha scope. I understood from Christine in the Education Dept. that during the past week Adler astronomer Larry finished adjusting the new Sol-Finder attachments to this scope. This was going to make aiming safe, quick and easy -- or at least so I thought.
I set-up the tripod and oriented the polar axis along the North-South lines of the large paving stones on the telescope terrace. I attached the rear filter and electronic cooling attachment, plugged it into the outlet, and inserted a 32mm eyepiece. By this time the cloud cover was heavy enough not to allow a dot of light to shine through the pin hole front end of the Sol-Finder. I was also noticing that the rotation of the mount around both axes was all weird and funky. It took me another 5 minutes finally to realize that I had oriented the mount facing South instead of North! The first though to cross my mind was “I’m glad I’m not being certified today!” Then without anyone else within earshot I quietly cussed myself out for being such a numbskull. So I rotated the mount 180 degrees, and it felt normal once again. Still, all I could view through the eyepiece was a reflection of my own eye and I simply got more aggravated. By this time 3 or 4 visitors had stopped by and asked me if they could take a look but I sheepishly had to admit that I couldn’t get it to work.
I went back to the scope closet and hauled out the 8 inch Orion SkyQuest. I attached the solar filter, inserted a 25mm eyepiece and attempted to find the Sun. The hazy upper level clouds were still blocking enough light to prevent formation of a crisp shadow on the grey stone terrace. I just kept moving the tube around until I finally found the sun. After moving it into view and getting it into focus I was thrilled. Two larger sunspots about a third of the way out from the center in the direction of 10:30 were clearly visible. Viewed at 48x magnification each region had a definite dark central umbra surrounded by a lighter penumbra. To put icing on the cake, there were 5 or 6 smaller spots along the path between the two larger ones. Three of these smaller ones were in a nice neat perpendicular row which reminded me of Orion’s belt. There was also an interesting black filament that was arcing back from the larger outermost sunspot towards the smaller ones. Quite cool!
When I finally lifted my gaze up from the eyepiece I headed over to the Há scope. Sure enough, the sunlight was now bright enough to project an image through the pinhole onto the mini screen of the Sol-Spotter so I adjusted the aim to center it. I looked into the eyepiece and lo-and-behold an image of the fully red sun finally appeared! I got her into focus and was thrilled to spot some nice prominences around the limb around the 7:30 position. I was somewhat puzzled that the sunspots were much harder to discern in this scope than in the white light filter of the Dobsonian. I guess it’s just a matter of black-on-white contrast vs. dk.red-on-lt.red.
Anyways, after that the rest of the afternoon was a thrill. I was so pumped that I went into the building and invited people to come out for a look. Apparently there wasn’t any “juice” left in the battery pack which I had taken from the bin to drive the right ascension motor on the Solaris mount, so I had to tweak it by hand every minute or so. What’s more, the fine adjustment knob kept falling off and I didn’t have a screwdriver handy. In the end I didn’t care about shortcomings of the equipment nor the partial cloud cover because the fantastic views which I was able to share with about 35 visitors over the course of the afternoon made it all worth while.
Kalvis
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