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[patrickm]

Will set up tonight at Chicago's Sunken Gardens (Sunnyside and Virginia) for public viewing. Come by. Bring a scope. Bring binocs. Bring kids and pets. Will start setup around 6pm and sun sets at 7pm.

Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Pleiades, Orion Nebula, and Saturn will be observed. Who knows what else?

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[scottmason]

Mar 16, 2012 14:31:39 GMT -6 patrickm said:

Will set up tonight at Chicago's Sunken Gardens (Sunnyside and Virginia) for public viewing. Come by. Bring a scope. Bring binocs. Bring kids and pets. Will start setup around 6pm and sun sets at 7pm.

Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Pleiades, Orion Nebula, and Saturn will be observed. Who knows what else?

This is right in my neighborhood! Patrick, would you be kind enough to let me hook up my DSLR for a few shots? I have 1.25'' T-Adapters.

I've been dying to hook up to my scope but I don't have a good mount yet.

[patrickm]

Hey man. Bring your camera and t-ring and we can try it out when things aren't too busy. Ambient lighting will be atrocious so backgrounds will be really bright, but planets should work just fine.

Bring your scope if you wanna.

Check yr IM for my phone #.

p

[tomlee]

May swing by for a few minutes!

[patrickm]

Tom, please do. Skies are playing with us, but planets should punch through. Check your IM for my cell #. Would be awesome to see you!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I cannot do Conway this evening, but could do Sunken G... depending on when I get back.

If it looks like a go, then I'll nudge Patrick.

[scottmason]

Overall a great night. Showed up at 7 and stayed til about midnight. People coming and going were most impressed with Jupiter (4 moons visible) and Saturn later in the night.













Through Patrick's scope: Jupiter




Saturn




I was advised not to up-res, here it is cropped at 100% not super clear.




Beehive Cluster (not a very wide view)




M38



M37




M 36



Starfish Cluster




I didn't take note of what was being shot here, but does anyone know what that line between the two stars left of center is about?? I brightened it in post-process to bring the line out more..



Now I need to process my M42 exposures..can anyone recommend a good stacking program for Mac?

[patrickm]

Nice shots, Scott.

I especially like the shots of the park. You must have a fast lens!

Considering you were shooting through a layer of gauze, I am shocked that anything looks even half way decent, and these do.

Now to process my own shots...after a nap.

[scottmason]

Thanks Pat. The wide angle I used on the parks is only f/3.5 but the tripod helped

[patrickm]

We had a great time on Friday night at Sunken Gardens. To my shock, thunder greeted me as I stepped out the door at 6:30 to go set up. Caine was not very happy about it either. Some quick checking of radar showed the storm tracking just NNE from us, like down Damen instead of Western, so I took a gulp and headed down the block to Sunken Gardens.




I set up solo, which is just as well for me because boy am I rusty, and my previous benchmark was pretty low to begin with. Here, Venus, Jupiter, and a plane hang over my scope to the west.



The skies were pretty bad, observing everything through a thin veil of gauze, but we still managed to see some cool stuff. Because I announced it so late in the afternoon, we got only about twelve visitors, but many were repeat visitors who brought good questions and all seemed eager to dust off the winter cobwebs and see what was up. Of course the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus had caught everyones' eyes all week and we focused on them as people trickled by. We also hung out with Orion (M42), Pleiades (M45), Mars, and Saturn.



I stupidly tried to punch through the clouds to find Comet Garradd, and I did see it, but it was only the faintest of fuzzy patches in the eyepiece. After two patient people failed, we moved on to better targets. Even on a transparent night, the faint comet would be a rough prize in the city, so my lesson was learned there.

Later in the evening, young Scott and I spent time trying to get him some SLR shots through the scope. We also discussed scope alignment (which I never nailed), polar alignment (the problem that caused the former), GoTo, mounts, scopes, and photography. Thankfully, Tom Lee showed up and I could deflect questions on AP to him.

After the last guests left, we tried picking out targets that Scott could get good shots of and so checkout out The Beehive (M44), and my favorite chain of open cluster jewels, M35, M36, M37, and M38.

At about 1:30, I finally sent Scott on his way and started breaking down. Tom was kind enough to stick around and talk with me as I packed up. I put the scope on Saturn and left it there while I packed up everything else that I could. Clouds seemed to have thickened up by this time, especially toward the east. Nonetheless, we compared views through my new Baader 8-24mm Click Stop Zoom at 18mm against my 36mm Baader Hyperion with Barlow. We both saw the shadow of Saturn on the rings behind, and Tom swears he could make out the shadow of the rings on Saturn in front. The front shadow was iffy for me, but I think I could make it out, especially right before I finally pulled the plug. In both, Saturn was mostly under water with passing seconds of average seeing, but our consensus was that it looked sharper in the 36mm with Barlow. This subjective assessment could have been affected by differing FOV of the two eyepieces. This test is hardly definitive and Saturn was still not near it's zenith for the evening through horrible skies. We shall revisit.

Overall, a really fun night on a surprisingly warm mid-March evening. We even had mosquitos and a lone bat circling overhead.

An incomplete list:
Jupiter
(Planet in Aries)
C/2009 P1 (Garradd)
(Comet in Draco)
Pleiades - M 45
(Open Cluster in Taurus)
Orion Nebula - M 42
(Bright Nebula in Orion)
Andromeda Galaxy - M 31
(Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda)
Mars
(Planet in Leo)
Saturn
(Planet in Virgo)
Messier 35
(Open Cluster in Gemini)
Beehive Cluster - M 44
(Open Cluster in Cancer)
Pinwheel Cluster - M 36
(Open Cluster in Auriga)
Messier 37
(Open Cluster in Auriga)
Starfish Cluster - M 38
(Open Cluster in Auriga)

[scottmason]

Here's my image of M42 (Orion Nebula) from that night.
This was my first time processing/shooting a nebula. I'll settle for this, it's about the best I could do with Photoshop alone.
Thanks again for letting me hook up, Patrick!

[scottmason]

I didn't see any noise in my star photos until I looked at it on a different computer. My monitor needs calibration...Is there noise on your end?

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I dig all these pics and the quality.

Very good Scott...I hope to see you at the Chicago Astronomer Star Parties at the lakefront site soon!

[patrickm]

Scott, at 1600 ISO, I don't know how one could avoid noise in them. I also know that fixing it frequently brings in artifacts. There's only so much we can do in the city. It's remarkable we can see anything at all. I wouldn't fret too much.

[scottmason]

I know, not a huge deal.. It's just so much darker on my laptop which is deceiving. It looks great from home but as soon as I got on a different screen I see tons of color noise radiating from the center of the star photos.
Just frustrating >_<
I have to work at millennium park tonight, but I'm going to try to make it to Adler when I'm off!

[tomlee]

Patrick,

just in case you have not seen this yet.

www.telescopes.com/telescope-accessories/photographic/celestronreducercorrectorf63.cfm

Not Hyperstar but it's f/6.3.

[patrickm]

Hey Tom
Thanks for thinking of me, but I don't think they'll work on EdgeHD. Celestron just came out with focal reducers for 14" & 11", two years after they were promised, and they're $599! Nothing yet for 9.25.

"The #94175 Reducer/Corrector Lens is not compatible with Celestron EdgeHD optical systems."
www.celestron.com/astronomy/accessories/celestron-reducer-corrector.html

A focal reducer more expensive than the most expensive eyepieces? Crazy...
www.celestron.com/astronomy/accessories/photo-visual-accessories.html?limit=36
p

[Paulie pchris00]

I didn't realize I hadn't complimented these shots yet. Nice job guys!

[lanshan75]

I am totally agree with what you said,but my English is poor, sometiomes I don't know how to express my feeling,I just want to make some friends who can help me in my English and share the happiness with each other.
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