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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Early Morniing and bitterly cold Observation Session
- 02 January 2010 -

The clear nights have been scarce of recent, and this 2nd day of 2010 brought clear skies. My astronomical itch had to be scratched and I ventured out - despite the bitter cold this January early morning.

I had three targets to catch this session: Mars, Saturn and the Moon - day after full.

I did not want to drag out the C11 beast, so I choose the C5. But hell... I could not polar align it. I tried and tried...and it just wasn't happening. And with the bitter cold of 11 degrees, it wasn't making the alignment easy...

Weather gauge central in the garage.

So I just pointed the danged thing north and started the session.

Starting out on Mars, which was high and bright, I was greeted with a blob of light. Now I know my eyes were watering from the bitter cold, but I wasn't getting a decent view of the red planet. There were only moments of clarity and the rest of the time - a bubbling blur mess. Was I getting this because of poor performance of the C5...? I hope not...

I moved the C5 toward the Moon, and yep...a lot of turbulence - with brief moments of clarity. Trying to figure out if it was the atmosphere or internal air convections within the C5. I tipped the C5 down, took off the directional and let the internal atmosphere of the tube escape up - attempting to equalize temps. Made no difference.

So, I needed to see if another telescope would provide the same crappy views. I brought out the Mighty Nikon Refractor to settle this...

This refractor excels in razor sharp and contrasty performance. If it's clear and sharp here...then I have a problem with the SCT...the prospect not making me happy.

I examine the Moon along the now sunset terminator...and it too is dancing around, bubbly and turbulent. Our bitterly cold 2010 skies offered terrible observation conditions - despite being clear.

Good....at least I know that the C5 and my eyes are operational.

I slew the Nikon over to Mars, keeping the 25mm eyepiece in and it too was displaying poor viewing. Popping in a 10mm, it was just horrible and unobservable. With very brief moments of clarity, I was able to catch a quick glimpse of the southern polar ice cap, but there will be no serious observation/imaging this session. But amazingly, this was probably the worse turbulence I ever observed...with the entire lunar face dissolving into a unfocused mess and coming back sharp, if only for a moment.

With two scopes out, I was bouncing back & forth, comparing views on the awful session. The views were brighter in the C5, but sharper in the Nikon refractor. Ducking into the Chevelle for warmth from time to time, I kept from really freezing this session. (When I was a kid, I used to stay out in single digit temps for hours on end. Not anymore... )

I did manage to capture the Moon thru the 63.5mm finderscope on the C5...

But even here, with low power, it took a number of pic tries to get a decent shot. Real crappy atmospheric conditions.

With that, and around 3:30 am Saturday morning, I packed everything back for a better session...hopefully soon.

[Paulie pchris00]

These unending cloudy nights are becoming a major annoyance, and the 2 or 3 clear nights in the past month have been so bitterly cold that I haven't been out for more than 15 minutes before giving up.

I had slightly better luck on New Year's Eve. I brought the Dob out to my cousin's backyard when I got to his party around 11, and had favorable views of the full Moon. With all the blue Moon hype there was some interest to see it, but with a shortage of recent telescope time, I would have preferred to show off any phase but full. The seeing didn't seem too bad on the Moon, but when I turned to Mars, I was a little disappointed. I could barely discern the polar region, and everything else just seemed pinkish. The disk wasn't even well-defined. The optics should have been temperature adjusted since I've been keeping both the scopes in the Cruiser so they're ready at a moments notice, but maybe the primary warmed up a little while I was driving. (Sorry, I'm not dedicated enough to freeze myself out if I don't have to.)

Meanwhile, shots were being poured inside the house as the clocked ticked towards midnight, and only my craziest cousin was still out looking at the sky with me, so we checked out M42 briefly before retreating.

This weather has been bumming me out, though. The night of the Dob's first light, Mars was disappearing into the summer sunset, and I've been anticipating it's opposition for almost 18 months now. Since it's been close enough to get a decent look, there have been no really great chances for observation.

As for the cold, my mom says when I was a kid, if there was snow on the ground I would stay out playing in it totally oblivious to the temperature for hours and hours. Now I've had too many jobs where I had to work in the cold, so it's totally lost the appeal of being any kind of playtime. I guess being an adult sucks like that...