In the fall of 2021, I finally got a decent day job after eighteen months of searching, applying, interviewing and following up. An odious trend started to take place. It had been many years since I toiled through an active job search, and some ageist dog whistles started to become apparent during this last one. Interviewers would ask me coded questions which all had to do with my age. I was very lucky in that the position I finally got was due to the fact they were actually looking for a grumpy old man!!
Somewhere around then, our oldest son Ryan went with me to Oracle State park, about an hour north of Tucson. The park is a designated International Dark Sky location. At the time, it was a decent enough outing. There was another family there whose dad brought his dobsonian scope and laser pointer. He was able to find things much faster. Ryan however, was unimpressed and told me later that my old school approach was much cooler saying that I found objects with my "bare hands".
I took our DSLR camera with us but the best picture I managed so far came from the Pixel phone, a 4-minute special of the Milky way:
It was pretty enough, but I felt things were at a crossroads. Either keep working with the scope or master the camera, I didn't have time for both. Looking back, I'm very glad I stuck with the scope.
One of the items I picked up during my initial burst was a clockdrive for the scope. Its purpose is to keep the scope pointed at an object while slowly moving the right ascension in concert with Earth's rotation. In theory this would allow a long exposure shot of a DSO with little to no star trailing.
I say "in theory" because in practice, the drive is not effective all the time. The gears have a tendency to either separate or simply skip without moving the scope. I'm really okay with this; the scope is not a "go-to" model, and the drive works enough of the time for someone at my level. Besides, I always tell myself how much guys like Messier or Galileo were able to discover with the humble equipment they had to work with.
Also, quite often the results are worth the occasional frustration. One of the first objects I went to when trying to get a good picture was ol' M42, the Orion Nebula. I had seen pictures of it before, but the results this amateur got were very exciting:
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Kathy even asked that I share this with her so she can have it on her phone. Also by this point, I had started a Facebook album (same name as this blog) with uploads of my pictures. One of my high school classmates shared it on her page. I only knew her through social media and she has since passed away, which saddens me. I was very much looking forward to the next reunion where I could meet her in person.
A huge purchase I made around this time wasn't gear, but a book: "Turn Left at Orion". An amazing resource for finding hundreds of objects. I spent the next several evenings in bed reading it cover to cover. Which was clumsy, due to the Coffee-Table-Book size of this. If it was up to me, I would remove everything referencing the Southern Hemisphere, as none of it is any use to me. But the rest of it I put to work almost immediately, and still use now. It's very informative but not overly nerdy.
Another practice I started was the logging and documentation of my views. I have an observational log used to document the where-when-how information on my viewing a particular object. I included a circular space to try and sketch out what I saw. Let's not talk about my sketching abilities, 'kay? I also have an Excel spreadsheet listing vital statistics from my finds.
Let's talk about star charts now, shall we? Oooh baby! I found these online and went off the hook. So I now have a binder with most of these charts printed and ensconced in a transparent page protector. Getting really serious about this shit now. Honestly, these have also been a big help in finding objects and deciding what to find. I've also got a corkboard on my office wall with charts showing the objects I've observed with said objects highlighted:
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| Download the charts here: https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/ |
One of my first "posts" on the wall (and a decent picture) came from using the "Orion" book, a chart and two of my fingers. Two galaxies, M81 and M82 are near the "scoop" of the Big Dipper. The book told me how to star-hop, the chart told me where to hop, but my fingers did most of the walking. I found that two of the Dipper's stars - Phecda and Dubhe - were exactly the same distance apart as the index and pinky fingers of my hand when extending my arm. Like what you would do at a Sabbath concert back in the day. Holding that evil position, I moved my arm enough so only one finger was pointing at Dubhe, while the other was pointing into space. But that other finger was pointing at those galaxies! Not quite exactly, but enough to get into my FOV* and eventually get another 4-minute special:
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| Bode's Galaxy and Cigar Galaxy (M81 & M82) |
Things were taking a turn and going outside to explore space had gone from a lark to an obsession. Coming up, equipment evolves, a resource in an industrial zone and unwelcome interruptions lasting several months.
Once again I feel I need to mention how enjoyable this is. And not just for me, but for others I share with. My musical ambitions inspired some polite interest but not much more. I have a guitar hanging on the wall for practice and no one notices. But folks come into my office and are very struck by the charts and other displays I have from Astronomy. The Facebook posts pull in a heavy response. I asked Kathy why she thought this was so and she told me that this is something positive. That there is so much negativity around it's nice to be reminded there's wonders to be discovered.
*Field of view, what you see looking through the scope.
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