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| Sunspot activity over Memorial Day weekend |
In an earlier post, I remarked about how fortunate I was to live in a state where Daylight Saving Time was not a factor. Without it, sunset comes an hour earlier than it would if I lived in my home state of Illinois. I was thinking of this the other night when I set things up for a viewing session. It's always a good idea to get things in place when it's light out to avoid stumbling around in the dark.
I see from my logs that I was set up around 6:45 PM. Almanac sunset was over a half hour away with summer twilight hanging in there until after 8pm when Polaris was visible enough for alignment. Even then, it was around 8:30 PM when I was able to make out Hercules well enough to get a look at M13. I imagined living back in Illinois under CDT. That would mean a 9pm alignment, with constellations coming into view at 9:30pm. And probably not fully dark until after 10pm. And it was still only May.
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| 4 minute exposure of M13 |
Another effort was made for the Pinwheel Galaxy, but the aperture on my 130mm EQ mount just wasn't enough. Also a half moon was lighting things up. I had other things in mind anyway. While I was waiting for full dark, I took the time to make some initial runs with the planet cam - testing it on the moon and Venus. Things went very smooth which gave me hopes for the next goal: get some cool footage of Saturn in the early morning hours of the 29th. At 9pm, I did a partial teardown and went to bed.
I awoke at 2:30 the next morning and brought out my scope, reassembling the setup from the night before. For the next hour I slewed to Saturn, tried to focus in the laptop's monitor, reslewed and refocused again and again and again....etc. The display remained jumpy or streaked. After that hour elapsed I slapped my laptop shut and tried to get smartphone video but it was unusable. To hell with it, time for coffee and maybe a morning nap. Dawn twilight was breaking anyway.
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| From smartphone footage of Saturn |
Subsequent research informed me that
- I should have focused on the moon or Venus and then left my setup alone and
- Sharpcap may work better than the proprietary software from the camera's OEM.
I plan on trying Sharpcap in the coming evenings and maybe holding off until the Gas Giants make their appearances at more reasonable hours. IT is my day job and it's no fun troubleshooting issues at 2:30am in my jammies while bats fly overhead.
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Please take a moment to read the following: https://www.gulf-times.com/article/661980/international/scientists-warn-stars-could-be-invisible-within-20-years-as-light-pollution-brightens-night-skies
Before I even thought about this hobby, I had my share of neighbors who would use light as a weapon. Some thought it was added security, others believed it kept raccoons out of the trash. One nut had what was supposed to be a giant Christmas wreath like a ring of LEDs to step through to get to his front door. He had that damn thing going 24/7 from Veteran's Day to President's Day. It shone in our bedroom window like the Death Star.
But it doesn't make you safer. In fact it creates more defined shadows where someone can hide. And most break ins happen during the day anyway. Get better trash cans and the 'coons won't bother with them. And when did Christmas start becoming this Vegas Strip light-o-thon?
I'm 63 right now, and this report is saying that when I'm 83 the stars will be invisible for a lot of people. One third of Earth's population has never seen the Milky Way. In fact during a recent major blackout, L.A. residents called the police to ask if there were UFOs because they didn't recognize stars they didn't know existed. So depending on where I'm living, it will be harder to find a spot to observe the universe. And by the time I'm 83, that scope will be heavy.
I've seen people respond with, "So? I'd rather be safe than see a few stars". First, you don't have to get rid of the light; just change the light being used to something that lights your surface and not waste it on the sky above. And again, if someone wants to rob or kill you they're going to do it at midnight or high noon.
Finally it's just beautiful. It's a natural wonder, a gift. To squander that is doing ourselves a grave disservice.
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| Death Valley at night. Not one of my pictures. |
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