ASTRONOMY PAGE

The neighborhood is lucky enough to have purchased a 16" Meade newtonian telescope

That's right a 16" mirror self contained newtonian telescope, it's far from portable but it can be moved out of the garage onto the driveway apron thanks to a four wheel heavy duty furniture movers dolly so we can view the heavens on warmer clear nights. Kevin & Debbie are having a custom trailer made so it can be moved to higher darker sky locations for the ultimate viewing experience. It has an electronic CCD camera installed to show the views on a TV or monitor for all to see. The electronics can be powered by generator or vehicle with power inverter, as you can imagine one is quieter than the other so we opt for the inverter.

Telescope update!

The telescope is dismantled for major maintenance.

the elements have taken a toll on the telescope and like all major telescopes the large mirror needs to be resurfaced to get rid of a few years of atmospheric build up, or in other words from "crap in the air", so it will be down for a while until the mirror is done and returned to us. In the meantime we still have the 102mm Meade set up outside on the big 20 foot deck that can be used by anyone any time, BYOB or (bring your own blanket).

As night falls, Mars begins to show in the western sky as Earth catches up to it in its orbit and will slowly move across the southern sky as the days progress. At the same time in the southeastern sky Jupiter is visible and moving towards the west also as we move ahead of it in our orbit. Around January 15, 2010 we should be in line with the Sun and Mars at the same time with Earth in between bringing Earth and Mars closest together in their orbits since around December 1, 2007. Earth is just now going past Jupiter's closest point in our orbit in August of 2009 and we are now moving away as Jupiter slowly moves further across the southern sky towards the west as we continue our "Tour De' Solar System". Right now Earth is in line with Jupiter and Neptune on one side of the Sun and Saturn on the other side of the Sun.

Shown with factory mount and also with the Pro-Pier 1200-C

(Click on thumbnails for full size images)

(More pictures of telescope to come as soon as it is back together)

(We will soon have video of asteroids and a solar sun storm)

Summer of 2009 has been wonderful for viewing Jupiter and its moons in the southern sky. It is amazing to watch the moons orbital positions change daily. We are unable to see plumes from Io's volcanoes however. as winter approaches it will be hard for us to withstand the cold until all the electronics are hooked up and we can run the telescope remotely from a warm room. The telescope has to remain the same temperature as the "ambient" air temperature, or in other words, it has to remain the same temp as the outside air no matter how cold or hot it is or the images distort and the CCD camera will have a hard time focusing.

Luckily both telescopes can be set up for remote use and can be controlled electronically using a computer as a controller from a remote location. The 102 mm needs a new stepper motor and will be back in full use after it is replaced. It sends beautiful images from its CCD camera to the computer while the computer controls telescope movement and focus. Using Meade's Autostar software we can just point and click to aim the telescope anywhere we want while getting some of the most wonderful pictures. Take a look below at what the Hubble can bring us until I get our images stacked and posted.

Jupiter, Neptune, Mars and Uranus are all visible at night with a telescope now so get out there and pay attention to what's going on out there. You can see major changes in the orbits of four of Jupiter's moons from one night to the next, kind of beats just watching our own moon night after night, lol.

Click on pictures below for large hi-res images

Due to the size of the telescope we have been invited to join in with the search for new NEA's or Near Earth Asteroids. We have not committed yet but we will see if this is something us telescope newbie's can learn to do.

Anyone else want to help volunteer for the task?

Stay tuned, more to come!