Adventures in Astronomy

Running out of time...

2009-05-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

The lovely Nevada Space Grant we were awarded is coming to a close. I haven't had much to update about these past couple weeks because we've been doing the boring tasks of writing, writing, writing. We've been compiling all of our information into a book of knowledge. We're printing out everything that is polished and ready to go. We're touching up, revamping, and formatting documents that need extra work. We're about to print out the step-by-step procedures for the hand-controlled scopes and John and I will paste them to some stock paper and laminate them. They will then hang from their respective telescopes. We only have a few more hours left on the clock so we've been trying to cram as much work as possible into every passing moment.

Perhaps when everything is completely ready to be 'published,' so to speak, I'll upload some of our documentation onto this blog site. We'll see how it goes! I'll keep you posted on the final moments of TeleDocs. :)

UC Berkeley and Cal Day (with pics!)

2009-04-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the group was able to take a field trip to the University of California at Berkeley. We had many aims in mind:

1. Hear a lecture by Dr. Chung-Pei Ma on dark matter in the universe for the IYA program.
2. Check out the Cal Day activities on the Berkeley campus.
3. Explore the Space Science Laboratory.
4. And if we had time we wanted to see the Lawrence Hall of Science.

We started the day off early and arrived on campus around 9am. It was Cal Day at Berkeley which meant that everything on campus was open to the public and a multitude of lectures, demonstrations, hands on experiments, and activities were there to be explored. Our group split into two factions, those who wanted to investigate the engineering activities and those who decided to explore the astronomy and physics buildings.

(Berkeley's Centerpiece: The Clock Tower)

Dan and I spent the entire morning in the physics and astronomy buildings. We were able to talk with some graduate students about the structure of the universe, black holes, interferometry, the Allen array, and lots of other fun space stuff. They had a live feed to the Allen array and were able to show us an image of the Andromeda galaxy in neutral hydrogen (21 cm line or 1420 kHz). They also showed us a simulation of some large scale galactic structure throughout the universe which was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen! Afterwards, Dan and I wandered up to the top floor of the astronomy building to listen in on a tour of the radio astronomy lab. We went out onto the roof of the building and met their radio telescopes and radio horn. The view was fabulous! Dan also had a chance to speak with one of the Assistant Astronomy Professors, a Mr. Geoffrey Bower. He teaches the radio astronomy lab at Berkeley and said he'd be happy to field some questions concerning our SRT. Hopefully, he'll have some ideas on how we can finally get OUR radio telescope working! Yay for networking!

(Top: the radio horn. ) (Bottom: Berkeley's telescopes!!)

(One of the radio scopes..... and the other one.)

At noon we all met up again for the IYA lecture: The Dark Side of the Universe. Chung-Pei discussed the evidence we have in support of the theory of dark matter as well as some ideas on what may comprise this mysterious form of matter. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the theories surrounding dark matter, a quick recap:

Dark matter is a type of matter that cannot be detected by normal means because it does not interact with electromagnetic waves. Scientists postulate its existance to explain why stars in spiral galaxies don't follow Newton's equation for gravity. According to this well-tested theory, the further away a star is from the core of the galaxy in which it resides, the slower the star's rotational velocity should be. But this is not what astronomers have observed. Instead the stars on the outer fringes of galaxies seem to be going the same speed as the stars near the core. These speeds are accounted for if there is alot more mass in the galaxy than we can see. And this "invisible" mass has been nicknamed dark matter. There are other pieces of evidence that suggest there is far more mass in the universe than we can see. To learn more, visit NASA's site dedicated to dark matter:

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/dark_matter.html.

Afte the lecture we all wandered around the campus more and I was able to see some neat things in the engineering building. A pair of graduate students had built a psuedo-helicopter with four motors that was entirely autonomous and could fly itself with a GPS tracker. We also saw the trebuchet that some students had built and watched as it was tested against a catapult to see which could toss a water balloon the farthest.

(The quadra helicopter.) (The trebuchet.)

We decided it was time to head up to the Space Science Laboratory so we hopped on the inter-campus bus and made our way up there, passing the Botanical Gardens on the way (which we didn't have enough time to visit, unfortunately). At the SSL we jumped in on a tour in progress where the guide was explaining how the THEMIS operation worked and how the 5 satellites communicate with the ground to better understand the magnetic field surrounding the Earth. Dan and I wandered out behind the building to take a look at the gigantic transmitter itself. It was HUGE!

(One of the THEMIS transmitters.)

By the time we got back down to the main campus, most of the demonstrations and activities had closed so we decided to call it a day and headed back home. It was a wonderful and enlightening experience. After that visit I am absolutely in LOVE with that campus and I'm going to try my hardest to get accepted to UC Berkeley for my graduate program!

Great News! (And pictures)

2009-04-15T20:22:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we finally got the automatic focuser to focus the robodome scope for us! It's still a little buggy so we're not done yet but just imagine our excitement when our crazy contraption actually worked (even if only for a short while)! Here you can see John attaching the vacuum belt which will turn the focuser itself. The "RoboFocus" is attached to the Coronado sun scope with a hose clamp. Ingenious, no? Unfortunately, the belt keeps slipping off the robo-focus as well as the focuser on the scope. We need to come up with some sort of method to stabilize the belt and keep it from slipping around. With that complete, we can finally be as lazy as we want and no one will have to run up to the dome to adjust anything - EVER.

I also have some other pictures for you all. Robert wanted us to start photo-documented our activities because, let's face it, my explanations, as good as they may be, are still rather lacking. Besides, who doesn't like visual aids?

Here we have some pictures of our beloved robodome. You can see John next to our Coronado sun scope. The other is just my adorable attempt at an artsy shot of the robodome and the beautiful Nevada sky. (But do you SEE all those clouds? This is what we've had to deal with for weeks now! We can't view anything in the sky with all those pretty clouds in the way!)

Here we have the prize of our observatory: The three large scale telescopes. The one in the middle is the one we work with most often. It is the 14' Celestron. You can't see it, but the 14' has a smaller 8' scope attached to it, complete with our spectragraph. The furthest scope is the 16' Takahashi. The closest scope in this photograph is 10' Takahashi.

And here is the Jack C. Davis Observatory from an angle that most people never see. This image was taken from the Robo-dome on the hill behind the observatory. You can see the supports for the dome when we open it at night to expose our lovely scopes to the sky.

If you want more images, that can be accomplished. I chose to publish the few that I felt were the best. John is contemplating setting up a photos section on the WNAS website. If he does, there will certainly be many more photos to come!

Finally Fixing the Focuser for FUN!

2009-04-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

I love alliteration!

The sun is out, the sky is clear and you know what that means. We open the Robodome and aim it at our favorite star. There are some impressive prominences today and the hint of a potential sunspot even! We wanted to have the Robodome set up and reading for viewing because today the Jack C. Davis Observatory is celebrating IYA's 100 Hours of Astronomy. We're hoping some extra guests show up this afternoon and into the evening so they can see what our beautiful sun looks like at this very moment.

We also made some headway with that auto focuser that we were hoping to install. It's admittedly a jerry-rigged contraption. We were able to hold the autofocuser onto the barrel of the scope with an adjustable hose clamp. Between the auto-focuser and the barrel we wedged a rubber vacuum belt so that neither the hose clamp nor the auto-focuser damages the barrel. With another vacuum belt we were hoping to apply the rotation of the auto-focuser to the focuser on the scope but it's still not taught enough to provide rotation. We decided to cut another belt to wrap around the auto-focuser and Robert has gone off seeking some super-adhesive to bond the ends together. Once we finish this project I'll take some pictures so that you can have some inkling as to what I'm talking about.

We weren't able to get much done last Wednesday- tragedy struck. Dan had a pretty horrible bike accident and broke his collar bone (don't worry, he's okay) and wasn't able to make it up to the obvservatory that night. Furthermore, I was coming down with some sort of bug and had to leave early. John and Alice stuck it through, however. John spent some time updating the website while Alice worked on a side project we'd started long ago. We had made a short history of astronomy that would be included in the packet of pamphlets we've been creating. Robert liked the idea and wanted us to expand on it so Alice is bulking up our short history to include more key figures and prominent developments in the history of astronomy.

Hot outside, cold indoors!

2009-03-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

11' celestron, 8' celestron

Today we had a real treat! Multiple of them, actually. Firstly, the sky was gorgeous! A pristine blue and not a cloud in sight greeted me this afternoon. Of course, we immediately opened the Robodome and booted up the scope. Today we recorded footage of our beautiful sun instead of only taking quick snapshots. There is alot of solar activity going on up there! A great many prominences, some in groups, spanning large portions of the sun's circumference. When we adjusted the image to check for sunspots we found two small round portions of the sun that were drastically lighter than the surrounding surface. Robert thinks they may be coronal discharges. Sweet! (Still no sunspots, for those interested in knowing. Boo!)

The second treat this afternoon came in the form of a really neat demonstration. We had some left over liquid nitrogen from the demonstrations that Robert did last week so we decided to bring the last of it up to the observatory and play with the cloud chamber. A cloud chamber is used for detecting particles of ionized radiation. We threw some alcohol in the cloud chamber, added a samle of lead 207, and supercooled it with the remaining liquid nitrogen. While it wasn't the most amazing show of alpha tracks, it was still pretty dazzling. Yay for fantastically fun demonstrations!

Last Wednesday Robert and Alice recorded two more videos - instructions for setting up the 11' Celestron and the 8' Celestron. I think Robert plans on doing a couple more so I'll keep you posted on which ones are forever enshrined in digital format. Dan and I worked on more write ups - there is so much information to spectroscopy that we're finding it challenging to incorporate everything in a comprehensible fashion. Never fear, faithful readers - when we're finished up here every process and instrument will seem transparent to you! At least, that's the goal.. Cross your fingers. ;)

Apparently we all love spectroscopy around here!

2009-03-21T14:24:00.001-07:00

We've had a few setbacks the past two weeks and as such have not been able to get as much done as we would have liked. Weather and other extenuating circumstances have prevented us from meeting at our usual times. Even today, Dan is unable to be with us due to personal obligations.

We did accomplish some things in spite of all that, however. We were able to test out some peripherals for the telescopes using a laptop computer. For a test run, we took out the 11'' Celestron and attached the laptop as well as a small spectrometer. After some trial and error we eventually had to give up. It was exceedingly difficult to correctly align the light from the star onto the small surface area of the spectrometer in order to aquire any sort of data. Even worse, the spectrometer was too small to pick up light from the distant stars and is more suitable to brighter emission sources.

We had hoped to be able to use this little spectrometer in addition with the more user friendly telescopes as a futher aid to the average lay-person in order to give them a more in depth approach to what the stars are capable of telling us. Perhaps we'll still yet find some interesting aparatus that we can incorporate if not a spectrometer.

We then found a special eyepiece containing a diffraction grating which we were able to attach to the Celestron. With some adjusting and focusing we were able to see a few absorption lines. They were rather brilliant and the feeling was almost monumental. Instead of looking through the telescope's eyepiece to see the star itself, the viewer was greeted with a small rainbow. This spectra in turn was sliced vertically with dark bands and these were the star's absorption lines. To see in 'real time' some of the absorption lines of a star was fantastic and awesome.

Though that eyepiece is definitely not capable of practical data collection, it is certainly a wonderful tool to demonstrate to others the basics of spectroscopy.

In other news: I've nearly completed the physical (as opposed to merely textual) mini instruction manuals for the telescopes. Once we had the set-up instructions to Robert's liking, we printed them out and I've been steadfastly working on cutting and afixing them to a stiff backing. The goal is to then laminate these cards so as to hang them directly from their designated scopes for ease of access to any of the telescopes available here at the observatory.

Sun in Our Sights!

2009-03-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

FINALLY!!! Praise Science!

We have clear skies today so we've taken pictures of our glorious sun - at long last! We also tried to attach a color CCD camera to the robodome scope but we were disappointed with the images received. They were horribly pixelated and completely unusable. We weren't sure if the little Meade CCD could even handle solar images but we thought we'd give it a shot. Since that didn't work, we returned our trusty old AstroVid Camera to its proper place.

And more great news - Alice finally came to work today! I was wondering when she'd be ready to join the team again! We're all very happy to have her aboard. This afternoon, she and Robert made a demonstration video about how to set up the little 4' NexStar telescope. It looks like we're going to attempt to create a quick video on the set up of each of the telescopes that we documented last fall. Fun!

Alright, I know you've all been waiting. I won't bore you any further.

SUN PICTURES!!!

1. Check out all the prominences!! Big ones, small ones... All of them bigger than Earth!

2. We adjust the shutter speed and look! Granules!!!!

3. Now in false color yellow-orange!

4. Aren't these just spectacular?! Quite a prominent show today! *har har*

That's all for today!

It's getting old, isn't it?

2009-02-28T15:42:00.000-08:00

Yet AGAIN we are run a-fowl due to the weather. It seemed so clear yesterday! The sun was bright, the weather was mild, everything was perfect. I hoped that it could hold out for one more day. Alas, such is not the case and yet another Saturday is ruined by hazy clouds! This, of course, means no Robodome!

Last Wednesday Dan printed out all the materials we've written to date: documentation, procedures, peripheral material, how-tos, etc. Robert Collier took a look at everything we've done far and is still in the process of sorting through everything we've presented him with. When he's finished with that, we'll know what we need to tweak, correct, add, or brush up on. We're getting really close to completion on some of these projects!!

Robert also had the idea that Teledocs could head down to Berkeley for a special lecture soon. We found one this coming March centering on Dark Matter. I'm stoked! Considering I'm aiming for a degree and career in astrophysics, this would be right up my alley.

Today, Dan couldn't make it, and since John and I can't play with the Robodome, we've decided to spruce up some of the documentation and paperwork that Robert has already given us feedback on. More news when I have some for you!

2009-02-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

This past week has been busy for the Teledocs crew but not with astronomical pursuits. Last Wednesday approximately 60 Representatives and Legislators visited the observatory to check out what we have to offer at our facility. Hors d'oeuvres and other tasty delights were served. The members of the Western Nevada Astronomical Society wined and dined the prestigious delegates of our state into the wee hours of the night. Wee as in 8pm. But it still put a slight hamper on our work though we did manage to collect quite a few more spectra of various elements. We're currently in the process of sifting through the data we've collected so far in our attempts to decifer the spectrometer.

Today we had high hopes of breaking out the scope in the robodome again. We wanted to try and attach that auto-focuser to it until we realised that it has somehow gone completely haywire. We made need to recalibrate the scope and the dome. We left that project for another day as it is extremely cloudy and hazy and we couldn't find the sun through the haze anyway. It was a real shame because I desperately wanted to upload some photos of the sun today!! I'm sorry, my readers, you'll just have to wait until the clouds go away! I have no control! But we keep trying!

See you next week!

P.S. Check out the WNAS website as John has updated it with info on the raffle this year!

Persistant Clouds!!!

2009-02-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

Nevada has been experiencing some weather other than sun for a change. To snowboarders and skiers, this is a welcome deviation from the norm; but for astronomers, clouds and snow are a sure-fire way to ruin a perfectly good evening of stargazing. Such has been the case for our group this past week. Wednesday clouds obscured our view of the majority of the sky though we tenaciously managed to snag a couple spectra of Sirius. We simultaneously took spectra of helium as a reference. We weren't able to get a full spectra before the clouds drowned us out but at least we made a grand display of perseverance! Dan focused on making sense of the data we'd collected by piecing together the spectra chunks we'd acquired. He's working on it further today. Spectroscopy is certainly not easy and it's definitely not for the lazy or faint of heart. It takes a lot of effort to decode the rich information inherent to a star's spectrum.

A couple weeks ago the guys had an idea to make the focuser on the robodome telescope remote controlled. This is a prime example of the productivity that stems from a primarily lazy beginning. As it is, most of the functions concerning the robodome and scope can be remotely accessed from computers in the observatory. Exceptions are when the link between the remote computer and the robodome computer fail .... and the focuser. If your image is fuzzy or blurry, you will have to run up the hill to the robodome and manually adjust the focuser, then run back down to the use the remote computer controls again. Dan and John want to change this by attaching a remote apparatus that will focus the scope for us here in the nice, warm observatory. They acquired a remote focuser and this afternoon we tinkered around with ideas on how to attach it to the scope's focuser. With a little ingenuity and perspicacity we should have something rigged up in no time!

But I digress. We were speaking of spectroscopy. I had the idea that it might be fruitful to create a compiled list of laboratory spectrum that we have access to here at the observatory. There is a multitude of Geisler tubes available, each containing a unique element. We can have the spectrograph take spectra of each of these elements in turn and compile an entire library of spectra. This data can then be used purely for its own sake, to calibrate locations of future spectra, or to help identify elements within those spectra. Of course, for high quality data or precision measurements, it would be best to retake your calibration spectra at the time you take your star spectra. But if you're not hung up on the accuracy of a few Angstrom, then this could be a time saving utility for future spectroscopers! Hopefully we can get started on this project tonight since it doesn't physically involve the sky... which we can't see anyway.

But science never stops!

2009-02-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

We've been Weather'd Out!!!

We were planning on setting up some telescopes tonight in order to become familiar with some peripherals for these scopes. We were going to hook up a laptop computer and a spectrograph to one of them and explore what kind of data we could collect with varying set-ups. Detailed documentation on the set up and usage of these peripherals is one of the goals of our group. Unfortunately, a large storm rolled in last night and it's been snowing all day today! Boo! We're now forced to forgo our original plans and focus on what documentation we have yet to finish. Unfortunately again, Dan forgot the USB port on which we've stored all of our procedures and instruction manuals so NOW.... we're getting creative. We WILL be productive today in some capacity or another.

Oh yes! And the illustrious Gary Cole came up yet again this past Wednesday to teach us how to focus the spectrograph specifically. He also was able to clear up the few remaining questions we had on spectroscopy in general. We now know how to calibrate, focus, switch between hi- and low- resolution, adjust the micrometer without having to guestimate what we're doing, take spectra, manipulation those spectra; and we'll continue to practice with interpretation of our data. Cole also told us of a neat program that we could acquire for the purpose of interpreting our spectrum called V-spec. We're looking into downloading the program to decide how useful it could be to us as well as potential students.

It looks like John and Dan have found a project to work on. We have a weird program that supposedly will give us the ability to get still frame images from the scope in the robodome that we can then upload to the internet. Cloudy or not, they're going to turn on the robodome and see if the program even works and if so, how useful these captured images can be and of what resolution. They're up at the robodome now restarting all the computer but there's snow out there and I'm freezing so I'm going to find my own project! Three's a crowd, I always say!

Procedure Testing

2009-01-31T16:59:00.000-08:00

This past Wednesday we were able to test the Stepwise procedures we wrote for some of the smaller scopes. We tested the 10" Dobsonian as well as the 11" Celestron and the students were able to follow our written instructions to set up the scopes with minimal intercession. I supervised the student using the 10" Dob and he was very happy to be able to see the Orion Nebula, Andromeda galaxy and Saturn! However, the student did remark that the 10" Dob was perhaps a more difficult telescope for a beginner since it requires working knowledge of the constellations and catalog names of the phenomenon therein. While this Dob had a handset and go-to capabilities, it was not an automatic mount, obviously, and therefore knowledge of the sky was paramount to ease of use.

I also demonstrated astro-imaging to the students by opening up the C-14. We took images of Andromeda, the Horsehead Nebula, and multiple star clusters. It was wonderful to see other students getting excited about astronomy!

Today, (Saturday), we played around with the radio telescope. Previously the scope's elevation motor was not working properly so we took the covers off to investigate. It was a simple fix as small component just needed to be readjusted and put back in place. Once the scope was slewing properly again we tried to track the Sun. This radio telescope has never been focused before despite all attempts to correct this. When the scope was pointed at the Sun we saw no discernable difference than we were not pointed at the Sun. Obviously the focus is still very off. We'll brainstorm ideas that have not yet been tried to correct this problem and keep you posted.

Behind the Scenes

2009-01-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

Our work at Teledocs isn't always as fascinating as we may like. This week we spent our time catching up on documentation and refocusing our direction as a group.

Wednesday Dan and I wrote up preliminary documentation on the process of astrophotography. We discussed step by step imaging processes as well as those for multiple and color images. We also wrote a rough draft on spectroscopy with CCDOPS. Before we're satisfied with these we'll try to run through the steps ourselves at least once more and jot down more detailed information.

John began writing a supplementary document for astro-imaging. He focused more on the subtlties behind the techniques describing the necessity of darks, flats, and biases among other things. Alice was also able to join us and she continued her work on variable star data. I still haven't even seen a lick of what she's doing but I'm hoping we'll all find time soon enough to explore the knowledge she's got in that head of hers!

This Saturday the Western Nevada Astronomical Society was doing maintenance on the telescopes and we were able to help out a bit. We took the focuser off of an 8" Dob and fiddled with the tubing to reduce the jiggling of the focuser. The rest of the afternoon we've spent going over our progress and creating a concrete game plan for the rest of the semester.

To Do List:

Finish up documentation on astro-imaging and spectroscopy
Finish up the variable star data and pick Alice's brain for those procedures
Print out the Stepwise procedures for each of the small telescopes; create them into cards that will attach directly to each individual scope
Try to get the radio telescope to focus

We're getting down there!

Spectroscopy

2009-01-17T15:59:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday and Teledocs is catching up on some backwork that we've been avoiding in favor of more hands-on pursuits. Dan is writing up the documentation on the Astrovid StellaCam for the Robodome; John is working on the WNAS website, and I'm catching up on our blog, obviously. Alice couldn't join us this week.

Last Wednesday we made some progress with the spectrometer on the C-14. We messed around with the micrometer to see how far the spectra slid in one direction or another and determined which end of the spectrum was red and which blue. Last semester we practiced taking some calibration spectra with hydrogen but we were shakey on the procedure. We tried again with much better results. We were able to take the spectra of an A type star and pinpoint the hydrogen lines therein. We were rather pleased with ourselves. I think after a few more practice runs we'll be confident enough to write up documentation on the process.

We also had reason to believe there was a comet visible to the nake eye somewhere in the region of Cancer. TheSky program told us it'd be at magnitude 2.6 so we snatched a pair of binoculars and headed outdoors but try as we might we could not find that comet for the life of us. Was TheSky lying to us? We may never know. Until we try to find additional information on 17P-Holmes. Which we may do today if we have enough time!

Flats and Filters

2009-01-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

Today we started up the Robodome one more time with the goal of ascertaining the camera controls for the television moniter that the feed from the scope in the dome is attached to. The camera connected to the scope is an Astrovid StellaCam but we were experiencing problems when we tried to adjust the control settings in order to bring out specific details in the image of the sun. Turns out we were just idiots and needed to read the manual. Which we did. The camera was working properly the entire time unbeknownst to us. Now, however, we have some idea of how to use it in the proper way. Yeah. Silly us.

Also today, John came up with the brilliant idea of taking some flats for the C-14. Why, I still haven't the foggiest but it seemed like a great idea. Instead of finding a diffuser, he decided to get creative. He cut a paper ring to fit over the C-14 and then cut a corresponding sheet of white paper to cover the front of the scope. This paper was held in place, of course, by the ingenius paper ring he'd already assembled. We set up a screen and directed incandescent light to bounce off it and toward the scope.

The flats seemed to come out decent until Walt, a member of WNAS, informded us that we overexposed our flats by 100%. Darn. Guess we'll have to try again sometime but it was good experience and the paper diffuser wasn't half bad! For future reference: The saturation should be about 30% of the well capacity which is about 60,000 counts for a total of 20,000. Silly us again. Science is so much trial and error and constant, constant learning!

A new semester; a new Teledocs project!

2009-01-06T22:26:00.000-08:00

It's 2009 and the group at TeleDOCS are back to work. This week we met again with Mr. Collier to discuss our goals and our current progress. To recap:

We completed our overview of 8 to 10 different telescopes in the observatory's possession. We documented the proceedure for the start up and operation of each of them. We're working on setting a date to have a group of students come up to the observatory in order to test our instructions, though we have been able to test a couple of them already.
We got the Robodome in working condition and were able to observe the sun on several occasions. We have the ability to hook up the feed to a television monitor in the observatory as well as record that data. We wrote extensive instructions on the set up and operation of the remote access for the Robodome, operation thereof, and the camera controls for the television monitor.
We began exploration of the C-14 telescope and will soon be able to write up documentation on the process of aquiring astroimages.
We had a couple of visits by Gary Cole in regards to the spectrometer attached to the C-14 and will soon be able to acquire decent spectra of stars.

That's what we've accomplished so far in about two months. Think how much more we'll be able to do now that we're back in business! Our current goals for this semester are

Fully understand the spectrometer and successfuly take spectra
Fully understand the process of astrophotography and write up documentation
Explore the use of peripherals for the telescopes such as computers and cameras, etc.
Create documentation on the process of collecting variable star data
Become familiar with the other two large telescope the observatory has (the C 400 and the BRC 250)

Also this semester Alice will be joining our little group. As I understand, she already has some experience with Variable Star Data so we'll be putting her in charge of that arena. We all look forward to working with her though I don't think we'll have the opportunity to see her very often as she has a rather full schedule and will only be working with us about three hours per week.

All in all, we're excited to be back. Speaking for myself, I find the holiday break from school rather overrated and I have always prefered to be about my work and learning instead.

M27

2008-12-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

This week I learned how to take astro photographs! It was one of the most exciting things I've done in years. All my life I've wanted to take pictures of the beautiful objects in the sky but never fully understood the technical aspects of making that happen. In theory it all made sense but actually operating a large telescope and CCD camera were completely foreign to me.

Walt, a member of the Western Nevada Astronomical Society taught me how to use and operate the C-14 scope and its CCD camera. I learned how to focus the scope with MaxIm 5 as well as slew it using The Sky 6. Once this was achieved I darted over to M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. Walt showed me how to take images of the nebula with and without the guiding mechanism in the CCD camera. After this, he showed me how to take images in LRGB and how to combine those filtered images into a full color image. Here are my results, my first astrograph EVER!

I don't think it's too shabby considering it's my first try. I only used four images, one in each filter. Each exposure was 3 minutes long. I'm so tickled!!!! I can't wait to try my hand at other objects! And that's exactly what John, Dan and I tried our hands at tonight. We've taken a few exposures of the Horsehead Nebula but we've run out of time tonight so we'll see what we can put together on Thursday. Stay tuned for more on that!

Last Thursday Gary Cole did indeed come up to teach us further on the process of collecting data through the spectrometer. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend and I'm still kicking myself over it! John and Dan said they learned alot from Gary, so while we work on some images of the Horsehead we'll also tinker around with the spectrometer and see what we can do on that front. Already we've learned so much about the processes involved in using this equipment. The more we know, the easier it will be to relay this information in an understandable manner to others who would learn. As exciting as it is to learn all of this new information, it's even more fun to teach others and share the joy!

Another Update

2008-12-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a few days since I've had a chance to update the blog what with the Thanksgiving Holiday this past week. Since the group normally meets Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we considered doing astronomy on Thanksgiving Day but finally decided that spending time with family was just as important as the sky.

Last Saturday we finally finished getting the Robodome up and running. The weather was perfect and not a cloud in the sky. John and Dan finally began showing me how to operate the scope remotely. We were able to run the image from the scope to a television moniter in the observatory. Then we watched the Sun on TV! At first we thought we'd found a couple of sunspots but upon closer inspection we realised the spots we were seeing were simply debris on the filter of the telescope. That was disappointing. However, we still think we found one very tiny little sunspot and that was well worth it. Better than that, we saw a brilliant prominence extending quite a ways out from the Sun. As the Sun began to set we noticed more prominences popping up all over the place. The coolest part of the evening was watching the Sun set behind the trees on the hills behind the observatory. On the monitor it looked as if a space craft were blocking the sun's light. From our point of view it was as if the sun were being swallowed by a big black lumpy monster... and then the screen went dark as the sun completely sank behind the hills. It was such a beautiful sight. My only regret is that we didn't record the event. Darn.

Tonight we started working on the spectrometer but we're having problems. We all remember when Gary Cole gave us the demonstration a month or two ago but none of us remembers the details about how to use the program CCDOPS nor do we fully understand how to undertake the process of calibrating the spectrometer with a neon or hydrogen lamp. We were able to take some spectra tonight but unfortunately we don't know how to subtract the background noise nor do we know how to interpret our data or measure the spectral lines. Seems pretty pointless without that information. So we're going to call Mr. Cole up and beg him to come out to the observatory again and give us a more in depth tour of spectroscopy. In the meantime I'm going to read the manuals until I know them by heart!

This week at TeleDOCS:

2008-11-22T17:29:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, Nov. 15th, John and Dan fiddled around with the Robodome and managed to realign the scope with the dome itself. I elected to catch up on paperwork and didn't get to watch the fun. Now that it's aligned, however, we should be able to produce a good show with it. The dome houses a Coronado Solar Scope and we're just yearning for a cloudless day to put it to the test. They'll be writing up the details on how to realign it should it need a touch-up later on.

Tuesday the 18th was the monthly meeting of the Western Nevada Astronomical Society. President Mike gave a great talk on the history of the Space Race.

Thursday the 20th we were slated to begin tinkering with spectroscopy again but the wind was rather fierce and prevented us from that route. Instead Walt, another member of WNAS taught us how to use the computers and the big outdoor scopes to take color images of a pair of G2 variable stars. I don't pretend to understand the programs that are used to accomplish this amazing work but at least I'm learning how to use it. We started by taking a plethora of images of a pair of G2V stars (Cyg A and Cyg B) in Red, Green, and Blue filters. Walt showed us how to align these images and compress them into a single image. This in turn would tell us how the camera "sees." Because the chip inside the camera has a certain sensitivity to different colors which are different from what our eyes are sensative to, if we want a "real color" image we need to know how sensative our camera is in different wavelengths. Ours turned out to be more sensative in red and nearly equal in blue and green. Once we knew the sensativities of our camera we then played around combing the different filtered images together to recreate a color image. We didn't do a very good job but hey, it was our first time!

Today we were again hoping it would be clear so we could play with the solar scope in the robodome but our hopes were dashed once again. Due to the cloud cover we elected to stay indoors and catch up on more write-ups that we've been putting off in favor of the hands-on activities that take up so much of our time.

We'll keep you posted!

Celestron + Camera = Yay!

2008-11-11T21:08:00.000-08:00

TeleDOCS hasn't been able to accomplish much astronomy in the past week or so due to incliment weather. Every night we meet up we're bombarded with clouds, wind and rain. We had one evening last week in which we were able to inspect and detail the operation of another telesceope for which we were all grateful. We're getting really sick of being indoors.

We took out the Celestron 11.6" with CGE Mount last Thursday. That telescope system is huge and definitely requires at least two people to move around and set up. It took John and Dan awhile to figure out how to detach the telescope from the mount. With all the other scopes the optical tubes quickly and easily attached from their bases while still safely craddled in their ring system but such was not the case with this scope. The way it was designed made it nearly impossible to remove the ring system from the base so we had to take the scope out of the rings and set it aside.

Once the guys manhandled the base outside, we had to tackle the task of reassembling the scope and counterweights. We began aligning the scope but encountered problems. The scope wouldn't slew anywhere near the star we programmed it to align with. After much headscratching we realised the problem: The battery pack we were using wasn't charged enough to support the energy consumption of the telescope. Once we swapped it out for a fully charged battery pack the alignment process went smoothly and we were on our way to viewing again. As usual, I was the notetaker and official scribe. I sure hope John can read my handwriting as he attempts to write up our instruction manual for this scope. Normally my writing is legible but not so in the dark.

After veiwing the sky for awhile John had the urge to break out the small CCD camera and figure out how to attach that to the scope we'd brought out. The camera is a small black and white CCTV camera with a 1/3" sensor and 537(H) x 505(V) total pixels. There was a flurry of wires and adapters and power outlets and in the end we were watching the moon on a small tv out back of the observatory. We were very impressed with ourselves and the set up was extremely easy. On the back of the camera were two cords- one that led directly to a power outlet, the other was connected with the small television. Voila! We watched the craters on the moon for nearly an hour, matching up what we saw with a small guide globe of the moon.

We always have so much fun at work.

Two Scopes - Double the fun!

2008-10-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight we took out a couple different telescopes. The first was a Celestron CPC Series 8" w/GPS. The second we set up was a Meade LXD55 EMC 6" Refractor. Personally, I found the refractor the more enjoyable of the two.The Celestron was very easy to set up and we should have those written instructions completed in no time. The Meade refractor was a longer process but was very rewarding.

We took the refractor off its base and attached to an outside pier mount. Setting the counterweights to correctly balance the scope took awhile. Aligning it was a challenge until we realised we had the wrong hand set - again. I took detailed notes while John and Dan fiddled. It will take longer to write up a comprehensive instruction manual for this scope but I plan on really encouraging people to try it because the views we achieved with it were simply amazing!

Once we had the Meade set up, we flung it every which way around the sky scoping out any and everything we could possibly see. I had some new firsts: The Orion Nebula, M32, and this adorable little open cluster called the Coat Hanger. We also tracked a suspiciously blinking satellite (which blinked every 12 seconds- John timed it!) and plan on figuring out which one it was just for the fun of it.Thursday we've been rained out so there will be no telescope time for TeleDOCS tonight. We've elected to catch up on some of our write-ups, reports, and the blog of course. We'll keep you posted!

Fun in the Sun

2008-10-25T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today I have been entirely delirious and I've had to rely on John and Dan to make sure our work progressed as planned. It's been a bright and beautiful Nevadan afternoon and as such the guys thought it would be fun to set up a scope complete with a solar filter to view the sun spots.We took out a Takahashi 4in with a German equatorial base. After a long conversation and many references to the manual, the guys were able to attach an H-alpha filter. (We were very, very careful as this was a $3,000 piece of equipment.)

It took us almost as long to figure out how to align it with the Sun since we couldn't look at the sun through the scope. Dan and John were ingenous by using the shadow cast from the telescope to get it pointed in the right direction. John then held up a small white card behind the viewfinder to center the Sun properly.It took some work and alot of patience but we were finally blessed with a large red image of our parent star. Unfortunately there were no sunspots today but we saw something even better: solar prominences!

It was so awesome!!! I love our sun!

Andromeda

2008-10-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

Dan couldn't be with us tonight so John and I tackled a large Meade 8' F6 Newtonian scope with a German equatorial mount.

This thing is a beast! The tube of the telescope is four feet long. We dragged the scope and the mount outside and began the process of attaching them. This turned out to be a touch and go procedure. The scope had to be mounted so that it was properly balanced with the counterweights which turned out to be a mildly difficult task. Setting up this scope is definitely a two-person job. Once we had the bands tightened around the tube, we realised the eyepiece was not in the right position for ease of viewing. We had to loosen the bands and twist the tube around to reposition the eyepiece.

Once the scope is set up, slewing it was a breeze!The mount was self tracking and had its own power supply on board. All we had to do was plug it in. There was no clutch on the right ascension- it was a friction clutch. Essentially, it was entirely a manual operation. Just point and view! Simple, standard and easy to use once you have the scope balanced properly on the mount.

First we set our eyes on Jupiter and using a multitude of different eyepieces we were able to see varying degrees of detail. With the Barlow eyepiece I was able to see individual bands and zones on Jupiter's surface. When we tired of Jupiter we swiveled around to M57- The Ring Nebula. With 8 inches of light gathering surface and the right eyepiece we were able to see that characteristic donut shape in the sky. But John saved the best for last! John pointed our beasty scope at Andromeda. Being the complete astro-n00b that I am, I'd never before seen that famous galaxy with my own eyes. Seeing it for the first time through the Meade, I was amazed and almost started bouncing up and down for joy. John then taught me how to find it in the sky with my naked eye. I am transformed!

Spectroscopy!

2008-10-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight TeleDOCS attended a special spectroscopy class. Spectroscopy is essential in order to understand the universe we live in. It involves taking the spectrum of a star or other stellar object (much like a prism creates the spectrum of a rainbow) and inferring what ingredients it contains or is surrounded by. I won't go into the science of it all in this blog but if you'd like to learn more about it you can visit this site: http://loke.as.arizona.edu/~ckulesa/camp/spectroscopy_intro.html

The telescopes at the observatory were outfitted with spectroscopes and CCD cameras. Gary Cole was our instructor and he showed us essentially how to take a spectra of a star using the equipment. As this is one of TeleDOCS future objectives, this information was crucial.We began by ensuring all the equipment was working. A smaller 'siting' telescope was bolted to a much larger imaging telescope. The spectroscope and ccd camera were attached to the smaller scope. The goal was to find an image in the smaller scope and also have it show up on the larger scope. The larger scope was important because it could collect more light and more light means a better image.

Once this was accomplished, we took an image of the star Vega. On the spectroscope was a 'slit light.' Centering Vega on this line of light would ensure that the spectroscope actually imaged the star itself. After Vega was aligned properly, we took another image of it but this time with the spectroscope. The image we received was that of a thin band of light periodically punctured with darker bands. Creating a graph of this image provided us with a curve punctuated by troughs that correlated with the dark bands. These troughs, when measured precisely, would turn out to be the signature of hydrogen.

We repeated this process with a colder star. Instead of a few dark bands we saw hundreds. Most of these would prove to be the signatures of a wide array of different elements- a character of cold stars. When we took a spectrum of a sun-like star we found troughs in between these two extremes. All of these spectra were absortion spectra.We moved on to an emissions spectra by taking the spetrum of M-51, an emission nebula. Instead of a long, thin band of light with dark spots we had the opposite- only two or three really bright spots and nothing else. When we created a graph of the bright spots it consisted mostly of a straight line and large humps that corresponded to the bright spots in the picture.Cole also taught us how to correct for background noise in a spectroscope by taking an image with the spectroscope with the shutter closed. This would then be subtracted out of our original spectrum leaving more of the actual data instead of the noise surrounding it.

TeleDOCS? What is all this?

2008-10-18T21:28:00.000-07:00

John is around here somewhere and Dan is hard at work typing up a To Do List for a Celestron Nexstar 4" scope. I'm Melanie and since I'm the only one left, I've volunteered to update and operate our blog.So what is Stern Astro? Stern Astro is just a goofy psuedo wanna-be acronym of Western Nevada Astronomical Society. We all found it hilarious and it's become the inside joke of the group. And TeleDOCS? DOCS is an acronym for Davis Observatory Curriculum Study. So let's put it altogether: Myself, John and Dan comprise the group TeleDOCS and we work closely with the Western Nevada Astronomical Society (WNAS) at the Jack C. Davis Observatory under WNAS Vice President and Obseravtory Director Robert Collier to study how we can make astronomy more accessible to the average student. All of this is made possible thanks to a grant from the Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium. Got all that?

Thursday, October 16, 2008 we had our first meeting with Mr. Collier to discuss the goals for TeleDOCS:
Understand and document set-up and usage procedures for different types of telescopes
Understand and document procedures for the usage of peripheral computers, spectrographs, cameras, etc.
Develop procedures for the operation of telescope hardware and software in order to produce astrophotographic images
Develop procedures for the operation of telescope hardward and software with the goal of producing variable star data and reporting results to the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Develop an operational manual to control an extranal solar dome tracking system to image the sun and upload those images onto the internet
Basic understanding and operation of the 3.0 meter radio telescope

First on the list? Basically, we need to understand the telescopes and develop some operational manuals that are straight forward and easy to use. It's true that every telescope is equipped with an operational manual but these are full of jargon and astro-lingo that the average student is not familiar with. The ultimate goal is to make astronomy fun and exciting- the way it should be. Nothing about a three inch thick operations manual says "fun" to me so we're going to change that by streamlining the process and condensing this information into easy to swallow, step by step instructions.

We decided to start with a list of different kinds of telescopes. The two scopes we worked with Thursday night were a Celestron Nexstar 4" and a Celestron Nexstar 114mm. Both of these telescopes come equipped with an electronic GoTo tracking device that essentially does all the hard work for you! (Once you figure out how to work the device itself!) We took the two scopes outside and began the process of familiarizing ourselves with those thick manuals and the scopes themselves.

Dan and I were able to start viewing with the Celestron Nexstar 4" scope in about thirty minutes. We used the scope's manual to familiarize ourselves with the commands for the GoTo device. We explored how to autoalign the telescope and how to adjust things on the telescope like the focus, the viewfinder, and the necessary power supply. As I elected to be scribe, I documented every step from start to finish until we were finally viewing the heavens.

John and Alice had a much more difficult time with the Celestron Nexstar 114mm. The GoTo device on their telescope wasn't working properly. They followed the manual's instructions for the alignment of the scope but the GoTo device kept instructing the scope to slew in all sorts of wrong diretions. They'd try to point it at Vega and it would instruct the telescope to point at the bottom of a mountain. They'd try to align it with Capella and it'd slew to the middle of the sky. Finally, we switched the GoTo handset for a different one and voila!! Success! This is something we'll have to keep in mind when we write up a troubleshooting manual: Make sure the handset for the GoTo device is in proper working condition! After both telescopes were properly set up for viewing we began comparing our notes and found that these two scopes use nearly the same procedure.

This afternoon we're working on translating our own handwriting into explicit step-by-step instructions on how to get the telescope outside and get it working. We also have our blog up and running and we're now beginning the design of our introduction to astronomy manual.
So far, so good! We'll keep you informed of what we're working on next. Stay tuned!