Posts Made By: Dave Mitsky

Phil,

Have you considered the site in the Pine Grove Furnace State Park near Gardners that ASH used for the 2004 S4 Star Party?

Dave Mitsky

Well, the Tele Vue type 4 and type 6 Naglers are excellent in my book. Depending upon your magnification preference, either a 17mm T4 or 13mm T6 would be a good choice. The old Meade 14.4mm UWA is also a very fine deep-sky ocular. With a slow f/10 telescope, there are many other wide-field designs such as Koenigs and so on that will work quite well, but with less apparent field of view than the Naglers and UWAs.

Some people prefer orthos for DSO use. I generally don't see much fine detail in galaxies to begin with so I prefer the larger AFOV of the Naglers and eyepieces like the Pentax XW line.

Did you mean monocentric? I don't think that a monocentric, with its very small AFOV and other issues, is considered a good choice for this purpose.

Dave Mitsky

Is it a Tankotron 2000?

Dave Mitsky

This is just off the top of my head, using quite a mix of telescopes up to 32 inches in aperture:

1: Dust bands in M82 A
2: Spiral arms of M61 I don't recall
3: Equatorial dust band of NGC891 A
4: Spiral arms of M33 A
5: The obscuring cloud of M64 ("Black eye") A
6: Spiral arms of M51 A
7: Emission nebula, NGC604 in M33 A
8: Dust bands in NGC3556 I don't recall
9: Spiral arms of M99 A
10: One dust band in the Andromeda galaxy A
11: Spiral arms of M101 A
12: Equatorial dust band of NGC3628 (The one near M65/66) A
13: Two dust bands in the Andromeda galaxy A
14: Emission nebulae in the spiral arms of M101 A
15: Spiral arms of M100 I don't recall
16: Equatorial dust band of NGC4565 (Coma Berenices) A
17: "Bend" of galaxy NGC4656 (Canes Venatici) I don't recall
18: Spiral arms of NGC2403 A
19: Spiral arms of NGC2903 A
20: Bridge between M51 and companion galaxy A

Dave Mitsky

ASH owns both of these telescopes and I've used each of them a fair number of times. The Astroscan may be more suitable for travel but my choice would be the StarBlast.

Dave Mitsky

Three fellow Pennsylvanians and I traveled to the 4000 foot tall summit of the Dolly Sods plateau - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Sods_Wilderness and http://www.patc.net/hiking/destinations/dolysods.html - in West Virginia's Canaan Valley on Friday. It was a very unusual November night indeed in terms of the superb seeing and transparency conditions as well as surprisingly mild temperatures and a complete absence of dew.

One of my group owned an 18" ServoCAT Obsession that was equipped with a MallinCam integrating video camera and an FM transmitter. A receiver and video monitor completed the system.

The MallinCam produced astounding images of a host of deep-sky objects including M51 and NGC 5195, M65, M66, M81, M82, NGC 253, NGC 288, NGC 1365, NGC 2261 (Hubble's Variable Nebula), NGC 2359 (Thor's Helmet), NGC 2403, NGC 2683, NGC 2903, NGC 3628, NGC 4565, B33 (the Horsehead Nebula), and the Cone Nebula.

The degree of detail that was obvious in galaxies was truly amazing.

Dave Mitsky

Here's what I had to say in my monthly astronomical calendar:

Mercury (which is still undergoing its best morning apparition of 2006), Mars, and Jupiter fit within a circle with a 5 degree diameter from December 7 to December 14 and a 2 degree circle from December 9 to December 11. On December 10, Mercury and Jupiter are separated by 17'. Mars and Jupiter are 48’ apart on December 11. Prior to dawn on December 10, the three planets come within a degree of each other, the closest approach of three naked-eye planets from 1980 through 2050. (The 2.5 magnitude binary star Beta Scorpii (Graffias) fits into a 1.1 degree diameter circle with the three planets that morning.) Unfortunately, the planetary trio will be very low in the east-southeast during morning twilight so clear skies and good horizons will be necessary to see them.

Dave Mitsky

IMO, the Cone Nebula is an extremely difficult challenge object. In all my years of DSO observing, I have only seen a few reports of successful visual sightings of the Cone Nebula.

http://observers.org/reports/99.12.30.3.html

On the night of November 24, a fellow ASH member and I were able to make out a very slightly darker area where the Cone is located through his 18" Obsession at a site in West Virginia that approached a seventh magnitude NELM.

However, a MallinCam HYPER video camera produced an unmistakable image of the Cone Nebula through another 18" Obsession that night.

Dave Mitsky

I use 30mm Celestron Ultimas and 19mm Panoptics but I wouldn't mind having a pair of the 21mm Denkmeiers.

Dave Mitsky

I witnessed the planetary trio on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It was fairly cloudy on Saturday morning despite forecasts of clear skies. I decided to take a chance anyway and drove to the top of a hill with an excellent view of the eastern horizon. The clouds began to dissipate and after finally spotting Mercury naked-eye in the east-southeast I observed all three planets through a 8x42 Celestron binocular. I then set up my 80mm f/5 Orion ST80 refractor. The trio easily fit into the field of view produced by an old 26mm Tele Vue Ploessl. I tried to get a prime focus shot with my Canon EOS Digital Rebel and the ST80 but after a series of miscues the sky was growing too bright and my fingers too numb from the cold to continue so I called it quits.

On Sunday, I observed the event from a closer vantage point. It was very clear and the trio and Beta Scorpii (Graffias) were easily visible through the 8x42s. Since I had overslept a bit, I didn't have the time to bring the ST80 and set it up so I settled for some shots with a Canon zoom lens set at 200mm.

This is the only one that clearly showed the three planets and Graffias.

Dave Mitsky