Posts Made By: David Rodger

I have an acceptable urban sky. On a clear night I can see 5th magnitude naked eye. Unfortunately my next door neighbor is trying to emulate the local used car lot and has strung lights along our adjoining fence, their trees and across their back porch. I looked at various ways of reducing the effect of those lights. (Talking to them about the lights elicited sympathy but no action) Then I remembered an old projection screen in the basement that I used to use for showing 35mm slides. It works perfectly. I went to a camera store and bought a second one and now, with both of them up, I can ignore those lights entirely. The screens can be set up in seconds and raised to an appropriate height. I realize that there are professionally made light barriers available, but the projection screens are cheap, lightweight and easy to install and take down. Just beware of wind. One night both blew over in a sudden gust.

Here's a challenge for you. In 1970 I wrote a show called Sky Scene Seventy for Vancouver's HR MacMillan Planetarium. In that show, there's a little dialog in which an astronomer greets another with the salutation, "Clear Skies!" The idea for the salutation just jumped into my head. I don't recall ever hearing anyone use it until I put it in the fictitious astronomer's mouth. I make no claims to "owning" it, or even "starting" it. I'm quite indifferent in that respect. But I've noticed how widespread it now seems to be, and I'm only curious to know whether anyone can confirm an example of its use before January 1970. I'll quite happily acknowledge its precedence.

Also in the western sky are some of the prime deep sky objects in Lyra and Cygnus. Go for the Ring Nebula (M57) and M92 in Hercules. It should still be high enough.

Hi, Allison. I hope all went well with your observing session the other night. What objects did you show your guests?

I use the Nagler Click-Stop Zooms (8mm to 24mm) in my binoviewer. Nothing thrilling, but perhaps that's the fault of my Celestron (Baader Planetarium) binoviewer. It seems to prefer mid-range focal length eyepieces. A Denk is on order, however, so that may brighten things up. I'd be cautious about trying anything with as short a focal length as the 3-6mm zoon just because of light loss and the kind of conditions you need in the atmosphere to justify high power most of the time.

If it's 15th magnitude, you'd have to have a pretty good-size 'scope to see it visually.