Spring Crocuses

This entry would have been more à propos had I been able to get myself to post it a week and a half ago. O tempora, o mores... Nevertheless, here we are now, with photos of flowers, just in time for spring. Taken on 16 March with a Canon EOS Rebel XT (don't cameras have silly names?), these aren't the earliest local crocuses that I remember seeing, but they are some of the nicest. At some point in the history of our hundred year-old house, someone littered the back garden with crocus bulbs, and if I've bothered to rake the winter before, we get a nice show just on the cusp of spring.

I've always been a mediocre photographer. I tried on more than one occasion to learn the rudiments of composition, style, and technical saavy - the things that go into taking a really good photograph. I've always understood that there was an actual science that went into good photography - I just couldn't be asked. In the days of film-based 35mm SLRs, therefore, the only good photographs I ever took were accidental. No matter what I thought I was seeing through the viewfinder, what I got when the prints came back was... less than perfect, shall we say.

Fortunately, in the era of digital cameras, it's possible for even mediocre photographers to take passable photographs. Whereas before I would have had an entire roll of over-exposed images because I entirely neglected to reset the metering from Manual and didn't notice the warnings, now I can make any number of mistakes and just delete the ones that went hideously wrong, while retaining the ones that I am pleased to say represent "my vision". Er... yes... "my vision"... of crocuses.

At the time of writing, the daffodils are up as well - and I've always had a soft spot for daffodils, in a Wordsworthian sense. Look for more photos soon.

I know - the suspense is hard to bear, isn't it?

First Observations

Last night it was clear and cold, and although the Moon was up, rendering the sky stupidly bright on top of two nearby streetlights, it was still possible to take my new toy out for a quick spin. Here's a quick review of my initial impressions of the Celestron Omni XLT 150.

The XLT 150 a six-inch Newtonian reflector, which means that it has a main mirror, six inches (150 mm) in diameter, which collects light and reflects it to the secondary mirror, which in turn sends it through the focuser and into the eyepiece. This arrangement means that you get more light collection than many traditional refractors that would cost the same, due to a refractor requiring a more expensive primary objective lens.

I had already put the telescope together completely, but elected to remove the tube from the mount for my first forray out of doors. The mount is the CG-4, and is referred to a German mount, a variant of the equatorial mount, and its shipping weight is 45 pounds. It's not too ungainly, although you can't collapse the legs of this tripod without removing the stabiliser / accessory tray. After getting the mount outside, I went back for the tube, and had the telescope ready to go in short order. Next came the challenge: what to look for?

I knew, based on the programme which GHR and I had watched at the Linda Hall Library last Friday, that we wanted to try for Saturn, but it was too low on the horizon, so I went for a classic, and started hunting for things in Orion. I used the low-power 25mm eyepiece which comes with the XLT 150 to start with, planning, if necessary, to move up to the other eyepiece which I had received, an Orion Stratus 5mm. The XLT 150 has a focal length of 750mm, giving me either 30x or 150x magnification; the telescope's specifications give its useful magnification limit as 324x, although atmospheric conditions can drive that number down, as we will see. Surprisingly, as it was my first time out with a new telescope, I wasn't to be disappointed. In an article from Sky & Telescope about astrophotography, the photo illustrates exactly what I saw (with hopes that the author won't mind its use in the furtherance of the astronomical hobby). M42, the Orion Nebula, with three bright stars in a row. It was a cloudy, distinct patch in my 25mm eyepiece, and switching out for the 5mm, it sprang into view. I was excited enough to call GHR outside to have a look (since she is the one who decided that this was the gift that she had to get me), and we shared a sweet moment of astro-geekery.

After looking around a bit more, then temporarily destroying my night vision by pointing the telescope directly at the Moon without a polarizing filter, and then delaying an hour for dinner, I decided to go back to trying to catch Saturn. By this time, the tube had reached thermal equilibrium, which meant that there should be no currents of air distorting my view as the tube cooled to the temperature outside. Currently, the sixth planet is following the moon across the sky (figuratively, of course), and the brightness of the moon worried me. Saturn to the naked eye is a pale yellow dot. After further jiggery-pokery with the telescope setup (by which time the planet had only barely cleared the trees over the road), I set the spotting scope's crosshairs squarely on the yellow point, and had my first look through the 25mm eyepiece. And it was... amazing.

Clearly visible, even if just a small point, was Saturn (at about the size in the photograph, although the rings were different as noted). The rings were evident, although still more or less a flat plane - they should open up later in the year - and after a moment, I realised that I could also see three points of light - orbiting in the same plane as the rings, which I believe were moons. Probably Titan and Rhea and... Enceladus? Someone can feel free to correct me on that, if they can find the answer before I can figure it out from my sources. At any rate, I quickly swapped out again for the 5mm eyepiece, and was rewarded with the disc of Saturn looming larger in my view. It would move across the eyepiece within a few seconds, at which time I would use the mount's controls to bring it back into view. I can't tell you how many times I repeated that action.

It was at this point that I remembered that I had borrowed a Barlow lens from work to test with our spotting scope, and that it was still on my desk. The Barlow, as you can read, decreases the focal length of the eyepiece, thus increasing the magnification provided by that eyepiece. By putting a 2x Barlow into the focuser before inserting the 25mm eyepiece, I effectively doubled the magnification. Barlows are sold in a variety of shapes, sizes, and powers; the one that I had for testing was an Orion 2x Shorty Barlow (so named for its shorter barrel). Although this worked exceedingly well with the 25mm eyepiece, with the 5mm eyepiece, I was pushing the useful magnification limit (instead of 150x, the 2x Barlow pushed the magnification to 300x). Although I was rewarded with a still-larger Saturn swimming in the eyepiece, it was difficult to focus and remain focused. A better Barlow and better seeing might have made this combination work better, but I'm not complaining. It was still fantastic.

All in all, I know that I've got a lot to learn about telescopes before I even start to get the most out of mine. Real, genuinely dark skies will be a first prerequisite, and I'm hoping to get a crack at some before long. It will mean driving out into the country, but there are sites in the area that should afford better views. An all-night star party sounds like fun as well, and I know that we were already talking about organising one at the store for early summer. I'll definitely be pushing for that.

Next steps? I've heard of some people doing rudimentary digital astro-imaging just by pointing a digital SLR through the eyepiece, and I'm tempted to try that next time, just to see what I can capture. Alternately, I may go so mad as to buy the appropriate T-ring and see what I can do, but that's some way down the road yet. And another eyepiece or two, along with some appropriate filters, won't go amiss. But these are things for which I can save my money and buy well.

Still one of the best birthday presents ever, then? Undoubtedly. And my review of the Celestron Omni XLT 150? I'm sure that I will find its limitations, but for the moment, I can only say that this is a great starter telescope with a lot of potential, and one that I'm certain to be enjoying for years to come.

Best Birthday Gift Ever? I Think So.

A little while back, I chronicled my desire for a good telescope. It's probably a direct result of having wanted one ever since I was quite young, and now being around them all of the time.

Over the road from me, when I was a child, there lived a boy called Charles. He was about four years older than I was, and as a result, he seemed not only infinitely cool but infinitely wise. This was the 1970s - we had different standards for wisdom then. Whatever Charles was interested in, I wanted to be interested in. I started reading HG Wells just to be in the small - and very exclusive - HG Wells club that he was forming: he'd written a quiz about the Master's work that I'm pretty sure I couldn't even pass now as a sort of entrance exam. After that, it was Edgar Rice Burroughs, who we both read and adored. Charles was also into astronomy, and I remember - or seem to remember but am not entirely certain of, as I've done a lot of drinking since then - being allowed out on special nights by my parents to look at the stars. I wanted my own 'scope, but that was one of a long list of unrequited childhood dreams (which in a way, are the best of childhood dreams).

It wasn't as though I didn't have other interests to take up my time. And eventually, of course, other distractions were invented, which would in their course sway me from the goals which I had originally imagined for myself. That, of course, is another story for another day.

The point - and I do have one - is that it appears that GHR not only reads the blog, but takes notice of things. Because guess what turned up at home the other day? Yes, you guessed it:

This.

Yes, you could say that I'm pretty lucky - or even very lucky. You'd be right.

This afternoon, I set about putting it together. Not too hard. But here's an interesting thought: things tend to be much bigger in your home than they are in the shop. And of course, now that I have it assembled, what's the forecast? Rain. Bloody rain.

Oh well. I've waited for this long. Another day or two isn't going to be the end of the world.

By the way, I accidentally posted earlier, so if that popped up on your feeds and whatnot, it wasn't anything. Apologies.

Asteroid Passes Earth Inside Moon's Orbit; Bobby Jindal Calls for Dismantling All Telescopes

The BBC reported this week that an asteroid possibly as big as a 10-storey building passed within 72,000 km (44,750 miles) of the Earth on Tuesday, at 1344 hours GMT (would have been 7.44 local time for me). The asteroid, 21 to 47 metres in length (it's still hard to be sure, until we see it again), would therefore have been the same size as the object which triggered the famous Tunguska Event, now believed to have been an asteroid vapourising and then exploding above the ground in the midst of the Russian wilderness, 101 years ago. There is no doubt that had this asteroid struck a major population centre of the day (London, New York, Paris... pick a city, really), the results would have been catastrophic.

So what does this have to do with monitoring volcanoes?

Against this background, we consider the rebuttal of Louisiana Governor Piyush "Bobby" Jindal given to President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, in which he laid out his budget plans. One of the things that Governor Jindal targeted for derision was spending on volcano research, in these words (transcript):

"But Democratic leaders in Congress -- they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government [if they're moving the government fleet to green vehicles, then it's about damn time and I have no problem at all with it], $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland [this has already been debunked multiple times, look it up], and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." [emphasis added] Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

-- Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Republican Response to President Obama's Address, 24 February 2009

Predictably, geologists didn't look on this sort of cack-handed attempt to score cheap political points with much favour. In fact, anyone with any sense at all might have thought twice before parroting this ridiculous line. Maria Brumm over at Green Gabbro was particularly direct:

"I have two questions.

1. Do Republicans (or moderates who don't have a kneejerk anti-Republican reflex) also feel like he's talking to the nation as though we were all kindergarteners? I was flabbergasted, but I don't know how to properly account for my rather strong political biases here.


2. DID HE SERIOUSLY JUST SAY THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE MONITORING VOLCANOES??!?!!!????@#$@!

Ms Brumm follows this with a further entry, The Stimulating Effect of Monitoring Volcanoes, in which she says in part:

"Volcano monitoring money will be spent directly, and swiftly, on goods and services - primarily new and upgraded monitoring equipment, and the people needed to install the equipment and interpret the data (source). We'll get a long-term economic benefit from our improved ability to forecast and mitigate eruptions, just like we would with the oft-cited infrastructure investment of a new road (albeit with slightly more uncertainty - but the expected value is positive). And because volcano hazard warnings are a public good, there is little risk of disincentivizing private industry."

But let's leave this to one side, for the moment. Let's consider the neo-Republican approach to science, as exemplified by Mr Jindal. Major threats from asteroids? Well, surely the private sector will step in there, and privatise protection services for areas that wish to be protected from rocks from space, right? Same applies to volcanoes.

Natural forces, Mr Jindal, do not respect international boundaries. Nor do they give a toss for your sound-bite politics.

Oh, and before you complain that Jindal really did no such thing as calling for the dismantling of telescopes, let me direct you to your nearest dictionary. Look up the word "hyperbole". Then "irony". And, finally, "cack-handed nitwit". Repeat as necessary.