More AAVSO stuff, and ramblings

     I have been working on my third AAVSO CHOICE class, "Developing a Visual Observing Program".  The course ran from August 5 to August 31, but they gave us an extension for a week because a lot of the participants were experiencing bad weather and or smoke from wildfires.  I took this course hoping to learn more and improve my visual observing skills. The coursework involved using charts created using the AAVSO's VSP (Variable Star Plotter) program. This is accessible from the AAVSO home page and you don't have to be a member to use it.

 

 There was also a set of practical exercises that typically involved using charts and atlases to locate a target by starhopping, and at least identifying the star field where the target star was located. I found these exercises to be great practice when I had a night that I could actually practice. Most of the month we had bad smoke fro wildfires in California, Idaho, and others within 20 miles of us. This was  compounded by occasional clouds. 

I took the telescope out Monday, August 9. The task was to locate SS Cygni.  Unfortunately, by the time I got set up a line of clouds started coming in from the south radar showed a line of thunderstorms embedded in them.  Just got things put away before the rain hit.When I went out on August 12, the sky was too bright for doing any real observing of stars.

On August 15, the smoke was cleared out by a front that came in. It didn't clear early enough for me to decide to set up the telescope, but used the 12 x  50 binoculars. Since Cygnus would already be high in the sky, I set up in the bed of our pickup with a sleeping bag for a pad and a pillow to support and adjust my head, allowing me to brace my elbows by my side to keep the view steady. This worked pretty well.

I had printed out the AAVSO chart for the 5.5 degree FOV of the binoculars, had the area located in my Sky and Telescope Jumbo Star Atlas and in the SkySafari app on my phone.I started out by trying to star hop fro Deneb (alpha Cygni). I thought SS Cygni should be about 11 degrees straight East from there. I did find a star field that looked correct, but wasn't able to actually identify SS Cygni. I was constantly referring to the chart and atlas to check my location. I tried approaching from other directions, and did identify M39. That was verified later from online images.

I gave up after about 90 minutes because I  found myself just repeating the same steps.  Transparency due to smoke was an issue. My Limiting magnitude appeared to be about 7 or 8 instead of the 10that the binoculars are theoretically capable of. This night really brought out how much more practice I need learning and finding my way around the night sky.

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My next window of opportunity to get out was the evening of Sept 5. A cold front had moved through in the day with a breeze that was cleared most  of the smoke. I set the telescope up and decided to try for V730 Cepheus (V730 Cep). That was in Task 2 for the class. Part of the goal of this task was to compare it at two very different magnifications and also try averted vision to locate it. I wasn't able to positively verify in the field that I had the correct star field. I spent quite a bit of time on this task , eventually making rough sketches of the field I did find. 

 

 Our instructor (Michael Poxon) responded to an email I sent the next day saying that based on my sketch he thought I had the right location.

After making the sketches, I tried for EL Lyra, part of Task 3. I located it's approximate location by naked eye. It lies about halfway along a line from Vega to Albireo and is just a little east and south of 17 Lyra. I scanned that area with the telescope but before I could locate it the view got blurry from smoke and went behind the trees. Smoke was starting to increase again so I shut down and put everything away.

A quick note about setting up the telescope. I had read that a small, slow fan blowing on the telescope would help keep dew from forming. Having it moving air slowly has little or no effect on seeing. I tried this setup and it did seem to help. The test wasn't really conclusive though because there was very little dew before I quite. It is worth trying again.

 

 

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