ASTRONOMYTECHNOLOGY TODAYYour Complete Guide to Astronomical Equipment

SPECKLE INTERFEROMETRY WITH A LOW READ-NOISE CMOS VIDEO CAMERAMAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSE • OBSERVING THE JUNE 2012 VENUS TRANSIT

LOW-COST IMAGING WITH VINTAGE SBIG STS

Volume 11 • Issue 5$6.00 US

OBERWERK6.5X32-MM LWBINOCULARS10 REASONS TO CONSIDER THELITTLEST OBIES

Industry News/NewProducts12 CELESTRON

Adds White-Light Solar Filters for Telescopes to its 2017 EclipSmart Lineup

14 SIMULATION CURRICULUMPresents SkyFi III

14 ASTRONOMICSAnnounces Astro Tech AT60ED

18 SKYNET UNIVERSITYOffers Additional Public Courses

20 STELLARMATEIntroduces Next Generation Internet-Of-Things (IoT) Astrophotography Controller

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 3

Contents

In This Issue8 EDITOR’S NOTE

Encountersby Gary Parkerson

35 OBERWERK 6.5X32-MM LW BINOCULARS10 Reasons to Consider the Littlest Obiesby Gary Parkerson

43 MAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSEStrategies for the August 21 Great American Solar Eclipseby Dr. James R. Dire

51 LOW-COST IMAGING WITH VINTAGE SBIG STSA Primer on Using Parallel-Port CamerasBy Paul Temple

In This Issue71 SPECKLE INTERFEROMETRY WITH

A LOW READ-NOISE CMOS VIDEO CAMERATwo-Meter Telescopes No Longer Required By Clif Ashcraft

In This Issue91 LOOKING BACK: OBSERVING THE JUNE

2012 VENUS TRANSITThe Right Equipment for the JobBy Dr. James R. Dire

Cover Story: Pages 35-39Our cover features Oberwerk’s 6.5x32 binoculars, about which ATT edi-

tor Gary Parkerson shares extensive thoughts. 32-mm binos might seeman unlikely subject for feature coverage inthis journal. After all, light buckets they arenot, and yes, aperture is still king in theastro-tech realm. Nevertheless, Parkersonis confident you’ll agree that the 10 attrib-utes he highlights more than offset eventhat glaring limitation. Meanwhile, thebackground eclipse image is from Dr.James Dire’s tutorial on how to get themost of the August 21 solar eclipse. Dr.Dire’s speaks from hard-earned experi-ence; his checklist, the result of numerouseclipse encounters, is of particular benefitto those of us who anticipate your first.

ASTRONOMYTECHNOLOGY TODAYYour Complete Guide to Astronomical Equipment

SPECKLE INTERFEROMETRY WITH A LOW READ-NOISE CMOS VIDEO CAMERAMAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSE • OBSERVING THE JUNE 2012 VENUS TRANSIT

LOW-COST IMAGING WITH VINTAGE SBIG STS

Volume 11 • Issue 5$6.00 US

OBERWERK6.5X32-MM LWBINOCULARS 10 REASONS TO CONSIDER THELITTLEST OBIES

35

Contributing Writers ContentsIndustry News/NewProducts22 CODE OBSESSION

Introduces Next Generation Internet-Of-Things (IoT) Astrophotography Controller

24 DEEP SKY WEST REMOTE OBSERVATORYRemote Imaging for the Rest of Us

28 ASTREL INSTRUMENTSAnnounces AST8300B Standalone CCD Camera

30 KNIGHTWAREReleases SQM Reader Pro 3

4 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

CLIF ASHCROFTClif Ashcroft is a retired chemist (organic and polymer syn-thesis), PhD (Berkeley), BS (University of Cincinnati), wid-owed, four kids, one dog. He enjoys singing, computer music,building telescopes, taking planetary images with a webcam,double star observation and hanging out with his observatoryguard dog, Boomer.

GARY PARKERSONGary Parkerson discovered early in his amateur-astronomycareer that he was as fascinated by the tools of astronomy asby the amazing celestial objects they reveal – perhaps moreso. When not writing about astro-tech, he covers industrialtechnology for a variety of online resources.

PAUL TEMPLEPaul Temple is a retired pastor who is currently teaching Earthand Space Science in high school. His observatory, TRO, fea-tures 2 robotic telescopes, an 11” Celestron and an 8” MeadeLX200. Paul is a speaker for the American Association ofVariable Star Observers and has presented papers at Mid-America Regional Astrophysics Conference, AAVSOConferences and a Poster at the Kepler Science Conference.

DR. JAMES DIREDr. James Dire has an M.S. degree in physics from theUniversity of Central Florida and M.A.and Ph.D. degrees fromThe Johns Hopkins University, both in planetary science. Hehas been a professor of physics astronomy at several collegesand universities. Currently he is the Vice Chancellor forAcademic Affairs at Kauai Community College in Hawaii. Hehas played a key role in several observatory projects includingthe Powell Observatory in Louisburg, KS,which houses a 30-inch (0.75-m) Newtonian; the Naval Academy observatorywith an 8-inch (0.20-m) Alvin Clark refractor; and he built theCoast Guard Academy Astronomical Observatory inStonington, CT, which houses a 20 inch (0.51-m) Ritchey–Chrétien Cassegrain telescope.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 43

I have travelled around the globe to seea dozen solar eclipses over the course of mylife, including to five continents and coun-tries such as China, Iceland, Turkey, andZambia, and tropical islands such as Arubaand Hawaii (the official name of the Big Is-land). I have been the leader or co-leaderof many eclipse expeditions. The largesthad 610 people on three chartered airlinersto Aruba in 1998. The smallest were seven-member teams to Zambia in 2001 andTurkey in 2006. In short, I have enoughhard-earned experience planning thesetrips to know what typically goes right andwhat can go wrong.

For the Great American Solar Eclipseon August 21, 2017, there was no choicefor me where I want to be: Saint Joseph,Missouri. St. Joe, as we call it, is where Igrew up. Although I haven’t lived theresince I graduated high school, my parentsstill live there, as well as siblings, friendsand more cousins than I can count. When I first leaned several decades backthat the centerline of the 2017 solar eclipsepasses through St. Joseph (Image 1), therewas never any question in my mind that Iwould go there for the eclipse, forty yearsafter I graduated from St. Joe's CentralHigh School.

St. Joseph would be on my short listof places to observe this year’s eclipse re-

gardless of my hometown ties. Most of myusual criteria for the best spot to go for aneclipse are met at that location. Those in-clude, in no particular order:

1. Ease of getting there from points far away;

2. Weather prospect for the site;3. Ease of relocating once there, if the

By Dr. James R. Dire

MAKING THE MOSTOF AN ECLIPSE

STRATEGIES FOR THE AUGUST 21, 2017GREAT AMERICAN SOLAR ECLIPSE

Image 1 - The centerline for the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse passes right through St.Joseph, Missouri, the author’s hometown.

44 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

MAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSE

last-minute weather forecast is poor; and

4. Length of totality compared to other sites.St. Joseph, population 76,500, is very

easy to get to, because the Kansas City In-ternational (KCI) Airport is located almosthalfway between downtown Kansas City,Missouri and St. Joseph. It is one of the eas-iest airports to get in and out of as mostgates are less than 100 feet from a street-side curb. One can travel from most pointsin the US to KCI in one or two flights,even from my home on Kauai (one planechange in Phoenix).

Image 2 shows the cloud probabilitiesalong the totality path. Note on August 21,St. Joseph, as well as all of Nebraska,Kansas and Missouri, are very favorable.Only a few points in Oregon and Idaho arebetter. Note from the graph how weatherprospects get significantly worse from east-ern Tennessee to Charleston, South Car-olina! Totality length is also very good inSt. Joseph, two minutes, 38 seconds. That’sonly three seconds less the maximum forthe eclipse.

Finally, St. Joseph lies in the GreatPlains where there are long open stretchesof highway in every direction. If I must re-locate the day before the eclipse, 400 milesin either direction, I should have no trou-ble doing so. It’s not as easy to do that inOregon or South Carolina.

I usually run several science experi-ments during a solar eclipse. These includecontact timings, temperature measure-ments, scattered light studies and baro-metric pressure. I also do photography(Image 3) and videography. Image 4shows the light intensity and temperaturevariation for the 1998 Aruba eclipse. Mosteclipses have similar scattered light curves,but the temperature variations all dependon the time of day and amount of cloudspresent from first to fourth contact. Thedepth of the temperature drop also de-

Image 2 - This graph shows the average cloud cover for August 21, 2017 along the eclipsepath. Image courtesy of NASA.

Image 3 - Dr. Dire’s favorite solar eclipse photo is one he took February 26, 1998 with a 4-inch f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The image perfectly captures the Sun’s dipolemagnetic fields lines in the corona.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 45

MAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSE

pends on the altitude and relative humid-ity.

For contact timings, I like to use aNewtonian telescope to project the imageonto a screen with a timer (Image 5). Two-to four-inch apertures are great for this.Larger Newtonians can be stopped down,as they generate too much heat at the eye-piece, and the image for a close-by screen istoo bright (Image 6). Also, you don’t want to project with expensive eye-pieces like Nagler, Ethos, or Plossls. Theywill not survive. I use a two-element 18-mm Ramsden eyepiece. The elements arewidely separated inside the barrel and theycontain no optical adhesives. My 18-mmRamsden eyepiece has survived decades ofsolar projection.

I use a video camera to record the solarprojection with a stopwatch in the field ofview synced to a shortwave radio time sig-nal. I use the video to calculate contacttimes later when I am home. The camera’smicrophone can record the timing signalsfrom the shortwave radio, as well as comments I dictate to it during the event.In the days before digital cameras, I ver-bally recorded exposure times on videotapeor audiotape – it takes too much time dur-ing totality to write it down. Today’s digi-

tal cameras record all exposure data foreach taken image, making record keepingeasier.

For solar projection, I am bringing my114-mm f/10 Newtonian on a CG-1 Ger-man equatorial mount (see Images 7 and

8). The mount has a 6-volt DC Right As-cension drive that will track the Sun’s mo-tion across the sky during the event.Besides recording the projection for con-tact times, the screen allows many peopleto track the progress of the partial phases

Image 4 - The blue graph shows how the intensity of scattered light varies during a totalsolar eclipse. The instrument was pointed at blue sky away from the Sun during the entire eclipse. The red graph shows how the air temperature in the shade varied throughout the eclipse.

Image 5 - The exact times of the beginningand end of totality can be determined bytelescopically projecting the eclipse onto ascreen next to an accurate timepiece andvideo recording the event.

Image 6 - This annual solar eclipse wasprojected onto a screen using a 10-inchf/4.5 Newtonian that was stopped downusing a piece of cardboard with an off-axis,three-inch hole cut out of it.

Image 7 - The author’s 114-mm f/10 Newtonian can track the Sun and project it onto a screen attached to the telescope. The finder scope has been replaced by a piece of PVC pipe. The pipe serves as a finder by centering the Sun’s projection onto a hand held below it.

Image 8 - The screen can be moved closer to or farther from the eyepiece to make theSun’s projection smaller (brighter) or larger (dimmer).

46 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

MAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSE

without solar glasses.Baily’s beads and the diamond ring are

visible on the projection letting us knowexactly when it’s safe to look up during to-tality. I am always looking up during total-ity, in between taking pictures, so I havenever looked at the projection. But videoplayback shows that the projection picksup the chromosphere, solar prominencesand some of the corona!

When projecting with a much largerNewtonian containing an aperture stop,like in Image 6, the aperture stop can beremoved during totality. The extra mirrorarea will collect enough light to see muchmore of the corona on the projection. Caremust be taken to replace the aperture stopafter totality (or point the telescope awayfrom the Sun), as well as replacing solar fil-ters on other optical devises.

For photography, I am planning onusing my Stellarvue SV-70T apochromaticrefractor (Image 9, also see ATT Vol. 11,Issue 2). I have an Orion solar filter for thepartial phases. I am bringing a small alt-az-imuth mount to hold the telescope as its420-mm focal length is too great to holdsteady manually.

For the flight to Kansas City, the SV-70T, my cameras and laptop will be packedsafely in my carry-on bags. The 114-mm

Newtonian, tripods and mounts will be intwo checked bags, one a hard case designedfor golf clubs. My clothes will serve aspacking materials around these instru-ments.

I am arriving four days early. This willallow me plenty of time to collimate theNewtonian, test all equipment, check theweather forecast for St. Joseph, visit familyand friends, and plan escape routes shouldthe weather necessitate relocating.

Hopefully, the weather will be perfectin St. Joseph, and I will be able to view theeclipse with all my family and friends livingthere, as well as those meeting me therefrom all points of the compass. If not, Ihope to make it to a clear spot. Short ofthat, there’s always the next eclipse in Chileon July 2, 2019, and a little farther downthe road, the April 8, 2024 solar eclipsewhose USA path extends from Texas toMaine!

Image 7 - The author intends to photograph the eclipse using a 70-mm f/6 Stellarvueapo.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 47

MAKING THE MOST OF AN ECLIPSE

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