New Computerized Mount for Telescopes

On an astronomy forum I was chatting with another old guy about star-hopping, locating objects such as nebulas by knowing the constellations and moving from point to point. He said, “I agree, Mike, but you know what? At my age I want to spend my time looking at things, not looking for them.” That was a couple of months ago. Yesterday, I bought a Celestron AVX German Equatorial Mount and a power pack. I already was not a fan of Celestron's engineering, but I was also already a fan of their customer support: they make things right, or did by me. 

My first adult telescope was a Celestron EQ-130 Newtonian reflector, (130mm = 5 inches) with German equatorial mount. My wife and daughter bought it for me. I selected the make and model that was closest to the Criterion 4-inch reflector that I grew up with. But they don’t make ‘em like they used to. The control rods (“cables”) were not positioned well: the tube was always in the way. The setting circles were mere adornment. No screw was a thread longer than it needed to be. As a result of the screws lost to the grass in the backyard, I became a fan of the fasteners aisle at Home Depot. Now I have a little plastic bag with many measures of 5-mm and 7-mm hex head screws. It comes in handy, even though I donated the telescope to the Goodwill this past spring. (On the positive side, the red-dot finder failed. The rocker switch spring snapped inside. I emailed Celestron to find out about buying a replacement viewer and two showed up in the mail, one of each type for the telescope, without an invoice.)

Anyway, here and now, availability was also an issue. Eighteen months into Covid-19 and the supplies are just not in stock. I shopped online for a couple of weeks across eight or ten retailers looking for comparable and competitive alternatives.

 

The deciding factor here was the release of Explore Scientific's new EXOS-2 PMC Eight goto mount at the same price: $999. The new version requires an external device for a controller:

Explore Scientific's PMC-Eight GOTO system can be controlled wirelessly or wired with a tablet or PC, with Windows 8.1 or 10, Android, Amazon Fire, or iOS, with a free app called ExploreStars. Tablet must be purchased separately.

I am a fan of Explore Scientific. In addition a telescope and two mounts (tripods), I have a 5X focal extender, and other accessories. I was pre-sold on two occasions. When first I called them, the customer service representative listened to what I wanted, put me on hold, went into the warehouse, and came back with an alternative. It was Mom-and-Pop customer service. The second event was their CEO, Scott Roberts, speaking to our local astronomy club. Scott supports amateur astronomy with his own time. Explore Scientific sponsors “global star parties” both live (pre-Covid) and on YouTube. Scott Roberts is on the board of Astronomers Without Borders. 

 

That being as it may, I do not own a tablet or laptop that is compatible with the Explore Scientific EXOS-2 PMC Eight. So, that would be another expense. And the phone or pad introduces another source of light, dim it as you can. And I already do not use my iPhone with my telescope because it is a pain in the neck in the dark: touch the wrong thing, you get the wrong result. I have used the hand paddle type control before when I borrowed a computerized telescope from my local club. It was not the best interface, but it is a mode that I can live with. In fact, I sent a hardcopy letter in the mail (three pages with attachments, and my business card) to Explore Scientific asking them to hold for me the next used EXOS-2 previous version with paddle control that comes in. That was on August 18. I never received any acknowledgement of the letter. So, I moved on. 

I googled "Celestron AVX Problems" and followed the links.

The Celestron Advanced VX mount is sold as being capable of 30 lbs (13.5 kg). The saleslady at Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope (Telescopes.net) said that my 22-lb Bresser 8-inch Newtonian would be at the practical limit without an eyepiece or finder. However, my grab-and-go is an Explore Scientific 102mm refractor which weighs 13 lbs. Also, still in the carrying case, I have an Astronomics AT 115 ED (extremely low dispersion glass) APO (apochromatic triplet lens) at 17 lbs. So, both of those will work with this. 

I found Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope because they  sponsored a conference of the Society for Astronomical Sciences (website is not secure socket https: http://www.socastrosci.org.) This is a group of amateurs that works with "small telescopes" typically 12 inches to 20 inches or greater, enhanced with cameras and spectroscopes.  

 Also a positive consideration was that I know from my (limited) previous experience with a computerized "go-to" mount that it is not as easy or as much fun as one would like to believe. So, I bought this as much as a learning tool, something new to do under the stars. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Observing with NASA: An Open Platform for Citizen Science 

New Telescope: Explore First Light 102 Refractor

$2500 Viewed Through a Telescope 

Testing the Stellarvue Correcting Diagonal Prism 

 

The Scientific Method

Emergency management, physical security, and information security are three disciplines in which the process of continuous improvement is a model for action. We have cycles of emergency-response-mitigation-remediation. Therefore, I found it interesting to have the Scientific Method presented as a cycle. 

Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSIS) is a website created by the University of Rhode Island and the Inner Space Center, here: https://dosits.org

Copyright © 2002-2021 

University of Rhode Island and Inner Space Center. 

Among their website pages is a self-quiz on Facts and Myths. 

1. The greatest uncertainty in understanding the effects of anthropogenic underwater sound on marine animals is understanding how sound propagates.

See the Answer - This is a MYTH

There are many factors that contribute to the uncertainty of how underwater sound impacts marine animals. These include ... 

22. One way to arrive at “scientific truth” is to conduct an opinion poll of scientists.

See the Answer - This is a MYTH

An opinion is a personal judgment or belief, not necessarily based upon fact. On the other hand, “scientific truth” is arrived at through the scientific method, which is an orderly and very well-established process for asking questions about the natural world and testing the answers. Hypotheses that have been consistently validated through observations or experimentation can eventually be advanced to the status of theory. A theory is a thoroughly substantiated explanation of some aspect of the observable world. Theories come as close to objective truth as possible.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Scientific Method 

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 

Integrating Criminologies 

Great Scientific Experiments 

Some Sociology of Academic Astronomy

You need a sense of humor and of all the puns, one-liners, walking into a bar, and knock-knock jokes that could be invented, the words of the practitioners themselves in all seriousness provide the insights we expect from good nightclub comics. 

The American Astronomical Society headquarters are in Washington, D.C., which sets the stage. As Edward Gibbon said in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, sentiments in the West are different from those in the East. The AAS is run like a US Senate subcommittee with lots of rules that evolved in an environment favorable to process and procedure. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is in San Francisco. Today and tomorrow, I am sitting in at online meetings of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO) which was founded in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Their quarterly print newsletter is titled The Strolling Astronomer. I am also a member of the Astronomical League, which holds its annual conventions in Albuquerque and Phoenix, among other venues. 

In line with the academic community generally, the AAS has been very keen on encouraging people to declare their gender identies in their email signatures. You will see "Dale Evans (he/ him)", and "Stanley Livingston (she/ her)" and so on. Today, in an AAS sponsored message board, I met someone like "Altair Brightstar (she/they)." Apparently, she wants to be referred to in the third person feminine singular nominative, but the third person plural nominative for the objective. I take they at them's word.

I already knew an obscure campus joke from the olden tymes when all graduate students were in the same college and same lodgings. A sociologist sat down to dinner with some biologists. After some pleasant engagement, the biologists excused themselves, saying "We have to get back to the lab to start some cultures." That gave the social scientist pause: How does one start a new culture?

It came up at all because among the chatrooms on this AAS discussion board is one dedicated to "Climate." The AAS is as committed to fighting anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as they are to fighting gender discrimination. I am not. To me sex and gender, variable though they can be, are serious business, and objectively knowable (at least in context). AGW is totally different from that.

I am currently employed writing classroom instructions for factory technicians working with optics and lasers. Wanting to demonstrate that all wave phenomena can be described by the same principles, I was on an oceanography website sponsored by the University of Rhode Island: Discovery of Sound in the Sea (here: https://dosits.org). They provide teaching points on the scientific method. Their "Facts and Myths" page is in a self-test format. They offer this: "22. One way to arrive at “scientific truth” is to conduct an opinion poll of scientists." The answer: False. They say: 

"An opinion is a personal judgment or belief, not necessarily based upon fact. On the other hand, “scientific truth” is arrived at through the scientific method, which is an orderly and very well-established process for asking questions about the natural world and testing the answers. Hypotheses that have been consistently validated through observations or experimentation can eventually be advanced to the status of theory. A theory is a thoroughly substantiated explanation of some aspect of the observable world. Theories come as close to objective truth as possible."

I found that cogent because I have attended committee meetings of the AAS where "climate deniers" have been derided. Among those denigrated was Apollo astronaut Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt who is scheduled to be a guest speaker at the Astronomical League Conference (ALCON) next year. That is relevant here because it is commonly cited that "90% of scientists" accept AGW. (See fact-checking on that published in Forbes here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/  And read support for AGW consensus from NASA here https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ ) Opinion polls do not establish scientific truth. 

So when I saw the session on "Climate" listed under Dynamical Astronomy which usually studies orbits, celestial mechanics, and motion, I asked what the relevance of climate was.  I was directed to a webpage from the AAS Subcommitte on Professional Culture and Climate. https://dps.aas.org/leadership/climate It is really about "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion." But as physical scientists, they ignored social science and just took the vernacular meanings of "culture and climate." Close enough... stars, planets, whatever.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Is Physics a Science?

Karl Marx and the Dustbin of History 

Reflections on the Sokal Affair 

Problems with Pop Sci from Sky & Telescope (Part 2)

A good night observing

After an unusually long four months of clouds and rain, the skies have been clearing over the past week. On the 29^th, I got my first view of the globular cluster Messier 22. Last night and this morning, I revisited targets that had not been attainable a week ago because of the poor seeing despite nominally “clear” reports from weather websites. I also observed Messier 21, a globular cluster in northwest Sagittarius. 

 

We amateurs speak of our “grab and go” instruments, smaller lightweight, that are easy to set up and transport. After borrowing three catadioptric telescopes weighing up to 65 lbs (30 kg)—and buying one of them—from the local club, portability was a consideration for me for all of my recent purchases. But “grab and go” does not work well for me. I like to do a lot of reading, planning, and arithmetic before I go out. And I prefer to be out for three or four hours, not just one. I got that opportunity. And last night’s work will allow me to plan better for my next viewing.  

I started with the intent to find M13 the Hercules Cluster, M51 the Pinwheel Galaxy, and the stunning double Albireo. I obtained only the last. The first two would have been new for me. I have seen Albireo often in the past (though not recently for the time of night, the poor seeing, and my neighbor’s trees). I also revisited other targets. For myself, I find that comforting, like meeting with friends. 

 

At 2145 hours CDT  I started by aligning on Mizar-Alcor. I worked out the arithmetic for the field of view (FOV) and drew a sketch. I then went inside for dinner. Returning at about 2300, I realigned and viewed Saturn to compare a 40mm ocular with a 5X focal extender against the simpler 8mm ocular alone. I thought that the 40mm with its wider exit pupil would give a better view than squinting down into the 8mm, but I did not see much difference. 

 

Then I went hunting for Messier 4 near Antares, a target I have been chasing for several nights, and again, recording “no joy.” I gave up at 2332 and turned eastward to Sagittarius, a rich area of the sky. I sought M22, a globular cluster that I recorded earlier, but just gave up for lack of patience with the scanning and panning and turned to “the Steam from the Teapot.” Like many constellations, Sagittarius has other folk identities. Above the “spout” are several Messier objects. At 2353 hours CDT, I found Messier 21, also catalogued as NGC 6531. 

 

I sketched its location and returned to it with different eyepiece arrangements. With the 32mm ocular and 2X Barlow almost all of the neighborhood was in the field of view. I counted about 30 stars, most easily about the same magnitude, but others dimmer that appeared clearer with averted vision. Just after midnight (0005 hrs), I used the 8mm with 2X Barlow to home in on the center of the cluster. Then (0010 hrs) I compounded the 32mm with the 5X focal extender to again count the stars there: about 24 the first time, about 30 the second. Boosting the magnification to 250X with the 13mm and 5X extender, I found the focus difficult despite the additional helical threads on the right-angle focal adapter.

 

I turned to Jupiter (0023) with the same 13mm 5X arrangement. It was big, with subtle brown and gray bands, but grainy with poor resolution. Still, the eye adapts and we see mostly with the brain. Ronald Stoyan “The Visual Astronomer” (not secure https, but here - http://visualastronomer.com/- anyway) says that no magnification is wasted and that the eye adapts to take advantage of moments of best seeing. Despite that encouragement I think that it is better to perceive details in clearer though smaller presentations.

 

Taking a break on the chaise longue with a binocular (12x42 Bushnell), Albireo was an easy find as was the “first double” Epsilon Lyrae. Mostly, I just looked up at the sky without the glasses. 

 

Typical notebook entry scaled to FOV.

At 0059 with a modest 17mm ocular (38.8X) alone and then the 17mm with 2X Barlow, I viewed Albireo down to its “Airy disks” of tightest focus. I noted the yellow and blue members of the visual (not physical) pair.  

Epsilon Lyrae is the “double double.” What the naked eye perceives as a single star, is easily a pair with the smallest of instruments. William Herschel is accepted as the first to have recorded the double-double in August 1779 (Burnham, page 1151). It is a favorite with amateur observers. All four stars are accepted as “white” though Burnham credits others with assigning colors “greenish-white and bluish white… red tint… yellow and ruddy.” At the highest power 8mm with 5X (ridiculous 400X), I noted them (larger first) as yellow and blue (northwest) and white and yellow (southeast). Just to note, also: at 253X (13mm with 5X), they filled two-thirds of the field of view though were not much improved.

That was my night. I can now prepare more accurate templates for recording these same targets again. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Seeing in the Dark: Your Front Row Seat to the Universe 

An Online Class in Astrophysics 

Jupiter-Mars Conjunction 

Measuring Your Universe: Alan Hirshfeld’s Astronomy Activity Manual