Who am I? 

My name's Tom Trusock, I've been an amateur astronomer for nearly 30 years now.  I guess you could say it's my passion in life.   One of them anyway.  I'm lucky enough to be associated with CloudyNights.com - I guess you could call me the chief gearhead and head forum admin over there.  If you're interested into astronomy, pop over there and check it out.  The forum is a moderated forum, and we do it that way on purpose.  Many moons ago, there was a little usenet group called Sci.astro.amateur, and many of us computer geeks spent many happy hours over there.  Unfortunately, things change, and today SAA is something of a wasteland.  Many of the posts are way off topic, and there are way too many trolls for comfort.  CN Forums were kinda setup to be an alternative to that.  We embrace the golden rule over there, and there's a good crew of mods to help ensure things stay "nice".

Anyway, you've stumbled onto the blog page for my observatory.  This will be something like an online journal where post some of my astro musings, comments about gear and what I've been observing - stuff like that. 

Honestly,  I'm pretty terrible about keeping things updated, so we'll see how long this lasts.  If I don't bore you totally, feel free to drop me a line at:

t o m t @ c l o u d y n i g h t s dot c o m
(remove the spaces, and replace the dot with . ).

4/25/2008

Ah, "the" weekend is almost here.  In just a few short hours I'll be driving down to join Gary in Detroit and board a plane for NEAF. 

NEAF - the astro-toy hounds mecca.  One bad point this year was that there is not going to be a TV Blem sale.  I hear that production standards have been increasing over the last few years so there just aren't as many problem items coming from the manufacturers.  Oh well, it's not like I really need anything.  Well, eyepieces anyway.  I do need to pick up a counterweight, dew shield / strip and telrad for the C11 that showed up yesterday.  Out with the old, in with the - uh, well I guess older in this case.  If I want to be accurate that is.  The CG11 I swapped my GM8/FS102 is currently sitting in boxes in the Out Back.  Pity, no time to open em and make sure everything's ok.

Anyway - this is going to be a fun weekend.  For the first time Astronomics is going to be there - I look forward to meeting the Mike's.  I've talked to them a lot over the last few years over the phone and via e-mail, but I never really feel like I've met someone until I - well, meet them.  And there are going to be a dozen or so mods there.  Some I've never met, others who are longtime friends.   Friends come from all over the country.   It's going to be a long, but fun, weekend.

4/23/2008

I had a chance to spend some time with the 18" last night. 

It's good to get out in this nice weather.  After one of the worst winters I can ever remember for astronomy, we've had a string of really nice nights this week.  Brent was over last weekend, and we installed some foam flooring he'd donated this last winter.  Not quite enough to cover the entire observatory, but enough to hit the high traffic areas.  This stuff really makes a difference.  After observing for a couple of hours, I wasn't nearly as tired as I had been previously. 

I've been working through Walter Scott Houston's - Deep Sky Wonders book again.  This is great book, and a very nice piece of editing.  NGC 2419 (the Intergalactic Wanderer) counted as a "showpiece" of sorts.  I wonder how out of date astrophysics data is?  Scotty lists it as one of the most    Mike came over for a bit and we switched to showpieces for a bit.

The spiral structure in M51 was clearly visible, and we picked up hints of the bridge to it's companion galaxy. 

We looked at the "Face" in Markarian's Chain - Funny, I'd never noticed it before.  There's nothing like writing about something to learn something new yourself.  I've observed this field dozens of times in many different instruments, but until someone pointed "The Face" out to me, I've never noticed it before.

The Face fits in a 13 Ethos on the 18", but you have to "look around" a bit to really see it.  Although the 26 Nagler doesn't have that much larger of a true field, it gives an - "easier" to see - view of the face.  4387 (the nose) and 4388 (the mouth) stand out quite well, but the real giants in the field are of course M86 and M84 (the eyes).

4438 (the larger of Copelands Eyes)  showed an obvious halo - and looked pretty similar to the image above.

We hit a ton of other eye candy, but the other rather interesting target was Hickson 68.  All five galaxies were easily picked up in the 13 Ethos. Somewhat surprisingly NGC 5350 was an obvious face on spiral, but I couldn't definitively pick out any trace of the central bar.  Hickson 68 was extremely obvious in the 18" - I think it would be a good target for an 8" scope, and my buddy Ron B(ee) has picked up the 5 components in his TV102.

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