Recording your observations

 

Jupiter-Venus conjunction, March 2023

 

July 3, 1990 (Miami, Florida)

Picked out major stars: Vega, Altair, Deneb, Arcturus, Spica, and Antares (near Moon). Found the “Teapot” and figured that was Saturn to the left (west) of it. Mosquitoes were fierce and it’s only July! Looked for M19- too washed out to spot it. Also M4. Traced out some of the constellations. Moon is gibbous—some good crater action on the “tan line”.

That was the first observation I ever recorded. I didn't even have celestial east and west sorted out yet. Not that I hadn't observed the sky with a variety of telescopes, binoculars, or the unaided eye before that. But this was my first year of "getting serious" with amateur astronomy.

But how serious are you about Sirius?

It's what you make it. It's a hobby. For some people it's a passion. But it's still a hobby. Most of your observations matter only to you, so consider that, when and if you record them. I do strongly suggest you keep some kind of observing log, for the following reasons:

• It will jog your memory to bring back specific nights and events
• You can compare observations made at different times, in different skies, through different instruments
• It's interesting to see your progress in the hobby, and your failures
• It will tell you if you've observed something before or if it's new to you
• You'll remember people (and critters) you would otherwise have forgotten

That's just a few, and it really varies depending upon the person.

I can only tell you how I log my observations. I don't always log details, especially for objects I've seen many times, unless I see something new in them. I like to keep it conversational and not too technical. I like to have fun. I don't like to be bothered recording the seeing, transparency, exact eyepieces and powers I was using, data from a sky quality meter, etc. for every observation. I'll note the sky conditions at the beginning of a session and if they change, as they often do. I keep it simple- who, what, where, and when. I already know the why. See my post on the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter log entries to get an idea of what I put in there and how a log makes a great memento of a memorable observing session or event.

Two bins

My observing records end up in two bins: an observing log in narrative form, which includes notes taken while at the eyepiece that I then extract from the log and group together by object over time in a separate collection of notes files.

My actual observing log, as in the example above and at left, is a session by session narrative. I keep it in a series of Microsoft Word compatible documents, usually one document per year or half year, depending on how much observing I've done, and I'll add images from the internet for many of the objects. 

I note the situation, the people, animal sounds, big gusts of wind, spectacular lightning on the horizon—all those things that bring back the memory like it was yesterday. I'll also make notes at the eyepiece about specific objects. At the beginning of each session, I note the date, day of the week, location, and what equipment I'm observing with.

Periodically I'll extract the notes on specific objects, which I highlight in bold in the log to make them easier to find, and collect them in text files, which I call my observing notes. With this collection of notes, I can look up an object and compare what I'm currently seeing with what I have seen in the past from a variety of locations, in different sky conditions, and with different instruments. I aggregate the notes for each object into a single entry, as in the following example:

Veil Nebula (western portion), NGC 6960

Oct. 13-14, 1993, Chiefland Star Fest, Chiefland, FL

(4.5-inch) Quite bright- tried for dimmer side near the bright star in my scope- only a hint of its brightest part in 100x. Low power would be better if I had it.

Nov. 13-14, 1993, Lake Kissimmee State Park Star Party, FL

(10-inch) Nice view of the fainter section in the 10-inch SCT. Very bright with the nebula filter. Seems like there's a dark lane down the center of the nebulosity (this is the W section). E end visible with the filter.

Sep. 24-25, 2003, Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park

(4.5-inch) It's just such a nice transparent night I had to go for the Veil Nebula, and sure enough, it's pretty easy to see around 52 Cygni on both sides, not just the one brighter side, and I can see more than I usually can in those areas. I can see the other segment on the opposite side (NGC 6992) in the finderscope! It shows up nicely in 50x. I gotta say that's about as well as I've seen the Veil show up in this scope. I can trace the whole crescent shape of 6992 for at least 2 fields of view in 50x (almost 2 degrees).

...and so on.

Decades ago I wrote my notes at the eyepiece in pencil or pen. Then I used a handheld tape recorder. Then a digital recorder. Now I dictate in Google Keep using the voice typing feature, copy and paste into my log at a later date, and clean up the dictation errors. Google voice typing has particular difficulty with certain astronomical names, such as when I say "Ophiuchus," and it writes "all for you because," "ophelucas" (huh?), or the usual "off of Lucas." I'm used to correcting such phrases such as "and you see," for "NGC." A recent favorite is "IHOP address" for Saturn's moon Iapetus. 

Find a way to make it easy

Ideally, I would have a charting app at the telescope in which I could click on an object and it would bring up these observing notes for that object. Sky Safari falls short for me in that respect, in that it forces you to organize your notes by observing session, much like my observing log. But I want to see all my notes over the years for a single object in one place. I've tried to use one Sky Safari "session" to put all the observations for a single object in the comments, but the box has no scroll bar, there's no way to add images, and it's very clunky. 

I just wanted a simple app that I can update easily, add images, and most important, import and export through a standard format. 

I think I found just that in the Memento Database app. I started with an astro log template available through the app and modified it to include just two fields: notes and images. While it requires going between the Sky Safari and Memento apps, it's a pretty good second best solution. I use the app Twilight to dim and redden the screen while observing. iPhones do this natively.

I was able to export my notes from Sky Safari on the 1200+ objects I've recorded over the years, then import them to Memento, all via a .csv file. Cool beans. 

I downloaded images of the objects, resized them to keep the database small (the Memento cloud has 100MB free storage), and attached them to each file. Tedious, but fun and it helps me remember some of the objects I haven't observed in a while and should revisit. I like having images at the eyepiece to help determine if what I think I'm seeing is actually there.

Apps will come and go, so one of the keys is to be able to backup your notes and store them in a standard format like text or xml. I figure text is about as standard as you can get, so I stick to that.

Sometimes I just like to read through my old logs on my computer, and now the notes are portable so I can look them up at the eyepiece and even browse them while I'm waiting at the doctor's office. I did that today, reading my observing notes on the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter, which were 30 years ago. I cherish the memories that I've preserved through my observing log and notes. How much would I remember without them?

Why does finding things easily have to be so hard?

In a previous post, I noted that I had gone over to the "Dark Side" and bought a 6-inch tabletop reflector with go-to, the ability to punch in an object and have the motor slew the telescope to it. This is a Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 150P.

Well, so far I'm not impressed with the Dark Side. Like most tech gear, I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love it when it works. When it doesn't, which seems more and more of the time now, I hate it. I can't count the number of times just in the few weeks that I've had it that I wished I could just push the scope where I want it to go, like a manual dob. That always works. Always.

So what are the issues? For one thing, you need two suitable stars to do the initial alignment. These are selectable from a list. In a partly to mostly cloudy sky, which is common around here, two suitable stars may not both be visible at the same time. Understandably a limitation of the sky conditions. But if they are visible, the scope may slew many degrees away from the target star, so you need to choose only the brightest stars that are easiest to navigate to manually and recognize in the eyepiece as the correct star. 

Then there's the accuracy. Maybe because it's a cheaper mount (the scope retails for $470 and I paid even less on sale), but an initial alignment almost never lasts the whole observing session, which for me is usually between two and four hours. Sometimes, despite leveling, centering the alignment stars, and doing all the required tasks, the first object I punch in after alignment is still several degrees off. Occasionally it's right in the middle, but most of the time it's either on the edge if I'm lucky or somewhat outside a low power (30x) field of view. When it's several degrees off, I can starhop my way over to it with the help of the Sky Safari chart. Again, somewhat of a limitation of the technology.

Then there are the random take-offs. I'll have an object in view and then as I am watching, with the phone on the table, the scope suddenly decides it wants to look at something else and slews on its own. Hmm.

How about connection drop outs? This scope has WiFi, to which the Synscan app connects so you can control it with your phone. Synscan is very rudimentary in its interface for selecting objects (and the font for that function is inexplicably small). So I tried using Sky Safari to select and go-to the objects I want to look at. At first things were great, except that Synscan would drop the connection every 15 minutes unless it was in the foreground. Despite ensuring the Android settings would prevent this, it still did it. I could live with that. 

But then either Synscan or Sky Safari must have done an update (à la CrowdStrike), and Sky Safari would no longer connect: the Gray Screen of Death (GSOD) in the screenshot. So I used the apps separately, selecting an object in Sky Safari and pointing to it with Synscan, then going back and forth between apps to actually get it in the field. This is supposed to be the easy way of finding stuff? I later found that if I just move Synscan to the foreground and then back to Sky Safari, the latter will reconnect. But...really?

Lastly, I find that having to look down and press buttons on a cell phone when I'm observing is distracting and clunky. It also doesn't help with maintaining night vision, despite a "night mode" in the app, which is not well implemented. You can slew at different speeds, but it's aggravating to keep overshooting over and over. [1/9/25 update: I picked up a cheap bluetooth mini game controller and it works great. In the cold, I can even keep my hand in my pocket and control the scope. One problem solved.] I tried the "tilt to slew" feature in Sky Safari, whereby you tilt your phone a little one way or the other and the scope slews in response. That is even more masochistic, no matter how slow I set it. Sometimes I give up, loosen the clamps on the axes, and just move it by hand. Always works. But that kind of defeats the purpose of go-to, doesn't it?

Well, by now you either think I'm a total crank, or maybe that go-to is not everything it's cracked up to be. In fact, I have come to the realization that both are true. 

I am now experimenting with using the free progressive web app Astrohopper as my "push-to" way of finding things (see my initial review on Astrohopper here). It works well for that purpose and is more reliable than the go-to. I can still use the tracking once I find an object, and that's my main reason for getting the go-to version over the non-go-to. I can't use straight-through finders anymore due to physical limitations, otherwise I'd still be starhopping, which is the simplest, most reliable, and most rewarding way to navigate with a telescope.

By the way, the scope itself is great. It's the tech part that could use some refining, to say the least. The Synscan Pro app gets a 2.2 star rating on Google Play. The non-pro version only gets 1.7 stars. I may end up staying with Astrohopper as my finding tool, then turn on the tracking. That works. [9/21/2024 Update: I got fed up with the go-to, and Astrohopper seems to not be able to geolocate after browser updates, so I added an azimuth circle to the scope base and use that and my digital angle gauge to navigate now. I only use the tracking, and that is often out of whack, but it's nice when it works. Maybe I'll write up how I did the azimuth circle in a future post.]

Snarling dog image by Albert Leung via Flickr (CC 2.0).

New Binocular Space Walk audio guide available

I've added a new Binocular Space Walk audio guide. This one takes you through the Summer Southern Milky Way, as viewed from mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere, looking at open clusters, globular clusters, a double star, and a few nebulae. It lasts about half an hour, but provides many opportunities to pause the recording to admire the objects and take breaks. Here's the link to the page, which is also available under Quick Hops on the right. Enjoy!

Binocular Space Walk - Summer Southern Milky Way

My favorite observing accessory

White duct tape. 

Okay, maybe not my favorite, but up there in the Top 10.

Why? Because it helps you find stuff at night. Not up there, down here. We worry about finding stuff in the sky, but when you drop something on the ground or walk into something in the dark, you’ll appreciate that being able to see stuff on Earth is almost as important as seeing stuff in the sky.

Few sites are so dark you won't see a piece of white duct tape more easily than something darker colored. I always keep a roll in the car.

Where to use it:

• On any equipment you don't want people bumping into in the dark, especially at public events with people unfamiliar with the size and shape of astro gear.
• Lens caps. Many lens caps are black. Drop one in the grass and you will need to turn a light on, not something you want to do unless you have to when you are observing. All my eyepiece caps and telescope covers have little squares of white duct tape on both sides so I can find them easily in the dark. Kudos to those companies that make the clear caps, but even they can benefit from a piece of white duct tape.
• Marking indicators. I have this thing about always forgetting to turn off red-dot finders. Always. So I put a couple of small pieces of white duct tape on the knob that turns it off. When they line up, it's off. Where to put the scope in the dovetail saddle? Mark it with white duct tape. Where does the telescope cap line up? Where do I grab something at night? White duct tape.
• At one site, we have a wooden fence gate that can be in various stages of open. I will invariably walk into it in the dark. Slap a piece of white duct tape on it.
• At another site, there was a big gopher hole. I stepped in it. You can be seriously injured by doing something like that. A stick with a piece of white duct tape on it kept me out of the hospital.
• Black telescope? Manufacturers love black telescopes, black binoculars, black cameras, black cases, black everything. A few strategically placed pieces of white duct tape will make it less likely to be stepped on, bumped, or run into at night, by you or someone else.
• Red LED flashlight. If it's dark colored, it's not going to do you much good if you can't find it in the dark. White duct tape.

And there's not much in the world you can't fix temporarily with duct tape, so it's always good to have it around.

I'm sure I've forgotten many other uses for it, and I'm sure you can come up with others.