ISS transit of the Moon 2021May20

May28
by catz on May 28, 2021 at 10:23
Posted In: astronomy

This is my *single* frame capture of the ISS transit of the moon on Thursday 2021 May 20th at 23:58:08 UTC.

The ISS is the little lighter blotch in the lower left of the frame. You can imagine two major solar panel components.

If we had better cameras with bigger FOV sensors/pixels, lower focal length of the scope or a better predicted path over the moon itself, I would have framed this and capture many more frames as it crossed.

Specs: Meade 102mm SchmidtCass FL=1000 f10 on a Meade LXD55 mount captured with zwo asi290mc camera with firecapture software. Focus was manual of the primary SC mirror using the Yoga “warrior” pose, reaching into the toosmall observatory, under the counterweights, around the camera and finally to the coarse focus knob

Processing: load up the .avi in irfanview image viewer, select options; extractallframes. It turned the 1242 frames into 1242 .bmp files. I then went through them one by one to identify the single ISS frame and kept one before and one after and deleted the rest. Then with irfanview again, changed them from .bmp to .jpg and then annotated with irfanview.. wow.. that program is becoming my goto software!

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drip irrigation is pretty awesome

May26
by catz on May 26, 2021 at 11:32 and modified on May 26, 2021. at 14:12
Posted In: gardening, Heirloom & Heritage Tomatos


This is our drip irrigation system that we bought last year (kit form), just laid out a week ago when we transplanted the heirloom tomatos. This year the plants are 24″ apart and the rows are 36″ apart. We would like more spacing between rows but the fenced garden is not big enough for the number of plants going in.
There is a mechanical timer associated with this vegbed and typically we come out in the morning or evening and turn it on for 1 or 2 hours.
All of the supplies came from irrigationdirect.ca


Other components are a vaccuum breakers, a filter, and a pressure reducer. The system worked very well last year and so far so good this year. You can tell by the narrow strips of wet earth that it is much more efficient in getting water to plants than a sprinkler and much more conventient than hand watering with a hose and nozzle.

Lastly yet another signage system. In past years we would staple these laminated laser printed names onto a 2×2 stake, which also supported the tomatos. This year we are not putting in the 2×2 stakes right away, rather later on when the plants are well established and much larger. So instead we tried this… gluing the names on popsicle sticks for now, and transferring them to the 2×2 later on… still haven’t quite worked out how that will work, but at least the letters are running left to right instead of sideways uptodown as in the past 🙂

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spring gardens

May20
by catz on May 20, 2021 at 10:39 and modified on June 18, 2021. at 10:42
Posted In: gardening, garlic


A quick snap of Vegbed5 for historical records… Approx 960 garlic cloves were planted on 2020 October 25 & 28 in the eastern section (left side of image). Potatos went in to the southern section (center of image).
The black composter was moved in about a month ago to provide ease of access and maybe it would get more use.
The garlic was covered with straw for the winter. We will be removing it shortly to lay out the drip irrigation lines and may put it back again soon afterward.

vegbed5 north to south east to west +5C
Row 1 Oct 25 50 dibbles * 6 = 300 ( each dibble=6 holes/cloves)
armenian x2
artichoke x3
barcelona red x1
bubbas chesnock x1
carpathian x1
chesnock red x1
chilian x1
creme delarose x1
czech x2
dujanski x1
F3V x2
Fishlake Ted F1 x2
Fishlake Ted F21 x3
Fishlake Ted F23 x6
Fishlake Ted F3 x4
Fishlake Ted F30 x8
Fishlake Ted F40 x2
Fishlake Ted F7 x2
French x2
unknown x1
genki x2
georgia crystal x1
georgia fire x1

Row 2 Oct 25 51 dibbles * 6 = 306 ( each dibble=6 holes/cloves)
georgian x2
german red x2
german white x2
hungarian x2
inchileum x3
italian purple x3
italian sicilian x2
japanese
japanese sikua
khabar
koji
korean purple
kosytns red russian
lakota
lucian sicilian x2
magnificent
marino x2
mennenite x6
metechi
music x4
newfoundland x2
northern quebec x4
northumberland x2
omas
persian star
phillipino
polish jenn

row 3 oct 28 44 dibbles * 6 = 264 ( each dibble=6 holes/cloves)
port au george x2
purple glazer x3
railway creek x4
roja 2019FA x2
rose de la trec x2
rosewood x2
blank russian red check notes
russian red x2
russian red 2019 x2
saltsrping select x2
seversky palisek x2
shouldice
siberian marble
sicilian gold x3
silverskin40 x4
slovak x3
solent wight
spanish antihelion x3
spicy korean x2
sweet candy x2

vegbed7 early garlic (planted apart from main crop) 8 dibbles * 6 = 48 ( each dibble=6 holes/cloves)
aglio russo creo x1
acropolis greek x1
chiliean silver x2
italian lorenz x2
mexican red silver x2

vegbed10 last of early garlic (planted apart from main crop) 7 dibbles * 6 = 42 ( each dibble=6 holes/cloves)
red rezan x3
spanish roja x3
tibetan x1

Grand Planting Total 2020 = 300 + 306 + 264 + 48 + 42 = 960

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Lunar Werner X 2021may18

May19
by catz on May 19, 2021 at 12:32 and modified on May 19, 2021. at 12:34
Posted In: astronomy

We went out last evening around 21:00 edt and attempted to get some images of the Werner lunar X. This is from a Canon T7i on a tripod with a 300mm f5.6 zoom lens. Focus is not sharp at all (used live view and max zoominess)

So.. neither the 500mm mirror lens nor the 75-300mm lens do the feature justice.

Was going to use the telescope… but… even though the black flies majorly diminished in yesterdays heat.. were replaced by locusts of mosquitos. swarming was too kind a word out back in the field. Yet Kim inside the SCGO reported very few of any flying insectoids.

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Darkside of the Moon

May17
by catz on May 17, 2021 at 11:43
Posted In: astronomy

One of the better dark side of the moon images taken 3days old, positioned low to our horizon between some power lines. This was a 2 second exposure on a tripod, unguided at 300mm f5.6 and ISo3200. The one second exposure also showed the dark side details but they were… dark!

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Nova Cas 2021 (V1405Cas)

May17
by catz on May 17, 2021 at 11:35
Posted In: astronomy

Our first confirmed image of Nova Cass 2021 (V1405Cas) taken with a DSLR on a tripod for 30 seconds of unguided exposure at ISO3200 and a 75-300mm zoom lens at 75mm

The hardest part was to actually find a starmap that showed its accurate position.

As it turned out, did not need that… Stellarium v0.21 automatically updated and the Nova appeared in it!

So, using a ruler to measure the distance on stellarium between Shedar and Caph and then to the Nova, I did the same on the image itself to get the general location, then starhopped from M52. Compared it against the next star to the lower left and it all looked good.

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First Light – allsky1pi new lens

May12
by catz on May 12, 2021 at 13:46 and modified on May 12, 2021. at 13:50
Posted In: astronomy


This is the First Light image from the new wider angle lens for the allsky1pi camera system.
The old lens came along with the ASI ZWO120MC camera and was a 2.1mm focal length.
This new lens is a 1.55mm focal length and as seen in this image, does come to focus (our biggest concern) and also shows more of the sky. Focus is not perfect at the moment, but the fact that it can come close means it can get even better!
The camera is still mounted biased towards the north, as one of its primary goals is to image aurora, often low in altitude to our north. North is up, East is left, West is right. Not all of the southern horizon is showing, possibly because of the tilt bias but also because of the small chip size.

Sensor: 1/3″ CMOS AR0130CS(Color)
Resolution: 1.2Mega Pixels 1280×960
Pixel Size: 3.75µm
Bayer Pattern: GRBG

Older image from the 2.1mm lens

From here we will let it run overnight and see if the night sky is in sharp focus or not, and also decide on whether to change the angle bias at all. It looks pretty good right now down to the horizon and just a little bit more.. and that may be good as is.

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Solar M3.9 Flare 2021May07 19:10 UTC

May08
by catz on May 8, 2021 at 09:40 and modified on May 8, 2021. at 09:45
Posted In: astronomy

M3.9 Flare 2021May07 19:10UTC

The data closeup from the SCGO Radiojove radio telescope system for the M3.9 class flare from active region 2822 just coming onto the sun on 2021 May 07.

The spaceweatherlive android app gave us a smartphone alert very early on, allowing us to watch the event in progress. Unfortunately the audio recording system failed Oh well, more time to fix it for the next time.

The Y axis levels are relative, but generally they are lower than 2000. We start recording after a 4500 value (when it works).

The radiojove data gets saved out at 00:00UTC, then we can load it and generate a custom graph.

You can see live data updated every 30 minutes at https://starlightcascade.ca/radiojove/

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Solar Flare C8.6 20210422-2006UTC

Apr23
by catz on April 23, 2021 at 08:37 and modified on April 23, 2021. at 08:38
Posted In: astronomy

Its Solar Flare Season again!
This note came from the Radiojove email list from John Avellone, Shenandoah Valley Virginia/West Virginia):
“More solar activity @ 20MHz. Attached chart for 200330 – 200730 shows the RSP VI/1 bursts associated with a C8.5 XRA flare.”
This is his data:

John Avellone, Shenandoah Valley Virginia/West Virginia) USA
This prompted us to go back to our own Radiojove system and extract the image below from roughly the same time frame. Yes! Confirmation again!
Since that analysis, we’ve increased the number of X and Y axis ticks to help more easily identify timings, and the master reference as to when and how big the flare was comes from https://spaceweatherlive.com/

As another point of information, we have been trying to determine the beam width of the dual dipole antenna. This flare helps. At 20:06 UTC = 16:06 EDT the sun’s azimuth was 244 deg, which is 244-180=64 degrees west of south.
Symmetrically this should mean the dipole beam is at least 64*2=128 degrees wide.


SCGO Yarker Ontario Canada

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SCGO renos and repairs part 2

Apr22
by catz on April 22, 2021 at 09:40 and modified on April 22, 2021. at 09:42
Posted In: astronomy


Most rolloff roof observatory designs have a “flippy board” feature that flips up before rolling the roof off. This allows for clearance of any instruments you may have inside, and covers the gap when the roof is closed, where the roof meets the wall.

In the past, when we had a metal roof, we used a large flippy board (ie very tall) as the roof span was 10′ and the roof integrity was such that it did in fact sag. Especially when loaded down with wet snow.
So we needed a larger clearance. When the roof blew off and was replaced with this wooden roof in 2018, we reused as much as we could including this flippy board made of 3/8″ plywood, with some 1×4’s as stiffening, in an 8′ section and a 2′ section.

We know.. a recipe for disaster/failure. Well, three years later, the flippy board has to go. It had warped so much that it did not keep out the weather in many places.

So, off it came and we decided upon building up the wall section to meet the roof with a small a clearance as possible. Since the new wooden roof was much stronger, and showed now signs of sag at all, we aimed for a 1/4″ clearance between roof and wall.

It was built from a 5/4″x6″ cedar board that came from the old metal roof skirt. Being a little short, two pieces were made and attached. In addition, a 1×4″ was mounted on the roof section to provide a nailing surface that stuck out a bit for the weatherstripping cover we would add later, also scavenged from the flippy board. This is the final part, old lawn edging attached and covering the 1/4 to 1/2″ gap. It turned out to be a little inflexible, so slits were cut vertically in it from the bottom, every foot or so. Now it closes without too much force.
The first weather test was the snow and rain we received a few days later… so far, no snow or rain inside!

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Double the compost, double the fun!

Apr22
by catz on April 22, 2021 at 09:28
Posted In: gardening

Compost. What fun. We’ve had and used a compost pile for kitchen scraps, yard waste, etc for years. But as always with compost piles, they never get treated correctly, oft forgotten and in the end, after a few years, one digs into them, finds a hornets nest and gets stung a lot.

So this year, we decided (after watching one too many gardening videos) to try again and come up with a workable system. Having two areas instead of just one seemed to be a good idea, so we expanded the existing compost pile, made from wood pallets, into two. This will allow us to fill up and use one while the other thinks and decomposes. Wood pallets lined with chicken wire on the inside allows good airflow, rain access and keeps the stuff inside.
We still need a front gate.. that will come soon.

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SCGO renos and repairs

Apr22
by catz on April 22, 2021 at 09:24
Posted In: astronomy

The Starlight Cascade Gardens and Observatories 1st rolloff roof observatory was built in 2003. It is an 8×10 metal shed from Canadian Tire that was repurposed. The external rails/outriggers are 2×8 originally (2003) and sistered later on for a wider track for the wheels. They have been alternately painted, stained and varathaned, all in an attempt to preserve them.
After 18 years they are disintegrating.

So the latest plan is to cap them with a metal to provide bot some protection to stop further damage, and to provide a better rolling surface for the seven 3″ wheels on the rail.
So we found some old metal infrastucture from the old metal roof shed that blew off 3 years ago and pounded them flat. They were installed and then pounded again into an “L” shape and then screwed in.

The existing 1/4 round is used as a guide/ridge for the wheels to stay on track. They were removed and then put back in place again.

So, in the end, of the two x16′ of rail, we were able to cover approx 18′.. we ran out.
Even so, the roof does move better now than before, and once we can find more material to complete the project.. Yay!

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