"On the Moon Again" outreach July 16 - 18, 2021
Posted: Sun May 30, 2021 10:17 pm
First, a little history:
2019 was the first year of the world-wide outreach program "On the Moon Again", consisting of more than 1300 events in 77 countries by amateur astronomers. In 2020, this outreach was cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. This year will be the second edition of On the Moon Again, and will be held for 72 hours on July 16,17,and 18.
You can get more information at www.onthemoonagain.org. They ask that you register if you wish to participate with the outreach!
This will be my first outreach so I am preparing for it now! I will have a 2 step stepladder with a handle to hold onto for the kids (and tipsy adults) to look at the moon through my Jason 60mmf/ 15 refractor model #313. I have a hybrid diagonal to use a few less expensive 1.25" eyepieces. Also I will have some sanitary wipes handy in case somebody gets the notion to touch the telescope!
My 2nd telescope will be another "old school" telescope: a 4"f/ 10 Meade SCT model 2045D with a 6.3 reducer to make it f/ 6.3. I will connect a Revolution Imager 2 so the moon can be viewed through its 7" monitor at any time. I thought about using my ETX90, since it's a lot lighter than the SCT , but the ETX only works the way I want it to about 2/3rd's of the time and the SCT works 100% of the time with it's simple non-computerized motor drive.
I bought the Imager second hand a few years ago, I didn't have any batteries for it and the instructions for connecting it all up did not match the connectors I had, so I stored it and forgot about it! Between then and now I bought a battery and some optical accessories and a few days ago, I was determined to make it work. It took me a couple of hours to figure it out, but I finally got it all connected!
A few days ago on May 28th, I headed into the backyard and set the telescope up. After dark, and aligning with Polaris, I went inside and watched Shadow and Bones on Netflix with my wife!
At 12:30 AM, now officially May 29th, I went back outside, focused on the moon, and inserted the Imager. It only took me a half hour to find the settings I wanted along with refocusing again to get the best images I could. I took some photos of the monitor screen through my smart phone. They're not as pretty as the ones everybody posts here, but they're just screen shots with a very small limited amount of post processing on my smart phone only. My image sizes are a little big, so I will need to post each one separately.
Clear skies!
2019 was the first year of the world-wide outreach program "On the Moon Again", consisting of more than 1300 events in 77 countries by amateur astronomers. In 2020, this outreach was cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. This year will be the second edition of On the Moon Again, and will be held for 72 hours on July 16,17,and 18.
You can get more information at www.onthemoonagain.org. They ask that you register if you wish to participate with the outreach!
This will be my first outreach so I am preparing for it now! I will have a 2 step stepladder with a handle to hold onto for the kids (and tipsy adults) to look at the moon through my Jason 60mm
My 2nd telescope will be another "old school" telescope: a 4"
I bought the Imager second hand a few years ago, I didn't have any batteries for it and the instructions for connecting it all up did not match the connectors I had, so I stored it and forgot about it! Between then and now I bought a battery and some optical accessories and a few days ago, I was determined to make it work. It took me a couple of hours to figure it out, but I finally got it all connected!
A few days ago on May 28th, I headed into the backyard and set the telescope up. After dark, and aligning with Polaris, I went inside and watched Shadow and Bones on Netflix with my wife!
At 12:30 AM, now officially May 29th, I went back outside, focused on the moon, and inserted the Imager. It only took me a half hour to find the settings I wanted along with refocusing again to get the best images I could. I took some photos of the monitor screen through my smart phone. They're not as pretty as the ones everybody posts here, but they're just screen shots with a very small limited amount of post processing on my smart phone only. My image sizes are a little big, so I will need to post each one separately.
Clear skies!