Camp Faux Real

The summer proceeds with pleasant, clear nights. With low humidity and temps down into the 60s, we have had some excellent seeing conditions. My family has been backyard camping the past couple of weeks at what my boys coined "Camp Faux Real".



The whole family has been spending the evenings at our "campsite" and using our Celestron telescopes and binoculars to stargaze after dark. The waxing moon, as it has grown from crescent to full has been a favorite target. We’ve all marveled at the incredible texture visible when the moon is not as illuminated and the brightness as it passes first quarter. Once it approaches gibbous, the light from the moon causes the telescope’s eyepiece to glow like a lightbulb! We’ve been using ND, polarizer and orange and yellow filters to cut the glare and increase contrast.



Another favorite target has been Alberio, the "Eye of Cygnus.” While this dim star to the SE of Vega is not very impressive by eye, with even low power magnification, it “splits” into an amber and a sapphire star! An easy target to find and really beautiful. Our biggest success, however was pairing the C8 with 9.4mm EP +2x Barlow to split-split the Double-Double in Lyra! That warranted a round of high-fives!

 

During the day, we’ve attached our Baader solar filters to the front of the scopes and have been observing sunspots. i’ve also been prototyping a sun finder to more easily (and safely) align the telescope. The results have been good so far, and I’m ready to graduate to more substantial materials for the next prototype now that “proof-of-principle” has been achieved.

  

We will be heading to one of southern New Jersey’s barrier islands for a couple weeks and are looking forward to darker skies. The scopes and binocs are of course coming too and I will update RooftopAstronomy.blogspot.com and @mwilkinson3 with our observations. Here’s wishing for good seeing!