Hunting Moon

Oct. 10 - 11, 2011 - Calgary, Alta.

Objectives:

Observe the Moon through the scope.
Photograph the Moon and Jupiter.
Get a picture of the damned telescope.

Notes:

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

I understand Juliet’s qualms about our lone natural satellite. It was nowhere to be found while I was out in Fairmont, and had the best view of the night sky since I got my telescope. Since then it’s been taunting me, slowly revealing itself a sliver at a time, but hiding behind heavy cloud cover for most of the last couple of weeks. It’s a tease, and makes bold promises but shows no loyalty (much like Romeo, who had been in love with some chick named Rosaline only three and a half scenes prior and would be dead in a couple of days).

I spent the intervening time completely geeking out on my new favourite hobby, reading a lot of Neil deGrasse Tyson essays and attempting a little night photography of objects closer to home, illuminating things in my backyard using long exposure times and a cigarette lighter.

Fig. 5: Terrestrial Life

A piece of grass illuminated by a cigarette lighter held in three different places over a period of 20 seconds.

Pentax K10D, 50mm, 20 sec, f5.6, ISO 400

Still, my sights were set on the heavens. I paid a couple of visits to the local telescope store, which is actually some guy’s garage in Inglewood, just to feed my habit and drool over the prospect of new, better equipment that will allow me to hook my camera up to a scope and take pictures of other galaxies.

But as long as it was cloudy, none of that high-tech stuff was going to get me any closer to the inconstant moon.

Then on Saturday night, finally, clear sky. I raced home to grab my scope, camera, rum and assorted bits and pieces. My girlfriend was out of town, so I picked up my buddy, Mudshark, an eccentric harmonica player who didn’t mind being interrupted from making cranberry sauce by a deranged, would-be astronomer knocking on his window telling him he had to come out and look at the moon right now.

Two glasses of wine later, we were in a nearby field in the middle of Calgary setting up the scope. Mudshark explained the upcoming full moon was known in northern Europe as the Hunter’s Moon, the first full moon after the harvest. The moon wasn’t quite full when we looked at it, but I certainly felt like a hunter as I lined up the scope.

Fig. 6: The Mudshark and the Moon

Pentax K10D, 28mm, 1/16 sec, f13.5, ISO 400, flash

Being new to all this, I expected to see only a small disc when I looked through the scope at 28x magnification. I had no idea what I was in for. My eyepiece, despite having a special filter for looking at the moon, was flooded with a blinding light. I gasped as I brought it into focus. The level of detail was astonishing.

Not quite being full, it showed us a strange, irregular shape, with smooth regions facing us, but strange, pockmarks, particularly in the top-right side (remember, the telescope shows an inverted image) where it was still mostly in shadow.

Most spectacular of all was Tycho, a particularly prominent crater named after the Danish, 16th-Century astronomer and inveterate party animal whose data helped us understand planetary motion. It appeared as a large, white circle with a dark outline, and strange lines spreading out in all directions for what must be hundreds of kilometers.

I wondered what kind a shot I could get with my camera and a plain ol’ zoom lens, and was amazed again when I could zoomed in digitally and saw Tycho once again.

Fig. 7: The Moon

Notice Tycho near the bottom-left.

Pentax K10D, 200mm, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400

We also took a look at Jupiter, this time only three of its moons visible, and shared the experience with some passers by.

Fig. 8: Celestial Hunters

Mudshark poses with three of the four wonderers we met in the park who had no idea they’d be stopping for a little astronomy on the way to wherever they were going.

Pentax K10D, 28mm, 1/100 sec, f13.5, ISO 400, flash 

Alas, Earthbound concerns prevent me from writing any more, but I wanted to get this post out before the moon passes by Jupiter, which will ought to look spectacular over the next couple of nights, so I'll leave you with this, shot from my backyard in the wee hours Oct. 12, lighting the foreground leaves with a barbecue lighter.

Of course, it was cloudy again, but for the marriage of art and science, that proved to be not such a bad thing.

Fig. 9: Full Moon

Pentax K10D, 50mm, 2 sec, f2.8, ISO 100

To quote another of Shakespeare’s heroines, “Well shone, moon. – Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.”