[Peyton-observing] Log for Oct 5, 2016

[Robert J. Vanderbei]

The “seeing” last night was uncommonly good for NJ.   I took some pics of M15 and M2 from my driveway…

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/images/NJP/m15.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/images/NJP/m2.html

Tonight also looks good.   I might try to take some pics using the Peyton telescope tonight (if I can recruit some
of my freshman seminar students to join me).   

I have a question…  I have my camera attached to a 2” nosepiece (like one gets with
a 2” eyepiece).   As I recall, the telescope has a 2” eyepiece on it.   Is there a thumbscrew to
secure the eyepiece (or, in my case, camera) to the telescope?

--Bob

Robert Vanderbei

"And you may ask yourself... How did I get here?"  -- Talking Heads

> On Oct 6, 2016, at 12:37 PM, John Hoffman <jah5 at princeton.edu> wrote:
> 
> Last night was a bit....challenging.
> 
> I started to setup around 7:30, but there were a couple of early arrivals, and that, combined with my forgetting completely how to even turn on the telescope (!!!) lead to a longer than usual time to calibrate. It was just me for the first ~15 minutes past 8, followed by help from The Amazing Atirath and much later by Rui who was caught up at the Colloquium dinner until 8:45ish. We *finally* got a successful calibration on Altair (or was it Alberio?) at around 9, after which we breathed an enormous sigh of relief and focused on the fuzzy blob that is M31.
> 
> About 15 or so people came throughout the night, the youngest being a post-doc from neuroscience. Around 9:15 or so Atirath gave a nice small tour of Peyton, after which there were only about 5 people. It was a good group, minus a very talkative conspiracy theorist who went on about the planet Nibiru and how she had seen it, etc., but she was nice enough :). Atirtath tried nobly but unsuccessfully to provide some light counterarguments, but alas it was a lost cause.
> 
> Wrapped up around 10, telescope has been turned off, lens caps for both the viewfinder and the telescope are on (along with the lens cap for the viewfinder eyepiece and the bit of plastic for the telescope eyepiece).
> 
> Seeing was pretty decent; you could just barely resolve the 4 beta lyrae stars. No cloud cover that we encountered.
> 
> Some suggestions for changes to the website (these might be on there somewhere but I couldn't find it):
> 
> 1) a more complete list of Meade stars/objects
> 2) Step-by-step guide for new-comers and old-timers who have completely forgotten everything
> 3) Meade codes for the objects in the "observing list" database, when available
> 4) More detailed instructions for operating the telescope
> 5) The username/password for the "Internal" section written somewhere in the observatory, since I can never remember it (though I know it's something simple)
> 
> Signing off!
> 
> John Hoffman
> _______________________________________________
> Peyton-observing mailing list
> Peyton-observing at astro.princeton.edu
> https://mail.astro.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/peyton-observing