Fall Southern New Mexico Star Party to be held September 24th - 28th 2008

by John Gilkison

Join us at City of Rocks State Park this Wednesday September 24th, 2008, ending Sunday September 28th, 2008 for the Fall Southern New Mexico Star Party. The registration form tab is on the upper left of the home page.

by John Gilkison
After Ken Abalos (the City of Rocks S P Manager) procured a five inch Celestron SCT for piggy back imaging duties on the 14 inch observatory telescope at the park the only problem left was in mounting it. Finally in February we received a piggy back rail and rings kit from a internet provider (www.scopestuff.com) of telescope equipment. I scheduled a installation date of Saturday February 2nd so we could get the equipment up and running before the regular monthly program.

Matt Wilson the park's program presenter met me at the observatory at 4:00 PM. It took about a hour of adjusting and playing around with the best location of the five inch so it would not interfere with visual observing through the main telescope. The five inch had to also be optically aligned with the main telescope so the image the five inch produced would match the views through the eyepiece.

Then we had to wait upon darkness to make the final adjustments and to find focus. The imager is a Stella Cam II which as many of you may know works best below a focal ratio of F/4. We use a F/3.3 Compressor then the regular visual back to mount the camera which simply has a 1 & 1/4 inch mounting barrel.
We had a couple surprise visitors. Steve Cary the State Parks Head Interpretive Guide showed up with Robert V. the State Park architect. They were wanting to interview us about the good and bad aspects of the observatory design for use in building a new astronomical observatory at Oasis State Park in the coming year. We had a calm clear night for a wonderful program under the stars with this latest high tech addition to the capabilities of the City of Rocks State Park Observatory.
First we displayed Orion Nebula on the monitor. Then Andromeda Galaxy and it's two satellite galaxies. Patrons were also treated to the same views through the main observatory telescope as well as 11X and 20X 80mm binocular views of selected objects. We also did a green laser constellation and bright star tour at the beginning of the program. I was very pleased to see the Bond Lanes of Andromeda Galaxy showing well on the monitor. I could then explain these artifacts and describe what was being seen to a group of several persons at once.

We slewed to the Double Cluster which showed very well. What pleased me the most was the eyepiece views through the 14 inch telescope and the image on the monitor from the 5 inch imaging telescope were virtually the same. You could see about half of each of the clusters and the space in between them. Next we stopped by M-46 and the planetary nebula that appears in front of this beautiful open cluster. Next the Crab Nebula which required some historical as well as scientific explanations.

The night and the installation of the five inch piggy backed imaging telescope were a great success. All that remains to be done is to install a few more counter weights as the existing tube counter weights are not sufficient for balancing the telescope tube. We are looking forward to many more exciting public programs using this wonderful imaging technology which matches the main telescope's low power image scale.