I’m finally back online after a number of weeks of work on presentations about smart scopes as well as a couple on the JWST. I’m also now aware that many people are receiving Seestar S50s. I just did too! My other scopes I affectionately call the “Champion” (eVscope) and the “Challenger” (Vespera). This new one I will be calling “Little Sister” (Seestar).
This blog entry is especially aimed at smart telescope newbies. In it I will urge you to try what I did the first time I had a smart scope. I called it "El Camino de Messier de Campostela." It’s modeled a bit on the terrestrial journey, El Camino de Santiago de Campostela — which translates into English as The Way of Saint James to the Field of Stars. Santiago de Campostela is a city in the Spanish community of Galicia. The terrestrial pilgrimage is about 500 miles long. The celestial journey, however, extends nearly a billion light years through the local super cluster of galaxies, but will bring you back home.
Of course, I’m no Saint Iago (James), but decided at the outbreak of the COVID year of 2020 to start on a journey through the Messier Catalog from my back alley. It was a wonderful experience and that’s why I am recommending it to new owners of these scopes. It needn’t be everything you observe, but even with a limited horizon or viewing window, it can make a nice one year project. The timing is right to begin now with the current prominent position of M31, our "big sister" galaxy.
Know your Viewing Window
The above image is where I do much of my observing. I’m usually observing down by the alley where the car is in this picture. This image faces eastward towards the Chicago Loop. The trees really eliminate observing for me beyond the meridian. I have to basically catch objects in the east. I can get a little window to the north around Polaris and if I’m careful and hide in the shadows I can observe at far enough of a south declination to get all the Messier objects. The trees actually can be a benefit because they block stray light quite well when they have leaves.
Below is what my horizon looks like in my observer.pro app. I recommend this app for careful planning. I scanned my horizon and that’s where this image came from. Observer.pro has a huge data base and can help you sort through objects easily given your specific location and timing. I know it works for iOS, but maybe there’s something similar for Android phones. Note that the blue sky is the only sky window that’s available to me. I’m best in the south east and a little to the north. I can’t get to overhead because I’ll fall into the stacking vortex at the Zenith. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out an earlier blog post beginning with the word “descent”.)
During the COVID times I was basically restricted to this location, though once or twice I went to local parks. I compensated by carefully planning and targeting. It really isn’t too hard once you get started. Here’s how I did it.
I started with a convenient couple objects that were in synch with a time when I was usually awake and conscious. Smart scope viewing is nothing if not a way for lazy people to observe. In my alley the half life of an unattended telescope is probably about an hour or less. So, I had to sit with it. If I had a safe backyard I might have sped things along. But, you know, I really enjoyed this extended quest once it seemed like I might actually succeed.
Plan your Camino by Right Ascension
If I were to start again today, I’d start with M31 and maybe M110. I would then proceed through the catalog according to right ascension. Go here for the list: Messier Object Data, sorted by RA.
Here’s what the beginning of the table looks like. Right Ascension (RA) is what we astronomers use to measure “longitude” on the celestial sphere, but we don’t use angles. We use: hours, minutes, and seconds — essentially the same as time, but remember they act like angles. 1 hour of RA is 15 degrees. In this table the RA seconds are incorporated in the decimal point of minutes. (To add to the astronomical obfuscation, don’t confuse arc minutes with minutes of RA or arc seconds with seconds of RA.)
So, M110 here is at 00h 40.4m. Now, we don’t really need to know these coordinates since our smart scopes will go to the Messier objects directly.
After RA is DEC, which stands for declination. It’s essentially the latitude of the object on the celestial sphere. In the case of M110, the dec is +41degrees and 41arcminutes.
It can be important to pay attention to the declination since it will tell you if the object is far south or north and in the trees. I just let the telescope (in my first journey, my eVscope) figure all this out. I took comfort in knowing that Charles Messier, when he cataloged these objects was observing from Paris, where the latitude is about 49 degrees. His southern objects would be even lower for him than I would have to contend with.
You’ll find that once you get started you’ll know what will move into your view in the coming days. Here’s a rule of thumb to help: The sky advances about 2 hours in RA in a month or 1 hour ever two weeks. So, M76, which is at RA ~ 1h42m will be at the same celestial longitude as M31 was two weeks earlier at RA ~ 0h42m. Now, the declination will be a bit different, but at least this 2 hours RA per month will help in planning if you’re trying to observe within a specific area along your horizon.
If it helps, you can also use a planisphere or star finder that’s marked with the positions of the Messier Objects. A few years ago I came upon this one www.messierplanisphere.com. I keep it on the wall of my “Observatorium” and use it to easily see what’s coming up.
But wait! What if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere!
Most of the Messier Objects won’t be above your horizon if you’re well below the equator. So, there’s something you can use called the Jack Bennett Catalog… https://www.astroleague.org//wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Bennett-Spreadsheet-Certificate.pdf
Position your Observing Point Ahead of Time
Because my sky "windows" into the universe are so restricted when I want to observe I go out during the day and check the angles and elevations of where I expect the object to be in the evening. I use Sky Safari for that. Once I find a location that seems like it will work, I mark the spot and sometimes even level the telescope tripod ahead of time for that location.
Again, the beauty of the El Camino de Messier is that over just a few weeks you’ll get the hang of knowing where the next target of opportunity will be in your shooting windows.
Reflect on your Object
I have also found that when taking a number of months to log in these images, it’s great to read up on each object right after I’ve imaged it. I will often do that after returning inside as a way to decompress from being freezing outside in the Chicago weather.
I’m sure there are many online resources that are quite good, but I like Stephen J. O’Meara’s books. Below is the cover the one on the Messier Objects.
I firmly believe we don’t really see what we don’t understand. For me the process of studying what I’m going to see or have seen really makes a big difference in making the experience meaningful.
The Long Journey
Since I was thought of my original camino like a real journey, I also posted each image as I took it onto Instagram and then added something rather crazy to the posts. I computed the actual distance as if I had trekked in space from one object to the next. This I did on a spreadsheet where I logged my observations as I went along.
If you’re up for calculating the distance you have to use the Law of Cosines. It’s pretty straightforward:
c^2=a^2+b^2-2ab*cosine (gamma)
a is the distance from earth to the one object. b is the distance from earth to the other. gamma is the angle between the two objects in the sky. c is then the distance between the two objects in space. Gamma is the tricky thing to compute because the coordinates are listed in RA and Dec. I’ll leave that as an exercise for you to figure out, if you like. (You probably won’t, but if you do, you will curse why astronomers ever came up with RA.)
For my route the total distance came to: 804,406,000 light years! I’m guessing other routes might come up with different totals, though the overall final number might not be that different.
Finally, thank your lucky nebulae that you didn’t have to travel it on foot or even in a space ship.
Make a Poster
I had a bit of time on my hands during the years I did this camino that I even made up a neat poster. Here’s mine. I arranged the objects from closest at the bottom to farthest at the top. It was an interesting exercise because it showed me how many of each type of object were in the Messier Catalog. And, it’s a bit of an introduction to nebulae and galactic/extragalactic structure too.
Attend a Messier Marathon
Finally, when we got into 2022, I actually attended a Messier Marathon at Yerkes Observatory. I think I’ve talked about it here before, but I managed to nail over half the Messier Catalog in 4 hours before the clouds set in! Using a smart telescope, like the Champion in a Messier Marathon isn’t even close to fair to other telescopes.
Charles Messier’s Camino
I feel I should mention just a few things about Charles Messier (1730-1817) before I wrap this posting up. He was a comet hunter and he observed from the tower in this picture at a place that used to be called the Hôtel de Cluny (now the Musée national du Moyen Âge), in downtown Paris, France. Look at all the people milling about. I’m sure he had some light pollution too.
I’m not sure why comets were such a big deal back then. Maybe they were afraid of them? I know they basically didn’t have a concept of the universe much beyond the Milky Way as an giant disk of stars we live in. There were some ideas that some nebulae were other Milky Way Island Universes at that time, but that notion was proffered by Charles' contemporary the Prussian philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Parisians and Prussians have never played well together, so maybe that’s why Messier stayed with comets.
I’m off Again....
As I started writing about this subject, my Seestar S50 arrived. It gave me a new wanderlust, so I think I’ll take this little guy on a new Camino de Messier. I started last night with M110 just near M31. I only got in a few minutes and was photobombed by a jet plane leaving O’Hare Airport, which is 13km away. The Boeing may only be going several hundred miles per hour, but I’ll be traveling millions of light years an hour…. ;-)
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