Comments on: Moon Doggies

By: Josh L

Josh L — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:23:02 +0000

You may be an astronomer but you are not naturally nocturnal. Moonbows-moondogs are not that uncommon but incredibly cool. As others have mentioned There can be double and triple moonbows and they fill up the sky. They are an emotional wondrous night time show.

Winter is coming and colorado/boulder is a great place to see them. Stay up on those cold long nights winter when the moon is full and you may see one or more. They are incredible things.

I’n not diurnal so I’ve never seen one around the sun much less a double or triple.

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:51:56 +0000

Speaking of old scopes, we at CAS (along with a huge load of work by Jim Barr of the Astronomy Department) are slowly working on the Cooke Astrograph up at Fan Mtn. It was a really cutting edge instrument in its day, but it’s seen better days.

The mount is a big honking equatorial and is getting a new drive motor, but the Cooke’s optics have a great deal of CA (chromatic aberration for you non astronomers out there) which makes imaging tricky. We’re experimenting with notch filters to cut out all the colors but green.

The only Tinsley I knew of up there was the 30″. I don’t know anything about the 8″ Tinsley, though, Nicole. What’s its f ratio? Maybe Dr. Majewski can use the Tinsley’s optics (if the Cooke doesn’t work out) for the tidal tales work he has in mind… He needs something optically fast, IIRC…
Rich

By: Yojimbo

Yojimbo — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:03:30 +0000

And, on another tack…. keep an ear open for the Moondoggies

http://hardlyart.com/moondoggies.html

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:00:39 +0000

Thanks, Richard.

George, yup we love calling it the Doghouse. 8-inch Tinsley, is that up at Fan Mountain, now? The Doghouse now houses the 6-inch and a 10-inch Celestron with Autostar. The latter is nice but can be pain to setup, so I still prefer the 6-inch.

By: Timid Atheist

Timid Atheist — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:15:02 +0000

Surely someone will latch on to that beautiful photo and show that the blue gizmo/lens flare is in actual fact proof positive of an alien spacecraft!

By: Ken B

Ken B — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:35:03 +0000

As others have pointed out, the bright blue spot is possibly lens flare, coincidentally on top of the halo. However, below and to the left is a bright rainbow-like spot, and that is the moon dog, I believe.

IVAN3MAN mentioned “click on [his] name” and see a better moon dog image. For those who didn’t, and/or aren’t familiar with the Atmospheric Optics website, check out all the photos, along with scientific explanations of what causes them. (Along with all of the “so that’s what they’re called” information as well. Anyone seen some anti-crepuscular rays lately?)

http://www.atoptics.co.uk

By: Larian LeQuella

Larian LeQuella — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:54:45 +0000

Saw a spectacular “moon dog” one time while I was flying over Greenland about a decade ago. For a sec my co-pilot thought he was seeing things, and didn’t say anything about it.

By: ioresult

ioresult — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:35:36 +0000

BA said: “where your mind wanders”
Man, you’re getting old!

By: Drew

Drew — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:32:03 +0000

I’ve seen one.

By: KC

KC — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:23:52 +0000

Well, I’ll be. So *that’s* what a moon dog/sun dog is. I’ve seen sun dogs before, and figured it was ice crystals in the upper atmosphere forming a nice rainbow effect, but didn’t know what it was called.