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.

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

http://hardlyart.com/moondoggies.html

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.

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 <warning>scientific explanations</warning> 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

@kuhnigget:
“Anyway, the next morning, a local talk radio show we always listened to was inundated with phone calls from people convinced the end was nigh because of the “sign from god” the previous night.”

Ouch. There goes the neighborhood… It’s a good thing that common sense and education has improved since, and all you sensible folks on the other side of the big pond don’t let those doomsday fans near guns, or, heaven forbid, weapons of the nuclear kind, right?

Cricket. Cricket.

Uh-oh…

Hmmm.. somebody should write a book about stuff like that….

J/P=?

When I was a kid back in Yakima, Washington, where icy cirrostratus clouds are common in winter, I remember one night when the halo around the moon was especially bright, almost as bright as the full moon itself. I don’t recall if there were any moondogs.

Anyway, the next morning, a local talk radio show we always listened to was inundated with phone calls from people convinced the end was nigh because of the “sign from god” the previous night. Being the snotty kid that I am, er, was, I called up and explained the true nature of the phenomenon. While the host of the show himself was grateful, the rest of the hour was filled with angry callers denouncing the uppity kid who thought he was so smart.

There was a total eclipse of the sun a few years later…I don’t think I listened to the talk shows then.

George

(Nicole’s no slouch either! her topic was “Search for the Epoch of Reionization: The Return to Low Frequency Radio Astronomy”)

Here’s another image of the 6″ Clark (on a Sagemuller hand-wound clock drive mount BTW) for those of you who really dig old scopes.


The same (but larger) image in a new window.
Rich in Charlottesville