Mercury at Maximum Elongation

Today Mercury will be at maximum western elongation, as high in the morning sky as it will appear for this current apparition. After today the planet will slide back into the dawn, passing through superior conjunction on October 8th to reappear in the evening sky around the end of the month.

Mercury Transit 9May2016
Mercury transiting the Sun on May 9, 2016. Celestron C8 and Canon 6D at f/10.
Mercury typically completes three morning and three evening apparitions in each year. While the innermost planet never gets very far from the Sun, maximum elongation represents the best time to observe Mercury as high in the sky as possible.

There are no transits of Mercury in 2017, the next will be Nov 11, 2019.

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Hodgepodge: The Mishmash Mount

I have previously published a description of Hodgepodge, the mish-mash mount I used for the solar eclipse. While I wrote about the mount, and posted some photos, I did not really cover the construction. Now for some details…

Hodgepodge and the Eclipse
Hodgepodge set up at Grant’s Spring to photograph a total solar eclipse

A few months back I rebuilt the drive unit of an old Celestron mount, installing a drive corrector into the base unit in the process. I have used this sidereal drive for time lapse, but it can also be used to mount a telescope again. Better yet, with a few minutes reconfiguration, it can do either.

With the solar eclipse looming on the calendar I realized I needed a tracking mount to allow photography. Tracking would allow me to keep the Sun and Moon in the field without wasting precious seconds framing the image during the eclipse. It would also enable longer exposures without motion blurring the image.

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Moray Gallery

Oregon Star Party 2017

Due to lucky happenstance the location for Oregon Star Party, the same location used for decades, was within the path of totality for the 2017 total solar eclipse. This provided an opportunity to both attend the star party again, and to view the eclipse.

An assortment of telescopes wait out the day at oregon Star Party 2017
An assortment of telescopes wait out the day at oregon Star Party 2017
I do enjoy the large star parties, something we do not have on the island. I had attended OSP a few years ago, the eclipse made the opportunity to attend once again very tempting.

Registration for the star party was an issue. Due to the eclipse attendance was going to be very good, so good that registration was closed within two hours of opening! I got the announcement email, then waited until I got out of a meeting to register, only to find out I was too late! I put my name on the waiting list and hoped.

With a month to go I received word that my waiting list position was opened for registration. By this time my family already had plans to camp in the Ochoco Mts. for the eclipse, no reason not to do both!

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