Observing report for 4/12/01 Observing from driveway. Equipment: C-8 Orange tube on Losmandy GM-8, full aperture solar filter, Lumicon solar prominence filter and off-axis front rejection filter. Set up about 4:00 p.m. for a quick view of sunspots. There was one continuous band of clouds, but not very wide, a few degrees from the sun. Within minutes of getting set up, the cloud moved in front of the sun, and I only was able to get the occasional glimpse of the sun after that. However, I was able to view some. Realized the orientation of scope was left/right reversed after using the Internet to locate sunspot groups. The daily rotation was quite obvious, and the large sunspot group (9415) was significantly nearer the limb. I counted a total of 27 sunspots, down from over 40 the previous day, but through the cloud breaks, I wouldn't put much stock in that number. Connected the prominence filter. Although focus was achieved, the strong wind and clouds prevented any good viewing. Closed up at 5:45. Observing Report for 4/13/01 Donald C. Martin Observatory Solar Photography with Jeff Ball Equipment used: C-14, full aperture solar filter, Lumicon solar prominence filter with front rejection off-axis filter. Nikon F-3 camera with TechPan film, Olympus OM-1 camera with Kodak PlusX-125 film, Astro-Physics barlow (2.2X), 32 mm Brandon eyepiece for eyepiece projection. The drive on the C-14 continues to give occasional problems. Although the paddle works fine, the tracking motor doesn't. I have checked everything for tightness. One interesting feature popped up yesterday, when plugged in, the dec motor would come on and not shut off! This only happened once in a while. Have no idea what the problem is. Set up around 10:00 checking the sun visually. Sunspot group 9415 was almost on the limb of the sun. Jeff took photos first using the Nikon at prime focus of the f/11 telescope. Shot a role of film bracketed around 1/1000 sec. I tried my hand at eyepiece projection of the large sunspot group using the 32 mm brandon which changed the scope to an f/44. Using one of Jeff's astrophotography books, I bracketed a roll of film around 1/60 sec. I switched over to the solar prominence filter, and we looked around for a decent flare. Jeff had an appointment so had to leave. I continued the search fine tuning the filter and used a focal reducer to get more of the sun in the fov. Found a nice flare south of 9415, about 45 degrees from the pole. I have had lots of trouble photographing with this filter on any scope, so kept the times short to avoid overexposure. I also removed the focal reducer. Most of the shots were at 1/1000 sec. Closed up shop around 12:30 p.m. Observing report for 4/13/01 D.C. Martin Observatory Night time observation Jeff, Rodger, Don, Chris DelCheccolo, Dr. DelCheccolo, Richard Reeser, Chris Oyster, and Rodger's family. Equipment: C-8 on Losmandy GM-8, Pentax eyepieces 14 mm, 28 mm; Nagler 9 mm, Tele Vue 55 mm Plossl eyepieces, Tirion Sky Atlas 2000. Other telescopes: TV-85, C-14, Rodger's 20" Obsession, two pair of binoculars. The DelCheccolo's and Richard were using the 14" to practice using a CCD camera. None of us had any real experience using a CCD to image anything (Jeff uses one to autoguide) so we weren't much help. True to our gender, they tried setting it up reading as little of the instructions as possible. And also true to form, the CCD won. They decided to leave around 10:30 or so and read the instruction manual. The learning curve is steep on those! Hopefully, we will get them back out there again and they can collect some images. Chris and I arrived on site around 7:30. My goal was to locate dim fuzzies in Leo. Began the evening setting up on the south side of the dome. Forgot the dew heaters, so took a quick trip home to get them. Should have brought water and snacks, but didn't. Jeff set up the TV-85 beside me. We both looked at Saturn and Jupiter and compared views. No real surprises, the C-8 was much brighter than the 85, but not as sharp in detail. The banding on Jupiter was visible, and the Cassini division was just barely discernable. We were both at 200X. I pushed mine to just under 300X and the view was very dim, but was surprisingly clear. My scope usually breaks down with the 9 mm, but held up pretty good tonight. Spent some time polar aligning with the polar scope...just kind of practicing. Then did a star test for collimation. I thought I could get it a little bit better and should recognize disaster coming. I tweaked it about a quarter turn on one collimation screw and WHAM the star image looked like an inside-out comet. I turned it back and it made the image worse. Jeff helped me out here, and I spent about 30 minutes with him just trying to get it back to when the stars looked just a little like comets. We got it started, and he went back to the TV-85. I continued tweaking and got it at least as good as it was, and perhaps slightly better. I still don't know what caused it to go out of whack so quickly. By now, it was 10:30. Back in the hunt for galaxies, I thought I would burn a hole in the Sky Atlas I was looking so hard. My finder, 7x50 was not quite on from the collimation fun, so re-did that. The broken screw that I haven't fixed yet now was hurting the hunt. The finder wasn't very tight. But lo and behold, there was M65, a pretty bright galaxy. I scanned just a little east and there was M66. I changed from the 28 mm to the 55 mm and both galaxies appeared in the fov. Okay, I thought, only about 20 minutes to find them. Now to locate M95, M96 and M105. Shouldn't be too hard. If I just slew to the west a bit and they should be right there!!! Oh, sorry. It was not to be. I spent about an hour looking at the star map, and then at the sky and things just didn't work out. In the meanwhile, Jeff tripped over his power cord to his mount, ripping it up, and Rodger keeps calling out hey want to see this object? How can I refuse looking through that aperture? Then things seemed to be drifting through my eyepiece. Weird. Somehow the power was shut off. It wouldn't come back on. The battery might be dead. I switched the batteries to see if the dew heaters would work. They worked in both batteries, but the drive would not work in either. I jiggled the wires, but still nothing. I guess it takes more current to drive the mount than to heat the glass. I loaned Jeff my power cord. I continued the search with the 55 mm eyepiece, hoping the galaxies would be bright enough and the scope contrasty enough to see them. I finally gave up about midnight. I'll do it another day. Maybe I'll shoot for some of the Virgo cluster next. As of 3/24/01, my total messier count is 57 objects. I started this list on March 3, 2000, at East Lynn Lake during a Messier hunt night. It is slowly building. Maybe by the end of this year I will be up to about 90??