The history of my Lunar Observatory



History of my Observatories in Australia

My first observatory was in South Australia in Elizabeth some 20 km north of Adelaide. The observatory used half of a galvanized iron garage with a slide-off roof and housed a 6 inch f/7 Newtonian telescope on a heavy mounting all self constructed around 1965.

My second observatory was in Canberra in Weston in 1970 which used the double-door garage below the house with a roll out 10 inch f/10 Newtonian (the Wearne telescope) as well as my home made 6 inch Newtonian. Here the lunar occultation program was commenced, initially with the Royal Greenwich Observatory UK, and later with IOTA and then ILOC, the Japanese clearing house for lunar occultations.

My third observatory was in Paradise (longitude 138º 39' 22.3" E, latitude -34º 52' 04.3" S, elevation 56 m) 5 km north of Adelaide in South Australia and housed my 6 inch Newtonian telescope above my galvanized iron garage. This observatory also featured a roll-off roof but it was not very resistant to floor vibration which effected the telescope. Here the lunar occultation program was continued and my first video capture of a lunar eclipse was undertaken using borrowed video cameras and VCR.

My fourth and by far, the most successful observatory to date was in Canberra constructed at Calwell (longitude149º 06' 00.9" E, latitude -35º 26' 31.4" S, elevation 630 m) in 1993 which housed the 6 inch Newtonian mounted on a new pier and remotely controlled in both axes. The lunar occultation program was continued and various refractors with a Sony Handycam were used for on-line transmission of many lunar eclipses and planetary transits to my then, new web site. The observatory was set-up temporarily in the suburb of Fadden, but little observation was done due to the poor horizons.

My fifth Observatory was also here in Canberra in Theodore (longitude 149º 07 ' 01.1" E, latitude -35º 27 ' 04.6" S, elevation 704 m). Two instruments, the 6 inch Newtonian and a Jason 360 Newtonian were used with video and digital cameras on the telescopes, set-up on a concrete apron in front of the house with an unobstructed view to the North East and the ecliptic. As this observatory was near Tuggeranong Hill (885 m) a clear view to the West horizon was not possible.

My sixth observatory is in Canberra  nearby in the southern suburb of  Isabella Plains (longitude 149o05'16.6" E, latitude -35o25'52.2" S, elevation 586 m). Here, I  operate a Meade ETX-90EC only as the Jason has been presented to my granddaughter Minnah. My program will remain the same with the sky here a little dominated by trees, but most of the ecliptic is visible.

Most of the activities are centered on computer prediction and analysis of lunar and solar eclipse observations with the Observatory a clearing house for global lunar eclipse observations.

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Recent Developments

In 2004 March, a 90 mm goto telescope, a Meade ETX-90EC catadioptric with computer control and GPS capability, was acquired for the Theodore Lunar Observatory. A Dell Inspiron 600m laptop was also obtained to facilitate computer control of the Meade telescope.

In addition, several components from my 6 inch Newtonian were transferred to the Jason 360 telescope, a 1 1/4 inch eyepiece focusing rack and pinion and the quartz motor drive for the polar axis. The declination remote control motor drive was also removed from the 6 inch and installed on the Jason, now making this telescope suitable for remote control. The 6 inch Newtonian has been de-commissioned and donated to the Canberra Astronomical Society, and the Jason has been passed to my granddaughter.

A telescope mounting for the Canon Ixus digital camera incorporating a 40 mm (1 1/4 inch) eyepiece mount and remote shutter release, allows the camera to be fitted to the Meade eyepiece for direct imaging. A Panasonic digital video camera with 24X optical zoom, model NV-GS15/SUMM was purchased in December 2004 for web-cam use. An example of this can be seen here.

A 40mm x 8 Unitron refractor has been mounted on the Meade which is fitted with a Meade LPI camera to obtain full images of the Moon for lunar eclipse image capture using a driver for the MacBook.

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Web Site

My web site was originally arranged with ISP Spirit here in Canberra but it was sold to Asia On-Line at the end of 1995. Fortunately, I was able to arrange continued support of the site through Brian Morris manager of NetSpeed Internet Communications shortly after. Each year the National Library of Australiaarchives my pages so little data was lost, particularly during the hectic change over from Spirit to Netspeed. The Australian National Library (ANL Pandora) has archived my pages in July for the last 5 years.

The most important aspect of maintaining an up-to-date web site is to promote and collate observations such as crater timings during all lunar eclipses from observers around the world. Recently timings have been received from South Africa and South America.

Recently, I have updated my software to predict past and future expected umbral oblateness variations for each of  the lunar eclipses studied. The early observations of both Schmidt and Bouska have been included into my web pages.

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Observations

Lunar eclipses can be seen from my observatory if the circumstances are right and if the moon is visible above my local horizon. A solar eclipse can only be observed in totality (or as an annular eclipse) if we travel to that part of the globe where the narrow path of the moon's shadow can be seen. Transits of Mercury and Venus have also been observed when the weather is clear, as well as sun spots and thin lunar crescents that rise magnificently above the distant hills in the morning at Theodore. Most observations and images are transmitted to the web page and comments are invited.

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Software

A suite of Microsoft GWBasic computer programs were developed in 1984 which were converted to QuickBasic programs for the Macintosh to provide a comprehensive methodology for the prediction, reduction and analysis of lunar eclipse observations. The QuickBasic programs have recently been modified to run under Windows 98 or Windows XP Professional. They have been provided for downloading to any PC for execution. The CTR program and data files are in compressed form and can be found here. They need to be expanded before use onto any available drive into a folder named "CTR2" without the quotes.

In addition, several image analysis commercial suites of software were applied to analyse the many images of lunar eclipses obtained personally, or from overseas observers, to investigate the change in size of the umbra during more recent lunar eclipses. An excellent result for the measurement of the size of the umbra was obtained from Bernard Durand's images from France for the 2008 February 21 total lunar eclipse - this data confirmed my Topocentric Umbra theory.

David Herald (see IOTA) has developed sophisticated Visual Basic programs which include the prediction and reduction of Baily's Beads observation at solar eclipses, and these have been used extensively for the prediction and analysis of many solar eclipses, total and annular.

The application and results from these computer programs can be seen in the favourite links given below.

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Computers

The Microsoft GWBasic computer programs were written and developed in 1984 in DOS, using a 16-bit computer known as the Sirius developed by Sinclair, well known for the Commodore range of computers. These programs were later converted to QuickBasic for the Apple Power Macintosh, initially on a 6100 series DOS Compatible machine, then on a Macintosh IIci running in 16-bit mode. This machine is connected via a 10/100 Ethernet card to my OS 9.1 iMac machine with a USB 100 Mb ZIP external drive and a 2.2 Gb ORB external hard disc with removable cartridges. This arrangement runs fairly fast, and the ORB provides a good backup to the ZIP software and the numerous data files generated by the 16-bit software. The lunar eclipse software suite has been ported to the Windows Professional Dell laptop and is available for download as described above. This software is now independent of the older Mac II machines.

The iMac is used to convert many of the 16-bit datasets to web pages using Claris Homepage 2 and Graphic Converter for image manipulation. The iMac uses Interarchie to up-load these files to my web pages on the Netspeed domain.

The Dell Inspiron 600m laptop obtained to facilitate computer control of the Meade telescope was loaded with the Meade Autostar Suite of software which includes a Lunar and Planetary Imaging (LPI) camera and the Rikaline GPS-6010 receiver. These units and software provide flexible remote computer control and full imaging capability for the Observatory.

Recently, a MacBook was obtained and Parallels was installed to provide a Windows XP SP2 environment for program development and image analysis.  I have also obtained a USB to Serial converter cable to control the Meade telescope with this computer, but have installed the driver for  this and the LPI camera input.

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Imaging Devices

Several types of imaging devices have been used in the past including a T70 Canon single lens reflex photographic camera with a command back to control exposures and to provide a timing source, an Oscar OS-450 monochrome surveillance video camera with telescope adaptors, and a Sony Handycam 511E video camera with a Sony 2 X lens to produce solar and lunar eclipse images for later analysis.

A Canon Ixus 2.1 Mpixel digital camera with a telescope eyepiece mount is also used on my Jason 360 and Meade telescopes, this gives great results for lunar observations and of the Sun using my solar filters with due consideration of the camera's inherent exposure and brightness controls.


 A Panasonic NV-GS15 digital video camera, with still shot capability is used for field trips, such as the recent 2006 solar eclipse and with the Meade for lunar eclipse "live" web casts.

The Meade LPI camera is now mounted onto the Meade and Unitron 40 mm refractor for lunar images and uses AstroPlanner for direct control of the telescope through my MacBook.

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Favourite Links

http://www.netspeed.com.au/minnah/2006/Rhodes_2006.htm for the 2006 Solar Eclipse cruise
http://www.netspeed.com.au/minnah/Finder.html for the eclipse Finder for most lunar, solar eclipses and transits
http://www.netspeed.com.au/minnah/LEOx.html my home page to find anything on eclipses (well almost)

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Contact Information

E-mail address mailto:minnah@netspeed.com.au

Web address http://www.netspeed.com.au/minnah/LEO.html

Office phone in Australia +61 2 6292 8448

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Current Projects

Analysing data from the Total Solar Eclipse cruise south of Rhodes in 2006 March (completed)

The Solar and Lunar Eclipses web pages and my Observatory pages

Modernising my web pages using Dreamweaver MX Version 6 (completed)

Analysing images from lunar eclipses with Digimizer©, a new measuring engine

Updating my Quickbasic Version 4.5 crater timing reduction program suite for XP execution using numeric date format (completed).

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Biographical Information

I am a research amateur astronomer specialising in solar and lunar eclipse observation, prediction and analysis. I have observed and analysed over 55 lunar eclipses and travelled to and successfully observed total solar eclipses in Java (1983), New Guinea (1984), Bangka Island off the north coast of Java (1988), the annular solar eclipse in Geralton in Western Australia (1999), Zambia in Africa (2001), Ceduna in South Australia (2002), and the recent total solar eclipse of 2006 March 29 at sea, which included successful observation and analysis of Baily's Beads at third contact.

I have maintained my web pages on lunar eclipses, solar eclipses and transits including many "live" web casts since 1997. I am a past member of the British Astronomical Association, the Astronomical Society of Australia and the Canberra Astronomical Society.

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References

1976 B.W. Soulsby, Proceedings of the National Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA), various from 1976 to 2008.

1984 B.W. Soulsby, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Volume 95, Number 1, JBAA95 (this is large file of the scanned paper)

1985 B.W. Soulsby, Australian Journal of Astronomy, Volumes 1, et seq

1990 B.W. Soulsby, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Volume 100, Number 6, JBAA100 (this is a very large file of the scanned paper), or down-load the 760 Kb pdf file here.

1992 B.W. Soulsby, Journal of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Volume 10, Number 2, ASA92 (a 291 Kb pdf file).

2005 B.W. Soulsby, Canberra Astronomical Society, My 50th Lunar Eclipse (a 761 Kb pdf file)

2006 B.W. Soulsby, the 22 National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA) held in Frankston, Victoria in April 2006

2006 B W Soulsby, the New Sky & Space magazine, A solar eclipse at Sea, July/August edition, page 36.

2006 B W Soulsby, the New Sky & Space magazine, A lunar eclipse Challenge for Readers, July/August edition, pages 38 & 39.

 

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Personal Interests

Astronomy

Computing

Gardening

Travel

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Prepared by Byron Soulsby - Isabella Plains Lunar Observatory Australia

Last revised 10 June 2008 using SeaMonkey.