Using the Lowell Observatory.

[Paul G. Abel]

Greetings all!

I have just got back from the US where I spent two nights using the Historic Alvan Clark telescope at the Lowell observatory. I contacted the director last year and was very kindly given two nights on the 1st and 2nd September.

The Lowell observatory is of course situated in Flagstaff, Arizona some 7000 ft above sea level. It was with great anticipation that we walked up the mile long road up to the famous telescope and I don't mind admiting that our eager march turned into a staggering crawl as the atlitude took effect!

As the clouds cleared over the desert I obtained a drawing of Jupiter and Uranus (given here). Alas, the second night was clouded out but we had a wonderful time with one of the astronomers who showed us the Library and some of Lowell's original drawings! All good stuff!

Best wishes,

-Paul.

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Me with the Clark refractor, 24 inches of optical joy...

Jupiter:

Uranus:

[David Galvin]

Congratulations Paul, just you wait until I tell Brendan. He will be rather pleased for you.

It must be a great feeling to observe through such a beast. Plenty of fine detail in the Jovian atmosphere too and what is that 'vertical' streak on Uranus?

[Beyond_Vision]

Wow that's must have been a great experience using such a famous instrument. Another great set of drawings Paul

Regards

Kevin

[Paul G. Abel]

It was a magnificent experience!!!!! The vertical streak Dave is a brighter Equatorial zone, it really came out well at 500x or so. The other astronomers there saw it to, I thought there was a degree of grey shading to either side of this, but I was the only one who could see that, so who knows!

[David Galvin]

It was a magnificent experience!!!!! The vertical streak Dave is a brighter Equatorial zone, it really came out well at 500x or so. The other astronomers there saw it to, I thought there was a degree of grey shading to either side of this, but I was the only one who could see that, so who knows!

Ahh now if Peter had been there to take an image.......

[barkis]

Blimey Paul, how I would have enjoyed that.

You must have really had a great time, and the sketches are Top Drawer as usual. That road trek might put me off a bit, but I would hire a M/Bike.

There has to be a chance Pete L. will be a little envious.

Did he perhaps know about your impending visit?

Ron.

[Paul G. Abel]

Hi Barkis! He did know I was going- I told before he went on holiday- it would be no use to Pter anyway, it's a purely visual 'scope!

[Talitha]

What an experience, Paul... congratulations on getting the scope time. What a shame it was cloudy the second night, but you certainly made the best of the time you had. Absolutely marvelous renderings, thank you for sharing them with us.. they're souvenirs anyone would be extremely proud of.

You mentioned the words 'we' and 'our'.. was it a group you were with, and if so, how was the scope time divided? I can't imagine the agony of having to give up the eyepiece, lol.

[Psychobilly]

Fantastic ... what an experience and the sketches are amazing

Peter...

[Dave]

What a fantastic couple of evenings and a great experience.

They certainly sound much more accommodating there than at the observatories in Tenerife. Despite sending a few E Mails to see if I could get to have a look around while I was therein March I never got so much as a single message back.

[Beulah]

WOW, what a once in a lifetime experience!!!!! If it were me, I'd always be worried that if I went back to use my ordinary telescope, it wouldn't be the same any more......

The trek to the site seems awesome - pretty heady stuff being up so high. Only adds to the excitment and anticipation.

Great sketches as usual - very detailed!

Did you observe any nebulae? - if you did, did you detect colour?

[Paul G. Abel]

Greetings again! Glad everyone is enjoying the pictures!

Hi Carol: it was just me and my partner- I had not intention of going with a group as I wanted the Clark all to myself. It was surprisingly easy to operate and I soon got the hang of it. I will be using the telescope again at some point!

Hi Sam: No I didn't observe any nebulae, I'm afraid I was much too converned with Jupiter and Uranus. The colour on Uranus was absolutely striking though, and I would imagine at the higher powers that this telescope is capable of, you could observe the satellites transiting the Uranian disk.

[Talyn]

Wow, what an opportunity! Great sketches, too. The Jupiter sketch is lovely and detailed, but I really like the Uranus one, you don't see that many sketches of Uranus probably for obvious reasons - the equatorial band is interesting, you often hear of Uranus being described as 'featureless'.

Last year, I saw Neptune as a disk, plus moons, through a 48" reflector in Texas - I didn't sketch it though.

[Andrew*]

Wow - what a fantastic opportunity. And you made full use of it too!

I'm really intrigued about how such a telescope operates. What's its focal length? Do you use standard off-the-shelf eyepieces, or does it not even have a standard 2" focuser?

[Craig H]

Hello Paul and thanks for this post.What a brilliant experience this must have been ! How fantastic is that scope ! sounds like the walk was well worth it.

I'm also interested to know more about the eyepieces used ect.

And indeed, as Andrew said,you made full use of your time.:)Great drawings of both Jupiter and Uranus.

You have actually made me a better observer in the short time i've had my own scope, so i'd like to take this oppertunity to thank you for your advice, even if it was indirect (via previous posts)so to speak.

Cheers Paul

[Paul G. Abel]

Hi Andrew, I'm not sure about the focal length, I've got it written down so I'll go and check. it's quite a long focal length as you'd expect.

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Dear Craig,

I'm delighted that I have been able to help, if I can assist in the future just email me! Believe it or not, we used standard meade eyepeices, focusing was a slight issue- there is a thumbscrew on the focuser which you have to release keeping a hand on the eyepiece which will fall to the floor otherwise! When you have the object in focus, you tighten the screw again.

The telescope was smooth and easy to operate, although it required a bit of muscle to shift it, but once you'd started it it was easy to move about. I found there was some drift present, but simply switching off the drive for a few seconds brought the object back into the field.

As for the walk, well we could have got a cab but I was doing things on the cheap- as usual!

All best wishes,

-Paul.

[NickH]

Fantastic Paul, I know just how you must have felt..

Great one...

[Craig H]

Thanks Paul, thats very generous of you ....The focusing method sounds a little daunting...I find myself fiddling with focus quite a bit ( probably unnecessarily ! ) and would hate to have to rebuy an eyepiece I'd dropped !

How does one move the scope exactly? is it the long silver tube lowest in your picture, below the finderscope and main OTA ?

[stefski]

Wow, Paul...What a fantastic experience...I'm full of envy!!

Stef

[George Jones]

Wow, what an amazing experience! Wonderful detail for Jupiter!

what is that 'vertical' streak on Uranus?

The vertical streak Dave is a brighter Equatorial zone, it really came out well at 500x or so.

Uranus is strange beast, and Paul's nice sketch of Uranus and its moons nicely illustrates this. Uranus is "tipped on its side", so that its spin axis is almost aligned with the plane of its orbit, and its equator is almost perpendicular to its orbit. The belts and moons of Uranus orbit mainly "up-down" instead of mainly "side-to-side".