If you come to this site routinely, you might have seen the new menu option at the top of the page, a link to the All Sky Camera. This past week, I have spent a number of hours out at the robotic dome working to install drivers and fix odd electrical shorts in order to bring this imager to life. Here it is! The PEA All Sky Camera is a reality and is available online now. The unit is an interesting and compact design. Inside an acrylic-domed metal housing is a video camera that is permanently mounted to a wide field lens. The lens has two controls: focus and focal length (zoom). There are three other goodies also mounted inside the dome: a small fan, a resistive heater unit, and a PC board to which those prior items are connected, presumably a thermostat controller or something similar.  Below is an image taken on March 9th. You can see Orion to the left (South). North is to the right, west to the bottom, and east is at the top of the frame).

The camera’s software also has the ability to take the snapshots and string them together to form a video, saving a new time lapse video at the end of each day (Universal Time day for this imager). Below is the first video taken while the camera was being installed, focused and mounted outside under the sky.

Those of us living at high or mid level latitudes might be interested in seeing the aurora. With the sun entering into another of its 11-year-high cycles, there has been a lot of activity, and even some press about things such as geomagnetic storms and coronal mass ejections. If you are interested in more, these links will help you monitor what we call “space weather” and allow you to catch an aurora in action!

Spaceweather.com: The main site for all news about space weather. Check here for daily, and sometimes hourly postings about conditions.
3-Day Estimated Planetary K Index: The K Index is a good indicator of the size of auroral ovals here on earth. In New Hampshire, we have to reach a 6 or 7 before we see aurora. Larger values allow people further south to see them.
Interplanetary Magnetic Field Plots: Wondering how the magnetic fields are changing out in space?
OVATION Aurora: A new in-development tool for auroral visibility prediction.

Good luck with your quest! Bring a warm coat and a digital camera. If you see any aurora, send in pics!

Driving Intellectual Curiosity Through the Roof from Phillips Exeter Academy Alumni on Vimeo.

Students are told in class that day to be at the observatory at a specific time. I like to start the process just after supper time and as soon as it gets dark. Time is of the essence! In winter we start earlier, while in spring we have to wait until 9PM or even later.
Students arrive, sign into the log book, and have a seat in the Harkness classroom. The whole building and walkways outside are in red-light mode to preserve night vision. Once we’re all ready to go, I will give instructions for the night and assist in the setup of the telescopes for the class. We have a couple of observatory proctors as well. They assist in this entire process, making sure that people sign in, use the telescopes properly and help to monitor the site as a whole.

One observing opportunity I like to do each term with the introductory students is to have them sketch the moon while using the smaller telescopes on the observing deck. They work in pairs, one holding a flashlight while the other sketches. They then swap duties, allowing the other partner the opportunity to try their hand at the subtle art of lunar sketching. Once done, the students then bring those sketches into class, and, while using an online lunar chart, attempt to match objects on the chart to those things that they have sketched. It’s a good lesson in pure observation and seeing, while also allowing the students some time to get used to the telescopes and managing magnification and the earth’s rotation. Students also get a lesson in staying warm! Many never stay that still for such a long time while out at night under the stars.