f-stop: Enter The 'Dragon'

Ship's Motto: "We Yield But To St George"



HMS Dragon (D35) on the approach...




Bow-Art: a rare sight at sea



Royal Navy "Wildcat" helo on deck

'Dragon', back on patrol

 

I Married The Doctor

 


Lucy's costume for VLM's Night of the Living Museum



Stars Over The Gulf III

The 3rd 'Laramie' Star Party was held last night on the flight deck with the ship moored in the lovely port of Muscat, Oman. I decided to keep things simple and user-friendly as I am in the process of recovering from a nasty ankle sprain two days ago, and so only set-up the Astroscan for a little Moon-gazing.

A half-dozen Shipmates came out to observe Luna, including Captain Donnelly, Chief Mate Lawson, ship's medical maven Nicole "Doc" Shounder and budding astronomer Africa Foster (pictured meeting the Astroscan).

Along with the first-quarter Moon, the International Space Station put in a dazzling appearance. The ISS passed almost directly overhead, Venus-bright--its track neatly bisecting the twilit sky from northwest to southeast. Beautiful!

Good friends, a bright moon, and a Visitor From Space; a pleasant way to spend a warm pierside evening before we head back to sea. I'm glad I started these little ship-board gatherings last month--I do so enjoy spreading the word about the stars and what you can see and experience if only you...

"Watch the skies. Keep watching the skies!"

Astronomical Book Review: 'Objects in the Heavens' by Peter Birren

 

When it comes to observing equipment and resources, my watchword has always been portability. Most of my star-gazing, after all, is done either aboard ship using a rich-field telescope or ashore with a grab-and-go Mak. I try to extend this ethos as well to the paraphernalia of observing; when I tote the Astroscan on deck or the 90mm into my backyard I don't care to be burdened-down by large, un-wieldy Star Atlases or heavy reference books.

What I've needed, and sought, for nearly fifty years was an inclusive, powerful guide-book to the northern-hemisphere sky; a single, portable volume that combines the features of a lightweight atlas and descriptive guide to the planets, stars, constellations and deep-sky objects to be observed from my home and from most of the ports I am likely to visit in the course of my long deployments.

It's been a long, hard slog through the years, as I've purchased, tried, and then abandoned many examples of astronomical writing and even software. Either the resource in question was too bulky, too tech-ie, or insufficiently versatile to meet my standard. After all, the book or program in question had to be able to support my observing activities for up to a year, far, far away from my home astronomical library. Essentially, it had to become that library during frequent long sea voyages.

'Objects in the Heavens', referred to hereafter as OITH, is in my opinion that portable, user-friendly resource.

OITH is the product of Peter Birren, a graphic designer based in Illinois. A dedicated amateur astronomer, he started building the database that would become OITH 'way back in the mid-1990s.

He put a lot of thought into the content and layout of this little volume, and it shows.

 

The book is 8.5" by 5.5", spiral-bound and 132 pages--just the right size for a knapsack pocket or eyepiece case--and printed on tough, water-resistant paper (my copy has survived the worst of Virginia's dewiest nights, requiring only a drying-out and pressing between a pair of heavier volumes to restore it to "almost new" condition).

As for what lies between the covers...

The constellation and object maps are the centerpiece of the effort, and display their subjects clearly and concisely. As in many such books I have tried over the years, they feature facing pages with the map to the right and details on the objects displayed to the left. Larger or "busier" constellations tend to occupy two pages while smaller or "less interesting" members of the sky bestiary are given the "thumbnail" treatment.

The amount of information is pretty impressive, and fine-tuned to the binocular or small-to-medium-sized telescope. As noted previously the maps cover constellations and celestial gems down to -45 degrees Declination, and objects to magnitude ten.

But there is much more to be found in this little book. Sections include introductions to star- and constellation-hopping, celestial coordinate systems, Moon information and "thumbnail" daily lunar highlights for a full lunation (above), seasonal constellation maps, information on major meteor showers, a fairly exhaustive listing of website resources, and a handy summary of solar system information (below).

As noted above, I find this book to be pretty-darn perfect for use in my own "minimalist" approach to observing; I've owned a copy of Edition 5 for two years and now have Ed. 6--and every time I go out under the stars I appreciate Mr. Birren's labors that much more. The back-cover "blurb" that OITH is "Informative for the beginner" and "Detailed for the advanced" observer says it all, I think.

OITH is a field book for use at the eyepiece, and I strongly recommend it for anyone who wants to go out under the stars and explore those "Objects in the Heavens".

Keep looking up!






Features:
• 132 pages, lay-flat spiral-binding, soft cover,
 digest size: 5.5" x 8.5"
• 739 objects to magnitude 10
• 259 non-Messier or NGC objects, 28 of which are binocular-class
• 191 "city" objects to magnitude 7 are specially highlighted
• 171 double stars and multiple stars
• 215 binocular-class objects with separate symbol
• 125 visual associate connections
•   90 objects from mag 10.1 to 10.5
•   80 single and red/carbon stars
•   75 maps: constellational, seasonal, insets and groupings
•   61 observable northern constellations, arranged alphabetically
•   38 astronomy catalogs are referenced
•   24 photographs by Naoyuki Kurita
• Grouping stories present larger chunks of the sky to learn more constellations
• 7 pages featuring the Lunar 100 (and then some) with photos and locations showing when and where to look
• Encyclopedic data on planets, stars, meteors
• Common names list
• Modern Messier list of 110 objects with Marathon constellation order
• Complete object number cross-reference and mapping
• Cross referenced to page numbers in PSA and SA2K



Birren Design's website: http://www.birrendesign.com/astro.html

 

f-stop: New Kid On The Gulf

ITS Federico Martinengo makes ready to come alongside

Connection complete. Commence pumping!

A shiny-new frigate...



 

f-stop: Russian Photo-Op

'Severomorsk' conducts helo recovery operations

Frequent readers will know that I have long held a fascination for the ships and aircraft of other navies; the sight of an unfamiliar rig or unknown flag stirs my blood in a way that warships of my own Navy no longer can. I reach for binoculars and begin picking-out details that might lead to an identification, then head for the bridge's copy of 'Janes' Fighting Ships' to search for a match.

Helix '53' takes a good look at Laramie

If I may say so, I'm pretty good at this. I've had quite a bit of practice over nearly four decades at sea, after all.

Here we have a recent encounter here in the Gulf with the Russian destroyer Severomorsk and his* 'Helix' helicopter. This was an easy "I.D.", for though I'd never actually seen one of these 'Udaloy-class' ASW ships before I've spent a lot of time studying the Russian Navy and it's warships, and it is a very distinctive design.

Shorts and a t-shirt...it must be Casual Day in the Russian Navy

Severomorsk passed several miles from Laramie, which was a bit of a disappointment to me as I would have loved to have seen and photographed him more closely, but as a consolation the destroyer's helicopter came quite a bit closer and in fact flew around Laramie for a few minutes. This was quite an enjoyable air-show, as ship and helo exchanged waved greetings and took snapshots of each other.

As you can see, the 'Helix' looks quite different from Western helicopters, but it's counter-rotating rotor system is actually quite efficient, doing away with the balky transmission system and tail-rotor of more familiar rotary-wing aircraft.

Das Vidanya!



* Ships in the Russian Navy are referred to using the male pronoun.