Any bicycle astronomy folks out there?

I recently got back into a long-neglected hobby of mine - amateur astronomy. I'm hoping to combine my renewed love of astronomy with cycling and I was wondering if there were any other folks who similarly are into bikes and astronomy/telescopes/stargazing. I plan on using my bike along with my trailer to take my 10" Dobsonian out along with a newly purchased Meade GoTo scope for various stargazing outings as the temps cool off and the skies improve throughout fall and winter. Curious as to whether anyone else has done anything similar in terms of carrying a scope on their bike to somewhere for viewing. Also, if there are enough folks interested I could see starting a group up dedicated to bicycle astronomy. Anyone?

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lucianne Walkowicz on October 24, 2014 at 5:39am

Oh EXCELLENT Elwood I'm so glad you caught those few minutes! We had a livecast from CA in the theater in the planetarium, but I think nothing beats seeing it with your own eyes :)

Elwood Gruschow said:

Lucianne,

THANK YOU for encouraging people to attend Adler in spite of the gloomy forecast. The ten day forecast ten days ago was sunny and clear today. As we got closer to the event the forecast degenerated to cloudy with higher possibility of rain at five pm.

It was cloudy all day so I did not travel anywhere to view the eclipse. After reading your encouragement I decide to go over to Adler and poke around. Cycling past Shedd around 5:15pm the sky in the west looked like dark purple cardboard. I talked with some of the enthusiasts, pocketed the obligatory solar glasses, inspected some of the filtered star scopes and a couple dedicated solar scopes, generally hung around under the gloomy skies.

As channel 7 news was leaving I walked toward my bike and noticed the front steps of Adler had a golden cast. I saw a person cast a shadow! I hurried up the steps in front of the gift shop while donning my solar glasses. It was magic, people were streaming up the steps, out of the building and from unseen places. The sun was north of Soldier Field, south of the Museum Park hi rises, slightly above some building and below the thick clouds. For a few short minutes you could see the whole disk, but you could not see the whole disk because a percentage was missing from the upper right. The sun looked like a flat disk but you could tell slight shading on the blocked portion, it was like a black pea rolling on to a very shiny dime. Partial solar eclipse, what a magnificent show. Standing there with the excited others, think I saw the Nicolaus Copernicus statue wink at us to say, "I told you how it works".

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Marc A. Irwin on October 24, 2014 at 9:51am

No, Yes, I have been aspiring to it. I plan to buy a scope this year and find the best places to ride to and view different events. I'm in Michigan so I'm a bit out of the loop, but would love to hear about your experiences.

Marc

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kenneth C. Goetz on October 27, 2014 at 6:58am

Mr Astronomer, This posting is so funny with its tongue-in-cheek "my telescope is in space" implication. Welcome to Chicago, Mister.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom A.K. on October 27, 2014 at 12:13pm

Mister Goetz, you're welcome to join our fine group and learn of astronomy, rather than reporting from "outer" space.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Beazley on November 2, 2014 at 5:22am

Went out riding early this morning and caught a great view of Mercury over the lake. I don't know what it is about freezing temperatures, but they always seem to go hand-in-hand with the best cycling astronomy ;-).

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Beazley on November 2, 2014 at 6:24am

I've always thought the better viewing was due to less humidity/haze in the air. There were some really great days in Jan/Feb this year when it was super cold.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Marc A. Irwin on November 2, 2014 at 1:39pm

Thanks for the encouraging comment, the Meade ETX was exactly what I was looking at, now I can skip the reviews.

Marc
kiltedcelt said:

Marc - for bike portability I would recommend first looking at some of the smaller GoTo scopes like the Meade ETX series. I just purchased a barely used Meade ETX 90 EC from a seller on Craigslist. There is usually no shortage of sellers both on C-list and on ebay. Ebay currently has numerous ETX scopes from the wide field refractors like the ETX 70 and 80, to the Maksutov scopes like the 90, 100, and 125. Those last two are probably starting to get a bit big and clunky for carrying without something like a Burley or BOB trailer, but a smaller scope like the ETX 90 will fit into a case that can be carried on a rack. I intend to have a blog post in a couple weeks showing how I rigged up my recumbent to carry my Meade scope and tripod. Additionally, I have a Burley trailer that is converted to carry cargo that will easily hold not only my Meade scope but also my 10" Coulter Dobsonian.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Courtright on November 3, 2014 at 5:03am

Turbulence in the atmosphere can be a major part of poor seeing.

I remember being disappointed when using a big scope at the Univ. of Colorado at how lousy Jupiter appeared. It was late spring, I think (about Mother's day 2012?) and the atmosphere coming over the mountains was especially turbulent (my bumpy airplane ride into Denver the day before was evidence that I was not going to get good seeing). The sky seemed clear (not hazy) but the supernova in M95 that I really wanted to see was out of the question.