Astronomy at Red Barn B&B
North Fork Bed and Breakfast and Observatory
One of the offerings that makes Red Barn Bed and Breakfast unique on the North Fork of Long Island is that co-owner Jim is passionate about observational astronomy and loves to offer observing sessions to guests.
Venus at Sunrise
Jim Slezak has been in love with astronomy for over twenty years. He has traveled to Star Parties (i.e., conventions for amateur astronomers) from Vermont to the Florida Keys and observes year-round in his observatory in the backyard of Red Barn B&B. Jim has logged over 2,000 different deep space objects.
Observatory and Mount
Red Barn B&B Observatory is a shed-like building 8 by 12 feet with a roof that folds to become walls – Jim’s own design and construction. The North Fork is a flat spit of land sandwiched between the Long Island Sound and the Peconic Bay. The topography does not slow down the wind very much. You will see streets and landmarks named, in part, "windy" for good reason. The observatory walls take the brunt of the wind but on a blustery night some wind tumbles over the walls and the wise observer will hold onto her hat!
Galaxy Messier 33
Central to the observatory is a Celestron CGE mount that rests on a metal, concrete-filled pier that connects to columns of concrete below and independent of the floor. The CGE is a computerized mount that points a telescope at deep space objects from the NGC and IC catalogs or to celestial coordinates. Once the telescope is pointed to an object the mount tracks the object automatically. This ability makes it possible to readily find and observe literally thousands of deep space objects including open clusters, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, bright nebulae, reflection nebulae and distant galaxies.
Telescopes and Eyepieces
At any given time Jim may choose between several telescopes depending on what he wishes to observe. Currently the largest telescope is a Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain with 9.25” of aperture. Jim also has a Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain with 6” of aperture. The 6” travels with Jim and may be seen mounted in tandem with an 80mm refractor. The tandem arrangement allows the 6” to be used for imaging with a CCD camera while the 80mm uses its own CCD camera to autoguide the mount for longer exposures of the imaging camera.
Galaxy M64
The design of the observatory favors looking at deep space objects but limits viewing the moon and planets. If the wind is not an issue, Jim will use another, portable computerized mount with a 5” Maksutov Newtonian telescope for planetary and lunar viewing.
Looking through an optical eyepiece is the traditional approach to observing. However, Jim most often uses a CCD camera and modest (e.g., 20 seconds) exposures and displays the image on the screen of his laptop. Another approach is to use the StellaCam 2 integrating video eyepiece and display the images on a portable TV. Some advantages of going digital are: there is no need to become dark-adapted, there is no groping around for the optical eyepiece and there is no need to take turns at the eyepiece as the image is visible to all at the same time. Another big advantaged is that the CCD camera and video eyepiece are more sensitive to light than ones eyes and the result is that these electronic observing aids make the telescopes perform as if they were 3 to 5 times larger at a site with darker skies. Jim recorded the galaxy images from the backyard observatory.
Constraints
There are several constraints on being able to observe at Red Barn Bed and Breakfast on the North Fork of Long Island. The weather is the biggest factor as clouds certainly make it impossible to observe anything. Even if clouds are absent, the sky may not be transparent because of high levels of water vapor, dust and aerosols. If the moon is present and anywhere near being full, the light from the moon reduces contrast so much that deep space objects are just about impossible to see. The other limiting factor is light pollution. If you look from the observatory to the west you will see a dome of light from the horizon to about 30 degrees up. Light pollution is the result of excessive and misdirected artificial lighting and is the reason that most of the population of the world cannot see the Milky, our galactic home in the universe.