continuing the fight against innumeracy

with both of the random ripoffs close to break-even expectation, i figured i'd throw a few bucks at my state government.

as usual, i'm playing the highest numbers on the ticket; they're slightly different between punkerball and megamorons, but nonetheless most people would agree that the odds hitting, say, 65-70 and (26) are vanishingly small. but no less than the odds of any other set of numbers.

for variety, i'm also playing part of the fibonacci sequence: (5) 8 13 21 34 55,* and pairs of digits of π: 31 41 59 (26) 53 58. those are both naturally occurring sets of numbers, so they should naturally occur in a sequence of random draws, right? right. :)

*: because people like to play sets involving birth dates, there's a slightly higher chance of being a sole winner if some or all of the chosen numbers are > 31. so, i figured i'd start a bit into the fibonaccis to pick up 34 and 55.

well, i found mars

mars is having a close encounter with uranus over the next few days. last night, i dragged out the hackenscope* to take a look. i found mars on the first try, even with the 'scope mount off. but keeping mars in a long lens' field of view without sky tracking is hard, so i fetched the batteries and got it running.

*: a camera lashed to an telescope's equatorial mount. there are proper astrophotography set-ups for this purpose, and i want to get one, but they've been sold out since some time in december.

a 600mm equivalent lens should have a field of view about 2.3° x 4.1°, which should cover the distance between the two planets. i have a bunch of exposures of mars, but no uranus. but mars wasn't in a corner of the exposure, so i might have missed uranus.

if the wind drops enough and the high cloud dissipates, i'm gonna try again tonight, this time using field glasses first to get the relative positions right. tomorrow's the actual conjunction, so i've got another, better chance then.

...and i need a better way of focusing the lens. my modern, fancy-ass lens is all fly-by-wire, which means careful manual focusing is touchy, and autofocus often fails because the subjects are so small in the frame.

this is one of the few times i'd prefer older, manual lenses, where i'd be moving the actual lens elements. that gives the focus control a bit more heft, allowing for finer motions.

edit 8:30pm: oops, the moon is 7° below mars right now, which means i'm not gonna see anything in its glare. but the field glasses are just big enough to bring out the orion nebula as a pink smudge.


edit 11pm: the moon is a little further away now. i can just barely make out uranus at the edge of its glare. it's right where it should be. my sky is a bit clearer now, which helps.

and since i was out, i took another look at orion. now the big nebula is a sharper-looking pink smear. and they hyades and the pleiades aren't bad either, though the field glasses are too weak to bring out the nebulosity in the latter.