Night of Scorpius

The day had been clear and predictions were for an unusually good sky for nighttime astronomy. I headed to Stephens Memorial Observatory for a private observing session. I arrived around 9:00 PM and quickly determined that both the Moon and Saturn were down in the trees so I took my time checking the place. There was much sweeping up do do --birds and, perhaps, wind had delivered a pile of leaf and grass material to the observing floor-- and I discovered that the timer for our front door lights had failed in the "off" condition. The huge dehumidifier vat was nearly full and had to be dumped. After some cleanup I opened the dome and uncovered the telescope. More sweeping... nesting materials had fallen on to the canvas telescope cover (which is why it is used) and then to the floor.

Once set up I quickly found that the formerly promising sky was really not so good with only fair to good transparency. The early evening saw the cloudless sky take on a pale blue cast, not the deep color I'd expected. Twilight and ground-based light pollution made the sky glow softly, even as the hours passed. The neighbor's obnoxiously placed, bright light at the side of their garage flood lit the observatory building and grounds so no wide-field sky photography this night! Not a dark night but better than we've seen here in some time. At least temperatures in the upper 60s made the night air comfortable for activity.

The "T" of constellation Scorpius dominated the southern sky. I focused the telescope on the scorpion's heart, star Antares, and nudged the scope to the right. Normally I can quickly find star cluster M4 that way but tonight, not so easy. I fished and fished, starting over again and again, estimating the degree separating Antares and M4 and trying again, all without success. I moved on.

The next target was the Ring Nebula --M57-- in constellation Lyra. I surprised myself and found the "gray donut" right away and viewed it at several magnifications up to about 124X. Its appearance was less distinct than I am used to and I am not certain if that was because of seeing conditions or a bit of trouble I was having with my right eye. It may just be it looked less sharp because I was seeing it as a larger image than I'd ever seen before -- a smaller view of a ring nebula would appear sharper and neighboring stars in the field of view were pinpoint sharp. Just finding and observing the ring was reward enough, however, so I was pleased.

Not admitting defeat, I turned back to Scorpius to again seek M4. This time, triangulating off Antares and neighboring star in the constellation I found the star cluster immediately. At low magnification, and as my eye adjusted to the view, a field of diamond-dust appeared in the eyepiece. The appearance was very subtle. It could just be I'd scanned over the object several times but didn't see it because twilight had obscured the view. A darker, more transparent sky would increase the contrast but this was a beautiful sight -- much more impressive than I remember from earlier viewings.

I closed up around 11:30 and headed for home. As I left the area I glanced to the south and could Scorpius floating in the sky due south of me, nearly all of the great constellation visible. The sight was a fine way to end the night's stargazing.