Faint-Fuzzies for Open Night

This seems to have been a very cloudy summer and most of the daylight hours of this day were no different: overcast to mostly-cloudy skies dominated. Amazingly, and as predicted, we got the clear skies we needed for our "faint fuzzies" night of public observing at Stephens Memorial Observatory. Best seeing was from about 9:30 to 10:00 -- after that a high haze seemed to set in, illuminated by natural and artificial light pollution. Still, these were some of the best conditions we have enjoyed in quite some time. While the skies were at their best our few --only 7-- attendees (conflict with Ohio State football??) saw the Milky Way stretching from Sagittarius in the south-southwest, high overhead, and into the northeast and constellation Cassiopeia -- even the dark dust lane of the Milky Way was visible. We viewed the cottonwood seed-like wisp that is the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and considered why it is that faint-fuzzy objects don't look like magazine photos when viewed with our own eyes, even through telescopes. We also viewed a beautiful globular star cluster (M22), its approximate 70,000 stars some 10,600 light-years distant in Sagittarius. Then we looked high overhead and found the Ring Nebula (M57); putting the big old refractor so near the zenith was made possible through use of the star diagonal for our 1.25-inch eyepieces. Not only was observation easy but no ladder-climbing was required -- an office chair worked just fine. During the night's event I spied two speedy, faint meteors through the dome's slit -- one coming in north to south, the other (a bit brighter) headed east to west. As the last visitors of the night departed Jupiter and the Moon were rising over Hiram -- a fitting end to a fine night of stargazing.

Good Night at the Observatory

Tonight's public night featured the Moon and we had at least 80 people. Folks were very enthusiastic and why not... the views were great, especially for young children because the Moon was very high in the sky favoring short people looking through the eyepiece. Early arrivals also saw Jupiter, latecomers also saw Luna at 122 magnification and some of the stars of the Pleiades.

A mother visited again with her young daughters... one a burgeoning scientist. They were the last to leave the grounds. The young lady was enthralled by our views of the Moon, to be sure, but also loved the blue stars of the Pleiades. As they left I also pointed out a very few major constellations that had great stories in Greek mythology... something her school class is studying: Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, Orion.

Before heading home I checked out another potential site for a new observatory. The sky there was much "wider," being unobstructed by property line treelines. The ground was very wet, however, giving some worry. An exciting location, otherwise.

It was a good night at the Observatory.