Jupiter, Andromeda, and the Space Station

It was the monthly Public Night at Stephens Saturday, September 20. The late afternoon and early evening sky were not promising offering a mix of thin and thicker clouds swirled over a background of pale blue. As the Sun set, however, things improved. Jupiter came first and the first observatory visitors arrived at 7:30 -- a full half-hour before the advertised opening! The telescope revealed very good views of the planet and the Galilean moons. Aside from seeing several of the great planet's cloud bands, even some of the detail within the bands, I saw the Great Red Spot for the first time ever. Early viewing actually was best with seeing diminishing as the night went on. Also viewed were the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) looking every bit the huge fuzz-ball in the low-powered eyepiece. From there I moved the scope to the Double Cluster in Perseus: NGC 884 and NGC 869 at distances of 7,600 and 6,800 light-years respectively, and then by steps, back to Jupiter. A highlight of the night was passage of the International Space Station high overhead beginning at about 8:24. It shone brilliantly and arced steadily across the sky and low into the east where it finally fell into Earth's shadow and disappeared after a transit of several minutes. The last visitors of the evening arrived just before I was to close and they caught a glimpse of Jupiter just before it dropped behind the neighbor's trees at 10:00. In all about 50 visitors came to Stephens, 10 or 12 of them members of the College's new astronomy club. After closing I visited the Hiram site where the Aurora Astronomical Society proposed a new club observatory. The site is quite excellent protected from ambient light on all sides by trees and offering decently distant horizons. Clouds moved in and were obscuring the skies by 11:15 and overcast by midnight.

Open night and photo attempts

I had scheduled an Observatory open night for Friday, Nov. 2. The weather and observing forecasts agreed that Friday night would be, at the very least, a very good night to view Comet 17P/Holmes and that's just the way things turned out. Friday night, for a good couple of hours after sunset, boasted an outstandingly transparent sky. Because the local daily newspaper, The Record-Courier, was kind enough to run our event announcement and our photo of the comet, we had a very good turnout. In all 37 folks of all ages came to see this most unusual celestial visitor. The century-old telescope performed outstandingly keeping good track on the moving object. We could see at least one background star shining through the huge coma. The sky was so clear that I could make out the Perseus Double Cluster (NGC 884 & NGC 869) with my unaided eyes! A glorious sky, indeed. Visitors asked many questions about comets and the Observatory and seemed to have a very enjoyable evening. The event closed out at 10 PM and I shot a number of sky photos with and without the dome in the foreground -- I need to process those images but they look very promising. With this entry is a medium telephoto shot of the triangle Comet Holmes formed with two of the southern Perseus stars. Got home rather late after a most enjoyable night under the stars.

In the picture: Comet 17P/Holmes floated through the southern portion of constellation Perseus in October and November 2007 as it flared to a million times its normal brightness. It became a naked-eye object and formed an easy-to-spot triangle where normally there was no such figure. The comet is the yellowish orb in the lower left-hand portion of the triangle, seen here near the center of the picture. Image recorded at 10:14 PM, Eastern Standard Time, Nov. 2, 2007. Canon Digital Rebel XT, 10 seconds, 112 mm, f/6.3, ISO 1,600. Photo by James Guilford

Nice evening at CAA Observatory

Star party at the CAA observatory near Spencer, Ohio. Got some really nice views of objects through Jerry Kay's 10-inch reflector. At about 100X, I saw M43 (deMairan's Nebula), M42 (Orion Nebula), M41 (Little Beehive -- also seen through my binoculars), M44 (Beehive Cluster), NGC 884 & 869 (Perseus Double Cluster), and Comet Machholtz through the 10-inch, binoculars, and barely with unaided eye. Still not a spectacular comet, but hey... it's a comet.