Mars mystique strikes again!

I arrived at Stephens Memorial Observatory early in order to sweep up the inevitable accumulations of bird poo and nesting materials that blow down from the dome's ill-sealed shutter. The first of the evening's surprises happened when I touched the pull rope to open the shutter to a then-clear sky. I heard scratching sounds -- usually the sign of birds roosting and nesting above. In the spring time, especially, I hate the sounds of bird activity at Stephens; birds build their nests, lay their eggs, and rear their young in a space that becomes precarious when the dome's shutter is opened. In recent years we usually see one brood (eggs, chicks, or unfledged young) lost due to falling from a destroyed nest or trapped inside the dome. This time, however, I glanced above and was momentarily shocked for I saw a black, furry animal scrambling to escape and prevent a fall. Skunk!? Er, no. The frightened furry was one of Hiram's many black squirrels. I've never seen a squirrel in the dorm or in the shutter and hope they don't nest there but maybe they'll keep the birds from nesting. I'm hoping for the best, anyway.

Cleaning barely complete, the telescope uncovered and prepped for the first Open Night of the year, I decided to try my chances at seeing Venus. The planet has recently been in conjunction with Jupiter in the Western evening sky and, though below the neighboring treeline, the trees were bare and I could spy brilliant Venus between the branches! Yes! For the first time at Stephens I was able to see Venus, resolved as a half-lit disk! Then the evening's first visitors arrived... three young ladies and their grandmother, half an hour early. I offered them a look at Venus but, by then, the planet had slipped behind a tree trunk and could not be seen. Oh well, let's see if we can view the Orion Nebula, barely above the trees in the southwest and now visible in the darkening sky.

I swung the big refractor around, found the nebula, and focused. Not bad for a twilight view: the veil of the nebula was visible and several stars of the Trapezium were nestled within. I offered the girls a look at M42. Er, no. In that brief time between adjusting the telescope and fetching a ladder for the kids, clouds covered Orion. Eeek! All right then, we'll go to the other part of the sky and look for Mars, now glowing red in the east and not long after opposition.

Mars, 67 million miles away this night, quickly came into view as a crisply-defined coppery disk. Unfortunately there was only a hint of mottling within the disk, no clear indication of surface features. Grandma and the girls got decent looks at the Red Planet before, yes, those pesky clouds engulfed it! By then other visitors began to arrive. The sky became overcast with occasional "sucker holes" and thin spots. Well, this will be a short night, I thought.

I answered questions, recounted the history of the telescope, talked about the Observatory, all the while watching the sky and keeping at the telescope. When Mars would penetrate the gloom, I'd  re-aim the scope, call people over to look, they would see an even less-distinct reddish disk, and it would disappear. Apologies. And so it went for the entire evening. There was no sense in trying to chase the holes and point at some star or other that managed to be briefly seen through the overcast. Still, more visitors dropped in.

Over the course of the evening we counted 42 visitors, most or all of whom caught a glimpse of Mars. They were, to a person, patient and good-humored making it a pleasant night that ended with the last departing around 10:30.

Not long after that, as I was deciding whether to close early, the clouds parted overhead exposing a deep, dark sky! The night was filled with stars and with my unaided eyes I was able to make out the Beehive star cluster (M44) nearly overhead. It was beautiful through binoculars. No more visitors, however, so I closed the place up.

Everyone could see it was an overcast sky as they headed out to visit us. They could see a star or two, only occasionally at best, and still they came. Such is the draw held by the mystique of Mars!

We'll try again April 14.

Ugh (again)! This weather!

Just now I canceled yet another Public Night scheduled for Stephens Memorial Observatory. It was set for January 22. Weather for that night is expected to be cloudy to fully overcast with a predicted temperature of 13 (F) degrees at the scheduled starting time, and a 40 percent chance of snow! Just too much. I should have followed through with my resolution to not schedule any open nights for January or February due to the usually poor skies and winter weather conditions. Taking my own advice, I won't set up anything for the public until March!

Through a hole in the clouds I did get a naked-eye glimpse at Orion's sword the other morning. That's about all the astronomy I've done in a month or so. Sad, really.

Great Jupiter but no comet

Saturday night's (Oct. 9) Open Night at Stephens Memorial Observatory went pretty well. In all we had 28 visitors take a look at Jupiter, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Perseid Double Cluster. I'd hoped and planned to view Comet Hartley 2 but could not find it to save my life! The skies improved as the night went on and by the time I closed, a little after 10:00, the Double Cluster was a naked eye object high over campus and the Milky Way was visible overhead. Our views of Jupiter were among the best I've enjoyed at Stephens. The Southern Equatorial Band is still missing, apparently obscured by high cirrus clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. The northern band was easily seen but, more remarkable was the fact that we could make out numerous other, much more subtle, cloud bands in the northern and southern hemispheres. When we began the night's explorations, only three of the Galilean Moons were to be seen: three in a triangle on one side. After 9:00, however, Io put in an appearance albeit by itself on the opposite limb of the planet.It was a fine night at the observatory.

October Open Night

We had another good Open Night Saturday (Oct. 10). We started out with a local Cub Scout group seeking to earn their Astronomy Belt Loop awards. The two (one kid was very late arriving to make it three) boys and their dads got a look at the Observatory and telescope, we reviewed terms and computer images ranging from "planet" and "star" to "galaxy" and "universe" and, with adults arriving at about 7:30 for the 8:00 opening, segued into the evening's observing just before 8:00. Those adult early arrivals shared in the Scouts' lesson and all seemed attentive and interested. A good number of College students were in attendance for the Public segment including a group of four who seemed particularly interested in the telescope and what we were seeing. There was much "texting" and iPhone photography! In all something just over 33 people visited and looked through the scope.

Skies were clear but seeing was only fair to good with even the temperate zone cloud bands at Jupiter only faintly visible, not at all like September's views! I had some difficulty locating M31 in the dark gray sky but views of it were good. Andromeda's getting too high in the sky now to comfortably observe through a large refractor so that's the last time we'll offer it as a subject til next year. Then we looked at the Perseus Double Cluster and more than one person thought it looked like scattered diamonds filling the field of view... beautiful. It would look better at even lower magnification but I haven't a longer focal length eyepiece!

As I exited the Observatory at about 11:00 and began trudging (with something like 40 or 50 lbs. of gear) to my distant parked car, I gave the clear, eastern sky one last glance. There, hanging not far above the village center, was the beautiful Pleiades star cluster. Memories of boyhood and my first realization that the "Seven Sisters" was something different, something special, came flooding back. I stood, admiring the view for a bit longer then, shifting the loaded baggage on my shoulders, headed up the sidewalk smiling.

Exquisite sky tonight!

The seeing and the starry sky were exquisite Saturday night for our September Open Night. The sky over the village was cloudless and sparkling with diamond stars. The Milky Way stretched broad and bright overhead, arcing half-way across the sky, dust lanes evident. It was the finest sky I've seen in quite some time. All told 49 visitors came, stretched out over the two hours of the event -- much better than 49 all showing up at once, which has often happened! The smaller crowds at any given time allowed for better interaction with visitors and gave them the sense that they could take their time looking through the telescope. Several College students were in attendance including a young man from Mexico City. Students rarely show up at these events so it was a pleasure to have them. Three students arrived at the scheduled 11:00 closing time and I spent a half-hour with them... they were excited and enthusiastic about the entire experience. Earlier in the evening a girl, maybe eight years old, was obviously enthralled with her views of Jupiter and the Galilean Moons; she even used a chart I provided at the eyepiece to put names to the star-like dots aside the huge planet. It is extremely gratifying when someone, most especially a child, really "gets" what they are seeing when looking through a great telescope. That young lady wasn't just looking at Jupiter, she was observing! Also featured was the Andromeda Galaxy which filled the field of view with its misty wonder - the light of a trillion stars 2.5 million light-years away! Jupiter was resplendent with not only the dark, broad equatorial cloud bands visible, but other "stripes" could be seen in the temperate zones. I must say, between the excellent seeing and improved tracking of the telescope, I enjoyed the best views I've ever had of those two objects, both at 122X. The telescope's right ascension clutch has been slipping badly. By hand-tightening the clutch I found that the telescope tracked as well as some modern electrically-driven scopes making higher-magnification public views practical and enjoyable. Observing Jupiter was, by the way, greatly aided through use of a neutral density filter -- it was difficult to observe without the filter as Jupiter was so very brilliant! It was an excellent night.

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

July open night -- Jupiter rules!

Tonight was a scheduled open house at the SMO. The weather (cloud cover) was extremely doubtful but there was enough clear sky that I felt I had to make the drive out and open the dome. Good thing I did! All told about 12 visitors stopped by over the evening with the last leaving after 11 PM -- they were the same two ladies who showed up as my first visitors at about 9:30! We had surprisingly good views of Jupiter considering sky conditions but a long wait for the Moon to climb out from behind the neighbor's trees. Cloud bands were fairly easy to pick out on the planetary disk. The four Galilean moons were also easy to see and point out to guests. No neutral-density filter necessary. When Luna finally rose high enough we had to wait for breaks in the clouds -- most people seemed to think the wait was worth it. Views at around 100X weren't very special --soft details, probably the atmosphere-- so I switched to a low-power, fist-sized antique eyepiece and the entire view was changed. We could see the entire nearly-full Moon in the field of view with good detail overall and excellent seeing at the terminator. Even thin clouds scudding across the lunar disk seemed to add, rather than detract. So not too bad a night. My Moon photo (below) apparently was published in Ravenna's Record-Courier newspaper... I've gotta try and get a copy!