Mars strikes again!

What a night! Thanks to a Page 1 story in the Ravenna Record-Courier about Mars with references to our January 12 Open Night, more than 184 visitors looked through the old scope!!! There was a line of people literally out to the street! Of course the disappointing reality of Mars observation presented most folk with a small featureless pale disk in the eyepiece --the night's sky was clear, but seeing was fair to poor-- still, there was a lot of excitement and interest. Many assorted questions about the telescope, the Observatory, Mars, and astronomy. If you were good and lucky you could see a hint of shadow within the disk representing surface markings. That's the mystique of Mars for you: lots of interest and potential disappointment! I'd wanted to show off other objects but had to stay fixed on Mars until just before 10 PM. I was able to give the last group a look at the Orion Nebula which was spectacular before clouds finally began to close in. I'd printed 10 star charts as hand-outs before driving out to Hiram ... I didn't want to print too many! Yeah... 184+ visitors! I still can't believe it.

Winter Solstice

The weather forecast gave us great doubt for the open night at Stephens. There was, however, an opening in the all-day cloud cover coming our way. Hiram College rented the StarLab portable planetarium and staged a Winter Solstice program earlier in the evening that led nicely into the Observatory's 7:00 PM opening. The sky, by then, had cleared and with temperatures of about 40 degrees (F) opening the dome was tolerable. Though transparency was only fair at best, the nearly-full Moon presented an interesting target and the Cooley Telescope did its usual job in knocking the socks off new visitors. The lunar image was glorious. Turning the telescope to Mars, however, really didn't reveal much. The not-so-good sky conditions prevented us from seeing any surface markings even though Mars was only four days past its closest approach in this opposition cycle (opposition to take place on Dec. 24). Hoping for better viewing conditions in January with Mars still fairly close. By 9:00 the sky had closed in completely hiding Mars, even from unaided eyes, and obscuring any detail from the lunar disk. Still in all we had about 48 visitors over the evening -- one of our best nights!

Comet Holmes flares up

October 27 & 28: A formerly very dim comet called Holmes (17P) flared up October 24th growing many magnitudes brighter -- it went from 12.5 to 3rd magnitude which is about 1 million times increase. It's currently outside the orbit of Mars and in the southern portion of the constellation Perseus. Saturday night, Oct. 27, a day of clouds, mist, and rain, I stepped outside to a clearing sky. It took me only a second to find Holmes and view it through my 10X50 binoculars. It was a beautiful sight, though to the uninitiated, it's just a big fuzzball. That is, of course, how it actually looked... a large, brightly glowing puff with a bright dot in the center; that's how comets look "head-on" with any tail streaming behind and away from the viewer. The glow was slightly yellow or golden... quite an unusual object. Sunday night I opened Stephens for a special astronomy class observing session. I spotted the comet in the big telescope at 7:45 PM and was surprised... Two bright spots were right in the middle of the cloud looking like they might be part of the comet, oriented directly across the nucleus from each other. I watched excitedly to see if there were any changes. Alas, as the evening wore on the bright specks appeared to move off center and away from where the nucleus lay confirming they were background stars and not a part of the comet itself. Only three students showed up but it gave me two hours in which to observe the comet and attempt some images using the old nine-inch scope. They're my first telescopic comet photos. Here's one that has been heavily "Photoshopped" but it basically shows what I saw... Comet 17P/Holmes moving with three background stars showing through its coma. The comet has the astronomical community excited and that has been fun all by itself. I'll probably offer a public viewing session for Friday, Nov. 3 when the weather is predicted to bring clear skies.

Photo: Comet 17P/Holmes as it appeared at 9:34 PM, October 28. Two stars shine through the coma like headlights through fog. Photo was made using the century-old Cooley Telescope (a 9-inch refractor) and a Canon Digital Rebel XT camera - 2 seconds at ISO 1,600. Photo: James Guilford, Stephens Memorial Observatory, Hiram.

Chilly glimpse of Comet Holmes

It was cold (about 30 degrees) and breezy at about 9:30 PM when I went outdoors to check on Comet Holmes. The weather lately has not been hospitable to observing what with clouds, rain, and even a bit of snow. Tonight the sky was briefly very clear overhead in North Royalton. Aiming into Perseus with my binoculars I fished about only briefly before spotting the cometary cloud. It has grown even larger than it was but has faded dramatically. Even with our "clear" skies light pollution and the dimness of the object made it impossible to see without the binoculars. Predicted weather for the next few days call for mostly cloudy with rain and snow so this glimpse at the sky is apparently about all I'll be seeing for a while.

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

October Open night

Open night at Stephens Memorial Observatory: Arriving in the dark I met two of my regular attendees: a woman and her 80+ year-old-mother. They drive up from a place about an hour away for every one of these sessions, even when it's the same objects for observation -- in this case it was the Moon. The drive took less time tonight so they arrived early. By the time the event was over we had 19 visitors aged 4 years and up look through the century-old refractor; we might have had more visitors but there was a big Cleveland Indians baseball game on TV. Guests were treated to superb views of the first-quarter Moon, however, as the atmosphere was extremely clear and mostly steady. I don't think I've personally ever seen the Moon so clearly with my own eyes! Using a massive antique eyepiece that I'm really growing to love we viewed the entire Moon at about 40X. With a modern eyepiece we saw excellent details within craters along the terminator and in the lunar maria at about 100X. After closing (10 PM) I experimented to see how high I could push the power on the old scope. I went as high as 370X but the image was too soft. I did get acceptable results at 270X, however, which was a shocker. The telescope still isn't tracking well when pointed south, however, so I couldn't stay fixed on any lunar detail for very long. I couldn't find the planet Neptune --1.5 degrees from the Moon this night-- in the orb's bright glare so I turned the telescope away from the Moon and targeted the Perseus Double Cluster: NGC 884 & 869. They filled the great antique eyepiece with diamond-like lights delighting our guests more than I had expected. This night was also to be the peak of the Orionid meteor shower but I saw not one "shooting star." Best viewing was after Moonset but I wasn't about to stay up that late or get up very early -- things to do Sunday!

"Discovering" NGC 1981

They say there's a difference between looking at a celestial object and observing it. A case in point was this morning's appreciation of Orion. The weather was very humid and warm for October --about 72 degrees at 6:20 AM-- when I stepped outdoors on our westward-facing stoop to check out the dark morning sky. Despite the humidity, the sky looked clear and Orion floated high above our roofline. I decided to take a better look so fetched my 10 X 50 binoculars. Of course Orion's sword was the real target of the morning. I could easily see the cloud of M42, The Great Orion Nebula, which is a favorite to view using telescopes. I was surprised to note I could just make out the glow of the Trapezium with the handheld binoculars. The heavy air, it seems, was also very steady. Looking around in the field of view I appreciated the surprising clarity of the stars then noticed something I'd never really seen before... a loose group of tiny points of light just at the top end of the "sword." A star cluster? Beautiful, but was it really a cluster? I swung the binoculars around to check out a very bright star to the south --Sirius-- like a mercury vapor light in the sky. Then a quick look at brilliant red Betelgeuse in Orion and I headed back into the house ... had to get ready for work! Checking the books later I learned that the sprinkling of stars I had "discovered" for myself was, indeed, a cataloged loose open cluster: NGC 1981. The two-minute session with my binoculars may have been a quick look, but seeing the cluster was observation. A pleasing way to begin the day.