Astronomy Day: May 22, 1999
by Frank Anderson
Article originally published in the Battle Point Astronomical Association News, Issue 33, July-August, 1999
I gotta say that this was one of those days that astronomers dream about. Clear skies and warm. Not that the conditions were the best for viewing through the atmosphere, but they were perfect for getting people out to the observatory!
After the beginners' class on what a star party is, what we were looking for in the sky, and a brief discussion of what telescopes are and are not, all present set upon those who had brought telescopes to see what was "up there". Did I mention that there was about a half moon? Did I say that it was fully visible before sunset? Did I forget to say that with the clear sky it was so bright that we had shadows that you could see all evening? Not to worry! With eight telescopes and an assortment of binoculars we looked the moon in the eye and were awed by the cratering, the gap in the mountains, and the terminator line.
Speaking of telescopes, let's start with the first one set up around the old radio installation at Battle Point. Paul Below brought his 10" Dobsonian that he had just finished doing a partial rebuild on. With a new base and tube outfitted with a Telrad finder and the old proven optics we were treated to a very nice view of Mars.
Seeing something entirely new I skipped around other setups to look at Jared and Ray Barnhill's. They brought a Packard Bell computer that was connected to the Meade LX50EMC and was tracking Mars. The computer program can look up thousands of stars from a database and then aim the telescope at the selection. Very "Star Warsian" with the red screen and "galactic" charts. Another piece of equipment with this setup was a Meade Magellan II containing another star location file.
Jared Barnhill at a BPAA star party, trying out the new digital setting circles for his 10 inch Meade LX50 (photo courtesy of Seattle Times).
Dave Warman had set up his Celestron 8-inch with a 400scan blackbox video camera. This was plumbed into a Dell laptop computer and a small TV viewer. This was real time stuff.
The camera made 30 scans per second and put the result of those images onto the laptop screen. The resulting image was about a 200 pixel scan. Very impressive view of the moon and craters for what is becoming a low resolution format. I would like to see more of this kind of thing. The program that he was using is called "Grabit". With the motor drive and 60-cycle crystal for tracking it was very nice.
I need to add that by now it was 9 pm and we had over 40 people in the moonlight discussing stars, optics and planets. It should also be noted that there were lots of families. Lots of kids and lots of questions!
David Foxhughes had set up a small Bushnell Voyager. This was a 3 inch telescope and had a very nice finder attached. This was the first time this telescope had been used out in the field. He had its 700 mm focal length optics pointed at Venus. You could see that the planet was at the "half Venus" phase.
On another landing, Gene Bush had set up his Meade Model 230, a 2.5 inch, 60mm RAFFLE PRIZE! That's right, Gene won the telescope four hours earlier and now here it was on a tripod for everyone to use. Terrific, thanks Gene!
It was about 9:30 and there were still 45 people here, but less kids. I should mention that there was a Girl Scout troop here for a good part of the afternoon, that their moms made some of the very nice food for the potluck, and they stayed to take part in the star party. Gotta appreciate their enthusiasm!
At 9:35 another telescope arrived. Dave King and his wife Dore unloaded a large handmade wooden case containing an 8-inch Meade with all the things a portable observatory needs. Everything came out of the box in sequence and got assembled. Newtonian optics, wide base flat-footed tripod, multiple lens case, folding table, maps and charts. After checking to see that it was still collimated and everything was in focus we were suddenly looking at the moon and Mars!
Vaughan Smith had brought his Meade ETX90. It has a full motor drive but he was using a manual set of switches to do the tracking. He said that there was a computer drive coming, a Meade "Autostar" and that should be ready for the next outing.
Checking the time, it was now 10:15. Moonlight was very bright and there were about 25 people still out and about. The large telescope was running but there was some problem with getting it to track in sync with the stars. In the lecture room Tom Medchill was talking about planets for those who didn't want to be outside. We had a bit of a wind from the north and it was cooling. Back over at Paul Below's Dob, people were lining up to get a look at M3, and then double star Alberio and then the Ring Nebula. Other telescopes were beginning to find faint objects too as the moon headed toward the horizon.
At 11:30 the observatory 27.5 inch telescope was running just fine and was aimed at Mars. We were down to the folks with their telescopes, a small group in the dome, and a small discussion group in the lecture room.
Taking a coffee break, I found another five people discussing mirror grinding on our machine and enjoying coffee and cookies.
It had been a long day. At midnight I called it quits and headed for my car. Memories of tonight are of standing on the upper deck of the observatory looking down on the slightly ghostly crew moving around telescopes in the moonlight. At two setups there were computers. One had a star chart running and it was in that slightly laser red light, the other of the moon in black and white. There were pulses of little red lights as folks used red light to make adjustments or read star charts. Conversation was mixed giggles and technical and thoroughly magical.
A long day, and an astronomer's dream evening with people who take their astronomy seriously but have enough of the kid in them to know how to have fun with it too. Maybe next time we will have a new moon, warm weather, but maybe without the wind. Maybe next year more people will be able to experience planets, stars, great glowing nebulae, and good folks who like to learn as well as teach.
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