Busy couple of weeks!

The last few weeks have been filled with wonderful activities and fun events. Members of my astronomy club, the New Hampshire Astronomical Society, joined me for an evening of sidewalk astronomy in Portsmouth. We had a wonderful time, lots of visitors of all ages. Mars, M42, the Pleiades, and first quarter moon all competed for attention. Then I gave a talk at the Rey Center in Waterville Valley, NH. Margaret and H.A. Rey were lifelong residents of Waterville Valley. Among their many accomplishments were the Curious George series of books, and a book called "The Stars - A New Way to See Them" in which they drew new outlines for the same starts in the constellations to form figures which matched their names more closely.

One of the demonstrations in that book included an umbrella to show why the Big Dipper appears in different orientations (sometimes holding water, sometimes on end, sometimes pouring water out onto the ground) at different seasons of the year. Several years ago I made one of these out of a large clear umbrella and I have used it in many classes. It was a real honor to "bring it home" to the Rey Center and use it in a demonstration where the Reys lived and worked.

NHAS sponsored a skywatch for the Alton School in Alton, NH. I spoke there on the life cycle of stars and various "What's Up Tonight" topics, then we all went outside for a few hours of observing. Some clouds marred the sky for the first hour, but then things cleared up and it was glorious for a couple more hours.

Finally, last night a friend and I spent a relaxing few hours in Portsmouth showing people Mars, M42 and eventually Saturn once it rose over a building. I put some stickers on the curb at the right distances for the planets and invited people to walk down Congress St. on the "Portsmouth Planet Walk" to see the relative distances of the planets. One mom responded, "Oh we know all about that. We parked near Jupiter!"

First light with XT10i

I picked up a used XT10i from a friend, and it is giving excellent views.

For the first time I was able to see surfact markings on Mars, at about 10:30 pm when Mars was nice and high. A 9mm EP with 2X Barlow gave 266X.

This morning I enjoyed views of Saturn (4 moons clearly visible, but rings are closing...sad). Also nice views of the moon at 3rd quartet. Lots of detail visible including lava flows along the floors of the plains.

Ted

Sidewalk Astronomy - Early Evening Jupiter

It's been clear and cold in the Northeast lately, so with some warm boots, long underwear and assorted

hand and head coverings I set up on the Portsmouth sidewalk in front of Starbucks for a couple of hours each evening for the past few nights.

Amazingly, it seemed like more people were interested in viewing through the scope than is typically the case in summer - almost 100% of people said sure and enjoyed the views. We looked at Jupiter on nights when I was out early, and Mars and the Pleiades for later events after Jupiter had set. I also took a peek at M42 when nobody was around, but due to the light-polluted sky it was less than impressive.

One of the Portsmouth parking meter readers (yes, the ones who give tickets) thanked me for giving back to the community, he has seen me many times in various spots around town. Jupiter's 4 moons were clearly visible, as was the jet stream blowing past the planet. Cloud bands were vaguely visible at moments when seeing steadied, but these moments were few and far between.

One other thing - it's exactly 400 years ago this week that Galileo recorded sketches of Jupiter's moons in his notebook, later publicized in his "Starry Messenger".

Lunar X Prize!

It's been a long time since I've posted, but tonight I am celebrating my first observation of the Lunar "X". This is an object visible only for one night a month. It is made up of the walls of several craters, and when the light is just right it makes a clear, bright "X". Here is a picture from Wikipedia showing the X, just as I saw it in the Celestron C6 refractor. You can see it on the left of the picture. Notice how the floors of the craters are dark but the walls make up the X by protruding into the sun's rays as they slant over the landscape. It is sunrise on the moon! Unfortunately the high winds we have had for a week have made the atmosphere very turbulent, so fine detail was hard to see.

I also looked at the double cluster in Perseus. This was less affected by the poor seeing, and the individual stars popped right out including the obvious red stars, both within and one special one between the two clusters.

The 16 degree temperature kept me from staying out too long, but it was fun while it lasted!

Sanborn School Star Party with NSAAC

Last night I made it to the NSAAC much-rescheduled star party at the Sanborn school in Andover, Mass. There were about 100 kids and parents, and seven scopes. I set up binoculars on a tripod so folks waiting in line for my scope could see the Pleiades, then showed them the double double in Lyra. Seeing was not very good, the individual doubles were just "barely" visible in the C8. Maybe it needs collimation, however star tests looked good. Quite a few of the kids could split the second doubles (young eyes!) and once in a while a parent could see it when the seeing steadied for a second. I think most folks were amazed that a star could be a double, much less a double double - I still am too!

Sidewalk Astronomy in Portsmouth

After a cloudy few days the sky cleared in time for some sidewalk astronomy in downtown Portsmouth. The town was packed with people enjoying a cool Saturday evening.

I set up the WO 80mm refractor on the iOptron Minitower and it tracked perfectly all evening as Jupiter swung from one side of Market Street to the other. The alignment couldn't have been better, I got about 90 minutes on the west side of the street and then another hour on the east side. At least 100 people looked at Jupiter, marvelled at its moons and took cell-phone pictures through the eyepiece, most with good success.

The most common question I got was, "Is this some kind of a special occurrence?" Using my (now coffee-stained) map of the solar system I explained how we saw different views at different times of the year, and how the planets move around the sun.

The second most common question was, "Why are the moons all in a line." I explained that if you could float *above* Jupiter, you would see the moons going around in circles, but since the Jovian system of moons is pretty much in the same plane as the rest of the Solar System, we see the orbits "edge-on" like looking at the edge of a piece of paper. Most folks understood right away.

Having some signs helped people understand what was going on. I use a whiteboard with some velcro on the back to sketch what people will see in the eyepiece.

It was a wonderful night of sharing!

A Dobsonian Handshake

I'm on a business trip to California, so last night with nothing special to do and a clear night sky, I set up my 80mm refractor in front of a local Safeway to spend the evening showing people Jupiter and the gibbous moon.

There was a lot of interest, but one lady in particular told me that over 20 years ago when her son was 4 years old, she took him to a San Francisco sidewalk star party and met a gentleman named John Dobson who, along with others, was showing people the night sky. She knew his whole story and her son still remembers that evening.

So while I haven't shaken John Dobson's hand personally, last night I shook the hand of someone who did.