Date: Friday, September 21, 2007 (3rd Friday and post First
Quarter Urban Star Party)
Location: Tech Terrace Park
Conditions: Hazy but few clouds. Warm. Bright gibbous moon.
Observers:
Don Fritz: 5" achro, 25mm Kellner, 12mm XF, 8.5mm XF
Tom Heisey: SCT, 40mm Plossl, 4.8mm Nagler
Patrice & Rick Fay: 18" dob, 27mm Pan, 17mm eyepiece of
some kind
Per Andersen: Two eyes and a curiosity for what this
urban astronomy was all about
Collin Smith: Astronomy Technologies 80mm ED refractor,
6 & 9mm BO/TMB Planetaries and 25mm Antares Elite Plossl.
I begin with a sad note for the astronomical community. I
refer above and below to TMB eyepieces. They're quite good, as Don Fritz, Tom
Heisey and many other astronomers can attest. These are named for their designer
Thomas M. Back, who passed away at age 50 from the sudden onset of a lingering
disease this month. God rest his soul.
I arrived about 8:45 & set up my EQ-3 in the darkness. A big crowd of South
Asian/Latin American, and white students from TTU were there. Bob & Joyce Dunn
joined us for the first time of observing after attending the SPAC meeting the
night before. Welcome!
The night began at Jupiter, his cream colored, brown-banded globe and attending
Galilean satellites. Jove was somewhat shimmering in the southwestern muck.
Still nice in my 9 & 6mm BO/TMBs.
Tom wowed the crowd with his mooncam, again. A wide assortment of folks from
giggling high school girls to serious engineering student-types got a nice
multimedia view of craters, hills and shadows of the moon.
Patrice put the ET Cluster in the big 18" dob – quite pleasant. In my meandering
I found open cluster IC 4665 in Ophiucus. Don got a disappointing Double Cluster
in his 5" refractor.
Albireo was quite good in both my 25mm Antares Elite Plossl & 6mm BO/TMB. M57 in
the 5" & 80mm refractors held up better than most other DSOs under the moonglow.
The highlight of the night for me (other than Luna) was Uranus in Patrice's 18"
dob. Man, that was something! Usually getting just enough to make out a disk of
this distant world is a treat, but though tiny in her 2" 27mm Televue Panoptic,
the globe was distinct and aquamarine. Delightful!
I couldn't find the Wild Duck Cluster, M11 (too close to moon), and even the
Great Hercules Cluster was a shadow of its dark sky self in Don's 5" achro. M15
in Tom's SCT was just ho hum.
Don & I caught M31/32 in our refractors, but couldn't get M110. For some reason
neither I nor Patrice could put these galaxies into the eyepiece of the 18" dob.
Hmmm.
M27 in my 80mm was again, unimpressive, though it did show up somewhat better in
the 18" dob. Again, nothing like it would look in either scope under dark skies.
However, the DSO destroyer was the show stealer. I showed a young couple who
came late and hadn't seen the moon yet (like me!) our fair neighbor with my 9mm
BO/TMB. Great detail! The terminator was awesome! We’ll have to do this again.
From: Collin Smith [mailto:collinofalabama@hotmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 4:17 PM
Subject: Friday night free show
People,
Tonight when it gets dark (about 8:15 PM), please come to Tech Terrace Park
for a night of free astronomy. The mosquitoes might be a bit bad, so you
should wear long sleeves and/or bring mosquito repellent. Please put on
repellent downwind of all optics.
Come out and enjoy the moon, Jupiter and Uranus. We may try for Neptune, but
the murky, distant planet can be tough to put definitively in the eyepiece.
Globular cluster M13, the Andromeda Galaxy M31 and companions M32 & M110,
the Wild Duck Cluster M11, nova remnant M57, and Albireo and several other
colorful, artistically contrasting double stars are all on the agenda.
Clearly, a star studded night better than anything on TV is available at
Tech Terrace Park tonight.
Hope to see you there,
CDS
