[AZ-Observing] Re: Fred Lawrence Whipple Astronomy Day Star Party
- From: skylook123@xxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:39:14 -0400
I didn't see any publicity either, just contact through the club to come out
and support.
As I hear about them in the future (FLWO does these community outreaches
periodically through the year)
I'll try to remember to post a notice here. In the past they've done
publicity, but generally in the Green Valley area.
FWIW, I cleaned up some really bizarre copy/paste artifacts in the original
report below.
Jim O'Connor
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Christensen <jonc97@xxxxxxx>
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, Apr 20, 2010 8:06 pm
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Fred Lawrence Whipple Astronomy Day Star Party
I was at the Overland Expo in Amado last weekend. I would have liked to
top by if I had known about it.
Jon Christensen
---- Original Message -----
rom: <Skylook123@xxxxxxx>
o: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
ent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 10:46 AM
ubject: [AZ-Observing] Fred Lawrence Whipple Astronomy Day Star Party
n observing report I also posted on the Cloudy Nights and TAAA astronomy
orums.
here was quite a large group of Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association (Tucson)
and Sonora Astronomical Society (Green Valley) volunteers gathered last night
at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory Visitor Center in Amado, AZ at the
base
of Mt. Hopkins. The Smithsonian Institution's Whipple Observatory presented an
Astronomy Day Star Party
_http://www.cfa.http://www.chttp://www.http://www.cfa.http_
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/facilities/flwo/starparty.html)
with an open house, exhibits, planetarium shows, and lectures, and both
aytime and night time observing.
I was supporting the evening activities. As the afternoon progressed, the
eather looked mighty ugly, with white stratus seemingly everywhere around
y Marana home. The telephone information number was declaring that the
how was on, so I headed down about 4:30 even though the IR satellite
howed white junk all the way to San Diego.
All the way down, the sky was threatening to clear a bit, but still was a
owl of milk when I got to the visitor center. About a dozen daytime
olunteers had a variety of scopes set up on the sun, a dim ball
rogressing westward. I slowly set up the Atlas near Jerry Farrar, and just did
the
ocial thing without much hope of clearing.
The social gathering with the Sonora club is always fun, as with all
rizona astronomy groups. Great group of people to circle up with. Just for
hat
athering I was glad I went down. At sunset, the Moon and Venus started
urning through, but dimly. I set my 10" on the Moon at about 100X, and it
as
nicely subdued. The three day moon was just enough to show the terminator
ffects on the elevations and a nice contrast with one half showing a
ouple of very large, lava filled craters and the other half a collection
f
mall meteor impacts and lunar mountains, like bubbling oatmeal. The
assing
isitors (many came for the lectures and planetarium shows) were all
nterested in the view.
I was getting crabby about the total lack of alignment stars in the murky
ky when Sirius and Procyon started to peek through. Still nothing in the
est of the sky until Saturn and Mars came dimly into view. I stayed on the
oon. Suddenly, about 7:45 PM, the sky magically opened up. In about 10
inutes the total overcast disappeared! I went over to the Orion Nebula and
ad
great time with the visitors. There was a gap in the crowd so I did an
terative polar alignment and then a 2-star alignment. Made a mistake there
nd used Sirius as the second star. It was too low for accuracy and the
OTOs were off for the rest of the night.
When I was done with the alignment I went over to M51, The Whirlpool,
hich was a nice addition to the visitors' experience after the other
olunteers' views of the Moon, Saturn, and a variety of open clusters and
ther
tems. It was fairly dim, but the spiral character of the main galaxy was
etectable. The 23 million light year distance impressed some folks as well.
asn't really happy with the dim view, however, so I went over to NGC3242,
he Ghost of Jupiter. It was a nice, bright disk of a planetary nebula. I
pent the rest of the session doing the stellar evolution story. The 9:30
M
hut down time came far too soon!
So glad I changed my mind about staying home. It only took about 10
inutes for the sky to go from totally obscured to clear. And the crowd at
he
LWO open houses are always great to work with, very interested in what
hey
ee and in discussing the cosmology of the day. FLWO does a great job with
he planetarium shows and outdoor lectures. And the TAAA and SAS volunteers
re such an enjoyable gang to hang out with. All in all, a good time was
ad by all.
Jim O'Connor
outh Rim Coordinator
rand Canyon Star Party
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