[AZ-Observing] Observing Report, F.L. Whipple Observatory Star Party 03/26/2011
- From: Skylook123@xxxxxxx
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 15:12:16 EDT
Event: Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory Astronomy Day
Location: F. L. Whipple Observatory Visitor's Center, Amado, Arizona,
about 60 miles from home.
Weather: 70 at sunset, upper 50s when we quit around 9:30 PM. Zero cloud
cover, two or three brief gusts of wind.
Seeing and Transparency: Both very good, occasional snaps into moments of
sharp steadiness.
Equipment:
18" f/5 2286mm Teeter Telescope newtonian truss dob, Sky Commander DSCs
Lunt LS60THa/B600 60mm H-Alpha solar telescope on Orion Atlas EQ-G mount
Astronomy Days are periodic public outreach events sponsored by the
Smithsonian's F.L. Whipple Observatory Visitor Center and put on by Green
Valley's Sonora Astronomical Society with some assistance by members of the
Tucson
Amateur Astronomy Association.
This is always an enjoyable event to support; a tremendous family
entertainment and education opportunity. Key events for this event were the
Visitor
Center opening at 5:00 PM: several of us set up white light and H-Alpha
telescopes for safe solar viewing from 5:00 PM to sundown; a Night Sky
Network information and demo table set up by SAS; an informal lecture at
sunset
presented by Observatory staff; and night sky observing with SAS and TAAA
volunteers. I'm not sure how many volunteer amateurs we had setting up, but I
counted about 15 near me. We had a full complement of instruments set up,
with a 20" truss dob, my 18" Teeter, and just about every type of
reflector, refractor, and SCT in all sizes.
This was a busy day for me. Susan and I started off the day by doing the
Spring trimming and pruning of the ground plants around the yard. I
proceeded with a demo on how not to use hedge trimmers, ending up with a
lacerated
finger bleeding like a garden hose. Eventually got it patched up, but a
real nuisance. After the "don't do this" demo, I headed over to Catalina State
Park to check out some potential night activities. After we were done, I
headed down to Whipple, about an hour's drive.
Arrival and setup went well. This was my first try with the Lunt solar
scope. I mounted it on my Atlas EQ-G, way over mounted. Since I hadn't done
solar work in the past and just showed up near sundown, this early setup was
really convenient, not having to squeeze in late. As I was setting up the
Atlas and Lunt, I noticed Derald Nye set up already on Jupiter; just as he
does at the Grand Canyon Star Party, showing off the daytime views of the
moon and planets.
The solar experience was a great success. I was set up next to a person
from SAS (forgot the name!) who had an 11" Celestron SCT with a white light
filter, and showing the artifacts on a mildly active disk in two different
forms was a great teaching experience. Lots of feathers around the limb in
Ha, with several active regions in the Ha matching the sunspot groups in the
white light. Three very big surprises for me. First, the number of
visitors. The local community turns out in force for these events at Whipple.
I
stopped counting at well over 100 at my scope in about an hour and a half.
Second, people seemed to have no trouble at all seeing the fine detail on the
solar surface, and the detailed feathery activity on the limb. Finally, a
prominence shot out of the disk around forty minutes before I shut down at
dusk. People were genuinely excited about the views, and comparing the
results with the white light images on the 11".
With the disk on the horizon, I took down the solar scope and mount and
unloaded the 18". As always, the gorgeous cabinetry of Rob Teeter's work of
art drew accolades. I plugged in the battery for the cooling fans, and setup
of the big dob was nominal except for an excessive amount of time required
for collimation. Last night I was set up with the 18" in Saguaro Park West
for the periodic Pima County Natural Resources Parks and Recreation
Evening Under the Stars. The entry road into the site has a lot of extremely
high
speed bumps, and what ever the speed, the load in the truck is really
jostled heavily. This cause quite a bit of misalignment of the secondary.
Eventually it all came together.
Our setup area is at the base of the huge Whipple 10 meter gamma-ray
reflecting telescope. This instrument is always on alert for gamma ray events,
and several times during the late afternoon the big dish slewed around to
grab data from active events as alerted. Very interesting!
As the sky darkened I did a little sky tour for the thirty or so folks
gathered around my scope. I pointed out the stars as they popped into the
twilight, and did a pointing tour of Sirius and Canis Major, Betelgeuse and
Rigel, then the rest of Orion as elements popped out, Castor, Pollux, and
Gemini, Regulus and Leo, The audience was great; they seemed to enjoy the mix
of mythology and cosmology. A very enjoyable half hour walk around the sky
as constellations became visible.
I moved over to Orion to check the nebula and the sky conditions prior to
doing a DSC alignment. Never got a chance to leave it! I did the talk for
this gorgeous item, which was extremely impressive at 104X. Six stars in the
Trapezium were easily viewed and, as always, the greenish, shimmering,
multi layered diaphanous curtain of nebulosity produce a continuous stream of
Oh Wows. Over 200 visitors and two hours later, with only a half dozen
folks in the area, I went over to Saturn. It was still pretty low for this
long
dob, requiring a bit of a bend down at first to get to the eyepiece. VERY
nice. I jumped up to 254X and we got four moons, and, when the seeing would
snap through stability, crisp zonal banding on the planet to go with a
sharp ring shadow across the disk. We stayed on it for about 45 minutes, and
the difference in the view as Saturn climbed out of the mud was striking. We
ended up with most of us flatfooted, one or two needing a step on the
ladder. Wonderful way to end the evening.
After the visitors had departed and we were packing up, I went over to The
Whirlpool for a look. Still a bit low to get the best experience, it still
showed much of its spiral detail. A half dozen of us looked at it, then
time to pack up and depart.
I really have to thank SAS, and F.L. Whipple Visitor Center, for always
doing so well at putting on these events. They are very uplifting, and worth
every minute to be involved and getting the public feedback.
I've posted a photo album of the event in the TAAA Forum Photos area.
Jim O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
gcsp [at] tucsonastronomy.org
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