| Observer: | Tom Campbell |
| Location: | Iola, Kansas (Long: 95 30' W Lat: 37 55' N) |
| Telescope: | 60mm f/11.7 Refractor |
| Eyepieces: | Kellner 20mm, Ortho 12.5mm |
| Time: | 8:00pm - 10:30pm CST (UT +6) |
| Temperature: | 55°F, dropping further as the night progressed |
Tonight, I had decided to try to view M65 and M66 for the first time, and see how well my little scope could handle them... As it turns out, that's about the only thing I didn't get a chance to observe. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
The hindquarters of Leo was still pretty low when I first went out, so I decided to try for a few other objects while I was waiting. I had read on the internet that σ Ori was a nice multiple star system, so I took a peek, and saw five stars in the field of view. I didn't have a good star chart with me at the time, so I wasn't able to confirm whether they were all part of the same system or not. I'll check back on it another night (soon, though, before it dips too low in the western sky).
I also wanted to get my first glimpse of the Ghost of Jupiter (NGC 3242 in Hydra) tonight, but wasn't sure whether the trees in my front yard (to the south) would accommodate me. I "snaked" my way along Hydra until I came to μ, and then lowered my scope a bit. Sure enough, several tree limbs were peering back at me through my telescope. I thought I could make out a small, almost starlike, pale blue disc, but with the treetops swaying slightly in the breeze, it was washing out any real chance of focusing on the object. Oh well, this one is definitely going to be tried for again!
About this time, the neighbor's boy (about 10 years old) came over and asked me what I was doing. The answer wasn't as obvious as you would think, because I had decided earlier to try out an eyepatch to see if it would let me relax my other eye and perhaps make out more detail. I'm sure I must have been quite a sight, with my glasses up on my forehead, an eyepatch covering one eye, and sitting out in the middle of my driveway!
At any rate, I told him I was doing a little stargazing. He said, "Oh. Does that eyepatch make it so you don't have to squint your other eye shut?" A quick learner, this kid.
After affirming his hypothesis, I asked him if he'd like to look through my telescope, to which he immediately agreed. I quickly swung the telescope up to γ Leonis, and let him view one of the prettier winter doubles. He looked and said that it was neat, so I explained that the two stars he just saw were actually in orbit around each other, similar to how Earth orbits the Sun. He then asked to take another look.
Next, he asked if I'd ever heard of Orion's belt. I said, "Sure," and proceeded to show it to him, and then pointed out the other major stars in Orion, until he could see the basic shape.
Then I showed him the Big Dipper. He had trouble figuring out how the stars were supposed to be connected, since it was almost upside-down. Using my hands, I traced the outline again, to make sure he was looking at the right set of stars. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he said, "Oh, you mean its the same stars that make up the backwards-looking 5?"
Now, there's a symbol I had never connected with that asterism before. I took another look at the asterism and replied, "Yeah, that's the one." From now on, when I look at the Big Dipper, I won't be able to help but think of it as the High Five.
With Orion and the Big Dipper under his belt, he was getting his confidence built up. "This is easy," he said. "Its just like connecting the dots. The only hard part is figuring out which dot to start with." I proceeded to show him the Lion (Leo), the Charioteer (Auriga), a sea serpent (Hydra), and of course the Beehive (M44).
He then started picking out bright stars at random in the sky and asked me to name the constellation they belonged to, and then to show him the constellation. He was definitely getting hooked by this time. Next, he asked to borrow my telescope and just spent several minutes doing slow sweeps of the sky with the telescope until he found something interesting in the field of view and then asked me about it.
I ended up thumbing through the few star charts I had brought outside and trying to identify as many objects as I could. Most of them I could pinpoint, except for some of the lower ones which were half washed-out due to light pollution.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience. I never did get around to finding the Trio in Leo, but it took me back to the days when I was a kid and used to just lie on the ground looking at the stars. You can have the biggest telescope in the world, but once in a while, nothing can beat just letting those deep sky photons hit you square in the face with both eyes wide open.
Tomorrow night, weather permitting, he wants to go outside again, this time bringing his own telescope that he got for a gift and never knew how to use before. No doubt about it now, the poor kid's addicted to sky!
So tonight, I have hopefully helped to unleash another amateur astronomer upon the world. One that doesn't care that the view through the telescope doesn't match the full-color glory of the photos on the box. One that doesn't care whether the mount is rickety or whether his eyepieces are made of plastic. One that only knows that a whole universe has just been opened up to him and will spend his time enjoying what he CAN see, rather than worrying about what he CAN'T see.