| Observer: | Tom Campbell |
| Location: | College Station, Texas (Long: 101°56'W Lat: 33°47'N) |
| Telescope: | Zhumell 12" f/5 Dobsonian |
Last night, one of our local astronomy club members hosted a star party at his personal observatory. Several telescopes were present, ranging from 5 to 12 inches. About 15 people were in attendance. Besides the club members, a few families showed up with their well-behaved kids.
Because I'm a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent me some information sheets and stickers to promote public awareness of their upcoming JUNO mission to Jupiter. While there was still a bit of daylight left, I handed these out to interested parties and answered a few questions about it.
As twilight deepened, we aimed at the planets. Jupiter, Mars and Saturn put on fine shows, garnering their share of Oohs and Aahs. Most were able to detect the northern polar cap and a bit of detail on Mars, which impressed them.
Interesting to me was the fact that they were all more impressed with being able to see the Galileian moons of Jupiter than with seeing its cloud belts. Sorry, Jupe. You're gonna have to spruce yourself up a bit more. It seems your royal court has more splendor than their king.
Next up was M13. I cranked up the power to 345x and let people get an eye full of 300,000 suns burning through the darkness. Glorious! I probably should have saved this one for last... the other clusters looked like duds afterwards.
M11, the Wild Duck Cluster, was also well received. Lots of tightly-packed stars visible, with star HD 174512 shining the brightest of them all.
Wanting to give the crowd a good sampling of what's out there to see, I pointed towards M57, the Ring Nebula. Everyone liked the interstellar smoke ring. And telling them that it was the outer layer of gas being thrown off its star made them gasp in wonder.
Another crowd favorite was M51. Through my 12" Dob, some spiral structure was visible in the arms and the bridge to NGC 5195 could easily be seen. So nice to be able to see more than just the cores of this galactic duo.
Other DSOs viewed included M6, M7, M27, M8 and Albireo, which got a smattering of nice comments, but I could tell they weren't as impressed as with what they had seen previously.
It was now after midnight and only about half a dozen people were left. My final object for the night was NGC 6960, the Western Veil Nebula. I popped in my O-III filter and it became very obvious. Lots of "Wows" on this one, so I made a good choice for my finale. I think the sheer size of it was as impressive to them as how it looked. I let them nudge the telescope and follow it as far as they could in both directions.
My personal favorite part of the evening was getting to see the Milky Way again. I've really missed her. She's not visible at all from my back yard.
Also, it was great getting to share my love of the night sky with people who for the most part seemed genuinely interested. When they'd get tired of walking around from scope to scope, they'd sit in lounge chairs and pass around a couple pairs of binoculars, soaking up the Milky Way.