STARLOG

A BIT OF MOTHER'S DAY OUTREACH

MAY 14, 2017

Today was hectic, with it being Mother's Day. My wife is not a mother (nor I a father), so we really don't do anything special for each other on this day, but my wife's parents have recently immigrated to the U.S. from the Caribbean and are currently living with us.

Before we got started on our day, my wife wanted to water the flowers in our garden. On the weekends, I like to go outside with her to keep her company. Since my Vestil observing chair is sitting in the garage, I usually just sit down in the driveway while she waters.

Her parents went out with us this morning as well, and her Dad was curious about the chair I was using. I explained that it was what I used at the telescope because I could easily change heights with it as my telescope was pointing at different objects at different altitudes.

This brought up the subject of stargazing, and we spent a few minutes discussing the difference between astronomy and astrology. He had been told by an astrologer once that his planet was Jupiter, and he was curious about it. I said, "Well, Jupiter happens to be up in the sky all night right now. If it's clear tonight, I can show it to you in my telescope."

As it turned out, today was sunny and hot. We did the usual (for us, at least) Mother's Day activities of going out for a late lunch (hoping that the crowds would have died down a bit at the local restaurants) and then a bit of shopping. By sunset, the temperatures were dropping slightly, but the breeze was slight and the clouds were mostly staying away.

I rolled my telescope out to the back yard and began setting up. Just as I was finishing up collimation, my father-in-law came outside to see Jupiter. I had started my cooling fan, but air currents were still shimmering across the primary mirror. Still, I decided to go ahead and try to show him Jupiter, since that was the main thing he wanted to see.

Just as I'd feared, Jupiter's bright disk was hard to get into good focus due to the seeing conditions. Even so, I could still make out a couple of cloud bands and all 4 of the Galilean moons. I told my father-in-law to take a peek and showed him where the eyepiece was. He was impressed, but I was disappointed in the views.

I was expecting him to go back inside, but was pleasantly surprised to see him waiting for more. The skies still weren't really dark yet, so I knew I'd have to stick to brighter objects for now. I remembered where a few of the double stars were that I had observed the other night, so I showed him those. We enjoyed visiting Gamma Leonis, Alcor/Mizar, and Alkalurops (Mu Bootis).

I was worried that he would be getting tired of looking at double stars, and the sky was getting darker now, so I tried looking at M51. I could see the two central cores of the colliding galaxies, but I know it would be pretty faint for him. So I decided to look for open clusters instead. I thought I'd try for M35 in Gemini, but it had just sunk below the roofline of my house.

Oh wait! M44! Even though the light polluted sky was too bright to make out any of the stars of Cancer, even with averted vision, I estimated its position using the mane of Leo and Castor/Pollux as my guideposts. I put my eye to finder scope and meandered around for several seconds until I spotted it. Then I popped in a 30mm eyepiece and let him take a peek. He was blown away by this one.

I explained that it was called the Beehive and the house-shaped asterism of stars in the middle was the hive and the other stars were the swarm of bees surrounding it. It took him a couple of minutes to peel his eyes away from the cluster.

Excited that he seemed to be genuinely interested in looking through the telescope, I decided to try for something harder. I swung over to the Sombrero Galaxy. It was pretty faint tonight, but he could make out the thin streak of light.

He spotted Vega rising between a couple of distant houses, so we took a look at it. He liked the changing colors caused by the atmosphere, even after I explained what was causing it. Then he spied Antares, so we looked at that star as well. He loved how vivid the color was on the red giant.

Next I tried for M10 and M12 in Ophiuchus. They were still pretty low and it was difficult to see a lot of resolved stars, but he still enjoyed the view. Hercules and M57 were rising, but I really wanted to wait and show him those when they were better positioned.

It was starting to get late, since tomorrow was a workday. I was looking for one more nice thing for him to see to remember the evening by. I decided to swing back over to Jupiter. It was a bit higher now and the tube currents had settled down, so I was able to crank up the magnification to 208X. In moments of good seeing, the cloud bands showed up spectacularly well now. Too bad the Great Red Spot was still on the back side of the planet. But he was really impressed with the view this time and agreed that it was starting to look a bit like the photos he's seen of it.

By now, it was 11pm. Dew wasn't a factor tonight and the temperatures were still warm, so it was a pleasant evening. Even more pleasant was sharing the experience with someone else. My father-in-law loved the views, but was disappointed that the Moon hadn't risen yet so he could see the craters. But at least that gives me an excuse to have him join me on another night.