Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Oct 13, 2012 9:07:23 GMT -6
Chicago Astronomer and Chicago Astronomical Society Star Party
12 October 2012
12 October 2012
The Chicago Astronomical Society and I have a good relationship and I thought I would join them in their meeting by the Adler Planetarium, which was supposed to be a telescope instruction for those who needed it, but it turned out to be just a fun time with fellow Astronomers.
Science Instructor from the southern Suburbs, Barry, brought along his fork mounted C11 and members of his physics class...
With no planets or Moon this evening, I zoomed in on the E.T. Star Cluster and shared the views with fellow lovers of the night sky...
A special treat was the near overhead pass of the ISS that lasted well over three minutes...
And another treat was the very bright Iridium Flare...
And yet another treat was the introduction of night vision to the C11...
C.A.S member Jim brought along his night vision monocular scope. He offered me views through it...and I was amazed at what I was observing. Just held to my eye, it was bringing in countess stars and satellites. I asked if we could attach this to the C11. "Sure we can", he said....
I first attached it to the C11 focuser and targeted M31 - the Andromeda galaxy...
Very coolest!
The galaxy was no longer just a faint smudge...
But popped out dramatically. I switched it over to the 90mm refractor for a wider FOV...
Just handheld to eyepiece shots was bringing in details not seen before in the C11.
And....
...caught a satellite....which were viewed in abundance.
Slewing over to the Double Cluster in Perseus...
Everybody who peeked at this was taken aback by the sheer number of stars glowing in the green tint of this instrument...including myself.
I nudged it over to Vega...
Which over powered the night vision instrument.
This is a very expensive tool, but it would be great to have one as part of the Chicago Astronomer arsenal of gear.
Thanks Jim for sharing this with us....
And so, we bounced around for the remainder of the evening...
Bruce from the C.A.S was on-hand to share stories and invite to the C.A.S observatory when ready...
It was a chilly session and the winds started to pick up, making it that more cold, but we continue...
I attempted to target the new brightening Comet 168P/Hergenrother...
But with all the glare and breeze, was unsuccessful....but I'm sure I passed over it numerous times while searching.
And Tony from the C.A.S. was getting good views in his 12" Dob...
But, around 10:30 pm...I had enough of the cold and packed up.
We had approx. 50 visitors to this last minute unannounced session of the Chicago Astronomer. This was a fun time with fellow Astronomers of the C.A.S and should do more joint sessions... more often.
