Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on May 11, 2005 0:00:01 GMT -6
The Chicago Astronomers x 3
This was a night I have been waiting for. A pox on cold weather astronomy...this night, pleasant warm breezes, crescent moon, Jupiter and Saturn were just waiting to be captured.
Fellow Chicago Astronomer and Adler Telescope Operator Steve met me by the lakefront to set up at my usual location just off of the Copernicus statue. The lighting is quite bad there, and no serious observations will take place there, but it's great to meet people, share views and discuss astronomy. To my pleasant surprise, Fellow Chicago Astronomer Kalvis joined us and brought his scope!
Here are Me, Kalvis and Steve
Kalvis apparently is a great lurker on the Chicago Astronomer forum, as he rarely posts, but reads everything and it was great that he took the time out to meet up with us. I enjoyed learning about Kalvis and his interest in astronomy. He fit right in with us and I do hope to have him out on more mini star parties.
Here is Kalvis with his scope
Steve brought out his 90mm Mak this evening instead of the 8" SCT, and it proved to show good views of the evening's objects. I didn't get the specs of either Kalvis's or Steve's scopes, but I hope they will chime on in and provide the details.
The Moon against the Chicago turquoise skyline was quite pretty, as numerous groups of people stopped by to see what was up. Of course, being the generous types that we are, offered peeks at the crescent Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. They took photos of the "Astronomers" and were amazed at how close and rough the moon looked like, awed at Saturn's rings and enjoyed the Moons of Jupiter. I am expecting those images from them soon.
I really enjoyed the moon this evening, as the thin limb of the moon was crisp and sharp, showing Earthglow on the dark side. The rings of Saturn proved just as nice in all of our scopes and we caught Io emerging from Jupiter's edge during our observations.
We tried each other's eyepieces amongst ourselves, and I enjoyed my homemade eyepiece's on both the scopes. I settled on the Moon for the remainder of the evening, Kalvis and Steve bounced from Saturn and Jupiter. What was cool is that Kalvis also got himself a Rigel Quick Finder for his scope, like me. I can't express enough how much I like that piece of equipment, and how I EVER got along without it. Steve is also gonna get one for his scope as well.
As the evening progressed, the moon sank closer to the Chicago horizon, and although this image doesn't so it justice, the limb of the moon was getting closer and closer to "kissing" the Sears Tower. We all stood by our scopes to catch the event, and in an instant, a corner of the tower dissected the moon. Quite cool!
In direct comparison to a stationary object, the apparent motion of the moon was indeed very fast and incredible. We are rotating at 1000 MPH, and it showed!
This was a nice, smooth night for sharing a pleasant evening of Chicago astronomy....plenty more to come. I'm thinking of a Tiki Astronomy evening, with scopes, lays & tropical drinks. Yum!... ;D
