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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Mini Star party with the Chicago Astronomers
17 March 2010

Warm day, clear sky = looking up at the sky with telescopes.

Members of the Chicago Astronomer will assemble to catch the Crescent Moon, Venus, Mars & Saturn...and some other to be determined targets.

We will set up at 6:30 pm, by the Adler...

Depending on conditions, we will remain till about 9:00 pm.

I will attempt to image Saturn and other targets, but I have been having problems tracking with the mount holding up the C11...and have yet addressed it....so let's see.

Pics of the session later.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

We are confirmed as a Go.

I worked on the tracking that was sloppy and loose this afternoon.

Took the clutches apart, drilled a dimple on the slo-mo shaft to accept the set screw better....all will be detailed later.

But, it looks good for tonight, as there is not a cloud in the sky.

Should be nice.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

A Good Satisfying Session

A cloudless sky welcomed our last days of winter session. Chilly, but comfortable, we set up the C11 SCT and smaller refractor high optics of Steve's.

Friends from "Yelp", Mike & Kate stopped by to share in the evenings viewing...

Shown: Mike, Kate, Steve, Myself & Bill

As Mike writes:

And we met the REAL Astronomer Joe in person, and then we saw the crescent moon, and then we saw venus and it looked like a sci-fi movie, and then we saw mars, and then we saw the orion nebula, and we saw three satellites, and then we got cold so we came home and ate salad!

Got some cool pics of the skyline too.

Thanks so much to A-Joe and his friends Bill and Steve. No matter what kind of glass we looked through it was all interesting.

I would recommend that anyone go there and do the skies thing. Once it warms up it will be even more fun!

Astro Mike and Astro Kate

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It was still very bright out as I scanned the skies of the first sign of the thin crescent Moon, and members of the crew first spotted it....

The "Lunar Boat" was surrealistic, hanging there, with it's arms straight up...

Venus was glowing brightly and made a nice conjunction the the Moon.

(Although, in the telescope, the Venus disk was bogged down with atmospheric turbulence and severe chromatic aberration. I thought perhaps I had some optic problems with the C11, but the same was occuring in Steve's razor sharp refractor...so I didn't feel too bad.... )

As the skies dimmed, the targets came out.

Mars high over head, displayed good Ice Cap...(but really...kinda dull), The Great Orion Nebula, Saturn and her edge on rings and 3 satellites..!

We were all over the place and showing our guests the views.

Saturn still too low for good viewing, but the "Flying Saucer" shape was quite evident. Later on in the session, when Saturn rose higher, much sharper and clearer observation was enjoyed...with banding across the planet.

Bill brought along his Binoviewers, which brings a great extra dimension to observation. Using them, the Orion Nebula displayed extra lanes and structure to me.

I had planned to do some astrophotography this session, but the activity was too busy.

The skies were getting darker and the Moon sinking...apparently straight over a building in Chicago's great skyline...

It made a nice shot and I decided to catch the Moon skim and topple over the building...

The angle was perfect to where we were set-up and made for a nice sequence.

We then started to pick out dimmer, more difficult targets to view. I made mention that I never used the setting circles to locate objects...and really, I should. So, we decided then to do just that.

With Bill calling out the coordinates in R.A & Hrs/Min - I was slewing the scope manually via the setting circles...and we were locating various objects pretty close...such as Globular Star Clusters.

Here - M3...

and M53...

And a treat this evening, Bill found us a planetary nebula - NGC 3242: The Ghost of Jupiter...

Quite bright as nebulas go...it took a lot of magnification and bluish. Incredible in light polluted skies.

Here is a Hubble shot of the same...

We are witness to stellar evolution from Chicago.

Sweet!

More practice needs to be done on setting circle mastery, and I do have a digital setting circle hookup on the mount. This observation season will be the good I foresee.

At about 11:00 pm, we called it quits and packed up our gear - satisfied with a good session.

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Included here are comments from my Yelper friends on tonight's Crescent Moon:

- Noah "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" C. says:

Thanks for the education Joe. We have a great view from ourfront door/ porch and thanks to youu wife and daughter think I know what I'm talking about/

- Bernard "Free Mustache Rides" P. says:

Coordinates Joe! Coordinates! Do we look south of Orion's belt? Do we search north of the Big Dipper? Please advise this newbie to astronomy. Then again, it wouldn't hurt to just look up to the sky. Never mind.


- andrea "your car horn is not a doorbell" m. says:

Cool, thanks Joe! I can't see Venus but the moon looks rad.


- Ed "Work is the curse of the drinking classes" A. says:

@joe

How the hell did they turn the moon green?


- Deb "Pollyanna" B. says:

Thank you Joe....nothing like a sliver moon to brighten up the night!
Missed Venus though....sigh....


- L "Hum....I see" L. says:

Saw it ! It was pretty cool!


- Christopher "saxicolous" J. says:

I saw it on my run this evening. It reminded me of the Chesire Cat's appearing grin in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. The Evening Star looked good too.


- Robert "the Quiet Man" R. says:

Yes, what a great sight that moon was! The light reflecting (refracting?) off of the earth must have been pretty intense to have lit up the whole moon like that. Very cool, indeed!

Since everything's better with a soundtrack, here's one I think is pretty apropos for this evening: www.youtube.com...


- Alex "Jonathon just got an awesome facepaint" N. says:

Caught it yesterday going into work. Nice sight.


-Bronwyn L. says:

I would so love to come to a star party sometime. Sounds lovely.

From where I'm at, visiting family in Alaska, the crescent moon was exquisite last night. It looked as though it could be shattered, and the sky just after sunset was like something out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. Absolutely breathtaking.

I very much enjoy your science-y posts, Joe. (-:


-Bob "say yeah to it all" D. says:

The kids loved the Moon last night Joe, my son wanted to know, "how do you know thats Venus?"

'Cause Astro Joe told me.


-Robert "the Quiet Man" R. says:

I'd like to add two enthusiastic "thumbs up" for Joe's Star Parties. Not only are they very informative, but the people you'll meet while there are so friendly and fun, too. I'm looking forward to yet another Summer filled with trips to the Adler's lawn to check out the sky in the midst of some very interesting people, some good background music and the incredible view of our skyline at night. If you're lucky, Joe might just break out the Strat, too!


Tom "Tommy 2 Shirts" T. says:

I forgot all about the moon last night. I was on the driveway talking to neighbors as our kids were riding bikes on the sidewalk, when one of my daughters said "Dad, look at the moon. It's like a finger nail.". I was like "Oh yeah!!! the moon!!"

What a site. Very cool!!!

Thanks for the heads up Joe!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Cool....

Tonight's Lunar session included in the Space Weather Crescent Moon gallery:

spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Chicago-Astronomer-Joe-012_filtered_1268899643.jpg

[Paulie pchris00]

Nice shots of the setting lunar boat.