[Friends_of_SSASTROS] I saw Stars!!!

[Mike McCabe]

Yes, it’s true. I was actually out in the night and saw stars inthe sky. I know it’s hard to believe these days, but I swear, it reallyhappened!

The attempt at stargazing yesterday actually began at 4am, when I got up,went to the window to see if the sky was clear, and if it was I was going outto catch a Titan shadow transit on Saturn. It was cloudy. Nothing new there, soback to bed it was.

Then in the early afternoon Steve L. stopped by and we spent acouple of hours investigating the Sun with a variety of telescopes and specializedsolar observing equipment. That was great fun and the Sun did not disappoint.There’s a large active region labled AR4114 that has recently flared, and has alsobeen on the verge of flaring again since then.

Later in the afternoon it clouded up and the home page on my phonesaid “rain likely tonight.” But after supper and around the time of sunset Isaw a big opening in west/northwest sky, so it was off to the Nip to see if Icould catch a glimpse of the conjunction between the alpha star in Leo, akaRegulus, and Mars. Yes, this latest apparition of Mars still continues todeliver, but unfortunately the clouds had other plans, and shortly after myarrival at my favorite lake on the edge of town the viewing window closed andthe mosquitos moved in for the kill. I was out of there in a flash.
Later on, as I was wrapping up the day and about to hit the hay Inoticed that the clouds had thinned somewhat and I could see a few bright stars.Could I still get it? Surely Mars and Regulus had set by now. I took a walk outto the street for a better look to the west.

Well I’ll be. There was Leo just about to dive into the treetops,and several of his brighter stars were visible. I scurried back to garage for apair of binos.

While I was gone just that short time the sky had improved evenmore. After a gaze at the conjunction both through the binos and with the nakedeye, I grabbed a quick cell phone shot of the scene and headed back to thedriveway. With every step I took the sky seemed to improve more and more.

What followed was literally my first glimpse of the deep sky inwhat has seemed like an eternity. Hoisting the 10x50’s up to the sky, first itwas off to open cluster IC 4665 in Ophiuchus, aka the Summer Beehive. From thereit was down to the base of the serpent bearer and then a brief westerly jaunt overto Serpens Caput, where M5 lives. One of the finest globular clusters in thenorthern hemisphere sky, I am really hoping for a good clear night soon to putM5 in the eyepiece of a telescope.

11:30pm is always a good time for a flexibility test, so backwardsI bent until I landed the very nearly overhead globular clusters M13 and thenM94 in Hercules in the fields of view. As I lowered the glasses to a morecomfortable angle we could be found carousing Lyra where we saw theDouble-Double binary group, then imagined that we saw M57, the Ring Nebula. In Cygnuswe saw the open clusters M39 and M29, looked for NGC 7000, the North AmericaNebula, then saw the famous double star Albireo (not split at just 10xhandheld). In the area we also saw, not in Cygnus but close to it, that mostfamous planetary nebula, M27, the Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula.

Heading northward we saw a hint the Whirlpool Galaxy, aka M51 inCanes Venatici, then we moseyed over to Ursa Major where we imagined that we sawthe galaxies M101 and M’s 81 & 82 (the sky wasn’t that good, but we tried anyway) but we definitely saw Mizar andAlcor for sure.

Never happy unless we’re getting dizzy on these tours, we then spunon over to Bootes where we landed the mighty globular M3 in the view, thendropped into the grip of the scorpion where we attempted to catch the globular M4,but didn’t, so climbed back up and eastward where we definitely landed us aflock of Wild Ducks (M11) in Scutum. On the way we stumbled across of couple ofmystery nebulous patches as we crossed the Milky Way, but I wasn’t in the framemind to work out their identities.

Finally, we headed on up to Altair, the alpha star in Aquila,where I knew that if I traced a straight line towards Vega I Lyra that I wouldcome upon Brocchi’s Cluster, aka the Coathanger. Upside down in the view asthough it had been tossed on her bedroom floor by a normal teenage girl, it wasa fine time to consider wrapping it up and heading to my own bedroom. Iactually got a star fix, the first one for me in quite a while, and it was afantastic way to wrap up a mid-June day if I do say so myself!
MTM
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