October is here, and that means the weather should start to be a little cooler (maybe), night time comes a little earlier, and more importantly, fall star party season is upon us!  As I write this message, the UBarU star party was held just a few weeks ago, the Okie-Tex Star Party is happening this upcoming week, and in a month, the Eldorado Star Party will be in full swing.  For many of us, it’s a great time to get away under dark skies with many other kindred spirits to observe, take astrophotographs, enjoy great speakers, and otherwise enjoy the time away from the hustle-and-bustle of the big city.

For many people, the lead-up to their first “real” star party can be a bit of a nervous time. “What if my gear malfunctions?”  “What if I forgot a critical piece of equipment and now, I’m hundreds of miles from home?”  Or, perhaps the most intimidating thought of all, “what if I’m the one person who happens to ruin everything by committing the dreaded light violation?”

Star parties can be a bit overwhelming the first time you visit one.  The first time I visited the Texas Star Party, there were hundreds of other astronomers there, all seemingly more knowledgeable about astronomy than I was, and all with much better telescopes than what I lugged out to Fort Davis (this is certainly an exaggeration, but that’s how I felt the first time).  The terrain is dusty, the air is dry, and if the animals around there don’t kill you, the plants certainly seem like they will.

But there’s nothing quite like that first time under Bortle-1 or Bortle-2 skies, where everything is so dark, you can’t even make out the Big Dipper because it’s lost in a sea of stars.  Where the Messier objects you struggle to find with a small telescope or binoculars in Houston seem to “pop” with the naked eye just by looking in that direction.  Or where the fine details of a galaxy arm just look that much more well-defined without the extraneous light pollution that we deal with here every night.  More than this, though, there’s nothing like having that perfectly clear night under the stars that compels you to observe until the sun comes up with friends who are just as excited as you to be observing shortly before the crack of dawn.

For me, it’s that last item that makes these star parties special.  The camaraderie with other fellow astronomers on those dark nights, the sharing of views through an eyepiece, and the knowledge that is gained from others just can’t be beat.  It’s what draws me to these star parties over and over, and what makes our own dark site in Columbus a special place.  For those of us who love to learn by “doing,” these events are our opportunity to become better astronomers.  If you have an opportunity to visit one of these star parties, I highly encourage you to do so.  And if you can’t, you’re getting much of the same experience at our dark site.  Get your dark site certification done and visit at the next opportunity.

To all of you headed to Okie-Tex, the Eldorado Star Party, or to our dark site - happy photon hunting!

This article is distributed by NASA Night Sky Network

The Night Sky Network program supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach. Visit nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov to find local clubs, events, and more!

Weird Ways to Observe the Moon

David Prosper

International Observe the Moon Night is on October 16 this year– but you can observe the Moon whenever it's up, day or night! While binoculars and telescopes certainly reveal incredible details of our neighbor’s surface, bringing out dark seas, bright craters, and numerous odd fissures and cracks, these tools are not the only way to observe details about our Moon. There are more ways to observe the Moon than you might expect, just using common household materials.

Put on a pair of sunglasses, especially polarized sunglasses! You may think this is a joke, but the point of polarized sunglasses is to dramatically reduce glare, and so they allow your eyes to pick out some lunar details! Surprisingly, wearing sunglasses even helps during daytime observations of the Moon.

One unlikely tool is the humble plastic bottle cap! John Goss from the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society shared these directions on how to make your own bottle cap lunar viewer, which was also suggested to him by Fred Schaaf many years ago as a way to also view the thin crescent of Venus when close to the Sun:

“The full Moon is very bright, so much that details are overwhelmed by the glare. Here is an easy way to see more! Start by drilling a 1/16-inch (1.5 mm) diameter hole in a plastic soft drink bottle cap. Make sure it is an unobstructed, round hole.  Now look through the hole at the bright Moon. The image brightness will be much dimmer than normal – over 90% dimmer – reducing or eliminating any lunar glare. The image should also be much sharper because the bottle cap blocks light from entering the outer portion of your pupil, where imperfections of the eye’s curving optical path likely lie.” Many report seeing a startling amount of lunar detail!

You can project the Moon! Have you heard of a “Sun Funnel”? It’s a way to safely view the Sun by projecting the image from an eyepiece to fabric stretched across a funnel mounted on top. It’s easy to make at home, too – directions are here: bit.ly/sunfunnel. Depending on your equipment, a Sun Funnel can view the Moon as well as the Sun– a full Moon gives off more than enough light to project from even relatively small telescopes. Large telescopes will project the full Moon and its phases, with varying levels of detail; while not as crisp as direct eyepiece viewing, it’s still an impressive sight! You can also mount your smartphone or tablet to your eyepiece for a similar Moon-viewing experience, but the funnel doesn’t need batteries.

Of course, you can join folks in person or online for a celebration of our Moon on October 16, with International Observe the Moon Night – find details at moon.nasa.gov/observe. NASA has big plans for a return to the Moon with the Artemis program, and you can find the latest news on their upcoming lunar explorations at nasa.gov.

Sun Funnels in action! Starting clockwise from the bottom left, a standalone Sun Funnel; attached to a small refractor to observe the transit of Mercury in 2019; attached to a large telescope in preparation for evening lunar observing; projection of the Moon onto a funnel from a medium-size scope (5 inches).

Safety tip: NEVER use a large telescope with a Sun Funnel to observe the Sun, as they are designed to project the Sun using small telescopes only. Some eager astronomers have melted their Sun Funnels, and parts of their own telescopes, by pointing them at the Sun - large telescopes create far too much heat, sometimes within seconds! However, large instruments are safe and ideal for projecting the much dimmer Moon. Small telescopes can’t gather enough light to decently project the Moon, but larger scopes will work.

by Jim King

We have evidence that Messier may have been in poor physical condition during his later life. In 1802, Herschel visited the 72 year-old Messier in Paris, writing in his diary that Messier had “complained of having suffered much from his accident of falling into an ice cellar – an accident that had occurred two decades earlier.  Messier had also lost his wife and suffered from failing eyesight.  Although he continued to make the occasional observations, the climb up the octagonal tower to his telescopes must have also become arduous to his weary bones, especially on cold, damp nights.

 

(I can relate)

***

(An important jargon jogger:  Messier uses the descriptive term “nebula” frequently since he was frequently using a 3.5 inch telescope which had difficulty resolving dim stars.  It appears that he thought “nebulae” were not gas clouds, but simply unresolved star clouds.  Therefore, in our descriptions, we must mentally separate Messier’s “nebulae” from the real thing.  He does differentiate nebulosity from luminosity.)

M2 Globular Cluster (2 easy) *

In the fall, the vast summer Milky Way slips slowly into the western horizon after sundown.  Hours will pass before mighty Orion and other bright winter constellations rise in the east.  Looking overhead, we now peer straight out of the galaxy – away from the crowded stellar cities of the Milky Way’s arms into the suburb of stars whose residents include some of the most inconspicuous constellations in the night sky; chief among them Aquarius, the Water Bearer.  It is largely indefinable, and its faint stars must compete with light pollution.  Nevertheless, Aquarius contains a secret treasure well worth hunting for   - the spectacular globular cluster M2. 

Jean-Domonique Maraldi (1709-1788) first spied this “nebulous star” from Paris on September 11, 1746, while searching for Cheseaux’s comet.  Maraldi called it “very singular” in that he could not resolve any star within it, nor within the entire telescopic field.

Messier independently chanced upon this object on September 11, 1760.  M2 is certainly a marvel.  This 175-light-year-wide swarm of 150,000 stars is replete with yellow and red giant stars about 13 billion years old.

Messier note: (Observed September 11, 1760) Nebula without a star in the head of Aquarius.  The center is bright, surround by circular luminosity; it resembles the beautiful nebula that lies between the bow and the head of Sagittarius. 

NGC note: Very remarkable globular cluster, bright, very large, gradually much brighter toward the middle, well resolved into extremely faint stars.

Data:     Messier 2 aka NGC 7089

                           Con: Aquarius                                             Mag: 6.5

                            RA: 21h33.5m                                             Dec: -00.49

                            Dist: 37,500 ly

M15 Globular Cluster (2 easy) *

Nearly the twin of M2 in Aquarius, this glittering gem in the winged horse Pegasus is one of six beautiful globular star clusters brighter than 7^th magnitude that grace the northern sky.  The great Pegasus Cluster, M15, can be spotted without difficulty as a “fuzzy star” with the unaided eye, lying just 4 degrees northwest of the of the topaz 2^nd magnitude star Epsilon Pegasi.

Messier notes: (Observed June 3, 1764) Nebula without a star between the head of Pegasus and that of Equuleus.  It is circular and the center is bright.

NGC notes:  Remarkable, globular cluster, very bright, very large, irregularly round, very suddenly much brighter in the middle, well resolved into very faint stars.

Data:     Messier 15 aka Great Pegasus Cluster aka NGC 7078

                           Con: Pegasus                                               Mag 6.3

                           RA: 21h30.0m                                             Dec: +12.10

                           Dist.: ~33,900 ly

M30 Globular Cluster (2 easy) *

M30 is a fairly large globular cluster with a few hundred thousand stars splashed across 90 light-years of space.  We see it whizzing away from us at 115 miles per second.  M30 is one of the Galaxy’s most extremely metal-poor globular star clusters, with each of its members, on average, containing about 1/186 as much metal per unit of hydrogen as the Sun.  The cluster has an integrated spectral type of F3 and an estimated age of 13 billion years. 

Shining at magnitude 6.9, the moderately condense glow is surprisingly obvious under a dark sky through 10 x 50 binoculars.  Visually compressed, M30 has a tiny core inside a 12’ globular haze, though only about half that size appears dominant through the telescope.  Despite the object’s brightness, low power does not resolve it at all.    

Messier notes: (Observed August 3, 1764) Nebula discovered below the tail of Capricornus, close to the sixth magnitude star Flamsteed 41.  It is difficult to see with a simple 3.5 foot refractor.  It is circular and does not include any stars.

NGC note: Remarkable, globular cluster, bright, large, little extended, gradually, pretty much brighter in the middle, stars from 12^th to 16^th magnitude.

Data:     Messier 30 aka NGC 7099

                           Con: Capricornus                                        Mag: 6.9

                           RA: 21h40.4m                                              Dec: -23.11

                           Dist: ~26,400ly

M72 Globular Cluster (3 detectible) *

M72 is Messier’s faintest globular.  At magnitude 9.2 and just 6’ in apparent diameter, this globular is easy to pass over.  Look for a 9^th magnitude “double star” separated by 5’ – the eastern component is, in fact a star; the western component is M72.  Once found, use moderate magnification to enlarge the cluster’s disk.

One of the reasons M72 appears so feeble is its distance; the cluster lies about 55,000 light-years from the Sun and 42,000 light-years from the galactic center.  Yet, in true physical extent, it spreads across about 110 light-years of space.

Messier notes: (Observed October 4, 1780, sort of) Messier was unable to clearly identify this object.  His assistant M. Mechain spotted it on the night of August 29, 1780. 

NGC note: Globular, pretty bright and large, round, much compressed in the middle, well resolved.

Data:     Messier 72 aka NGC 6981

                           Con: Aquarius                                             Mag: 9.2

                           RA: 20h53.5m                                              Dec: -12.32

                           Dist: ~55,400 ly

***

* Sky Tools offers an observability scale of 1 – 6, with 1 being “Obvious” and 6 being “Very Challenging”.  The particular rating scale I use is based on a Celestron SCT 8 Evolution telescope at the HAS dark site on a moonless night.

Finito!

Ex astris, scientia, y’all!

Jim King

Field Trips and Observing Chair

Want more? Check out the HAS website under “Programs”/Messier Challenge/HAS 45

 

By: Steve Goldberg

Asterism: a grouping of stars that form a recognizable pattern.
Constellation: Cassiopeia
Right Ascension:  03h 27m 00.0s
Declination: +71° 50' 00"
Magnitude: 7 to 8
Size: 1.5 Degrees                            

This month’s Asterism is called Kimble’s Kite or the Kite Cluster. It is on the border of Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis.

To locate this grouping, use Delta δ and Epsilon ε CAS as pointers to Gamma γ CAM.

Here is a detailed finder chart with more stars between Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis.

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture showing the kite pattern. One corner is the star 15 CAS, also known as Kappa κ CAS.

Since the object is about 1.5 degrees across, use your lowest power eyepiece and also see if it is in your finder

Photo courtesy of “Ugly Hedgehog® - Photography Forum”, user Jimh123.