Viewing Notes
March 16, 2002
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Obsession 20" f/5 reflector
Last night was our local astronomy club's star party event at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and my second time at this particular event. The viewing area was in the first two rows of the parking lot, near the entrance to the Museum. High, patchy clouds ran over the sky all day and throughout the evening. Even so, there was a decent a turn-out, with about 20 telescopes and about 100 or so visitors. People started arriving around 7:30 or so, as the sun was just beginning to set. I used this evening to try the Televue BinoVue binocular set-up on the Obsession. This was one of my most gratifying star parties because of the comments from the visitors. Many people commented that the views of Jupiter and Saturn were the best they had ever seen in their lives.
The Moon was a very thin crescent, only about 8% illuminated, and was the first object to peek at. Probably the best view was with the 31mm Nagler. The 22mm Panoptic just barely frames the entire Moon, which was nice, but not as visually appealing was with the 31mm.
Comet Ikeya-Zhang was the next target because. It was fun to have to at first coax people over to view the comet through the Obsession. There were plenty of other club members who had this object in their scopes, so I'm sure the crowd was "saturated". All it took was for one women to yell "Oh my god!" and then call out to her husband. That's when the line formed for about 30 minutes at this object. The coma was blue-white and the tail segmentation very apparent.
Jupiter was gorgeous. The seeing was very good and really allowed for great views of Jupiter and Saturn. The view through the Bino Vue was awesome, with an effective magnification of 290x. Tons of detail on the main equatorial belts was evident, and many people commented on being able to see the cloud eddys. It was very gratifying to have people thank me for the view, commenting it was the best they had ever seen. One woman in particular kept on coming back, asking me to position the scope back on Jupiter. She was actually able to spend about 5 minutes at the eyepiece before the line started to form again. Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede were all visible, as was the 12th magnitude star GSC 1879:113 which was positioned between Europa and Io. Many thought this was another moon, but I assured them that there were 3 of the four moons visible. (Callisto was out of the field of view).
Saturn was also a great site to behold with the Bino Vue, with 6 moons clearly visible. The two main equatorial bands were visible, along with the darkened polar region. Cassini's division was razor sharp and only momentarily blurred out of focus. Some people commented on being able to see Enke's minimum as well.
M42, The Great Orion Nebula, was high enough and in an area of sky free from clouds so I positioned the telescope on it. I first used the Bino Vue, but 290x was just too wierd for most people. I switched to the 31mm Nagler to give everyone that familiar view. Not everyone could discern a lot of color this evening, but most everyone could make out the E & F stars in the Trapezium after I instructed them where to look.
M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy. I switched over to the 22mm Panoptic to view this galaxy pair later in the evening. The clouds had cleared in this part of the sky so I indulged a visitor who was persistent in saying that M104 was what he remembered seeing in that area of the Big Dipper. I thought he was confusing that with M101, but he was pretty stubborn and steadfast in his recollection. Even in with M51 in the eyepiece, he still wasn't convinced that M104 wasn't nearby. At least he was appreciative of being able to see the spiral arms. It was neat to be able to show this to a couple of grade school age kids and explain what they were seeing.
The crowds dropped off shortly after 10 PM and I spent the next 30 minutes or so alternating between Jupiter and Saturn with the Bino Vue. Absolutely amazing views.