Warning:
The following views expressed are made by an overly cautious person.
They do not represent the management or staff of Late Night Astronomy.

A few weeks ago, I was shopping in our local Dollar Tree and noticed a telescope for sale.  For the most part, it was your regular twenty dollar department store scope, but something was a little different about this one.

You see, when department store telescopes are packaged they tend to come with elaborate pictures of the moon, planets or galaxies signifying to the buyer that you can see this through the telescope.  The problem is you can’t.  Those pictures were taken by the Hubble or some other high dollar telescope, which leaves most people confused and frustrated that they can’t see the quality that is displayed on the box (I’ve fallen for this before, with a scope I got from Wal-Mart).

However, something was even worse about this telescope’s packaging.  This box had a picture of a nebula, a close up of a satellite and a picture of the Sun.  That’s right, the Sun!  I laughed at how ridiculous it was to put a picture of the sun on it as an object that could be viewed and then I got a little concerned.  I started to think about “little Jimmy” who comes into the store and gets his parents to buy him the telescope that has a nice big picture of the Sun on it and decides to go out and do some viewing during the day (This is how my mind works).

So, I decided to write an email to Vivitar, the company who sold the telescope.  Seriously, I wrote them an e-mail, this isn’t a joke!

I noticed in a store today that your telescope has a picture of the sun on the box.  I thought this might send the message to some kids and adults that it would be fine to look at the Sun through the telescope.  If a person were to do this it could lead to serious eye damage or blindness as I’m sure other warnings in the instructions inform the buyer.  I don’t mean to ridicule your product and I’m sure your company meant nothing by this picture being added, I just thought I would point out that it might not be a good idea to put a picture of the sun on a telescope box for people as they might think this makes it an object that can be viewed by the telescope.

Have a nice day,

Michael Martin

Yep, its hard to tell how many thousands of children’s eyes I saved with that e-mail.  All in a days work I suppose, all in a days work!

The culprit!!!

Hanging out with Lauren at four o’clock in the morning can only mean one thing…telescope time.  Before you pass judgment on my late night priorities, let me mention that on this night Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune could all be viewed in the night time sky.  See, I knew you would understand!

Jupiter
Looking to the east, right over top of our trees revealed the very bright, Jupiter.  I have viewed the king of planets once before with the XT8i, but the conditions were so cold and windy that I saw nothing but a hazy blur.  Tonight, the view was drastically improved.  The interesting thing about viewing Jupiter right now is that one of its cloud belts is missing (more about that, in this CNN Article)

Only viewing one cloud belt instead of the typical two, made Jupiter look oddly alien (pun intended).  Little fine detail could be picked up because of Jupiter’s low level in the sky, which created poor atmospheric conditions and because my scope hadn’t had proper time to cool to the outside air.

Uranus & Neptune
Having never observed these two, I was eager to complete my list of planets viewed in our solar system (My apologies to Pluto Lovers).  Uranus, no laughs please, was just to the upper right of Jupiter.  Finding it was easy and the light blue star, while a bit unspectacular was nonetheless exciting.  At 120X magnification, I wasn’t sure if I could make out a small sphere or not.  Neptune proved to be much more of a challenge to find.  Using Distant Suns Lite (the best free iPod Touch astronomy app) I was able to star hop from the constellation Capricornus to Acquarius, which led me to our outer most gas giant.  Neptune appeared nothing more than a somewhat bright medium range star.  However, the hunt to track it down and knowing that I had now viewed all planets in the solar system made it a much more exciting object to view.

Calling it a Night
With our lack of sleep catching up to us and a really creepy person walking in the road with no flashlight at 4:30 in the morning brought our night to an end.  As we were heading in, I noticed a dim light coming from the distance, I asked Lauren what she thought it was and she said “probably the Sun”.  Right she was, as the rays were beginning to illuminate the night sky with the hope of a new day at the dawn of the new light.

Star Log: June 20, 2010 (4:00am-4:30am)

Trees in my backyard can make positioning for objects quite a task.  As was the case with Mars and Regulus on this night.  Just above the mountains to the East lied the stellar pair who only had about 30 minutes of visibility left for the night.

Bringing out the scope, Lauren and I placed it on the edge of my neighbors yard.  Right at that moment a light came on in their house followed by a flood light in the front yard.  I (always being the calm and collected one of the relationship) started to freak out and was motioning and mouthing quietly for Lauren to quickly help me move the telescope across the road (you would have thought they had run out with a shot gun and guard dogs).

After moving the scope back to the edge of another neighbors yard, the eyepiece (to my surprise) revealed Mars and Regulus just barely in the field of view (FOV) of my 25mm plossl.  The pair appeared slightly distorted, being on the extreme edge of the FOV, but the white/blue glow of Regulus contrasted sharply with the red glow of Mars.  With the FOV of my eyepiece being  1.08 degrees, Mars and Regulus must have been exactly 1 degree from each other at midnight.

Mars and Regulus at Midnight, June 6th

Star Log: Midnight, June 6, 2010

“Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?  Hooking up words and phrases and clauses!”

“Conjunction in Space, what’s your function?  I’m a cosmic rendezvous in which two celestial objects appear to be close to each other even though we’re still hundreds of light years away.”

Looking up into the night sky over the next few evening will provide a splendid treat for those interested in somewhat rare space happenings.  From now until June 10, Mars and Regulus appear to be on a collision course (in actuality Regulus is 77 light years away from Mars).  As Mars approaches Regulus, they will appear closer and closer until Mars passes and moves away from its celestial neighbor.

After just getting in from a dewy, yet clear night (the first nice one in quite some time) I took some observations of Mars and Regulus.  Currently, they are about 4 to 5 degrees apart.  I Measured this by clenching my fist and holding it out, this is roughly ten degrees of distance.  Each night should bring the two objects noticeably closer, until they reach their closest point on June 6.

Here is a diagram from Stellarium of what I saw tonight!

I guess School House Rock can explain anything!
Now, if only I were allowed to produce their next video, imagine the possibilities.

Special Note-While viewing a galaxy tonight at 48X magnification, I witnessed a satellite travel through my field of view followed by another no more than 10 seconds later traveling in the exact opposite direction.
Very strange and surprising!

There are nine planets in our solar system (Yes, I said nine! You got a problem with it?)  Of those, I have viewed six; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (Surprisingly, Earth is best observed with the naked eye or a microscope)  Most nights will bring one or two planets into view; tonight, however brought four.  The first two are Mars and Saturn, easy to pick out and high overhead as the hours grow late into the evening.  The other two, are much more difficult because of their close proximity to the Sun.  This makes them viewable in small windows of time throughout the year either directly after sunset in the West or soon before sunrise in the East.  These two planets are Mercury and Venus.  Since I enjoy sleep, I try to view these two planets whenever it is possible following sunset.  Tonight would be one of those windows of opportunity.  With Alston and Abby visiting the college for the night, a quick view of Mercury and Venus would be in order before a night of wild partying and crazy antics.

Mercury & Venus
As Abby, Alston and I were walking around the campus on a beautiful Friday evening, Venus popped out from the darkening blue sky, faintly revealing itself amidst some light clouding near the horizon.  Walking back around to the telescope set up next to the Administration building, Mercury appeared in the sky, slightly to the South East of Venus’ position.  The views of these two planets were largely unimpressive because of their low levels on the horizon, the telescope not having proper time to cool down and their positioning right over a building’s roof that was releasing heat.  The best resolutions of these two planets on this night, revealed nothing more than wavy blobs of light.  None the less, this was my first observation of Venus and Mercury on the same night, and that in and of it self is a rare occurrence.

Update: Two nights later on Easter Sunday, I was able to view Mercury and Venus once again, this time from my parents home in Clifton Forge.  Conditions were much better for observing on this night allowing Mercury to reveal itself as a small crescent moon looking object.  This detail in Mercury really surprised me and although the images of it and Venus, which is currently not showing much of a shadow, were still a bit wobbly from the atmosphere and heat rising from roofs of houses and the street, being able to make out discs for both and shadow detail on Mercury was pretty amazing!

Visual Representation of Mercury and Venus’ Position:

Following Mercury and Venus, we came back out a few hours later to observe Mars and Saturn, making that four out of nine planets viewed in one night.  Getting to hangout with Alston and Abby was a blast.  When I asked them what movie they wanted to watch Abby said “How ’bout Star Trek” to which I thought to myself “Awesome”.  We went to Sheetz later in the night with Alston and Abby ordering a double bacon biscuit (mmm…bacon).  A few games of “Modern Warfare 2” and “Little Big Planet” later it was time to call it a night.

After a late Friday night, I awoke at noon on Saturday and walked over for brunch to find around a hundred people standing outside of the Colket Center with two fire trucks near by.  Thankfully all was well, save for a minor fire in the kitchen area.  Lauren returned from her trip to Boston later in the day and we went on a nice walk to an antique store in downtown Salem.  Upon returning to the dorms, I came across an internet article about the International Space Station and thought it might be a good idea to see if  it would be flying over anytime soon.  Surprisingly, later that night at 8:12pm it would be making a 5 minute fly over from North West to East South East, making  tonight a perfect opportunity for my first attempt at viewing the ISS through a telescope!

International Space Station Fly Over:
Around 8:00pm, my friend Andy and I set up the telescope on the back quad of the college.  The sun was setting and we had spent about a half hour observing the Moon.  A few minutes before the fly over, two men from  a music group called Barefoot Truth, who were performing on campus that night, came over and asked what we were looking at.  They took some quick views of the Moon and were very interested in seeing the ISS.  Around 8:11 the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life appeared from the distance, it was Lauren, who was fashionably late, showing up just seconds before the Space Station.  8:12 swings around and right on schedule a dim star appeared right above the Colket Center sailing across the sky.  It began faint but became as bright as Venus it passed over head.  Now came the hard part, attempting to view in through the telescope.  It can be difficult enough to find and track a slow-moving planet, never mind a football field sized Space Station moving at 17,000 mph and orbiting 200 miles above the Earth.  After about 20 seconds of attempts,  it finally became visible and flew through the field of view in less than a second, looking like a very bright blur.  At this point there were now 5 people hanging around the telescope and all got at least a split second view of the space station through the eye piece while I tracked it through the finder scope.  As it continued to move across the sky one more attempt was given to actually try to keep it in the eye piece’s field of view for an extended period of time.  This was accomplished just as the Station was near its highest point in the sky and through tracking it for around 5 to 10 seconds the bright blur that had been viewed earlier turned into a detailed object.  At 48X magnification,  the pods in the middle where the astronauts are located were somewhat visible, but more amazingly and sharp were the two sets of solar panels on both sides of the Space Station.  The way is which the Station glowed with brightness, particularly the inner pods, along with the detail that was discerned from its solar panels truly made this one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had in astronomy.

Sketch of the ISS as viewed at 48X magnification:

Later in the night, Mars, Saturn and the Moon would be observed, but none of those objects could hold a candle to the couple of seconds spent viewing the Space Station with its inner pods and detailed solar panels.  Never before have I observed an object in space that has people working and living on it through a telescope.  As we looked up and saw the Space Station sailing across the night sky, I couldn’t help but wonder if one of the astronauts was looking down at us here on Earth.  Hundreds of thousands of people have seen the Space Station at night, whether they realized it or not.  My guess is that only a few thousand have observed it through a telescope.  After tonight you can add Lauren, Andy, two guys from Barefoot Truth (thanks for the free CD’s, by the way), a random college employee whose name I didn’t get and myself to that list.

Pictures of the Crescent Moon, taken on this night, complements of Lauren:

A busy yet enjoyable week of student teaching made the warm weather and clear skies of Friday all the more welcoming.  With Lauren off on a trip to Boston presenting a scholarly journal essay on the Chicano movement and perfectly clear skies out, not observing would be near criminal negligence  (See: Section 4 paragraph 8 of the Law Code of the Commonwealth of Virginia).  Tonight would also be my first attempt  at sketching what was observed.  The goals being to attempt a sketch of the Moon and Mars as well as tracking the orbits of the Moons of Saturn throughout the night.

Lunar Observing:

Prior to this evening, little time had been spent viewing the moon through the XT8i.  With the Moon’s current phase being waxing crescent, tonight would be a perfect opportunity to explore the lunar surface.  It is best to observe the Moon when it is half full or less because details aren’t washed out by the brightness and long shadows cast on the surface help distinguish mountain ranges and craters.  Tonight proved this advice to be correct with the most fascinating parts of viewing being a specific region of craters right along the terminator, observed at 120 and 240X magnification, that had shadows moving down their sides giving a great field of depth to their make up.  With my 25mm eye piece putting the whole Moon back into view, the entire sphere of it was easily visible with detail from craters in the shaded region even coming through.  This is where my first sketch of the Moon comes into play.  The attempt was to capture the aspect that the Moon, while mostly shaded, was still visible as a whole sphere, giving it an almost 3d like quality.

Mars:

With the Moon moving towards the horizon, making viewing conditions less than ideal, Mars, high in the sky this time of year, became the next target on my hit list for the night.  Mars has been hit and miss for me over the past couple observations.  Some nights have revealed amazing land detail while others have left me underwhelmed.  Tonight was somewhere in the middle.  While Mars is still visible as a sphere, it is moving at such a fast rate away from Earth that observing land detail on it will be near impossible in the next couple months.  Tonight, Mars revealed its Southern Ice Cap as well as the always interesting Syrtis Major and Terra Meridian land features.  At 120x magnification, detail could be made concerning the ice cap with some slight hints of the two land features.  Moving up to 240x revealed a more blurry Mars but also split seconds of good seeing conditions that revealed Syrtis Major and Terra Meridian.

Saturn:

Viewing Saturn never grows old, but shaking things up every now and then never hurts either.  Tonight instead of just observing Saturn I decided to track her Moons.  The rings current appearance from Earth as a near straight line may make Saturn less appealing, but it makes tracking the Moons much more possible.  With two different observations broken up by watching Austin Power in Goldmember (Funny movie, can’t believe it came out 8 years ago, one of my first dates was to go see it in theaters.  Can’t say I saw much of it though, if you get what I’m saying.  Truth be told I saw all of it, including the end credits…but I digress)  The Moons were tracked as they changed positions, slightly in most cases but dramatic in others whose orbit has them closer to Saturn.  My first observation at 10:50pm revealed Titan, Rhe and Dione best viewed at 48X magnification.  The next sighting at 1:45am had Titan and Rhe in virtually the same position with Dione now gone and Tethys coming into view right above the rings of Saturn.

Up until the past couple nights, I had forgotten that it was possible to observe the night-time sky without having to dress like an Eskimo.  The warm weather and good sightings made this the longest and most enjoyable astronomical night I have ever had.  Sketching added another layer of enjoyment and documentation to the process and planning out what was going to be done before hand-made the night more productive as well.

Clear Skies All,
Michael

A few days ago a website was presented to me while browsing the forums of Cloudynights.com, one of the best websites on the web for astronomy information and advice (next to this one of course).  The post dealt with a project that has been collecting data in an attempt to categorize the various levels of light pollution around the world.  To participate in the project an observer goes out, looks at the Orion Constellation and compares it to star charts on the organizations website to determine how many stars can be viewed from your location.  Based on 7 different charts the observer will document what the faintest stars are that can be seen in the constellation, thus determining how much light pollution is located in the area.

After reading the article, a few nights pass by with cloudy skies, until yesterday when clouds in the day gave way to mostly clear conditions in the night, with only a slight mist in the air.  After viewing the charts online for Orion’s Constellation, I went outside to see which one most closely matched the night sky in Salem, Virginia.  After walking around and staring up into the sky for a couple of minutes to let my eyes get adjusted to the darkness (strange looks from passers-by are a common occurrence in astronomy, just ask Lauren), the sky revealed itself to be magnitude 4 light polluted area.  That put’s Salem in the middle range, somewhere between a New York City sky and a Nevada desert sky.  What surprised me the most was the realization that the night sky from my parents home in Clifton Forge, Virginia lists as a Magnitude 6 or 7 sky, making it one of the best dark areas to view from in Southwest Virginia.  Along with checking out Orion, an interesting satellite also appeared, moving between Bellatrix and Aldebaran.  Its rotation had it reflecting light onto Earth every 3 to 5 seconds, making it appear and disappear as it sailed across the sky.

This Star Log just goes to show that fancy telescopes and years of experience aren’t needed to enjoy and appreciate observing the night-time sky.  Anyone can get involved with the astronomical community and it’s as easy as going out side and looking up at the stars!

If you would like to participate in the light pollution survey mission please visit this website.
www.globeatnight.org