NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

Henderson Beach State Park once again welcomed the NWFAA by hosting our June public star gaze. Frank Atchison, Dean Covey and Tom Haugh, all recently recovered from the Wednesday afternoon solar star gaze at Northwest Florida State College, arrived early enough to set up their solar equipment and allow safe viewing of the Sun. While they were aligning their equipment they were joined by club member Chuck Lynch.

Once again, it was a hot afternoon which meant any guest observer who showed up, really wanted to view the Sun. But, as usual, there were a few and they were treated to both white light and H-alpha views. The same sunspot groups were visible that we saw Wednesday. Unfortunately, the H-alpha view showed only very minor prominence activity. As an alternative, Frank’s telescope alignment was good enough to find Venus in the daytime sky as well as the 3 day old Moon.

As the crowd grew, we passed out June sky charts and held several quick group sessions on how to use them. As was expected, Venus and the Moon led off the evening objects with Jupiter quickly following. The three of them formed a very pretty grouping in the Western sky. Some twilight clouds tried to horn in on the action and only led to brief delays at the telescope lines. Showing up fashionably late, Saturn rose out of the eastern haze and was added to the list of objects viewed. Finally, the great cluster in Hercules (M 13) was spotted. The one downside to the evening was a young guest observer left disappointed as the local light pollution prevented viewing ‘a galaxy’. But, he said he would try again at the August event.

The guest observers were gone by about 10:00 PM. As we loaded up the equipment, park rangers stopped by and commented on the crowd’s size and enthusiasm. We would, once again, like to thank the Henderson Beach State Park staff for hosting our event and look forward to the August 14th event. Hopefully, it will be a little cooler and the skies much more galaxy friendly.

The skies were perfectly clear as we headed north to Paxton, Florida to host a solar sky view for the 3rd and 8th grade students of Paxton School. The route up to the school quickly became fogged over and unbeknownst to us the fog camouflaged a thick low layer of clouds. It was still overcast during setup. Club members Frank Atchison, Tom Haugh, Dennis Hausch and Ken Leone made the trip this year.

 
 
The schedule was for Tom to give classroom presentations at the beginning of each class period and the students would then adjourn to the scopes after the presentation. The first and second classes were disappointed as the clouds were still holding on. Ken used the opportunity to give impromptu talks using his personal solar charts and photos.
 
 
 

 
 
However, by the third group, the skies were clearing and the rest of the classes were treated to views provided by Ken’s white light filtered binoculars, Dennis’ Coronado H-alpha scope and Tom’s spectroscope. There were a few small sunspots visible and Dennis was able to point out a small but dense prominence to the youngsters in line.
 
 

 
 
 
Luckily, students from the first two classes were able to stop by throughout the day and finally had a chance to see what was discussed during the classroom portion of their session.
 
 
 
 
 
 
We would like to thank Heather Stewart for the invitation to share our passion for Astronomy, and the staff and students of Paxton school for the warm welcome we received. Ms. Stewart also provided the event photography. We would especially like to thank those who bought us lunch.

After several straight weeks of rain and cloudy weather, Friday the 1st was absolutely clear. The only thing that kept it from being perfect was a Moon two days from full. But that did not dampen Baker School Family STEM night as we had lots of scopes, lots of celestial targets and lots of guest observers.

Dennis Hausch, Frank Atchison and Tom Haugh arrived early and setup well before sunset allowing several of the staff and assistants to safely view the Sun. They were able to view the solar disk in white and hydrogen-alpha light. Although there was very little in the way of sun spots, there was a very nice full loop prominence visible.

As the Sun set, the solar scopes and filters were swapped out for dark sky equipment. By this time Ken Leone and Ken Sharpe had joined the group and set up their scopes as well.

By now, a steady flow of guest observers were making their way out to the observing field. Since Venus was high in the sky and easily visible in the deepening light, it was the first nighttime object viewed. Jupiter and the rising Moon followed in quick succession. Although Mars was too low on the horizon, Mercury was still visible above the school buildings to the West.

Club members fielded questions from the very enthusiastic guest observers as they made their way to each telescope. Once the skies were fully dark, many deep sky objects were presented such as the Beehive Cluster and the Whirlpool Galaxy.

We would like to thank the staff and students of Baker School for the invitation to participate in their STEM night again this year. We especially want to thank them for the new route to the observing field allowing us to drive on to the field instead of hauling all our equipment by hand. Thanks also go to Ken Sharpe for the photography.