NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

Luckily, rain did not hamper the first moon walk on July 20, 1969.  However, it did put a damper on Hurlburt Field Library’s celebration of the first moon walk on the 20th of July this year.  So a re-schedule was in order and on the 3rd of August we tried again.  Although rain once again threatened, the library was successful this time.

Club members Dean Covey, Dennis Hausch, Chuck Lynch, Tom Haugh, Ken Leone and  Bob Schritter were on hand to support the library.

The usual suspects (minus one).

During setup the thunderheads were well north of the base and did not appear to be a problem as the sun was well clear of them.  But, by the time the attendees started to arrive the sun was solidly hidden.  Tom gave a quick briefing on the NWFAA members, their scopes and what should have been visible if the sky was clear.  So while the solar viewing was on hold, the guest observers adjourned to the soda bottle rocket launch facility.  Unfortunately, the rockets were not the only things that started falling from the sky.  Covers were quickly placed on the scopes.

The rain did not last very long and by the time all the additional festivities were over, the clouds thinned, the covers came off and the sun was now in view.  The guest observers then made the rounds and viewed the sun.  Ken and Bob provided white light views, while Dean and Dennis brought H-alpha scopes.  Tom debuted his L-200 spectroscope.

There were a couple of small sun-spots visible in white light and a couple of faint but large prominences were visible on the solar limb in Ha.

Thanks to our library POC Sabrina for the invitation and for the photographs.

The 7th of June edition of the Henderson Beach State Park Sky View was the first to formally include solar observing.  We set up telescopes three hours prior to sunset to allow the public a safe view the sun.  Tom Haugh and Dennis Hausch were the first to arrive and setup with Dean Covey arriving soon after.  We had a sparse but steady stream of guest observers as we viewed the Sun through ever increasing gaps in the clouds.  Dennis and Tom provided white light views while Dennis and Dean offered H-Alpha views as well.

Dean aligns his H-alpha scope to view the Sun.

The NWFAA has always invited the public to bring their own equipment to the star gazes. We had two young astronomers take advantage of our invitation and brought along their refracting telescope. They were having problems finding what they were looking for and needed a little help. We explained the importance of aligning the finder to the telescope and helped get their alignment a bit better than it was.

Tom explains how to align the finder scope to the telescope.

As the sun set and the sky darkened, the crowd continued to grow.  Luckily, the clouds did not.  They steadily diminished and by the time the sky was fully dark, there were no clouds to hamper the view. As the crowd grew so did our selection of telescopes. Frank Atchison, Ken Leone, Tony Russo, Bob Schritter and Stephen Forbes each added their telescopes to the sky pointing arsenal.

The evening viewing started with Venus and Mercury high in the western twilight.  This was the first time a lot of our guest observers had ever viewed Mercury with or without a telescope.

Saturn, high overhead,  was a crowd favorite (as usual).  Antares was visible low in the south, Arcturus high overhead, and Vega was following in the east.  M 13 was able to compete with the gulf haze although the Ring Nebula was just barely visible.  The guests were treated to several bright Messier objects as well as the Alcor/Mizar pair in Ursa Major.

As is usual for Henderson Beach we had more than 100 guest observers. Once again, the NWFAA would like to thank the rangers of Henderson Beach State Park for hosting the sky view and allowing us to share our passion of the night sky with their guests.

This was our first participation in the Choctawhatcee Estuary Family Festival. The event was held in Rocky Bayou State Park. For those of you who have never visited it you are missing a great little park. It has a lot of trees….a lot of trees. But, during a recon visit several weeks ago we were able to find an area with a view of the sky free of the trees.

We arrived as early as the park would let us in and setup the pop-up for shade and started setting up telescopes for a day of solar viewing. Frank Atchison, Bob Schritter and Tom Haugh set up scopes with white light filters, while Dave Halupowski and Dennis Hausch tag teamed Dennis’ H-alpha scope. The sky was solid clear and the weather was perfect. There were a couple of sunspot groups; not as prominent as the week before, but still a good view. There were also several prominences visible in the H-alpha scope.

The tree free area was just outside of the main festival area and in the direction of some of the parking so we had a steady stream of guest observers throughout the day. The event sponsors were also running a scavenger hunt of sorts and we had decided to participate. That meant the contestants came looking for us. It proved a fortuitous choice, as the sun ended up totally blocked from view; it just wasn’t the trees.

About 11:00 some clouds were visible to the west and by 12:00 the sky was overcast. But the attendees kept coming to get their scavenger card stamped. We met a lot of new people, handed out every one of our club flyers, made a bunch of new friends and met some possible new members.

We would like to thank the Department of Environmental Protections Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park, the Friends of the Emerald Coast State Parks, Inc. and the Mattie M. Kelly Cultural & Environmental Institute of Northwest Florida State College for inviting us to their festival. Even though the sun was blocked by clouds most of the day, we consider this a successful event and we had a lot of fun. We will be looking forward to next years festival.