NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

The NWFAA is finally getting back into the swing of things with our first community event in over a year. The group headed way up north to Defuniak Springs and held a daytime star gaze for students and faculty of the Defuniak Springs Childcare Network. Overall we had 47 students and four educators participate.

The weather cooperated with clear skies. Even though the Sun is starting to come out of its long period of inactivity, there were no sunspots or prominences visible. That did not hamper the enthusiasm of the assembled classes. We were able to provide three different views of the Sun for our guest observers: white light, H-Alpha light and spectroscopic.

Club members Tom Haugh, Dennis Hausch and Ken Leone were able to brush the cobwebs off their equipment and support the event.

Our annual trek north to the Spanish Trail Scout Reservation to support their Cub Scout Tiger Growl was a success. We always have great support from the camp and the dark skies generate good support from the club. The members that were able to support the event this year where:

• James Dubben
• Walter Dunn
• Chris Foley
• Dave Halupowski
• Tom Haugh
• John Walker

So, whether or not we have a good event, boils down to the weather, and the weather this year started out very good with cool clear skies. Clear enough that we kicked off observations with Venus and a 4 day old crescent Moon in broad daylight and Orion’s Trapezium before the Sun was fully set.

As we continued observing, and unnoticed by most, some clouds started to move in. They built up but then quickly dissipated. The only thing they really did was obscure a Hubble Space Telescope pass. We picked right back up with some of the evenings other targets:

• Uranus
• M 42
• M 41
• Sirius
• Alcor & Mizar

In addition to the telescopic sights there were extensive sessions on constellation recognition and lore.

The event saw 70+ scouts and associated family members. The Tigers eventually all headed back to their camp sites and we packed up after a fun evening. Once again, we thank the scout leaders for the invitation for us to share our love of Astronomy and to use their dark skies.

Once again, the skies did not cooperate with Kenwood Elementary School’s science night. We had plenty of volunteers with scopes at the ready, but they were told to stand down early in the afternoon since the skies were totally overcast.

But, all was not lost. Tom Haugh set up a telescope inside the cafeteria along with all the other science exhibits. He had it focused on a picture of Saturn hung on the opposite wall. This was a hands-on exhibit with the students and parents getting a view of the inverted image provided by most telescopes of today. He reported a total of 74 students and additional parents and siblings getting a look through the scope.

He also set up a NASA Solar System Ambassador display featuring SOFIA, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. There was a video describing the aircraft, its modifications and descriptions of its recent missions. He also had a model of the modified 747.

He said there were a lot of great questions and discussions about the scope and the aircraft as well as current activity aboard the International Space Station.

We look forward to next year and our next attempt to show Kenwood Elementary School students the night sky.

Veteran’s Day dawned with mostly clear skies with only some high wispy clouds to interfere with observing Mercury cross the face of the Sun. Dawn was the operative word since the transit started at 0636(L). We, of course, had to be setup and ready to go well before that. The club had a good turnout with most getting to Valparaiso’s Florida park before sunrise. However, a couple slept in and showed up later during the transit.

• Dean Covey
• James Dubben
• Walter Dunn
• Rob Guillaum
• Dave Halupowski
• Tom Haugh
• Dennis & Marietta Hausch
• Scott Morgan

Here are some of the usual suspects:

Dean

Walter

Dennis

Scott

In contrast to the 9 May 2016 transit of Mercury, we had a much larger group of guest observers. In total, we had 47 guests, the majority were members of the Shalimar chapter of the Classical Conversations home school group. They were able to view the Sun/Mercury pair through white light and Hydrogen-Alpha scopes. The Sun continues to be in a very low activity period but there was one very small prominence visible in the H-alpha scopes.

Viewing through Scott’s white light filtered 10″ Orion.	Dennis’ H-alpha scope with a secondary DSLR.
One of our guest observers using Dennis’ H-alpha scope.	Tom discussing the transit with the home school leader.

The high wispy clouds came and went throughout the event and did provide an alternate object to view. For a short time portions of a 22 deg halo were visible along with a sun dog (a parhelion) to the east of the Sun. Fourth contact occurred at 1204(L) and concluded the transit.

Transit at 1013(L). Mercury above right of center.

Transit at 1158(L). Mercury just on right edge above center.

We would like to thank Marietta Hausch for the event photos, Rob Guillaum for the mug shots and Dennis Hausch for the transit photos.

The next Mercury transit visible here on the panhandle will be in 2032. Hope to see you there.

Our last pubic star gaze of 2019 started with solar viewing and more than the normal complement of solar observers. A home school group had gotten the word that we started with viewing the Sun and had passed the word around, so we had a good crowd viewing the featureless Sun.

The NWFAA turned out lots of members and lots of scopes for both solar and nighttime observing:

• Dean Covey
• Chris Foley
• Walter Dunn
• Tom Haugh
• Marietta & Dennis Hausch
• Scott Morgan

In addition to the Sun, we were also able to see Venus well before sunset.

Dennis shows off the Sun.	Walter’s guest observes Venus.
Dean aligns his scope to a new target.	Scott provides one last look at the Sun before the shadows close in.

As the Sun dropped below the horizon, we swapped out solar instruments for nighttime equipment.

After dark targets included:

• Jupiter
• Venus
• Mercury
• Saturn
• Neptune
• M 2
• M 15

The chilly weather kept the after dark crowd down to about 40-50 guest observers. As the night progressed some very high haze limited our target selection to the brighter objects.

We need to thanks, once again, Marietta Hausch for the event photos.

We also need to thank the rangers and staff at all the state parks we hold star gazes in for allowing us the opportunity to share our passion for the night sky. We look forward to next year’s star gazes at the parks. In 2019 we had to deal with too much inclimate weather. Let’s hope next year is better.