NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

This was one of our best disappointing stargazes ever. With the forecast calling for clearing skies around sunset, we headed over to the park. Surprisingly, when we arrived the skies were already clear, so solar viewing was first on the schedule. Dennis setup for white light viewing while Tom setup his H-alpha scope. As usual with the Sun exhibiting increasing activity as it heads toward solar max, there were several groups of sunspots with one particularly large one. In the H-alpha arena, there were several small prominences, a couple of long filaments and even the large sunspot was visible. We had about 20 guest observers during our solar observing session. But as the Sun neared the horizon, it started to cloud up, not clear up.

The broken clouds turned into near total overcast. Weather RADAR showed rain on the other side of the bay but luckily it was not heading towards us. Unfortunately, that is when several families from a local home school group started to arrive. After everyone got comfortable waiting for the sky to clear, a lively question and answer session started. Lots of excellent questions were fielded interrupted only by “there’s the Moon!”. Of course, by the time the guests got to the scopes, the hole moved on and only a couple of viewers got to see anything. So, the questions would start again.

Eventually, younger eyes spotted Vega and Antares just shining through some of the thinner layers and scopes were hastily pointed in those directions. Occasionally, the Moon would make a brief appearance but never for very long.

We applaud the group for their questions and their endurance. Several guests stayed all the way to the 9:00 PM stop time.

The club was represented by:

• Dave Halupowski
• Tom Haugh
• Marietta & Dennis Hausch

UPDATE: Tom later reported that it eventually did clear up just before midnight.

The Topsail Hill Preserve state park public star gaze event started with quite a bit of clouds but, as forecast, the clouds passed by and the skies cleared. As usual for Topsail we started off with solar observing. There were several sunspot groups, a couple of prominences and one large area of plage.

Overall. we had about 45 guest observers for the event. The solar system’s geometry was arranged with the planets all in the immediate vicinity of the Sun, so there were few bright targets other than a crescent Moon.

However, as we were wrapping up, aurora became visible including some obvious streamers. A very slight pink tint was naked eye visible and although faint, the patterns were changing fairly rapidly.

The club had several members supporting the event:

• Dave Halupowski
• Tom Haugh
• Dennis & Marietta Hausch
• David Marshall

We must be doing something right since this was the 12th year we have been invited to support the Boy Scout Tiger Growl at the Spanish Trails Scout Reservation. During that time, the Lion rank scouts were added making the event a Lion/Tiger growl.

Even though the Moon was only 12 hours from being full, we were able to observe some of the brighter celestial objects visible. Along with the Moon we were able to see Jupiter and its Galilean moons, M 41 and M 42 as well as several bright stars and clusters. James pointed out the winter constellations providing some basic information for future Astronomy belt loop awards.

This year we counted 63 scouts, parents and siblings as guest observers.

We had great support from the club:

• Norm Dingle
• James Dubben
• George & Renee Gollehon
• Dave Halupowski
• Tom Haugh

We, once again, want to thank the scouts for the invitation to share our passion for the universe and look forward to invitation number 13.

It’s been several years since our last visit to Bluewater Elementary School. This year’s star gaze started off with broken skies but as the night went on the skies cleared. So overall, the event went very well with clearing skies, several telescopes and an enthusiastic group of guest observers. We had at least 30 students, teachers and family members present for the evening. We even had a family take advantage of our standing invitation to bring out their personal telescopes to join in the fun.

We need a little taller ladder.

Yep, that’s it right there.

As usual, Saturn was the ‘star’ of the event. Even easier to see was an 8-day waxing Moon as well as Jupiter and its moons. A little more challenging were several deep-sky objects just visible in the somewhat bright sky.

The crowd gets a little larger. At left, Olivia has a line at the library telescope.

A budding astronomer takes a look through Dennis’ Maksutov.

We had good support from the club:

• Tom Haugh
• Dave and Marietta Hausch
• Olivia Weaver

First, we would like to thank the family that brought out their telescope. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down their name so I can’t ID them specifically. We would also like to thank the staff of Bluewater Elementary School for the invitation to share our passion for the night sky. Finally, we need to, once again, thank our unofficial photographer, Marietta Hausch.

This year, Northwest Florida State College hosted our support of the annual IOMN (International Observe the Moon Night). Since we were observing the Moon, we did not have to find a particularly dark location so the softball field parking lot filled the bill very nicely.

The action gets started well before sunset.

A family gets a view of the Moon via Scott’s Dob.

For our first IOMN event at the college, we had a fair turnout with lots of students, several faculty members and families enjoying the view. In addition to the Moon, the perfectly clear sky featured Saturn and Jupiter as well. There were plenty of smart phone attempts to get photos but only a couple of successful shots.

A future astronomer gets a look through Dennis’ Maksutov.

Lunar views through Renee & George’s Cassegrain.

We are hoping to host all our future IOMN events here on the Northwest Florida State College campus.

Club members supporting the IOMN were:

• Renee & George Gollehon
• Tom Haugh
• Dennis & Marietta Hausch
• Scott Morgan