NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

Once again the Hurlburt Field Library hosted a star gaze for their patrons. They also advised local scout groups of the event and several scouts joined in the festivities.

Club members Dean Covey, Tom Haugh and Dennis Hausch started things off with their solar equipment. There was a small sunspot group visible in the white light filtered scopes, but the H-alpha view was fairly unimpressive with only the smallest hint of a solar prominence.

Dennis assists the scouts at Tom’s H-Alpha scope.

Frank awaits the darkening sky.

By then club member Frank Atchison arrived and added his 8″ Meade SCT to the collection of telescopes pointed at the sky.

As the Sun started setting, the darkening sky brought Jupiter into view. As the line started to form at Dennis’ Mak-Cass Tom interrupted the growing anticipation and started briefing the crowd on star gaze etiquette, telescope safety and how to use the star charts that we routinely hand out at our events. Since the library brought their 4.5″ Newtonian reflector to the event, he explained the library’s telescope lending policy. But the King of Planets could no longer be held off and night time viewing started in earnest.

Tom briefs the growing crowd.

Look! Jupiter!

The rest of the evening, many celestial objects were targeted. In addition to Jupiter, the Alcor/Mizar pair, the Beehive Cluster and many others were presented to the guest observers.

We want to thank the library for the invitation to join them and we also want to thank the base airmen who volunteered to assist the library. Their help was much appreciated.

The NWFAA was once again glad to lend our support to Walton County’s Earth Day Festival held at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. Dave Halupowski and his granddaughter Kennedy were the first to show up. Dave brought a set of binoculars mounted on a parallelogram equipped tripod. Needless to say, the binos were a big hit with the kids and bird watchers that attended the festival. Tom Haugh and Dennis Hausch brought the necessary equipment to safely view Earth’s nearest star; the Sun.

The steady stream of visitors were able to view a moderately sized solo sunspot in Dennis’ white light filtered Mak-Cass and a small prominence in Tom’s H-alpha scope. We handed out plenty of star gaze handouts and made sure that everyone was aware of our regularly scheduled star gaze at the same spot one week hence. If everyone shows who said they would, we will have a great turnout on the 30th.

Thanks go to the unofficial ‘official’ club photographer Marietta Hausch for the photos.

For the past two years the weather defeated our efforts to hold a star gaze for Kenwood Elementary School’s Science night. The morning of the 10th of March looked like another washout. But the satellite imagery showed we were right on the edge of the overcast and the clouds motions were promising. We had planned on making a go/no go decision about 3:00 PM. Just about 2:00 PM the clouds started to break up and by 3:00 there were just a few remnants left so the call was made for a GO.

We chose poorly. By the time Dave Halupowski, Tom Haugh and Chuck Lynch arrived at Kenwood, the skies were solidly overcast. So, just before the event started, we called off the star gaze (once again). By then, club member Ken Leone called in to get an update and was told of the cancellation.

Tom Haugh moved his 8″ Meade into the meeting room with the rest of the science night exhibits and provided views of the wall clock through his scope, answered lots of astronomy questions and handed out many of the club’s 2016 public star gaze schedules. By the time the event was over, it was raining outside.

There’s always next year.

On the 20th of November we added a third state park to our theater of operations after being invited to hold a sky view at Eden Gardens State Park.

We expected a lot of trees and a reconnaissance visit verified that prediction. The tree line is high enough that it made a solar viewing session untenable. There would just be too much time waiting between the Sun dropping behind the trees and the Sun actually setting. But a high tree line will not stop a star gaze.

Due to the park’s location we expected a dark sky which resulted in a great turnout by club members:

• Frank Atchison
• Dean Covey
• Bob Gaskin
• Dave Halupowski
• Tom Haugh
• Dennis Hausch
• Chuck Lynch

The assembled members were not disappointed as the dark sky prediction was very accurate.

Dennis and his 12″ dob.

Dean in front of the Wesley house all decorated for the holidays.

Since this was the park’s first star gaze we only had a moderate turn out of guest observers. But there were enough to keep all the scopes busy without any waiting lines. We even had a group of cadets attend from Eglin AFB’s Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. All were treated to some great views of deep sky objects as well as a bright meteor that crossed the sky from tree line to tree line. Another transient visitor was the Air Force’s X-37B space plane, easily visible as it passed overhead.

“Can you take a photo through a telescope with a {insert your favorite phone name here}?” has become a very common guest observer question at our events. The answer is “Yes”, so there were several smart phone pictures taken through scope eyepieces during the event. Also during the evening, Frank Atchison attached his Canon camera to his 8″ Meade and demonstrated some of the advantages of CCD observing.

Chuck and his guest observers.

Dave supervises his wooden dob.

This picturesque location as well as the dark sky will make Eden Gardens State Park a favorite location for the NWFAA. We look forward to returning to the park in 2016.

The NWFAA made its first trip up to the Laurel Hill School on Friday the 6th of November to support their Science night. As usual we set up just before dusk and while we waited for the sky to darken took part in the school’s spaghetti dinner fund raiser. We are hoping for more star gaze invitations based on the spaghetti dinner alone.

Dean Covey, Tom Haugh and Chuck Lynch each brought telescopes for our guest observers to view the sky through. Since neither the Moon nor any bright planets were visible we had to rely on deep sky objects for our targets. The Great Hercules Cluster (M-13), the Ring Nebula (M-57) and the Andromeda Galaxy (M-31) were all visible as well as numerous other celestial targets. For the school’s first event, the turnout was outstanding keeping each telescope in constant use. The guest observers were enthusiastic and asked plenty of intelligent questions.

We were quite amazed at the darkness of the Laurel Hill sky. Even though there were a couple of annoying security lights bright enough that we cast shadows, the Milky Way was plainly visible crossing the sky.

Spaghetti dinner and a dark sky; you can’t do any better than that.